endings and beginnings

This is one of the last posts to this part of my life journey that will be posted (I'm expecting at least one more re the circus, but may still keep blogging anyway, if there is any interest).

I had a perfect morning yesterday - I woke up on my own about 7am, put some "staff only" signs up around the lot, talked to a couple early-rising staff members, then started to walk. It was a perfect weather day, cool, not humid, sunny. I did an hour of yoga in the Heritage Gardens (which felt great!), then went for a walk. I walked the labyrinth, walked the Shawme Lake view walk, got lost, found the Carousel and rode it, and then got a call from my boss, asking if I was on the lot.

I reported to her RV, thinking that I was going to get grief for forgetting to put up the "next show" clock sign before I left for yoga. I was informed that apparently several Board members who attended the show in Waltham last weekend didn't feel I treated them specially enough, they felt "herded" into their seats, and that I was "Gestapo-esque" in my attitude toward trying to get everyone seated and safe. They decided I was damaging the "down home, friendly" reputation of Smirkus, and that I had to go. I was given about an hour to pack my things, taken to Boston's South Station to take a bus to Montpelier, VT, driven back to base camp at Greensboro, and drove home.

I left Sandwich at 12:30, arrived at Greensboro at 8pm, and finally home at 3:30am, due to exhaustion causing me to stop and sleep at pretty much all but one rest stop on the way home.

My house is unfamiliar to me. When I was on the road, the majority of my "homesick" was to be with and missing the boyfriend who no longer exists. I have no idea what to do with myself.

I am a Production Manager, and a damned good one. I am not a Front of House Manager - I told them that going in, and that it isn't my favorite of jobs. I did the best I could, with the limited resources I had. They kept expecting me to know everything and everyone and be the person they've had for the past 6 years, without giving me the benefit of time to get to know processes and people. I am used to a highly structured environment, and told them it would take time to adjust to the more free-flowing environ of Smirkus. Personally, when I'm trying to fit 700+ people into the bleachers, get them to move over for late comers, ask people to turn off the flash on their cameras, how am I supposed to personally greet every one of them?

They say they'll give me a good recommendation based on my Production Management skills - which they saw really are my strength.

And I do believe that everything really does happen for a reason. This morning I received a call from the theater in Rochester I have been talking with, and it looks like this weekend I will be going to Sugarloaf, NY, to see a production of "Cooking with the Calamari Sisters" - one of the few opportunities left to see this amazing production. It will be an in-person interview, and will hopefully lead to another in-person interview in Rochester at the "home base".

Onward and upward! :)