Thursday's Trip Down Memory Lane

In keeping with the theme of Dancing week - here is a shot of your very own hot, hip, dancing blogger!!

In my hometown, all of the cool girls went to Marge and Becky's Dance Studio for the main purpose of learning tumbling. Well I couldn't tumble worth a sh*t, I think I was finally doing back bends around the time that the rest of my age group were mastering back flips. Of course I blame my parents, their genetic legacy produced a highly inflexible child, a point noted by my personal trainer when she tried to test my flexibility and I didn't even register on the little bend over this way and move this little thingee test. Anyway, though I couldn't tumble, I was one hell of a jazz dancer!! The majority of the class hour was devoted to tumbling with the last 15 minutes or so of dance. I really took to it and in retrospect I wish there had been some way to nurture that, but in a town of 750, there aren't a lot of options.

This recital was when I was 9 and the theme was country and western. We did a rousing tumbling routine to "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" and then a jazz dance to some other tune I can't recall. This was my last year of training at Marge and Becky's as I started to become embarrassed at my lack of talent in tumbling and moved on to other things I sucked at, like soccer.

Sweet Victory!!

The universe listened and Marie's butt was booted at the beginning of the show!! My cries of joy actually scared the dogs, but in the end if was the BEST SEASON EVER!!

Give the Mirror Ball to the REAL Dancers!

I'm a Dancing freak!! That's all there is to say about it!
I've been watching Dancing with the Stars since the middle of the first season and it's been amazing to see how much the celebrities have raised the bar. This season has been fantastic and has brought out a great deal of passion in this television watcher. While screaming at the TV one night I finally understood BJ's devotion to Razorback football, especially as I painfully yell and boo when craptastic celebrities get voted on past far superior dancers.

Now I'm dealing with a finale of two amazing celebrity dancers and one completely pathetic camera hog who really can't dance. If you're a fan of Marie Osmond and her pitiful attempts at dancing, I'm really sorry ... nah, I'm not 'cuz she SUCKS!! Now I'll admit that she's far better than some of the finalists in say season one or two, but compared to the talent this season??? She's a has been. Despite the fact that I *may* have once owned a Donnie and Marie doll set in the mid 70s and a Donnie and Marie soundstage, I do NOT appreciate her presence in the finals. Sidenote: as I recall the Donnie doll had an M-80 shoved down his gullet during a particularly exciting fireworks war at the farm when we dredged toys from the attic during one particularly awesome Fourth of July brought to us by my bachelor uncles and their truckload of illegal fireworks. I believe that was also the day that we built Lincoln Log forts and took turns shelling them with roman candles and various incendiary devices. I think I was about 8 or 9 at the time .... ahhh memories of childhood that are NOT supported by the Consumer Product Safety Commission ... but I digress. If Marie Osmond wins tonight - honestly I can't even think about it because it makes me sick, literally SICK.

On the bright side, I have LOVED Helio and Julianne from the first week, and Mel and Maks quickly grew on me as well. They have been my two favorites so I'm psyched to see them in the finals and if there is any justice in the world, one of them will proudly hoist the mirror ball trophy tonight.

Random thoughts ...

First of all, my home state is NOT pronounced "Illi noise" - the "s" is silent!! I was just watching the local news and someone pronounced it wrong and it irritated me.

Second, GO TIGERS!! My Missouri Tigers are now ranked #1 after a resounding victory over Kansas! Hmmm, fried Jayhawk anyone?

BJ was very proud of me given that I watched the game AND actually understood a good portion of it. We did have to occasionally pause so he could point out what was going on around the line of scrimmage (you mean the offensive linemen and the defensive linemen are different players?!?!) and I learned a few new things like what the safety does and how overtimes work. I did fall asleep in the 4th quarter, but in my defense I had gotten off work at 7:30 a.m. and just slept a few hours that day.

Third random thought, I am so sick of credit card fraud. I had a really bad incident about 10 years ago when my wallet was pickpocketed out of my purse by someone I *thought* I had bumped into, and they charged over $10,000 on my cards at Best Buy and Circuit City within 2 hours. They had my driver's license and opened up accounts in my name at several stores and continued to try to buy things for several months. It was a flippin' mess! Earlier this year, someone used my Citibank card number to charge $300 of foreign purchases in Germany, and now this weekend apparently my debit card number was compromised. Of course in this case they used it to buy some things AND pay off a T-Mobile bill so I'm hoping the culprit is tracked down. At least when my wallet was stolen a decade ago, I KNEW that there was illicit activity going on. In both of my recent cases, the cards have been in my possession all along. I know that I'm not going to be responsible for paying, but somewhere, someone is having to eat these costs.

