deird_lj

You know, I love Melbourne weather.
...most of the time.

My office is airconditioned and comfortable - we don't like weather getting in. So I didn't really notice the gusty winds until lunchtime. And then it was just a "Huh. A bit on the windy side. Must be autumn."
Also, for some reason, the internet was taking ages to load pages. But I just thought the computers were stuffing up. They do that sometimes.

Then, at 4:15, I walked into Parliament Station to get on a train.

A few statistics for you:
Parliament Station is in the city.
My house is half an hour away by train, on a good day.
Which means that if I catch a train at quarter past four, I should be home before five.
My play starts at 8:30.
I'm supposed to be at the theatre by 7:30.
Which means that I should be leaving home, at the latest, by 6:45.
Got all that?

Like I said, I hadn't really noticed the weather. There was certainly a lot of wind. But while the crane outside my building was rocking back and forth alarmingly, it simply hadn't occured to me that anything else might be happening.
Until I reached the station. Where the booming announcer voices told me that the Glen Waverley line was down, due to trees on the track, and I'd have to get a train to Burnley, and get on the free buses to Glen Waverley from there.

Glen Waverley is the 16th station on the line, from Parliament.
Burnley is the 3rd.

I briefly considered getting a train to Nunawading (on a different line), and catching a bus from there, but the Nunawading line was down too.
So, Burnley it was. I got on an extremely crowded train, and got out at Burnley, where I waited optimistically for the free buses.

A few more statistics for you:
Although I didn't know this at the time, trees-falling-across-railway-tracks had taken out one third of the railway lines.
Trees had also fallen across several arterial roads, bringing half of Melbourne's traffic to a standstill.
Trees had then decided to smash into powerlines, taking out half the city's power (including lots of traffic lights), and bringing the other half of Melbourne's traffic to a standstill.
And this was all happening at peak hour - when the traffic is pretty much at a standstill anyway...

Then it started raining.

Long story short?
I was stuck, in the rain, at Burnley station, for one and a half hours.
And once I finally got on a bus, it got stuck in traffic.
So I got home at 7:45.

Of course, being a conscientious theatrical performer, I knew I should ring the stage manager and let her know I'd be late.
Being an ADDer, I didn't have the stage manager's number on me.
And of course, being short-sighted, I hadn't thought to charge my phone, so it was low on battery power.
And my family, knowing I had to get to the theatre, and being concerned about the traffic, kept ringing me, and draining my phone's battery even more...

I managed to call one of the other actors, and asked him to call the stage manager and let her know I might be late. Which was all I could do, really.

So, anyway...

I got home at 7:45, covered in mud from standing in the rain, starving because I'd had a smallish lunch (knowing I'd have a very large dinner), and needing to feed a starving cat.
I raced into the kitchen, chucked a frozen dinner into the microwave, dumped a whole stack of bikkies into Elf's bowl, plugged my phone into the charger, had an extremely fast shower, ran back to the kitchen, and tried to ring the stage manager to give her an update on where I was.
Except, as I said before, I didn't have her number. It's stored in only one place - my email. Which requires my computer.
My computer screen is slightly quirky - its main feature being a refusal to turn on for an hour after being plugged in again if the power dropped out unexpectedly. The power to my street had come on as I walked in my front door (literally, at that moment), and so my computer screen wouldn't turn on at all.
So I went down the list of cast members, to see if any of them could pass on a message for me.

The first guy hadn't reached the theatre yet either.
The second one didn't answer.
And the third? She plays my little sister, Emma, and she was still stuck at Flinders St.
(For non-Aussie types: Flinders St is at the centre of Melbourne. Around about the same place as Parliament Station. You know? The place it took me almost 4 hours to get home from? Yeah. That one.)

Emma hadn't got any credit left on her phone, so she hadn't been able to call the stage manager either...

I finally got through to someone who could leave a message for me, and then I grabbed my dinner, ran to the car, and raced to the theatre.
(Sidebar: my garage door is electric. I'm so glad the power came back on when it did!)

So, I got to the theatre ten minutes before we started. And when we started, Emma still wasn't there. She was still at Flinders, trying to get a taxi.
The assistant stage manager very nicely volunteered to stand in for Emma (so, holding a script, and no costumes, but at least there'd be someone on the stage). And that's why my fifteen year old sister ended up being played by a woman in her late thirties...

Hey, at least our power stayed on while the play was happening. We got some weird light flickering, but that's all.

(Although, talking of weird lighting... At one point the lights stayed up between scenes, and then went to scene-change-style dim lighting at the start of the next scene. And at the end of the show, they stayed on for an extra minute after the play was supposed to finish, and we all sat there trying to think up extra lines to say so it wouldn't look weird.)

So... that's my saga.
But like I said, I love Melbourne weather. Most of the time.