Oh, Public...

Having nearly completed the season, I think I can say with some authority that the Swiss public has a tendency to get lost. Maybe not lost, but certainly a little turned around. Which I must admit, I find rather interesting. I know we're in a tent, not a theatre, but there's still a pretty clear divide between where the seats are and where backstage is. It should be pretty clear that if you need to go on stage and through a curtain, that probably isn't the exit. And yes, that did happen.

Also, there was this lady.

During a matinee a father and his sons decided that the best way to exit the tent was by just going underneath the tent wall near the artist entrance.  Before the show even finished, I might add.

There was also the very curious moment during warm-up when a man stuck his head in the tent opening in the backstage and just smiled and stared at us. We said hello and asked if we could help him. He just kept smiling and looking about and then after a minute or so popped his head back out.

Weird...

But my favourite would have to be the time when a father and his daughter sat down with a bag of popcorn and watched while we were getting ready backstage. It happens all the time that people walk around the tent and check out what's going on, but at this point, the show had already started. Instead of sitting in the tent and watching the actual show, this man and his daughter decided to watch the few of us who weren't on stage yet as we did arm circles and stretched our quads...

It seems we've gotten off pretty easy this year, though. Apparently one time a man was found in the laundry room washing his own clothes while trying to steal other people's clothes. This was a particularly ludicrous situation as the pants he was trying to pass off as his were the official work pants of the circus, complete with circus logo and the name of the owner sewn in. And while in Zurich last year, a man was found in the kitchen one morning after having eaten so much he was laying in a pool of his own vomit...

And people think circus folk are the ones to be weary of...

Overheard Backstage

To his partners right before doing their act:

"Oh my god... I just peed a little... Can you see it? Can you see it? Oh my god... I hope it's just in my underwear..."

Ice Capades

By now, we've done a lot of shows. We're talking 200 shows plus. You would think that by now, nerves would be playing a minor to nonexistent roll, right? That's certainly what I though. But this was a special night. It was the premiere in Zurich. And the premiere in Zurich is no joke.

The workers had been busting their butts for three days to get everything ready. There was an extra tent, complete with beautiful chandeliers, that would serve as a restaurant. Then there was the VIP tent. Red carpets were laid out, extra lights were hung up. And don't even get me started on some of the more ridiculous tasks, like blackening the tires of the sanitary wagon...

Needless to say, we were nervous.

So imagine my joy when I discovered they had repainted the stage for the occasion. The last time they painted the floor, it was a matte paint that did not slide, even if you wanted it to. In the most epic over-correction of all time, they appeared to have painted the floor with lubricant based paint.

Now PM had been told the floor was being painted and had been tasked with spreading the word.

She didn't.

As such, I only found out they had painted the floor a couple of hours before the show was set to start. That left pretty much zero time to properly adapt to the floor. And boy would I have to adapt. I have never in all my life been on such a slippery surface. It was near impossible to execute my spirals. Normally, one spiral will see you face a third of the ring. So if you start facing the center, after three spirals you should be able to come up toward the middle. The floor was so slippery that the wheel would slide out just a little every rotation so that I would stay exactly in place. That should not happen.

If I tried to change the angle of the spiral to control where I was going, especially if I needed a lower angle, the wheel would just slide out from under me. At one point I didn't even manage to finish one spiral before the wheel slid out from under me. To make matter worse, normally the wheel will slide when your weight is in front (and your hands are toward the ground) but form some strange reason it kept sliding out by my feet so I would end up going backwards!

I was terrified to even do freehand spirals. Having the wheel slide out when you're only attached by the feet was not an attractive prospect.

This being the premiere, with a packed house, loads of newspapers and television present, not to mention Swiss quasi-celebrities like the past two Miss Switzerlands, the current Miss Switzerland, and a former Mr Switzerland*, the stakes were pretty high.

I was in tears. I was on the floor, my wheel and I defeated, with a vision of utter humiliation on the horizon.

At dinner, some of my non-artist friends on the tour as well as my boyfriend took up the battle as their own. They came to the tent with me and tried to find a solution. We tried scouring one of the floor panels of the extension to see if it would make the surface rougher. A good idea in theory, but the space was so small there was no way to see if it would work.

Then, A said that a friend of his who does cyr wheel puts rosin on his wheel when the stage is slippery and that it tends to help. I was pretty skeptical. Rosin gets sticky with heat. How was it supposed to make my cold metal wheel sticky?