Fourth, I need to pass along a miraculous discovery! I'll never have to scrub a toilet again!!! Momma K works in the plumbing industry and she introduced us to the Sparkle and Clean device that you attach to your tank. Apparently those bleach tablets that you drop in the tank are BAD BAD BAD and they corrode out the flushing mechanism. This device adds the bleach to the water in the bowl only so it's not bad for your toilet. My toilet has sparkled this past week, it's the best thing ever!!! I can only comment on the bleach one (which my Mom uses as well) - don't know about the blue ones, but you can get them at any home improvement store.

Fifth, I had posted a while back that I wasn't sure about my wedding dress?? Well I tried it on for my Mom when she was here and we both LOVE it!! I think the purple rocks!! And since we're eloping and it won't be seen amongst our general acquaintance in person, the link here has a few sneak peeks!!

Last random thought, I have the cutest damn dogs in the world! BJ's Mom stayed over last night for a quick visit and the dogs thought it was the best thing ever. As she was leaving this morning, they sadly looked out the door....

Yes I love my Mom!

I had briefly mentioned before that Momma K was coming to town and she had the distinction of being our first house guest! Since I was working all during the Thanksgiving holiday, she came out early and we had our holiday a few days early. She's not much for driving and my home town is about 7 and 1/2 hours away, so she decided to Amtrak it. At about 3:30 a.m. on Saturday morning she arrived for her first trip to Little Rock! We did some of the obvious things like went downtown to the River Market, drove past the Clinton Library ("that looks like a big trailer" - Momma K), went out for catfish and fried pickles, headed to the river and the Big Dam Bridge, visited the local tea shop which is fabulous and got stuck in Razorback football traffic ... though that was an accident.

One of her favorite things was her visit to the Bath Junkie. It's a Fayetteville, AR based bath product company and they have the best salt scrubs I've EVER found. The best part is they mix it up individually when you buy it and you get to choose the scents AND the color. I knew Mom would love it and she used her scrub and spray on lotion (called Body Dessert) pretty much every day she was here.

I think BJ was most appreciative of her cooking lessons. I'm a little apprehensive when I'm in the kitchen because I just haven't spent much time there in the past. So we took the opportunity to cook several meals together and I FINALLY uncovered the secret to cooking eggs ... hint don't have the skillet so damn hot! When it comes to Thanksgiving dinner, that's one area where I do have experience. I've hosted Thanksgiving on more than one occasion and can whip out a turkey, homemade stuffing, and mashed potatoes and gravy like nobody's business. I'm not a fan of pumpkin pie (I was thinking more of chocolate cheesecake) but BJ insisted and I made excellent use of my Uncle Dave's impossibly easy pumpkin pie recipe. Overall the meal turned out great and Mom and I had lots of bonding time in the kitchen ... albeit about two decades late since I had NO interest when I was growing up.

Momma K loved the house and quickly settled into our guest room and didn't complain a bit about the waterbed currently in there (it belonged to BJ and it was a condition of our living together .... NO WATERBED in our room!) The dogs always love it when "Grandma" visits and everyone was in good spirits. We were sad to see her go and sadly I haven't cooked since :(

Thursday's Trip Down Memory Lane

I am a true child of the 80s and I have such an endearing fondness for the music, TV and pop culture of that era. There's nothing I love more than catching a rerun of an awesome 80s movie on TBS, you know one of those movies that you saw so many times that you can quote it as if you had the script memorized.

For me, the best examples of that would be the John Hughes oeuvre. As an adolescent red head who HATED my red hair, Molly Ringwald was my hero (though interestingly enough she's naturally brunette - though I didn't know it at the time).

While browsing my important news sites ... you know things like People, E! online, Entertainment Weekly etc. I came across this article debating which was the best John Hughes movie. Having seen all of them multiple times, I found this quite interesting. I looked him up on imdb and his resume as writer, director and/or producer is staggering!! Beyond the obvious Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles, he was involved with Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Weird Science, Planes Trains and Automobiles, Vacation, Christmas Vacation, Mr. Mom, Uncle Buck ... all movies that I've seen and enjoyed.

