Showered with love in April

It snowed on the first three days of April -- haha! Such a good joke!

By the time April rolls around, I am so tired of winter, and so looking forward to warmer weather and all that comes with it, that I forget how miserable the inevitable hay fever is until it's too late. So, the weather's indecision between rain, sun, and wind made the month less fun than I would have liked. Fortunately, I had plenty to distract me in the meantime, like using the Salt Lake Comic Con Fan Xperience tickets I got for Christmas, and laser eye surgery!

Did I mention that VIP is the way to go? 'Cause it definitely is!

But those weren't the only events that made April special. Here's a glimpse at some of the highlights:

MY BESTY HAD A BABY!!

My Kate is now a mommy! I am the "Besty Aunt", and will officially be called "Bammy."
For the sake of this blog, this adorable little boy will be known as "Monkey."
He is already such a blessing to his parents and to me. I am grateful to be part of his life :)

General Conference and Sunday brunch with the family

Funny to think that I met Heidi during our Conference brunch in October,
and now we're pending sisters-in-law, coloring princesses together!

The kids playing Conference bingo. After they gave up, I took one of the cards and won a peanut butter Twix!

Heidi performed in Hedda Gabler

Aaron and I joined Heidi's mom and sisters for opening night. It was so good! Heidi is darling onstage!

These two are so good together. Awww!

Easter

The kids hid both plastic eggs filled with candy and hard-boiled eggs for their aunts and uncles to find.
I went right past the garage while everyone else went left, and ended up getting 19 total. I won!!

My sisters-in-law (and cute dad in the background)

Now that the trampoline is out again, the Trampoline Game was a must-play!

My visiting teaching companion bought Easter Lilies for our sisters, and brought me one, too.
She is so thoughtful!

A surprise party for our little girls

While Lindsey's parents took the girls to a park, Adam, Lindsey, and G-unit decorated the house, and the rest of us and their cousins on Lindsey's side gathered for the big reveal. The girls were so surprised, (and pretty thrilled that the cupcakes they'd decorated "for other kids in the ward" were for them and us after all)! We limboed and played musical chairs, ate tiny sandwiches, and laughed while birthday girls opened presents. Nobody gets as excited about Frozen-themed gifts as Breezy and Zonks, and now they have Anna dolls to go along with their Elsas!

Man of La Mancha with Sound of Music buddies

I planned a night for cast members of The Sound of Music to see Man of La Mancha at
CenterPoint, so we could all see each other and support our friends together.
I was pleased that so many people came. It was a well-done play and fun to see my friends again!

Touring company production of War Horse

I had wanted to see this play for years, but when the time came, I wasn't sure if I could afford it. Plus, I'd had my surgery less than a week before and my eye was pretty bad. I'm glad I bought a ticket any way, and borrowed my mom's opera glasses. The play was beautiful. A moving story, endearing committed, and convincing actors, and the puppetry was wonderful. Now I want the soundtrack. It was worth every penny. I love great theatre!

Speaking of great theatre, I have an epic theatre-centric vacation coming up in May, along with my first business trip. I don't know what other cool things are going to pop in the meantime to fill up the rest of the month. Guess I'll find out soon!

Seeing clearly... eventually...

I have had LASIK eye surgery performed twice on both of my eyes*. Because I was nearsighted, I wore glasses starting in elementary school (and contacts in college) right up until that first surgery (soon after my LDS mission). When people ask how my experiences have been, I tell them I would recommend LASIK to anyone. I've had six years each time of really good eye sight starting directly after the surgery.

When looking with both eyes, my vision is actually darn good! My right eye is still so good that the doctor said they couldn't do anything to improve it (hooray for 20/20 vision!), but vision in my left eye alone had grown pretty blurry. I've still been able to safely pass my driver's license eye exam and such, so I'm not a menace to society, it's just annoying for someone who enjoys going to live theatre performances, and drives at night, and wants to see things in general that are far away without squinting. I've been thinking for a couple of years whether I wanted to do eye surgery again**, or give up and by glasses and contacts again.

The sort-of-sunglasses I wore while
waiting for the dilation to wear off.
Notice there are no earpieces :P

Last Monday, I had laser surgery again on my left eye. I had an eye exam at the LASIK Vision Institute in the morning where the doctor dilated my eyes and decided I was okay to have laser surgery again. This time, he recommended PRK, which is another type of laser surgery he assured me is less risky. With LASIK, they open a flap in your cornea to do the surgery, and with PRK they work directly on the top of the eye. When we decided to go ahead, they told me to fill the prescriptions I'd need, and come back at 2pm for the surgery, since we had to wait until my eyes were no longer dilated before they could operate. I ran errands (looking cool in some sort-of-sunglasses) and called in sick to work for the next three days (I had warned them ahead of time I was hoping to have the surgery, so they were very supportive). Then my mom drove me back to the office, because I wasn't allowed to drive myself home.