But we covered the wheel in rosin anyway and to my great surprise (and relief) it worked like a charm. I could scarcely believe it and wasn't sure if the rosin would last from preset to the actual appearance on stage, especially since my wheel is covered by a cloth beforehand. But it was the only solution I had.

The premiere went brilliantly and my wheel, with the help of the rosin, triumphed over that floor. Admittedly, doing wheel when the wheel and your hands are covered in rosin really isn't very enjoyable. It is, however, a million times more enjoyable than continually falling on your face.

Thank goodness for A. I never in a million years would have thought to use rosin. He totally saved the day.

 Only 58 to go!


* Am I the only one who finds the number of Miss/Mr Switzerlands present really, really funny?

Vigilante Justice

There was a string of robberies while we were in one of the bigger towns. It's all well and good to say "lock your caravans", but locks mean very little to people intent on stealing from you. And a caravan isn't exactly Fort Knox.

The day of the first theft a man had been seen wandering around among the caravans. He was talking on a phone, or at least pretending. I believe when confronted he said he was looking for "Mary". Word spread that a shadowy figure had been seen wandering around the caravans, but even still, someone got robbed. Luckily, all they took was money out of her wallet and left the rest of her belongings alone.

Later, another caravan was broken into, only this time, a wallet with all the owner's important papers were inside. We're talking work visas and such.

People were getting nervous.

And then, one day, a man was seen walking nearby. Y recognized him based on the description he had heard of the suspicious man who had been seen among the caravan a few days before. That's when shit got real.

I saw one of the shop guys walking hurrying along and asked where he was going. He turned to me and said "We're going after the thief." A few more of the guys from the workshop as well as some of the musicians set off too.

You could feel the tension around the camp.

And then they caught him. They actually caught him and dragged him back to the circus. I ran to go find D so he could identify the guy as he had been one of the people who saw the creep the first time around. The cops were called and the man was taken in for questioning.

It takes some serious balls to come back to the scene of the crime a third time. Or a serious lack of brains, anyway. Of course, since no one actually saw him touch anything, there's no grounds to actually do anything to the guy. At the very least, I think we all felt a small sense of victory. And now the guy knows that you do not fucking mess circus because we will hunt you the fuck down.

The Next Wave

Just when you thought you’d made it through the toughest part of the tour and could may breathe a little more easily, reality steps in and punches you in the kidneys.

The newest contender for the tour leg from hell will, from Saturday to the following Sunday, see us in four towns! Our schedule for the week?

Saturday: Build up, two shows.

Sunday: Show, build down, transport.

Monday: build up, circus employee variety show.

Tuesday: Two shows, build down.

Wednesday: early morning transport, build up, evening off.

Thursday: Two shows.

Friday: Show, build down, transport.

Saturday: build up two shows.

Sunday: Show, build down, transport.

Monday: Build up, evening off.

So in those 10 days we set up or take down the tent nine times with one day off in the middle, with build up double shows happening two times! Three if you include double shows with build down. I thought we only had build up double shows three times during the entire season. But three times in the same week? Ugh. Build up double shows was already the worst. But this? This is absolute horse shit.

Also, a new new record! The tent going up or down five days in a row! Woo!

The silver lining is that after we get through the above madness, we stay put for two weeks. Let’s just hope we can all hold on until then


UPDATE: Aaaaaaaaaaaaand I hurt my back while doing my act midway through all these shenanigans. I guess putting a tent up or down five days in a row really isn't the best way to maintain good lumbar health. So it goes.

Poot!

Lately the cooking on tour has been wreaking havoc on most people’s digestive systems. I’ve got to say, it’s hard to maintain the illusion of elegance and grace on stage when the fact of the matter is that you’re farting up a storm during your act. Ah, circus. Always keeping it gassy classy…

Oof...

I feel like I’m circling the drain. I keep trying to tell myself “You just need to make it until Thursday, then you can have an evening off.” Or “The next part of the tour will be a little easier, then you can rest.” But Thursday goes by in a flash and it turns out the next part of the tour is much harder than any of us previously believed.

I’m exhausted and it’s taking a toll on my health, my relationship, and my mental well-being. It makes me feel ashamed to be this tired. It makes me think I’m weak. Worst of all, it makes me feel like a failure. Can I really be the only one having such a hard time? Does that seven or eight year age gap between most of my cast mates and I really make such a difference? I hear snippets of the struggle from the others, but I still can’t help but feel like I’m the only one in the weeds.

