This Old House

Finally I have a chance to post some photos of our house. If you would like to see before pics go to www.adamriggar.com/newhouse/index.html. These pics are in progress shots, although it would seem like we should have some more shots of things that are completed. Turns out pretty much every time we go to finish something up we uncover another huge project that sets us back. Ah well, we did understand we were buying an old house. It will be FANTASTIC when it is done-if it ever gets done.

This is our upstairs bathroom. It WAS finished until Adam went to change out the light fixtures and found that the fixtures had no junction boxes. Upon further investigation no fixtures on the entire second floor had junction boxes. And several had been wired with speaker wire. The ceiling plate mount for one fixture was actually an industrial sized soup can lid from West Germany. That put us a couple of days behind as Adam had to rewire pretty much the entire second floor.

Here are a couple of shots of the studio. It still needs to be painted, which is happening tomorrow. Adam is still working on the built in shelves that you see between the two closets. We uncovered an old doorway between the studio and our bedroom. Adam is building 2 sets of shelves. They are gonna look SWEET!

This is our bedroom. It is now painted. Thank you Adam for doing that on Christmas Eve! Through the door that is nailed shut is our sun room. We are having all the windows replaced in that room as it is a HUGE energy suck right now. That should happen in a couple of weeks.

This is the guest room. It is a long way from being ready. I demolished the closet that Adam is working on in this picture. We discovered upon demo that the closet had been plastered in to the original brick facade. So we had to rebuild out the plaster where the closet had been. We are also insulating the open area in the ceiling. Also upon rewiring the second floor we discovered that the ceiling in this room is disintegrating. So we'll be doing a little work on that one too.

Last, but not least, our ever faithful Molly. Who has endured 6+ weeks of construction. By the end of it she was like Pig Pen with a cloud of dust following her around. You can see some of the paint she got into, but there was so much more. Luckily she got a Christmas bath and she's back to being as pretty as ever.

Well, the move is just a day away. I'm sure there will be more adventures to come!

It's like a barn in here

Adam and I bought a house. It is a beautiful old house in Lansdowne, PA. We are super psyched to fix it up and move in--moving day is approaching quickly. Since it is an old house we are learning new things about it almost everyday.

For instance I learned that back in the 1800s (when our house was built) they used to plaster the walls with dirt and horsehair. It's true, there are horses in our walls.

We decided to demo a closet, that wasn't really a closet (unless people in the 1800s had shoulder widths of less than 1'0") in our guest room. It is a small room that we wanted to make just a little bigger. I took on the job of demo (although later Adam took over for me). Adam has a tremendous amount of skill in building and fine carpentry, and well, I can break things.

As I am smashing away at this plaster covered closet (with the appropriate dust mask, of course) I find large tufts of horse hair. At first it kinda grosses me out, because, well there are parts of dead animals in my wall--and it smells REALLY bad.

But then I started to think about it more, not in any philosophical way or anything. Just about the actual horses in our walls. I think I found 3 different types of horses in that closet. Their pictures are below (or so I think):

This horse made up the bottom third of the closet. I like to call him Midnight.

This horse made up the middle third of the closet. I fondly remember him as Ginger. I also have a friend named Alec that we call Ginger. The two are not related.

Now, this one is a shot in the dark, but I think this was the horse that made up the rest of the closet. I have decided that this one is a girl and her name is Martha. She looks like a Martha, doesn't she?

. . .And this is what goes through my head. I'd like to say that it only happens when I am doing things like smashing closets, but it happens pretty much all the time.

Can anyone doubt that global warming exists?

It is December in Pennsylvania, and everywhere else too for that matter. Yesterday it was 66 degrees, today it is 30 with freezing rain.

Last week it was 65 for one day. That very same day it was snowing in Houston, Texas.

Seriously, how can anyone believe that there is no such thing as global warming?

Pretty soon we're all going to have to move to the middle of the country and Ohio will have beaches. Ohio! (sorry Alex).

I ate a bug

No seriously, I did. It was a grasshopper. I got a button that says I am in the "I Ate A Bug Club."

True story.

REJOICE!!!

