Whirlwind Whirlies

Pair of JOLs Wayne and I carved for Darkwing.

Halloween came and went with a fair amount of magic. Us actors feared Halloween night at Darkwing would be cancelled due to unflagging weather reports of rain all day and night, which was depressing to all of us who'd worked so hard setting it up and performing the previous Friday and Saturday. As the day went on and we all kept checking our Facebook accounts, it looked as if the Baron and Baroness were going to go ahead with the Haunt anyway. "Feh," I said, shaking my head. "This is going to be insanely cold and wet!" I'd already taken an unprecedented amount of vitamin C, and the night before, my favorite cold arrester: raw garlic cloves chewed quickly and sloshed down with beer, but have to admit I was feeling a little too old and creaky to be hanging around outside all evening in a Victorian zombie costume.

But around 3 p.m., a silvery crack began to appear in the northwest sky. I left the Humane Society and as I drove home, the crack grew larger. By the time I was up our road, the sun was out! This was amazing! I think everyone involved in Darkwing had a little magic they were working that day, and collectively beat the bad the weather back. It was a bit breezy, but we ended up packing them in and raising enough money to give a record-breaking $11,000 to The Children's Advocacy!
Sometime after 11 p.m. as we all left our scenes, it began to drizzle lightly.
A video of this year's haunt is currently in production. Meanwhile, check out some of the amazing actors this year:

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The next morning I reluctantly packed a few things into my car and headed down to Sacramento for a research trip that had come up suddenly. Not that I don't love visiting the California State Library - it's a beautiful place filled with information! Plus they've added digital scanners to some of the microfilm readers, which makes my work easier and better. Still, it was a five-hour drive and I was one tired zombie. I stopped at Chico State University on the way down to do some research there, and finally arrived at my hotel in Sacramento at around 6:00 p.m. Then I drove downtown (thanks to my amazing Garmin GPS) and had dinner at a place you must not miss the next time you are in Sacramento: Zen Sushi! In fact, this place is so great I think I'll dedicate an entire future post to it.

But this post is still about the whirlwind. Luckily, back at the hotel the hot tub was steaming. Ahhh... temporary respite. The next day I slammed out five Black Bear menus worth of research, stumbled bleary-eyed back to Zen Sushi (yeah, it's that good) and hit the hot tub again. After a quick visit with my mother in Redding, I made it home the following day, only to get up and help strike the sets the next day at Darkwing. The next couple of days are kind of a blur that cleared up at about 9 p.m. on Election night. Then I could finally relax.