My limbs feel like they’re full of sand and when I wake up in the morning, I somehow I feel even more tired than when I went to bed. I dread doing the show and more than once I’ve found myself on the verge of tears before and during my act. I feel like my brain is in a fog and I have a hard time remembering simple cues. I keep drawing blanks on stage and hope that no one notices my scrambling to execute the cues on time.

Worst of all, I find myself fantasizing about getting injured. Nothing too serious, just enough to let me rest for a few days. Sometimes I feel like I don’t even have to dream about it. They way things are going, I can’t help but ask myself “Is today the day I just collapse backstage? Is today the day my knee gives out, or my ankle? My shoulder?”

And then I’m amazed when at the end of the show, I’m still in one piece. I’m amazed that this body, that is screaming for me to stop, so readily accepts that I just keep on pushing it, and submits to another round of abuse. And then, though it shames me to say it, I’m feel a little disappointed.

It’s happened now that I have, in fact, broken down crying after my act. And much to my surprise, I had one of my cast mates crying next to me while we lay hidden behind some décor waiting to go onstage. Will any of us make it?

There's a Murder in Town!

Performing the same show over and over again can start to feel pretty repetitive. Factor in near empty tents and the will to perform plummets. So it's good to find ways to keep things fresh and fun. For a long time, the trapeze trio has given itself crazy themes to interpret on stage. Things like "karate instructor", "dinosaur", or  "your right hand is trying to murder you"... But never have we done something with the whole troupe. That is, until now...

Back in the days of creation, we would often play wink murder as a warm up activity. Having been a popular game, someone thought it might be fun to play during the show.

The murderer (chosen by the light technician) could only kill people on stage. Obviously, no one was going to suddenly feign death in front of the audience. But a list was put up backstage and if you were killed, you would cross your name off the list so that those still in the game could narrow down the suspects. When you thought you knew whodunnit, you'd call up to the lighting booth to confirm.

As you can see, we don't take kindly to murderers in these parts...

Growing Resentment

The tour schedule as of late has been nothing short of hellish. To say that everyone is exhausted would be an understatement. Typically, Sundays and Wednesdays consist of a matinee, build down, and transport. Then on Mondays and Thursdays we have build up in the morning, and the rest of the day off.

But for the month of July, we have had build up and a show on Mondays, leaving only Thursday afternoon and evening off. The temperature in the tent during performances has been in the high twenties to low thirties, and humid. Plus, we've been in the mountains, so the higher altitude has also been kicking our asses. Most days I feel weak and exhausted. I seem to have done a number on my shoulder (not to mention the continuing saga that is my back) and while the osteopath I saw told me I was on the brink of exhaustion and not to work for a few days, well, the show must go on. So much for getting better... At night, I read for a bit and then go to sleep.

And I am not alone. Pretty much everyone is just trying to make it from one show to the next. We have one artist working with a hernia, another who was in so much pain she was in tears before and during her act, another who, at 19 years of age, has thrown out his back, plus one of the clowns working on messed up ankle.

But the worst part, the very worst part of all, is that we're killing ourselves with this schedule and the tent is practically empty. I could understand really wanting to push the number of shows if we were playing to a packed house, but we've been consistently at 12% capacity for the past two weeks.

Now I've always tried to go in with the attitude that whatever the size of the crowd, those people paid to be there and deserve to see a quality show. But for the first time in my life, I've found myself cursing in my head when I take that first step on stage and see mostly empty seats.

Why is there that extra Monday show when they know Monday shows don't sell? Why are we doing four shows per town that are only filled to 12% when we could just as easily do two or three shows to more sizable crowds, especially in towns where they know from past experience that the crowds aren't there? And why, why such a heavy workload now (again, to an empty tent) when in the next three months we have almost as many shows to do as we've done in the last five months?

The resentment is growing and I'm really starting to feel angry. Three months to go is one thing, actually making it to the end is another...

This Bud's For You

One of the workers here at the circus is, shall we say, a pot affectionado. So much so he had his own little plant potted and proudly displayed in front of his caravan.

Fast forward to a recent ransport. I stuck around the old site until very near the end as I was going to go in one of the tractors. And so, while strolling past the little stream that had cut through the circus grounds, watching the final wagons disappear, I was stumbled upon a pot plant growing by the stream's bank.