I have the most fantastic husband ever! He got me my phone back. He had to leave work to track down some girl in a bar while she was out partying.

I have Molly in her party hat and Adam in his bear hat back!!! I can call my grandma.

Not that there was any doubt that I had married the greatest man . . .EVER, but it is nice to get that reminder.

Also, thanks mom and dad for helping out.

It is great that I have family like you guys to get my back!

PS--Let me know if you come across those Bulls tickets.

Lament to a Lost Phone

My friend (a set designer I am working with) lamented to me just the other day that he took a cab ride home after our tech rehearsal and he accidentally left his camera in the cab.

Now, if you are a set designer, a camera is a VERY important tool of your trade. In order to continue to market yourself (which you must do constantly in order to pay your bills) you have to have documentation of your work. A resume just doesn't cut it in the visual arts. Replacing the artist portfolio these days is the website. It is a very useful tool. My husband has a great site (www.adamriggar.com), you should definitely check out his work. There will be more to come as he's done almost a million shows since he last uploaded pictures to it (or at least it seems that way). But I digress.

I was sorry to hear that my friend had lost his camera. But he did convince his wife to let him purchase a sweet new one, so I guess it worked out.

But it made me think, what do you really do when you leave something in a cab? I've ridden in many cabs and I honestly can't name any of them. Some are yellow, some are white and red, some have green on them. They are all the same on the inside. It was right then and there that I decided to make more of an effort to notice more about the cabs I take, since I am a little forgetful (remember that $50 bill for my summer camp deposit, or those Rockets/Bulls tickets Mom and Dad?).

You wanna know how well that worked out for me? I treated myself to cab ride home this evening (I'm on day 10 of a 14 day/12+ hours per day tech shift) instead of taking the bus. I left my cell phone in the cab, I took it out to send a text message to a colleague and I THOUGHT I put it back in my pocket. It wasn't until I safely reached home and tried to pull it out to text Adam to let him know I had made it home safely (it is our version of the Dunn Family 2 ring system). Of course the cab was WAY gone by that time. Did I make that extra effort to pay attention to my cab? No, of course not. It was raining and I was tired, and I knew that Molly was desperately trying NOT to pee on the carpets. So I was just happy for the ride. I know it was yellow, and I think the light on top might have been green, it also might not have been. perfect!

Now, my phone to me is like my friend's camera. I might as well have left my right arm in the cab. As a production manager I am constantly on the phone, and rarely at my desk. I do a lot of my work on my cell phone running around the theatre or at home on nights and weekends.

I have now spent the last several hours going back and forth from panic to pining.

What if a designer needs to get a hold of me? What if something happens to an actor and we need to put and understudy on tomorrow morning? What if someone from my staff is sick or in trouble? Or, God forbid, what if something happens to Adam? That last one worries me the most, we don't have a home phone, so if something happens to him I will be the last to find out.

And then there is the pining. My favorite picture of Molly in a party hat was my wallpaper (she was so freakin cute that day she came to work with me and joined the Go. Dog. Go! dog party). I had pictures of Serena and Adam in a teddy bear hat from the last time she visited our house. I just got my Grandmother's new phone number put in, now I don't know how to call her. Along with countless other photos and phone numbers that will be really hard to replace.

Oh how I miss my phone. Sigh. I guess it is a good thing that Adam insisted on the deluxe protection plan. Honey, I don't remember if I fought with you on that one, but you were right.

Hopefully I will go and get a new phone tomorrow. If anyone needs to reach me between now and then I suppose they could try smoke signals or carrier pigeons.

Why I can never take up knitting

I am currently in tech for our first children's show of the season, and everybody (and I pretty much mean everybody) is knitting. There are performers and crew members who are clearly veteran knitters and then there are those that are just learning. Every time I am around a knitting cast I think to myself, "Man I should really take that up." Until now . . .

I was relaxing in the green room chatting with the knitters (I do admire their ability to chat and count their stitches) when someone tells me this story.

