Surprise! I'm in Alaska!

That’s right folks, I’m in Alaska! I’ve actually had the trip planned for quite some time, but I decided it would be fun to surprise my friends up here, so I couldn’t even mention it on my blog! Do you know how much it killed me not to mention it on my blog? I wanted to shout it from the rooftops!

But the ruse paid off really well ☺ My friend Leif was the only person who actually knew that I was coming, so we conspired on the best way for me to surprise the crew. We had toyed with me walking into the Renaissance Fair in costume while the show in our court was going on and interrupting it, but while we both thought this would be great fun, we decided that this would be disruptive, and people would have to stay in character and everything, so it wouldn’t be as much fun.

Finally, circumstances made up the decision for us. There was a fundraiser dinner for the Fair on Friday night, in which it was a pirate theme, so they had asked the cast of “Pirate Tales”, the show I came back up to Alaska to do in March, to perform as one of the acts. Well… I knew all the songs already, and I was the only cast member missing… so I showed up at the theater when they were pulling all of the costumes ☺

The reveal went like this: Leif sent me a text message of where they all were gathered, and I was sitting in the car with my mom in a parking lot a ways off from the university building they were in. As soon as we got the message, we pulled over to the building, and I called them on my cell phone, which is the main way that I call them from Saint Paul, since I have free long distance. And I call them all the time, so it was not strange for me to be calling and talking to all of them.

Leif put me on speaker phone, and then we were all talking. Eventually I told them that I wanted them to sing one of the songs to me, since I missed it so much. So they started singing, and I proceeded to walk into the building and straight into the room where they were all crowded around the cell phone singing.

The reaction was sort of in a ripple, where the people on the far side of the circle facing me saw me first, and started to smile and get excited, and then the rest of them followed around to what they were looking at… and mad hugs ensued ☺

Being the awesome people that they are, they put together a costume for me (my old one fit in the world of our play, but I needed something more piratical for the evening). And we went off to the fundraiser to perform and have fun! I got to surprise more friends (Matt F. jumped the highest to my delight), and the evening was great! Now I have to go, since I have to finish getting ready for the Renaissance Fair that I’m participating in today and tomorrow.

Pictures will follow, I promise!