kristalgrace.com Blog

Alright! If memory serves me (which it may not, actually. I’m a bit sick. More on that later.), my last entry was about Seattle. I did check, but I’ve forgotten. Clearly a sign of my approaching birthday – egads!!

I was pretty sure that the rest of my year would be fairly quiet, acting-wise. I thought I’d buckle down with Christmas and ICBC and the like. However, life has, once again, thwarted me – and that’s fantastic!

After Seattle was the first time since the spring that I hadn’t known what my next project was going to be. That lasted a few weeks. Less than.

I was cast in a BCIT student film  – as a prostitute, ooh! Who does drugs, obviously. And who, naturally, gets murdered. On camera death – fantastic! That was seriously why I was so excited about this role. I’ve always wanted to play a character who gets killed. And so I find myself cutting lines of icing sugar, gauging my hand (accidentally!) on a bar sticking out of the door, getting stabbed in the neck repeatedly with a knife (obviously retractable), and landing face first into a puddle of “my” blood. It got everywhere. And so I take a shower (blood everywhere!) and thank the crew, and head out on my merry little way. With wet hair. In November. In Vancouver.

Yes, that’s where the “I’m sick” thing comes from. Unintentional! …I didn’t see a hair dryer there. I wish there was one.

Moving along, now.

Friday I had a read through for a pilot I’ve been cast in! At the auditions, I’d asked when I could expect to hear back by, and was told that since shooting was commencing the first weekend of December, I’d know by the end of the week. Well, the end of the week came and went, and I hadn’t heard. Oh well. Never hold your breath about these things. And then…I get a phone call. Ooh. I’ve been cast as Thai Girl #2 – a massage therapist. (Thai Girl #1 and I joke that we should actually be referred to as Thai Girl Chinese and Thai Girl Phillipino) And I have to learn to speak Thai. By Sunday. AHH! (If you speak Thai and can translate for me, please send me an email! kristal@kristalgrace.com) I’m excited for this, though. Keep your eyes peeled for a pilot called Thwackers!

And I only have 3 more tap classes left! I’ve been taking Intro Tap at Harbour Dance, and it’s been phenomenal. I’ve had so much fun! Finally, those tap shoes I bought are getting some use…genuine triple threat, here I come!

We went, we performed, we were funny, we came home. Cole’s Notes version

The extended version:

Once we FINALLY got our car from the rental place, we headed towards the border. Got across with no problems, got gas (I stood there, mentally converting litres, gallons & gas prices…Brandon stood there, openly questioning the exchange rate over the prices of Cliff bars…haha) and headed south on the I-5. We stop at the Premium Outlets (Oh. My. Lord. The. Shopping!) (www.premiumoutlets.com – get a VIP coupon book!) and make a beeline for Starbucks. We shop until we remember that right, we have a show to do, and we head to the theatre. (The Pork Filled Players were terrific hosts, btw! Thanks to Maggie and Todd for letting us clutter up their living room…)

It’s a really fun show, even with jellybeans going everywhere and bananas being left on stage. And our lone music cue, because someone *cough* had a CD miscommunication. And the little mishap with the supposedly resealable bag of fuzzy peaches…(”…uh, guys? I may or may not have just f*cked up here…”). Although that was en route, and not part of the show at all, so technically I shouldn’t have listed that there! Haha. The point is, we had a good show!

It’s past 2am when we find ourselves at Maggie & Todd’s. (Our show, their show, then some fantastic chinese food at midnight…haha) I find street parking – free until 8am! Hurrah! And now is where I begin being convinced that Washington authorities are out to get me. At 7:50, I stumble outside and re-park the car in a paid lot. I put $6 in the old school you-don’t-even-get-a-ticket parking “meter” and stumble back to bed. Mmm, bed. Later on, after our wonderful 1pm breakfast where our server was dressed as Tigger and Eddy “accidentally” poured milk on her French toast, Brandon wanders around Seattle and Edwina and I get into the car to – yes, that’s right – go shopping! The parking attendant walks up and says I have to pay for parking. I say I did. He says I didn’t. I insist I did – if I wanted to get a ticket, why wouldn’t I have just stayed on the street? He says no, I say yes – it was very much like arguing with a child, minus the tantrum. He stalks off, supposedly to recheck if I was lying, and we drive off. Plot To Unfairly Ticket Kristal, Attempt One. Result: Unsuccessful.

Plot To Unfairly Ticket Kristal, Attempt Two. Result: Successful. Jerk.

So after another fruitful shopping expedition, we get back on the I-5, and we’re theatre bound. I distinctly remember looking at the speedometer and seeing that I’m going about 100k, which, doing an eyeball conversion, is roughtly 63mph. A glance in the rearview mirror shows me that wtf, there are lights flashing at me. I pull over. A cop eventually saunters over shines a flashlight back and forth (plus the lights on he cop car are still going nuts…lucky I don’t have epilepsy…) and rudely informs me that I was going 70 in a 60 zone. I insist that no, I wasn’t, and there were tons of cars going faster than me. He asks how I know. Erm… Anyway, long story slightly shorter, he refuses to listen to anything resembling reason, and writes me a USD $113 ticket. This leaves me to believe that A)he was falling under quota, B)he targetted me because I have out of town license plates, and really, I’m not about to go back for a court date and C) he’s mad because the Canadian dollar is better than the American dollar, and he’s taking it out on all Canadian plates he sees. He took his bloody sweet time writing the ticket and bringing it back, too. Power-hungry. Geez.

That was over a week ago, and I’m still mad about it.

Then we performed, had a great show, ate great food, and had a marvellous sleep that didn’t last nearly long enough. And then…lunch at the Space Needle! Thanks, John. It was fantastic! Apparently going to Seattle and not going to the Space Needle is taboo. So why not go, eh?! And then, we drove back home. (But not before buying cheap duty free at the border!)

All in all? Good, fun weekend. If not for the ticket, it would have been marvellously amazing! Thanks again to Maggie & Todd, to the PFP, & our wonderful audiences! It was fun. Hope you got a ping pong ball…