A friend of theirs was dating a lovely fellow. And his favorite dog died. She decided that she needed to do something kind and thoughtful for him to help him remember his friend. So she took this dead dog's fur (I don't even want to think about her shaving a dead dog), and spun it into thread. She then knitted this man a sweater. SHE MADE THE MAN A SWEATER OUT OF HIS DEAD DOG! Seriously!

I think if I opened a gift and found a sweater made out of my dead dog, I would probably vomit. And then immediately file for a restraining order against the maker of said sweater. But this guy found it endearing, I guess. And he wore the sweater out one night on a date with his beloved (but maybe slightly crazy) girlfriend. Anyway, on this date it started to rain and at that point the sweater started to, well, stink. Now this dude is out on a date (in public) smelling like a wet dead dog (again, I'd be evaluating my relationship and perhaps my own sanity at this point). It was apparently a horrible scene and the sweater had to be disposed of. And I pretty sure the dude had to take several showers.

Now, as I sit in the green room chatting with a lovely woman making herself a sweater dress, all I can think of is "I wonder if that dress is made out of her dead pet?" and "What happens if it rains on her while she is wearing it?"

And that is why, I don't think I'll be taking up knitting anytime soon . . . .or . . . .EVER!

Special Skills: driver's license, Office proficient, rhino wrangler?

In these trying economic times I sometimes ponder what will happen if I lose my job in theatre. Or my job in pretend, as my dad calls it. When I was in school all the professors were constantly telling us that we were learning skills that would easily translate into ANY real world job-even outside of theatre.

Now that I have been doing this for more than a decade. (Yup that's right mom-I have now been out and working for 10+ years. How old does that make you feel?) I wonder if that is really the truth.

I work hard, and under some pretty stressful conditions. There is no pushing back of deadlines (the show must go on) and no going over budget (as a non-profit we don't have extra money lying around), I clearly have some transferable skills. But how do I relate or translate what I do on a day to day basis into something that would get me a job in a bank, or IT department, or office somewhere?

I started thinking about how to put my resume together in my head the day that I helped lift a 14' peach to stand it upright. Does mover of enormous fruit go under responsibilities or related skills?

Shortly after that I was involved in several conversations regarding the feasibility of sharks kicking at a wooden facade of a deck. Do I take the time to explain sharks with legs?

Then there was the R&D meeting to determine the best way to make a large fake booty that jiggled when the wearer walked. Or where to put the man's (who is playing a woman)-uh-goods so they won't show through his dress for the school matinees. Where does that one go?

And today has been all about the Rhinoceros that tramples the parents (I know, it doesn't sound like much of a show for kids). The only place I can think to put my rhino wrangling is under special skills.

I figure if I wrote what I ACTUALLY do everyday in resume form, most employers would think that I escaped from the loony bin, and place my resume right into that circular file. Imagine if I ever made it to an interview.

Oh well, McDonald's is usually hiring. They don't ask too many questions at least. If I ever find myself combing the want ads for a giant fruit moving, junk hiding, rhino wrangler I will keep them as my backup.

How do you name a blog?

So, I've been thinking of starting a blog for some time now. Not necessarily to write anything important, but mostly just to get stuff out of my head. I'm running out of room up there.

All right, here I go, I log in to set up my very first ever blog. CRAP! I have to name it? Well if I have to name it then it should be clever or witty or something profound right? Immediately I have writer's block.

I turn to my ever loyal sounding board, my folks, they always know what to say. They came up with The Riggar Rundown. Not bad, but it does kind of make it sound as if I am a third grade gym teacher. Sorry Mom and Dad.

What does Adam think? I have to say I am completely blessed with a super intelligent husband who always has something witty to say, and is never, NOT EVER opinionated. His entry was Crazy Courtney's House of Crabs! Really? Not helping.

After several more days of pondering and rejecting all ideas that pop into my head. Followed by a couple more days wandering around the house whining about the fact that I did not have a blog title. I came up with Insert Witty Title Here. This way anyone who reads it can make up their own title. Whew! There, I am off the hook now you as the reader has to stress about what YOU think the title should be. I wonder if it was this hard for everyone else?

Someday I'll have to tell you how the URL came about.

Really you should just get Adam to tell you, since it came out of HIS head.