What the heck?

As it turns out, the pot cultivating worker discovered his plant was male and therefore useless to him. He was just going to chuck it when his plant loving neighbour caught wind of his plan and, scandalized by the potential murder of an innocent plant, convinced him to give disowned plant a second chance. As such, it was planted among some tall grass and found a new home by the stream.

Your move, Johnny Appleseed.

Kitten Rescue!

Let's be real, people. This news is far too exciting for some fancy pants lead in. The news is exactly as the subject line suggests. A kitten has been rescued on tour!

If being next to a cookie factory wasn't awesome enough, while there, one of the artists found a kitten in serious distress and promptly began to nurse it back to health. The poor little guy was in dreadful shape. She was found barely crawling among some stacks of wooden pallets. Initially she was thought to be blind as her eyes were so badly crusted shut. Her breathing was laboured as her nose was also crusted over. She was filthy, with matted fur, and so thin she was more skeleton that cat.

She was washed and her eyes gently cleaned so she could see. I had no idea that "cat milk" was thing, but apparently it is, and some was purchased so the starving, dehydrated little lady could slowly regain her strength.

The first few days weren't pretty. She barely moved and a stiff breeze probably could have knocked her over. A very kind vet saw her for free and treated her for the many illnesses she'd contracted. What was once a shadow of a cat is now shaping up to be cuddly, mischievous little kitten who is slowly being encouraged to learn some fun, acrobatic tricks, like walking across her papa's outstretched arms.

And this kitten... oh this kitten...

Being allergic to cats, I've kind of made myself not be a cat person. But this little guy? She has totally won me over. I am smitten with this kitten. I think there was concern that the higher ups would not be pleased with the adoption of a kitten on the tour, but there was no need to worry. She's won everyone over.

She hangs out with us backstage and does transport like a champ. I dare say her level of cuteness maybe unrivaled. I swear, I can't even handle it. It was said that as soon as she'd regained her strength, they'd let her go. But who are we kidding? She's here to stay.

The New Neighbour

After our stay next to the cookie factory, our new neighbour was a psychiatric hospital. Not quite the same charm, but a very interesting public.

The Best Neighbour

The circus is right next to a cookie factory. The factory has a store. The store has free samples of ALL THE COOKIES!!! Now I look like this...

47km to Ruin

It was not a good day for transport.

In fact, I’d be willing to bet that it was one of the worst transports ever.

The director of the circus not only clipped something on route to the new town, but he also got a 240 franc speeding ticket.

One of the workers also clipped something, and later, almost run over a cyclist.

A tire blew on one of the vehicles.

Oh yeah, and this:

 
A tractor trailer, apparently fed up of constantly getting stuck behind members of our slow going circus convoy, decided to over take the car and caravan. He passed them so quickly the suction caused the the caravan to swerve uncontrollably and... well... you can see the result for yourself.

No one was hurt and the caravan will likely be sent to that great big trailer park in the sky.

New Records!

Is there anything more satisfying that breaking a record? That all depends on the record, I suppose.

We've been  breaking all kinds of records in the past few days, mostly of the heat related variety. Although I also broke my German wheel shoe lace record, the previous record being six uses before the damn thing broke. The new record being the very first use. Yippee!

But back to the heat records...

For a long time, the hottest the tent had been for a performance was 33°C. We broke that with 34°C only to break that record the following day with 35°C. The hot hot heat has also created a new record for consecutive performances in a tent above 30°C. We're at five in a row and counting! Even the night shows offered no relief. The temperature only dropped to 31°C.

Needless to say, we're all pretty miserable at the moment. Bring on the mountains! Bring on the fall!

EXCUSE ME?!

While performing, it's really annoying and distracting to have cameras going off in front of you. Flashes can be dangerous, and that little red light is just plain aggravating. My circus is very anti-photography which has really rubbed off on me and made me far more protective, although I suppose that a photo taken on someone's phone probably shouldn't worry me. Even still, when I see cameras going off in the public, I immediately call up to the booth and tell them to go kick some ass.

Then, of course, there's the far more sinister act of filming...

We were performing a matinee with a relatively small crowd. The seats directly on the ring curb were all but empty. All but one. There was one man in a white t-shirt with no one sitting on either side of him. This alone would have made him stand out, but the fact that he spent my entire act pointing his phone at me kind of made the alarm bells sound.