Nothing takes me back to my youth more than seeing one of those pivotal movies that I so identified with as an adolescent. I HAD a crush on my own high school version of Jake Ryan, wanted to dance like Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing, felt the need - the need- for speed like Maverick and Goose, believed I could be crucial in the fundraiser to save Ferris, and truly believed that Buttercup and Westley were meant for each other. My love of movies started in the 80s and continues to this day, and no matter how cheesy, how dated, I can't not watch these shows when I catch them on cable.

BTW, if you're wondering where I stand on the greatest John Hughes movie debate ... just check out the shirt I'm wearing here :)

Fun with the new house!!

So despite our little set backs in the new home .... did I mention the leaking gas line to the fireplace?? ... I LOVE being a homeowner! Of course we haven't gotten completely unpacked, but it definitely looks settled in already.

BJ painted our boring white door a brilliant shade of red that looks fabulous! It was our way of saying "hey neighborhood, we're here!"

I should mention that it's really nice having a handy kindof partner. He's been hard at work changing out the deadbolts, putting a keypad entry mechanism on the front door, running cables in the attic to setup our wireless home network and home theater system, and of course the pièce de résistance - mounting the new plasma screen on the wall above the fireplace. Did I ever mention that we had to get rid of the 56 inch big screen? Of course it hurt BJ far more than it hurt me, but given the setup of the living room there was no place to put the massive monument to sloth. He sold it to a co-worker and had to begrudgingly downsize to the 42 inch plasma. Though after mounting it and sitting on the couch, he did agree that anything larger would have been impractical based on the size of the room.


The flow of cash out of my checking account and to places like Lowe's, Target and Bed Bath and Beyond continues :) It's amazing how a new shower curtain, a few rugs and a cute accent towel can suddenly camouflage a hideous 1980s era bathroom.

Did I mention our fabulous yard?? It's probably more weeds than grass but it has so much potential! It's going to be a challenge to figure out how to landscape given the massive trees in the area. When the satellite guy drove out he basically said, "Yeah this isn't going to work." When he was on the phone with Dish trying to tell them that we needed to cancel our service because there was no way to point to the satellites he told them, "it's so wooded I'm expecting Robin Hood to make an appearance at any moment."

Hopefully in a few weeks we'll be able to get our cars in the garage and be able to actually find the specific item of clothing we're looking for!

Home Update

It's been a busy week hence the lack of blogging. I suppose it's time for an update as I await the plumber's arrival. Plumber you say?? Yes, apparently we do actually have some sort of a water leak in the wall behind the stove. After seeing the lovely puddle return under the cabinets yesterday we realized that this was no isolated incident. Luckily we have this wonderful thing called a "home warranty" so we'll owe the plumber $45 once he arrives and the warranty will cover up to $1000 of plumbing repairs (please oh please don't be any more!). I'm guessing that there will be a nice hole cut in the wall but they can do it from the other side of the kitchen which is the laundry room! And I could care less is I have unfinished drywall in there.

So other than the unplanned leak, the move has gone rather smoothly. Of course we didn't have everything packed, but a good 90% of it. I think I'll have one more load of miscellaneous crap to put in my car and then we can close the chapter on "M" Street. It took the movers 5 hours to do the task and regardless of how much it cost it was WORTH EVERY PENNY! The only thing I noticed was a ding out of the corner of one of my bedroom dresser drawers, but I'm sure the damage would have been worse, not just physically but to my own psyche if we had attempted to move ourselves.

There are of course things I'll be looking forward to upgrading in the new house - the late 1970s era bathrooms will one day have to go - but overall it's wonderful! It'll be days before we have things unpacked, but I can already see it falling into place. We went to Lowe's last night and picked up new deadbolts and a cool looking front doorknob, as well as a keypad entry for the front door. I'm beginning to love my little trips there, even if they all do seem to cost an arm and a leg.

Did I mention that Momma K (my Mom) is visiting this weekend? It will be her first trip to Little Rock and the first extended time she gets to spend with BJ. I'm thinking that we'll all have a blast!!

UGH!

We showed up to the new house this morning planning on doing a few quick things, heading back to the old place to pack, and then getting our engagement shots done later in the day. Well that was derailed when we arrived to find a pool of water on the kitchen floor!!!

After some sleuthing on our part, our hypothesis is that the seller's had a water accident when moving their washer and though they cleaned it up in the laundry room, some water escaped and was living under our kitchen cabinets, only to seep out from beneath the caulking a day later. When we pulled the caulk and baseboards out of the kitchen we found nice pools of water. We soaked it up as best as we could and now have a heater blowing on the concrete subfloor. Some water also rolled under the parquet flooring between the kitchen and dining room so we mopped that up as well.

