The Show Must Go On

Today started off a little crazy. We had 3 shows as usual on a Saturday- 11:30, 3:30 and 7:30. We also had out normal bus schedule of 6, 8, 9 and 10am. Preshow starts at 10:30. Because our management team is so great at planning ahead (insert high levels of sarcasm here), they didn't take into account that today in washington, DC was the annual cherry blossom festival where they block off half of downtown DC. So.... let the chaos begin. I was on the 8 bus. What should have taken 15 minutes to get to work took over an hour. So by the time the 8 bus returned to pick up the people waiting for the 9 bus, it was already 9:40 so you had the 9 and 10 bus people trying to get on. Long story short- maybe 3 performers showed up for preshow. Because animal crew is always there early we had to improvise preshow. I got to bring out my pony, Prince and let all the kids touch him. Some of them were getting so excited they were completely falling into him. Good thing he is such a good boy. The show was held 15 minutes to allow everyone to get there. It was a crazy morning so I took a break after the first show and went to Caribou Coffee to wind down a bit. Tomorrow is going to be hell. We have a 3 show load out. Since the next town is Fairfax and only 25 miles away we are also loading IN tomorrow night. My day will start at 7am and I predict we will be done sometime around 7-8 am the next day. Imagine- 24 hours of straight work- in a normal work environment, i would only have 16 hours left of work for the week. YA RIGHT! THANK GOD I GO TO SAINT LOUIS MONDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Day of Sightseeing

Today was great. Last night my college friend, Tricia picked me up at the train and I got to stay at her house. It is always so nice to get away from the train. I got to sleep in a big bed, play with 2 dogs, walk barefoot and not feel gross and have a great time. Today we got lunch just outside the city then we did the whole tourist thing. We saw the national mall- Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, WW2 Memorial, the White house, Smithsonian Castle and the Natural History Museum. We ordered in chinese food for dinner and watched some of my favorite TV shows. She brought me back not too long ago :( Back to reality tomorrow. Work from 7am-9pm. Yay. I leave for St. Louis in 6 days........

Welcome to D.C!

What a beautiful city :) We loaded out in Baltimore last night and stayed at a hotel there. We left this morning at 6AM to beat all the traffic heading into DC. Set up was at 7 and we walked around 1. There was a HUGE parade- clowns, blankets on the elephants w/ "I LOVE DC" written in glitter, dancers, the ring master, bello hair and clown noses. There was a lot of stop-go for pictures. Wonderful for the public and all the kids- big pain in the butt for us :) oh well. It was a gorgeous walk. The cherry blossoms are in bloom and color the city in pink and white. The houses are so damn cute here. Blue, yellow, green, brick, purple. We saw the capitol, the white house and more stuff that I would have to look in my book to figure out what it was. We have off tomorrow then we have 11 shows in 4 days. I get to spend tomorrow with one of my college friends I haven't seen since graduation :) YAY.

Belated Asia Pictures

as you can see there are new pictures of asia and i. these were taken in winter quarters in orlando. jumping on top of an elephant sounds and looks a lot easier and looks more graceful than it really is!

the flu finally passed through my body yesterday. i had about 5 days where i didn't eat a whole lot and everything i ate ended up coming back out one way or another. i think i lost weight :) not quite as effective as my last years weight loss solution called, "get raging food poisioning in thailand and lose 15 pounds in 7 days". but what can ya do? we are still in baltimore. i went out for st. paddy's day. a group of us got a limo and i enjoyed free drinks all night courtesy of my drunk coworkers. today during practice, the zebras spooked and we had colorado springs incident #2- 3 zebras bolted through the curtain and ran outside onto the streets. thankfully, no one was hurt and i dont think the media saw :) we have 1 show tonight, 2 friday, 3 saturday and 2 show load out sunday. then off to DC. i got my haircut today. finally. well- im going to take a nap before i have to clean my boys.

Sick w/ the Flu

Yup- gotta love being sick with the flu when you live on a circus train. what started as a small head cold, quickly moved to the flu and ended up with me in the hospital yesterday for 10 hours being pumped full of fluids through an IV. yuck. my temp was over 101- your brain is supposed to boil at 104. Now wouldn't that have been nice. They released me around 1am and it took me almost 2 hours for a cab to pick me up since i didn't have an EXACT address other then, its the circus train. i didn't go into work today and slept most of the day. i doubt i will go in tomorrow. and we have monday off. so hopefully all of this rest will serve well. i havent eaten anything in two days. ugh. 15 days until st. louis/casey. cant wait

Baltimore, The Herion Captiol of the World!

Wow- I haven't been able to get on my blog for awhile now- a lot has happened! saturday and sunday in craptown, OH was absolute HELL. i'm sure most of you saw on the news about the ohio winter storms- yes, we were hit. and of course, we were outside that week and of course our heaters in the tent decided to go kapoot and die. saturday was miserable. i have never been so cold in my life. it was snowing, raining, sleeting all 14 hours of work and the wind was just awful. sunday was loadout- thank god it was only one show. we had a hell of a time taking the tent down considering it was totally frozen. what a day. we are currently in baltimore, MD. i have never seen so many crack heads having such in depth conversations with trees and concrete walls. i even saw a guy bowling with a rock. we opened today. i have been fighting a nasty cold the past two days- i would say about 1/2 the people on the train are sick. not good! last wednesday i had an interview with the st. louis zoo for a keeper position working with elephants, rhinos, hippos, zebras, cheetahs and more. today they called me asking me if i would fly in to do an in person interview. :) hopefully this one works out better than the last. i will be flying out april 1-3. wish me luck :)

More Reasons I Hate This Place

1. roaches. roaches all over our train car
2. mud pits. the past 2 weeks the train yards are ankle deep in mud
3. idiots. someone threw a beer car down the toilet so now as a result they locked the toilets and showers on our car.
4. Sh*t*y management- do you think they do anything to help the situation? No- there is a reason you don't take a retired clown and put him as general manager.

Craptown....I mean Youngstown, OH

What a crap hole. I am currently sitting in Ty, the ringmasters truck waiting for the animal walk. Weather forecast for the week is freezing rain every single day. There is nothing in this town. I drove around for 20 minutes trying to find fast food. Nothing. So then I said to myself, Kate just eat something from a gas station. Nothing. Apparently people don't need gas in this town either. All I have seen is rain, train tracks, run down houses and more rain. Thank God we only have 5 shows. I got a call at 8:45 this morning saying the animal walk would be at 9. I rushed out of bed, didn't have timeto get coffee from downstairs and drove like a bat out of hell to get here on time. Now, 2 hours later I am still waiting. I think Friday I am putting my 2 weeks in. I am tired, I miss home, I miss my puppies, and I really miss Casey. I have lived in this crazy world for 9 months now (holy crap) and I think it is time to pack my bags and start something else- whatever that might be. To all the ladies in my life- if you have read the email regarding the maxipad letter- that is how I feel today. Keep all potential life threatening weapons away from me today and for the next 4-5 days because I might endanger someone!

Cincinnati

What a tiring week! We had an awful load in that lasted about 6 hours longer then it should have. We opened shows on Wednesday- also my 23rd bday (not my 24th as my parents thought). I had a margarita for lunch and went out that night with a few people and had some beers and got a bouquet of roses from the people i work with. I got to try the famous Cincinnati chilli- not so great! Yesterday from buddy from college came to see me- we stayed at a hotel and had a blast at an irish pub until early this morning. i was exhausted allllll day but it was so much fun to see her. we have a 6 pack weekend and loadout tomorrow. next town is a piece of cake- 5 shows in 3 days! YAY!