Kegs, eggs, pajamas and hats!!!

I know that I promised pictures, but today was a great day and I'd rather write about that instead of posting pictures. I promise I'll post them on shutterfly tomorrow... well, today I suppose because it's past 4:30 AM here...which means some of you may be waking up right now in time to read this!!! (minus Joel who seems to read and comment on my blog in his sleep)

My day started off way earlier than it needed to. I woke up at about 9:00 and decided that today would be the day I'd start jogging. So I had a healthy breakfast of Crispex and a banana and set off. I think I could get the hang of this jogging thing, but I don't think I'll be able to keep it up in the city. One, it's not scenic enough and two, the only time I'd ever run in the city would be early in the morning to avoid traffic and people and I've heard too many horror stories about woman getting attacked in the morning. So ef that, I'll just make the best of my time now. Anyway, I went for a half-hour long trek from the cabins to the trail head of the mountain I climbed a few weeks ago. It was cute. Not particularly exciting, but I did get to run along Grand Lake for awhile so that was nice.

When I got back to the cabins, I called my father to find out the correct way to make his pasta and eggs. Why? Let's go back about 3 days ago when a number of people were outside during pre-show discussing how, in past years, a big thing to do during this part of the summer was cabin theme parties. Sometimes they were competitions between cabins of sorts, sometimes they were just dress up parties, whatever. It was decided that we needed to start the wagon rolling and have a party tonight. However, the possibilities for party themes sort of got way ahead of us, and by the end of pow-wow it was decided that we would combine four of the ideas together. Thus, the concept of our Kegs, Eggs, Pajamas and Hats Party was created. In the next three days a poster was made (actually, Erin just drew some pictures of the four categories on a piece of notebook paper and posted it on the call board), prizes were compiled (actually, Josh's mother found a bunch of t-shirts that say ROUSTABOUT on the front and All Shook Up on the back and she bought them all for him so it was decided to give them away as prizes) and aside from those two things, everyone seemed pretty low key about this whole thing. However, once I heard t-shirts were involved I KNEW I had to win one of the categories. The Best Keg category confused me so I crossed that off early. As far as pajamas go, I brought with me some long pants with moons and starts but that's about it so I actually opted for thigh high socks since they were more colorful. Regardless, I knew Best Pajamas may be a stretch. I thought it would be easy enough to find a hat (more on this later) but the category I decided to place my wager on for myself was Best Eggs. And who better to help me with this endeavor but Papa Bieber and his fantastic pasta and eggs concoction. Which brings me way back to this morning when I called him and told him I was cooking eggs for 15 people (which I absolutely did not do. Again, more later.) He gave me specific instructions and I listened carefully taking notes.

After that, I went to visit Ronen (my fellow Jewish friend who I went hiking with yesterday and is such a fantastic person) who was working in the box office. The two of us decided to go searching for hats together when his shift ended. We came across moose ears and a faux raccoon hat in a gift store and decided to go to the party with a concept of the huntress and the hunted for the party. It was pretty brilliant if I may say so myself.

We had two performances of Shook today. I must say I really enjoy doing Shook. Mostly because there's so much damn space backstage and I'm not by myself during this show. Plus, the music is fantastic. In between the shows, I went home, cooked my pasta and sauteed the onions for later in the evening, and then painted my nails. Very exciting. Kathleen made a bunch of deviled eggs which I tried and decided that my pasta and eggs dish probably wouldn't hold a candle to them or anything else that anyone cooked but I had already started and figured that it would be easy enough to finish cooking once the party started.

After the show, this alum artist from RMRT who's apparently been on Broadway performed a bunch of songs at a local bar/restaurant where one of our first get-to-know-the-townspeople functions was held. I decided not to go. Honestly, I was too tired and grumpy and just didn't care enough. I'm not sorry about it either. I'm sure he's very talented and he did come by the cabins later to hang out, but whatever. To each his own and I think it's great he's lucked out and made it as far as he has but Broadway IS NOT the end all be all in this industry. Sorry, rant.

When people started getting back to the cabins, Michael Rosen had already started a fire in the pit and a few people were already decked out in PJs. Once Ronen got back, we put on our hats and then went running through the cabin area with me chasing him with a fake rifle we found during intermission in the props loft. It was great. After we'd flaunted our hat concept off to Sarah who was judging the Kegs, Pajamas and Hats categories, I went back to my cabin to finish my dish. It had been decided that Micahel Rosen would act as the impartial judge and that only his opinion counted, but all people who submitted dishes made enough for at least a handful of people to try. My original plan had required 2 dozen eggs. I think I ended up actually making 4 eggs. I don't honestly remember, I was a bit intoxicated already by this point. I think I had at least 4 spectators at any given point. It was kinda funny. I'm not a cook by any means but everyone thought I knew what I was doing because mine involved onions. I mixed up my batch, threw some ketchup in and mixed it up and had all people in the kitchen try it. They all thought it was great so I was excited about bringing it out for Michael to try. When I gave it to him, he seemed very satisfied and explained his judging criteria (something about consistency, something about taste and something about moisture if I remember correctly). After he tried my eggs, I continued to drink along with everyone else and the boy from the put-put who I kinda blew off at a bar and magically reappeared this evening to tag along at my side...which didn't suck.

Late in the evening, I decided that I wanted to know the winners of all the categories so I rounded up the people who initiated the party in the first place and told them we had to have the ceremony before we all get too drunk. When everyone was gathered at the fire, Michael was the first to present the winner of his category. And who do you think won best eggs? Why, it was yours truly! Granted, 2 of the 5 dishes entered were eggs and whatever was in the fridge which is kinda gross, but what-the-frick-ever. I got my shirt and that's REALLY all that mattered. Then there were calls for standing on a stump and a speech and unfortunately I think this may have been recorded so I'll have to watch out I don't get tagged in anything terrible on facebook. I do know that I thanked my father for giving me the recipe and I thanked my cabinmates for always keeping me entertained.

So that was pretty much my day. I got some exercise, I ate a healthy breakfast, I got a cool raccoon hat and I won a t-shirt for cooking an award-winning egg dish. A good day indeed to make up for some really rough days the past few weeks. Things are really looking up, I think. Cheers, everyone!