The staff at the LASIK Vision Institute is great, BTW. The assistants were wonderful at putting me at ease (which was nice, 'cause stuff with eyeballs kind of freaks me out), and the doctor was professional and kind. They definitely know what they're doing. There's a reason I keep going back to the same place :)

A few things about the surgery itself:

• The surgery doesn't take long. I was in and out of the operating room in about seven minutes, and the surgery itself was maybe three minutes, probably less. This is nice because
• You have to be awake the entire time to make sure that your eyeballs remain still (they move during REM sleep). They have a device to prop the eye open, but it's stressful to make sure you keep "looking at the orange light" especially because some of the stuff they do hides the light from view and then you don't know if they're still still!
• They do numb the eyeballs. They put in a drop or two of a topical anesthetic so you don't feel anything.
• They put a contact in to protect the surface of the eye for the first few days.

Right after surgery: the pupil in my left eye
(your right) is significantly larger than the right -- crazy!

After the surgery was done, they gave me a prescription for painkillers and post-op instructions like:

• As soon as I get home, put in all of the drops, and then nap for 3 hours. 
• For the next two weeks, tape the plastic eye patch over my eye while sleeping (they recommended I change the tape every couple of days).
• Use extra eye-drops when reading or staring at a computer because I won't blink as much.
• No eye make-up for a couple of weeks.

Plastic eye patch for sleeping :)

There have been some fairly major differences this time than with previous surgeries. When I had LASIK, I could see really clearly right away and there was almost no pain afterwards. I must have taken time off work, and I know I wore that plastic eye patch while sleeping and was worried about people hitting me in the face during rehearsals, but that was about it. Unfortunately, after PRK I was in pain for two days. When they removed the contact at the 2-day post-op appointment, they said it would feel scratchy; that was a good description. It wasn't comfortable, but it went away after another day. I'd also planned to work from home on Thursday and Friday, but after two hours of staring at the computer on Thursday, even with sunglasses on, my eye was exhausted. I slept almost the entire week last week.

It's been a week now, and I still don't see completely clearly yet. I borrowed my mom's opera glasses to see the touring production of War Horse on Saturday because I really wanted to be able to see the puppets! I'm back to work now and still wearing sunglasses while I stare at the computer screen. They help with the glare and also hide the fact I don't have any eye make-up on. I haven't consistently not worn any eye make-up since high school, and I don't like it. Wearing lipstick helps, but it was still weird to go to an audition AND a callback with nothing on my eyelids and lashes. I miss my mascara!! Hopefully they'll give me the greenlight for that at the 2-week post op next week. Sadly, the lingering inequality in my vision is giving me headaches. Hopefully that will subside as my vision continues to improve (before my upcoming vacation, I hope).

The nice thing is that my eyes aren't as dry this time as they were after previous surgeries. I'm not in awful pain if I forget to do eye drops for a few hours, though it's still a relief when I remember!

I had thought I'd do PRK this time, and then if I'm still a candidate, maybe do it again in 6 years or so, whenever my eyes get really bad again. But, I don't know if it's worth this recovery hassle. Ask me again in a few more weeks when my eyes are theoretically right as rain...

As I said, LASIK was brilliant and I'd recommend it to anyone. Jury's still out on this PRK thing...

Have you had eye surgery? Was it worth it to you, or will you go back to glasses and contacts next time your eyes fail you?

*Sadly, eyes tend to deteriorate, so even if you have laser eye surgery, it doesn't mean you won't need bifocals or the like when you get older. Plus, due to the nature of eyes, if you want LASIK after a certain age you might have to choose whether to see near or far away, but you might not be able to get both.

**For my second surgery, I purchased a plan with the LASIK Vision Institute that guarantees I can get free "enhancements", if I go in for an eye exam every year and it's still a safe for my eyes.

Salt Lake Comic Con Fan Xperience day 3: River Song, Nathan Fillion, Adam Baldwin, Patrick Stewart, and more!

I decided to wear a costume on Day 3 -- one I thought might be recognized by fans. I confess, after two days of holding Carrie's purse, I secretly hoped someone would ask for MY photo at least once!

