Today's morning meeting was with some sort of consultant to hear our various technical difficulties. I gather he is going around to a bunch of different offices, writing a report, and then giving it to SuperBigBoss, who will do....whatever with it. We were only allowed 45 minutes for this meeting, which is ridiculous for the sheer amount of BUSTED we have going here. There were complaints about the portal, about how we had our in-office tech support taken away years ago and now we can't get anyone to fix anything, the whole Gods of the Giant Org problem (my boss ranted about it excellently), international clientele.... Another coworker, after ranting for awhile, said "I gotta get off that soapbox because I'll kill myself." My boss griped about how we've been told we can't submit tickets for repairs without getting permission from the grandbosses, who will tell you they won't do it. "Fix the bloody thing! No, we can't do that." The consultant was all "yeah, a lot of my clients have problems with your database."

And then there was our new girl, still traumatized from yesterday's training from hell with our awful database: "It's not user friendly AT ALL," and then she started ranting about the weird names for the forms in the database, such as "There's something that people call in Indian chicken?"

I also trained the new girl, my boss and Lioness in the next stage of my quarterly giant project. Today's project: proofreading several hundred pages of an automated list, mostly for automated typos and looking for long names that get cut off. They were horrified that I have to do this and it takes hours on end--even for me, a speed reader. New girl was all "How do you know it's incorrect?" (Uh....looks cut off? There are three names? I take a guess?) Lioness was all, "This hasn't changed at all since I last did it." I was all YUP. Both new girl and Lioness were all, "I only want to touch a thing ONCE," to which I privately rolled my eyes because rework happens here a lot whether you want it to or not. So then I spent the rest of the afternoon proofing the thing, long after both of them had left for the day because they went on early bird schedules, and then proceeded to find out that (a) someone had typed the wrong thing for five people (not me, another office), and then (b) a TON of names were left off the list. So I had to get a new one made up late in the afternoon... and it went from 244 pages to 345 pages. Which I have to start all over again from scratch. YUP. I'm so jaded of this shit I'm not even surprised any more. Meanwhile, my boss (the other one left at this point) was working on a quarterly Hard Thing for me since I was occupied and it came in at the same damn time. I helped her with a few things and then she said it had to be done by 5 p.m. and I offered to stay late if necessary. Didn't end up needing to, but she thanked me for offering anyway. So that's an improvement from Monday.

Both my laptop and some other package showed up during lunch today. I'm not sure what it is--might have been the Disney masks, as both Mom and Jackie reported getting theirs today and the sizing came out bad. I'm still not going to open anything for three days of paranoia, mind you. But hey, ONE TIME WHEN UPS CAME THROUGH!!!! faint

Then a few hours later some rando guy with no mask started knocking at my door. Oh fuck no. You're not the delivery guy (he already came by), I don't know you, you're not wearing a mask, no way in hell am I going to open the door to you! I think I heard him in the hallway later trying to say something about being a manager? Yeah, right. No, dude.

After work, Mom had signed us both up to watch some Alan Menken performance for the Walt Disney Museum. She had problems getting her Internet to work ("I HATE COMCAST!!!!") so I was forced to load up Facetime on my iPod so she could watch it until hers got going. Alan was performing sections of his various songs, and in the middle had a fun conversation with Lin-Manuel Miranda about what a fanboy Lin was as a kid, writing for Disney, etc. The most memorable part of that was Alan saying that he wished he'd known as a kid that you didn't have to be a dentist, like everyone else in his family. It turned into one of those "Follow your dreams!" sorts of things. I wish.

Then Mom called me for a while--she finally got unemployment but after the $600 went away, she's going to try to send me my tax refund which was pretty hefty, and she wants to send me $500 for the laptop;, so that should pay exactly for the laptop altogether!

Via email today: Shanna forgot to submit her video for the audition (darn it), and I read another email from the state fair and found out that Actor Jim (from As You Like It) won a pet-look-alike contest! I sent him my congratulations.

Today is Redhead Sarah's birthday. I texted her a few photos, including the group shot from last year. She did write back saying she loved me, at least. God, I miss being able to talk to her.

A year ago, Scott thwarted my game plan and I realized he liked me back. I wish things were different in a good way from a year ago. Who would have thought karaoke was gone forever....along with hopes of anything else.

CoCoVid:

I tried to make Lace by hand || Learning something new w/ Enchanted Rose Costumes and Making a Lace Collar. I liked how she started about how people are losing time from being bored in quarantine and this is why you try something new.

Make Light-Up Fiberoptic Fairy Wings.

Robin Hood rehearsal: last scenes tonight.

Brunette Sarah has an extra role as the abbot. She has a large hat and poses hysterically.

Sarah on her abbot outfit: "I got it off the Internet."
"I love that place. You can get everything." -Cameron
"I went to the internet to see what it looked like. And then I went to my junk drawer." -Sarah

"Marcia prefers to re-record." "Noooooo....." -Sarah and Marcia

"People get caught in traffic on the way to their zoom call." -Cameron

"Alexis, you're not Prine John." -Linda "Does spelling count?" -(?)

"...the music, I've got to pontificate for the whole thing." -Sarah

Alexis tried to use Zoom backgrounds on her Chromebook with a green screen behind her. It worked about as badly as green screen ever works for me (note: earlier in the day Mom told me that the high school was buying Chromebooks for all the high school students because they HAVE to use them for tests, and then we went on about how they suck), but while she was wearing a huge gold shirt, it was hilarious, especially with the space background.

"It's a terrible background." -Alexis with the space background tripping.
"It's very David Bowie." -me

At the end of the show. Richard wants to marry off Robin and Marian and then asks if anyone else wants to get married today, and Little John and I volunteer.
"I don't really want a double wedding, but okay...." Elizabeth

"I realize I sorta backed the wrong horse." -Sarah on turning off her camera and running away as the abbot once she almost invests the wrong king.

Linda's still trying to line up everyone in the right order. At one point she placed Alan and I next to each other instead of Little John next to me (again, for that wedding scene).

"You and Alan...." -Linda
"I thought I was with Little John." -me
"Well, it's not happening. You changed your spouse." -Linda
"Am I just a woman of easy virtue for changing guys?" -me
Sarah notes that as Madeline, she's the one with Alan, "but because I became the abbot, we can't get married."
"I don't know if anybody's going to pay attention to that. But that's okay." -Linda "So you can kind of flirt with both of them" -Linda to me.

Even people with "good" green screens still keep having issues. We found a gold arches background for the abbey and when Robert put his crown on, THE CROWN IS CUTTING HIS HEAD OFF!!!
It 'looks like his arm got amputated." -Linda as Richard reaches out.
"I think we're going to need a background that's not the same color as the crown." -Robert

Like I usually get, tonight Cameron got her music at the last minute, had to wing it, got thrown off by there being a lot more extra bits to the song than she expected.
"I have not had time to practice with backing music, I apologize in advance!" -Cameron
"I feel ya, girl!" -me

Cameron and Elizabeth do a "virtual kiss" by posing their heads together.

There is an epilogue to this in which Prince John finally becomes king and is forced to sign the Magna Carta. "You are a big sourpuss because they made you sign this thing." Sarah to Alexis

"-really impressed for the first time through." -Sarah "Nobody died." -Cameron

"You guys are really fabulous, it's really working well." -Linda

"You all have to love me, you're stuck with me." -Cameron

In other news, people are waiting on props to show up in the mail, such as Robin's hat and bows and arrows. Linda filmed a bit of the last number, and we start filming next week.

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