Time in: 8:45 a.m.
Time out: 7:45 p.m.

So I've learned that parades follow their tracks very very closely. In the character room, the tracks aren't really binding, most of the time I just went up to a coordinator and asked them what to do next to be helpful. On parades, it's the end of the world if you're 5 minutes off. So to save myself from having to write the gigantic tracks down every day, I just made a page with the track detailed on it. It can be found to the right of this blog.

Today was so much fun! I absolutely love this parade and all the people who work on it. I'm so glad that they understand my humor and mesh with my personality. I worked with Luz, Marisela, Shang, Edna, and the coordinator was Anna. It's very structured but there's also room for craziness. For example, this morning we had to make a run to the PC as soon as we got to shade control because Edna thought she needed a new Bob body pad. So Anna and Luz went, but by the time they got back we had realized we actually needed a Jessie body pad, not a Bob one. Nobody knew what Enda was talking about with the Bob one, not even Edna knew. I also had to run and get another pair of shoes for one of the stilt walkers. I thought my coordinator said 10.5, but as soon as I was back with the 10.5's she said that she actually needed a 9.5. So I had to go back. Luckily I actually found the boy's real pair of shoes that had his name on them and everything which is always great. If they can use their own same shoe over and over again, they like to.

The rest of the day was pretty seamless. I got to help Baloo a lot today which I liked. I really like that character and how his costume is set up. I feel so important helping him simply because he's so huge. I don't really know why. So all was going well until right after lunch. It was about 2:45 and I was presetting my chipmunks when all of a sudden Ryan, the Day Parade coordinator, comes running up to me with keys in one hand and what looks like a plastic stick in the other. He's freaking out and tells me I have to drive the van to the character room to drop off the stick (turns out it was the Fairy Godmother's wand!). He's telling me it's so important and they needed it 5 minutes ago and I've got to leave now. So we're running to this van (that I've never driven before, mind you) and I'm double checking what I've got to do, I'm starting to get a little panicked because he was freaking out so bad. So he directs me backing up the van, and then I'm off. As soon as I pulled up at the character room my manager Jerry comes sprinting out to the van to get the wand. And I mean, he was sprinting! I still don't know what exactly happened and why it was needed there so incredibly soon, but it was a crazy 10 minutes. When I drove back I got stopped in traffic because the floats were moving. No cars are allowed to travel around the PC while the floats are moving, so I sat and waited. When I finally parked the van and went inside, all the Day Parade people were walking in. Ryan saw me and yelled my name, trying to talk to me but I kept on walking. I was trying to de-stress. He ran up and asked me if everything was okay and I explained that it was fine, nothing had gone wrong but he had stressed me out doing that and it wouldn't have been okay if it was anybody else. Ryan and I get along very well, I love working with him, so he understood. After that I continued with my presets until break at 4:30.

We were waiting to get back in the truck to leave at 5 for Shade Control when Ryan comes walking up to me and hands me something. It was a 4 Keys Fanatic card he filled out for me for Show and Courtesy because I "went above and beyond helping with the Fairy Godmother's wand". I could've cried! It was the most special way to receive my first Fanatic card and it was all worth it after that. Ryan's the best. It was the cherry on top of a fabulous and eventful day.

That's all the magic for today!