You can bet I gave him dirty looks. I'm sure they didn't register with him, though they made me feel a little better in the moment. I was in a rage when I got off stage. What possible reason could a person have to film an entire act? I immediately thought of this.

One of my cast mates tried to reassure me that he was probably just filming it so he could show his family later that evening, but that seemed unlikely. I didn't have much time to talk about it though. I was working concessions that intermission and had only a few minutes to get ready.

I arrived in the buffet tent and began to share my story of the evil act filmer when the man in question came speeding out of the main tent. Not sure what to do, I somehow found the courage to confront him.

I asked him why he filmed my act. There was some language issues but then a colleague to the rescue and there was no more beating around the bush. The words that then came out of his mouth were like a smack in the face and left me too numb to move.

"I work for Circus Nock. I'm filming it for work."

EXCUSE ME?!

YOU WERE FILMING IT FOR WORK?!?

My colleague made sure the video of my act, as well as the number of other videos he had taken of our show, was deleted from his phone.

I couldn't, and still can't, believe it. When I think about it now, I still feel like the only thing I can do is shake my head in disbelief and slow burning fury.

A bunch of us ended up going to see the show at Nock that very night and, to be fair, I don't think I had very much to worry about. But that's still pretty unacceptable behaviour and seeing as act theft is a very real thing, you can't really blame an artist for being protective of their years of work and research.

In the end, I had the morally questionable satisfaction of seeing my would-be thief shovel camel poop during their show. Petty though that may be, it made me feel better.

Weather Forecast

Approximate temperature inside of a circus tent in the middle of summer?

A million billion degrees.

Ugh.

It'll Do

It's no secret that it's getting harder and harder for circuses to find places to set up their Big Tops. Either the lots available aren't big enough, or the ones that were have since been developed. But sometimes, the Circus Gods smile down upon you and instead of some rocky patch of flood prone earth, you end up somewhere beautiful, like here:

Our tent was so close to the lake, that I could see it from the tent entrance backstage. It was mere metres away!

We were told that in the next town, we'd be even closer to the lake. Closer? How could you possibly be closer than a few steps away?

Like so, apparently...

The town we're in right now makes three in a row for lakeside property. Soon, we head into the mountains.

Sometimes circus life is pretty tough, but clearly, now is not one of those times.

The “Poor Me” Pity Parade

Warning: This post is long and ranting due to an accumulation of months of bullshit.

It was a show like any other, and then an event of a cataclysmic scale rocked the backstage. My wheel did not get up onto the ramp to get on stage. Well, one of the rims didn’t. And so, I tipped over a little. From the inside, it was all very slow and gentle. One of my cast mates struggled to right me, I came to rest against the décor, and eventually was shifted back on to the stage. While unfortunate, this was not the cataclysmic event…

When I got off stage after my act, I expected my cast mates to see if I was okay and then we’d all have a good laugh about what had happened. But no, that was not to be. The disaster of disasters had occurred.

Apparently my wheel smashed PM in the face and then her head was smashed into a pole that holds up the shelving units. It was all about P now.

PM, I should mention, is always hurt. There’s always something. It might be her thumb. It might be collapsing in a heap backstage after her act, right where the most traffic is, because it was too hot/hard to breathe/other. It might be one of her myriad dietary restrictions that is somehow upsetting her. She might just be off brooding. And this? Getting hit in the head with my wheel? This was the End Times.

Of course it was entirely my fault. At least, so it was according to her. Wow did she ever rage about how I never do my marks correctly and never do anything right! Except for those other 115 shows that came before. I have no doubt that after I had set my marks that the carpet was readjusted. Our Artist Director had decided that, in order for the workers to better dig the trench around the big top more efficiently, she would pull the carpets and boards away from the perimeter of the tent after they had been placed. It was the first time she had done that. I usually do my marks before the trench gets dug. Once the carpets were put back, they were kind of a mess and full of scrunches. As there had never been a problem before, I didn’t bother to check the marks again. But a difference of a couple of cm really can alter the course of the wheel, especially if the angle is changed. Heck, when I roll my wheel from its start position to the ramp to see if it’s correct (that’s about 1.5m) and then roll it back, it never arrives back on the marks. Never. A bumpy dirt floor will do that. It doesn’t take much.