The costume I decided on was River Song from Doctor Who's "The Big Bang" episode:

Totally doable, especially since Aaron was willing to loan me his leg holster and gun. White jacket/sweater? Check. Wide belt? Check. Tight pants? Check. Bag on a belt around my hips? Check. Tight pants and knee-length boots? Check. Big, curly hair? ... Do you even have to ask? I'm actually kind of amazed how big my hair was that day.

It wasn't perfect, but I was pleased with the result:

Fun fact: I wore socks with Daleks printed on them.

Another perk of being a VIP: I got a free Thursday-only pass for a friend. It was only $16 extra to upgrade it for Saturday, so I brought my friend Theresa along. I knew she'd love all the geekiness as much as I did. Her "Captain Hammer groupie" t-shirt (from Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog) was brilliant. She even had a copy of his dry-cleaning bill: "Four sweater vests!" (You better believe we had that tune in our heads all day long).

Yet another perk: I was allowed to enter the Con an hour earlier than the regular folks. This was fortuitous because the Nathan Fillion Spotlight Panel was scheduled to begin at 10am: the same time the general public was allowed in. Unfortunately, since Theresa wasn't a VIP that meant she wasn't allowed in with me, so we had to split up for the first couple of hours :(

Nathan Fillion was hilarious. Not quite as humble as Karl Urban, but just as happy to geek out with the rest of us over anything and everything science fiction, particularly his stint on Firefly. One fan asked what his favorite gig was, and he said, "You're trying to get me in trouble, aren't you?" He admitted Firefly was his favorite, and then apologized a bit to the Castle fans saying something along the lines of "If my favorite ice cream flavor is chocolate, but I've given you strawberry for the last six years, I hope you'd forgive me for liking chocolate more." Here's a chunk of the start of his panel.


Some of my favorite quotes:
On working with Joss Whedon: "I come up with a lot of ideas, 98% of which are terrible. Joss will say something along the lines of 'Yeah...! Or!' ...He has a way of saying things that doesn't make you feel like a [dummy]."

"Do any of you watch Castle?" crowd cheers. "That's what I hoped."

When asked if he still uses the Chinese curse words from Firefly: "They don't just pop out like 'Ooh! I spoke Mandarin!'"

"Never endeavor to find out where a celeb lives. There's nothing you can say that doesn't say 'I'm crazy and I know where you live.'"

He told a story about being thrilled to go out to dinner the night before with the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Some fans saw them and started freaking out. Brent Spiner turned to Nathan and said "Wow." Nathan replied, "Right?" and then confessed he was thinking "Be cool! Don't blow it!"

An animation student: "I think it would be so awesome to work with you one day as an animator." Nathan: "That is correct."

The next panel in the same room was Karen Gillian from Doctor Who, so I decided to stay and creep forward to a better seat. I hoped Theresa would be able to join me, but the line to get in was massive. Fortunately, they set up an overflow room so more people could watch the panel, and Theresa got to watch that way. Unfortunately, Karen was about half an hour late, so her panel was really short. This did give me time to chat with the people sitting next to me. The couple next to me had marks on their arms and legs to count the Silence (a Doctor Who alien race you forget as soon as you look away), and mentioned they'd dressed their red-headed daughter like Karen's character, Amy Pond. I thought this was hilarious *SPOILER ALERT* because I was dressed as Amy's daughter, and thought "only on Doctor Who is it perfectly normal for the parent to be a baby and the child an adult *END SPOILER* so I asked if I could get a picture with their baby. The baby had major "stranger danger" fear, and cried inconsolably during the first attempt, but later seemed to be cool with it. In her defense, I look nothing like her mom :)

Karen's panel was a lot of fun, so I didn't much mind waiting so long for "The Girl Who Waited."

After the panel, Theresa and I finally met up again and started wandering around. To my delight, several people DID ask for a photo with me, including some who were dressed as River! A couple people even said I was the best River they'd seen that day. DAY MADE! Of course, I grabbed quite a few Doctors for photo ops. I somehow never suspected I'd have as much fun with that costume as I did! I will be wearing it again at a future date :D

The 11th Doctor and a Dalek

One of Theresa's friends, dressed as Rose Tyler

Another River :)

This family was adorable as the 10th Doctor (Dad), TARDIS (Mom),
11th Doctor (son), and Amy Pond (daughter).
I want to be this kind of parent.

I realized after walking away that River would never be so stupid
as to look away from a Weeping Angel. #cosplayfail

Laura and her husband joined us about that time, and we had a blast looking around and taking more random photos!

Theresa, Laura and I and a tiny TARDIS from the KidCon area

As an English major in college, I found that Star Trek fanfiction was a nice break from all of the heavy novels, plays, and poetry I was required to read. One of my favorite authors was Peter David. He came to the Con, and I asked him to sign my copy of his novel Imzadi (the story of how Riker and Troi fell in love). He was pretty surprised when I told him he got me through college. Nice guy!

