Part 1: The Kitten
Went out a little early to make sure I don't miss the bus (which means an additional one hour wait). At the bus stop I heard some rustling leaves in the tree. I thought it was a bird or a squirrel. Then I saw it. A black and white kitten! Naturally I meowed at it, and eventually it came to the wall, where it let me caress it. :D It seemed like it wanted to jump down from the wall but I had to make sure it didn't in case it couldn't make its way back in again (although in retrospect, I could've probably held it up to the wall anyway). It also seemed really hungry as it kept nibbling on my hand. Cats species seem to find my hand tasty for some reason (I'm reminded of the tiger at a zoo back during high school once that did the same thing, although that was a little more dangerous). Thankfully it didn't try to follow me when the bus came (the noise scared it off).
Part 2: The Festival
Arrived early so went in the Metreon for a bit, didn't see
Fang and Catherine (
Jenny couldn't make it) so I called them, turns out they were on the other side and didn't know how to get here.
So I went there, and it turns out that's where we wanted to go anyway. It was Sha Sha Higby. While outside there were some people promoting another play later in the day as well as giving out free bottles of mint water (Metromint) if you signed up for their mailing list. Used my disposable email address (water's actually not bad). So the play was kinda surreal, just one woman dressed up in this elaborate puppet costume making these weird sounds. The costume was great, but the act was kinda boring. I kept trying to see her face unsuccessfully.
Next, we went to get lunch. We kept calling Osha Thai but they didn't pick up. Turns out they were closed for lunch. Doh. We rushed over to Westfield's food court where we all picked up Thai food and then ran back to catch Asian American Theater Company's
Korean Badass. As expected it touched a lot on Asian American issues. Next we rushed off to see the two best short plays from The Best of Playground festival,
Seagull and
Isle of dogs, Part II. We missed the first part of Seagull so we weren't too sure what was going on (we were eating) except the two guys seemed to be trapped in a room and one guy thought he saw a bird and the other guy who could see over the wall humored him as he described what was outside. I guess it's touching. The second play was about Shakespeare and some other guy who had opposite ideals on how to write plays and they eventually compromise. It started and ended with two narrators who reveal in the end, they are actually Shakespeare and that other guy.
As we were about to leave, the MC came in and told us to wait as there was an unscheduled performance. It's a good thing we did as we saw what was probably THE funniest thing in the whole festival. It was 10 minutes of Steve Solomon's
My mother's Italian, My Father's Jewish, and I'm in Therapy. The guy's REALLY good, as far as being able to imitate different voices and sounds as he talked about his life. Really funny stuff too, like weird situations in airports (being asked whether you unknowingly received some package, "well, I wouldn't know, would I"? Or if you let some stranger pack your stuff, "Yeah, there was some stranger at my hotel room with a Turban and a rifle that smelled of camel who wanted to pack my stuff") or ways to get rid of telemarketers (the classic, "There's blood, lots of blood. Can you help me clean it? Or pretending to be a deaf person at a school for the deaf), or about life vests on a ship in the fog (We planned for that, so we give you these whistles. *Faint whistle noise* "But the problem is that it's a cruise ship which means... *Loud horn noise* *Faint whistle noise* *Loud horn noise*)and so on. We were actually talking about going to see the real show, which is in the following weeks (Who wants to go see?!)
After that, we went off to to watch Magic Theatre, which was presenting winners from some high school contest. The one we saw was something about some guys coming up with ideas by using tabloids. Lots of act fighting when they were mad at each other. Kinda funny. Then we went to see
Insignificant Others. We had some pretty high expectations, but it turns out it was really just preview scenes. It's mainly a musical.
After that, we managed to catch BATS Improv and then SF's Improv Alliance. Turns out some of the actors were in both groups. I liked this because of the Whose Line is it Anyway format. I manged to give out "Lust" as an emotion for one of the games in the first one, and
Fang gave out "Woman's Bathroom" for a location in the second one. Before the second one started, there was an MC that did some magic tricks.
Afterwards, we went off to CompUSA to check schedules to go back, and then we talked in the pretty lounge area on the 4th floor of Bloomingdales until I had to leave.
Part 3: The Great Milpitas Trail Adventure
So what happened was I'd arrived at the Great Mall by 8:40. The bus wasn't supposed to come until 9:25. After about 10 minutes of waiting, I thought I may as well walk home since I'd always wanted to see how long it takes. Good exercise anyway (it's 3 miles). Another 10 minutes later... where am I? This road seems familiar but where's Milpitas Road? And there's no sidewalk and it looks dark. Walk back. Oh, I was actually on the right path, just had to go on a bit more to see Milpitas Road. Oh well, bus should be here soon. I see some kid pee on the wall opposite the seats at the bus stop. Eww. 9:25, bus should be here soon. 9:40, where's the bus?! Some business guy was cursing the bus. 9:46, Ok forget it, I *will* just walk home then. And so I begin the trek home. I'd thought I could probably get home in about 40 minutes. Along the way, I got to play Sprinklers Gauntlet, No Sidewalk Labyrinth, and Keep Your Balance on the Slippery Wet Ground. Along the way
Fang kept me company on the phone (yay for being another Cingular/AT&T user = free minutes!). All in all, it actually took about 1 hour to get home. It was fun to do once, but not something I want to attempt at night again just because it's not as safe. Public transportation here really sucks and I really really want to move to somewhere better like Berkeley.