That being said, for two days PM managed to do her act, though she took out one or two tricks. Her friends were there and I suppose she wanted to impress. But then her friends left, and suddenly things got a lot worse. It must be a concussion. Or a brain bleed (seriously). Something terrible anyway.

At this point I should probably mention that I didn’t realize the wheel even hit her. Which is odd considering I can feel the texture of the floor when I’m rolling on it. And anytime I’ve ever hit anything, I’ve been very much aware of it. When you hit something with any kind of force, you feel it in your entire body. It was only three days later that I realized that what I thought was coming to rest against the décor was actually the famous blow. It was about then that my jaw hit the floor because that was about as tame a bump as you can possibly get from a German wheel. Of course it also made sense as far as the series of events went. The wheel was being held up and braced as it fell over. It didn’t just crash toward the ground.

Meanwhile, PM went to the doctor, had her brain scanned and all kinds of tests done and then it was discovered that there was… nothing. Nothing at all.

When you’re the Grand Marshall of the never ending “Poor Me” Pity Parade, “nothing” suddenly makes you look like maybe you might just be seeking attention. Not that that’s every stopped a Pity Parade.

In a tone of suffering, PM would tell anyone who asked how she was doing that there was no bleeding in the brain (there might have been!) and when she was asked if she had a concussion there was a lot of “Well, no, but…” and then a great deal more tales of suffering. Eventually, the answer to the concussion question was transformed to a yes…

That’s when things really started to get suspicious. We were doing a gala when suddenly PM was complaining of terrible headaches. She could then be found sitting backstage, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, now wearing glasses, and the kind of noise blocking earmuffs you would find on a construction site. Three days after the event, the situation had dramatically gone down hill.

It was only after the gala, when I was back in my caravan that I remembered that P had spent the first half of the show plugged into her ipod. Other elements of the story no longer seemed to make sense. Symptoms, actions, and the timeline did not fit together. Whenever the discrepancies were pointed out, the story changed.

For a while I thought I was the only one to see through the charade. But when asked if she would be doing the group acro act, the reaction to her response was one of giggles and rolled eyes. One of the artists could be heard to say “Oh yes, she’ll do it, but not without making sure you know she’s going to suffer through it.” When another artist pointed out that she didn’t look good, the immediate reaction from one of the other artists present was that “Things don’t always look the way they are.”

Naturally, PM was in tears after the acro act and hasn’t done the show since.

What I consider the final word is that from the Director of Artists. She confirmed that the scans showed nothing, that nothing was wrong, and that P had what is known as cranial trauma, otherwise known as, she got hit in the head. I often wonder if the Director of Artists really believed the Parade. I mean, she did say PM could skip her act and the group acro number, but still had her do trapeze for a number of shows. At this point, the DA just keeps saying, if she just does nothing, it will heal faster. Which is probably true, but I can’t help but wonder if it’s not just the easiest way of avoiding the never ending Pity Parade.

All I know is that I’m over it. I’m over asking how she is and feeding the hunger for attention. Any time I have ever offered any kind of advice, solution, or alternative to one of her many problems, I was always met with a sad voice saying “No, that won’t work with me because [insert reason for being different/special/irreparable here]” She doesn’t want to get better. She wants someone to feel sorry for her and to smother her with attention. And I, for one, am done wasting my time and energy on that shit.

Great, Just Great

It was a beautiful, sunny day. So naturally, the tent flooded.

Wait, what?

It would appear that the lot we're currently occupying is not only covered in elephant poop, but also has incredibly poor drainage. It would seem that every so often the ground just can't take it anymore and regurgitates whatever water it managed to absorb.

The best part is that it wasn't the area around the tent that flooded, not the area around the caravans or any of the trucks. Nope. Just the inside of the tent, right around the backstage and performance area. A week later and it is still soaking wet backstage. There are puddles right next to the extension of the stage. Sure, they put down more sawdust, more carpets, even the plastic tiles they use in particularly muddy places. But it's made no difference. It is a million degrees and sunny and we have a soaking wet steam bath inside the tent. It ain't pretty.

I try not to think about what build down is going to be like. Normally the bottom layer is tarps, then sawdust (if needed) and then carpets. We take away the carpets and then shift all the sawdust onto one tarp for easy clean up. But this place saw sawdust go directly on the ground, then tarps, then more sawdust, then carpets, then flooding, so more sawdust, new carpets and then tiles and lord knows what else... It's going to be a mess. Let's just hope nothing else goes wrong in the remaining week on this site!