I had held off getting a photo with the 501st Legion until I was dressed in my own space-adventure costume:

This is my favorite photo from the entire day!
I should take on an empowered persona more often.

I walked by again later and saw that Darth Vader was there, and my friend Allisha was hanging out with her kids (who are in the Legion), so we got another photo!

The Dark Side is pretty irresistible!

Joe has been a friend of ours for 20 years, so we had to get a photo with him.
He'd spent the day as a volunteer in the actor-signing area telling people on
the wrong side of the line not to take pictures, so we made sure
to point the camera away from the actors for this photo ;)

Josh, Kyle, and Mandie

Before we knew it, it was time for Adam Baldwin's Spotlight Panel. Now, I've had a crush on Adam Baldwin since I first saw Independence Day at the Villa in the summer of 1996. He played Major Mitchell, the commanding officer at Area 51, and he was dreamy. He still is. He was a sweetheart; a family man doing his job and enjoying every minute. He had great things to say about Firefly and Chuck.

I only wrote down a couple of quotes, and then decided to just listen and enjoy:
In response to someone in the crowd who yelled "I love you!": "I love you because you love me!"

"I got a ten? Yay! You know what? You all get an eleven." *Crowd cheers*

Audience question: "Do you have any regrets?"
Adam: "I should call my mom more... excuse me!"

It makes me happy when actors are nice people in real life, especially when they play a lot of grumpy characters -- haha!


After the panel, we all hurried to the photo op area for our Firefly photos with Nathan Fillion AND Adam Baldwin. Because I was VIP, Theresa and I only had to wait about 25 minutes. I know several people who were in line for over an hour. Theresa and I were so excited. We'd already decided she could claim Nathan and I claimed Adam. The wait was completely worth it. As I mentioned when I got my photo with Michael Dorn, it was over really quickly, but, Oh. My. Goodness. Those men are attractive in real life, and the energy was palpable. I was a little surprised that Nathan wasn't taller; then again, everyone looks short next to Adam ;)  They were so nice and we were so flustered that Theresa missed a chance to shake Adam's hand, and I missed Nathan saying "Thanks" to me. It was crazy.

The best part? Theresa and I both look terrific in the photo!

Of course the men look good, but she and I were like "I am totally going to display this in my living room for the rest of my life" 'cause we look cute, too! It's little wonder that on Facebook and Instagram this photo became the most "Liked" of all my Comic Con photos. We look good, and they are celebrities that people recognized. No contest: those thirty seconds were the highlight of the entire weekend.

Once we finished the photo, Theresa had to leave, and Laura and her husband planned to leave as soon as their photo was done. Fortunately, I still had plenty of people to hang out with.

Carrie and Tyler

Marinda as Rosie the Riveter

Jillian and I -- curly girls!

Before I knew it, it was time for the Patrick Stewart Spotlight Panel.

I used my VIP status to get in early again. Since he hadn't known for sure whether he could come until two days previously, he had a slightly abbreviated timeslot. He was fun and chatty and humble and kind. He talked so much that there wasn't much time for questions, but we didn't mind. It was so cool that he came after all!!


I ended the day on the front row of the Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog Sing Along. Apparently, at the previous Con, they cancelled the event because of lack of interest. This time, they originally scheduled a room for 350 people, but so many of us lined up that they moved us to a room for 700 -- and the place was packed! I don't know the songs very well, so it was nice to have a good view of the words. People quoted the lines along with the actors, and we all sang at the top of our voices. I was a tiny bit disappointed that Nathan Fillion didn't surprise us by bursting in as Captain Hammer at one point. Ah, well. I can't have everything!

The movie ended at 8pm, and even though there were no more panels, there were full
carafes and empty glasses on the tables at the front of the room. Since the sing along
was the final event, Marcy and I had an ice cold drink. Tee-hee! We felt like rebels!

When I arrived home, exhausted and nursing a blister on the bottom of my right foot (that had been there since Thursday night -- thank goodness for comfortable shoes on Friday and Saturday!!), I sadly cut off the armband that had been my companion for the last three days.

Thank you, VIP armband, for all of the glorious memories and perks.
I will miss you!

Then I laid out my swag and called my mom to thank her one more time for my perfect Christmas gift.

It was an awesome three days! I am sorely tempted to do it all again in September!!

Will you come with me?

Click the links for my recaps of day 1 and day 2 at the Salt Lake Comic Con Fan Xperience.