We're *hoping* that we were right and it's just pooled water that was hanging out for a few days trapped by all of the caulked baseboards as opposed to an ongoing leak. I guess we'll see tomorrow when we go back to either a dried out subfloor or another pool :(

Lowe's ROCKS!!!

I'm not much of a shopper - I actually really hate shopping, but I think I have found a new mecca ... a new outlet for imprudent financial purchases - yes, blog readers that would be the home improvement store!!

Now lest you think I've never stepped foot in Lowe's or Home Depot, let me assure you that I have on occasion purchased a bolt or a screw or a thingamajig at one of these stores. My visits however have always been highly focused, a quest for something I specifically needed, and usually something that would require a sales associate to translate what I *thought* it was called - you mean it's not called a "little flexy door stopper thingee?? - into what I was looking for.

Today, BJ sent me to the Lowe's down the road from our new house on a quest for door hinges, a peep hole, and a specific drill bit. In order to be an educated shopper, I had an old hinge with me, the old peep hole and the needed drill bit written on a sheet of paper. Of course despite all of this preparation I'm pretty sure I called BJ at least four times with various questions because once I arrived I was overwhelmed by the expansiveness of it all!! Now that I actually OWN a home, things like sinks and countertops, light fixtures, faucets and crown moulding actually matter to me. Who knew that there were 20 different types of bathroom vents with different levels of suckability and loudness?? I was wandering the aisles and making mental images of my dream bathroom and kitchen, how cool that chandelier would look over the dining table and WOW I've always wanted a decorative flag pole to put those cheesy seasonal flags with turkeys and Santas on them (Merry Thanksgiving?). I had to re-focus my efforts on the needed items because I could have easily gotten lost in all the grandeur of things that would make my new home hellacool!

Of course I suppose we should actually get moved in first, but I have a feeling that I will soon come to love spending all of my hard earned money making my new home pretty :)

Things learned from closing

1. I really don't know how to sign my full name with middle initial.

At work my signature is J. Lastname RN which is pretty much the only way I ever write it. I was told this was prohibited and I had to sign my FULL name. Though interestingly it never looked the same way twice.

2. Our interest rate was slightly better than my sister-in-law's which I know is driving her crazy! :)

3. BJ does not handle disorganization and last minute changes in plans very well.

Of course I already knew this - I mean he's an engineer and details and precision are his life - but this was my first time seeing it in action. I was wishing we lived in Colorado so I could have borrowed some of JCR's xanax which always helps in such situations!!!

(author's note: of course as a professional nurse I would never knowingly take or encourage anyone else to take a medication not prescribed for them by a licensed practitioner. Though I'm not against spiking his coffee with Nyquil or whiskey)

4. The title agent has a daughter named Jennifer Jones and she has had issues with being confused with deadbeats who have the same name, which is another example of why I am choosing to hyphenate.

5. Our mortgage broker is disorganized and does things at the last minute causing unneeded stress in MY life (see #3).

For some reason he allegedly thought we were closing on the 14th, so basically our appraisal wasn't ordered until Monday, he was needing documents from us up until yesterday afternoon, and we weren't sure it was actually going to happen until this morning. We had also asked several weeks ago when we first started the process whether we'd need a specific affidavit signed and were assure "No" only to find out on Tuesday that we needed it completed, signed by someone else who lives out of town, and returned to the bank before closing.

6. You can get a $135,000 mortgage without ever walking into a bank or meeting your mortgage broker.

Yes, we live in an information age where everything was handled with online applications, emailed documents that we'd sign, scan and email back, and the telephone. Of course it might be a good thing that we don't actually know where his office is, because yesterday afternoon we might have been ready to rumble. And did I mention that it was just this morning that we read about the balloon payment on our second mortgage (we did an 80/15 loan) due in 15 years that was never discussed with us?

7. BJ is the first person the title agent has ever closed who wanted ALL of the documents up front (approximately 250 pages worth) and then ACTUALLY READ them before we showed up to sign.

8. Other than the aforementioned mortgage broker issues, buying a house was a remarkably easy process for us and took less than one month from the time we first started looking.

We had heard horror stories about fights and drama and stress for couples buying a home, and it's literally been a breeze. Of course I'll need to re-evaluate that AFTER we've moved and see if I can still make that claim!

9. It's VERY exciting to be able to say that we own a home!!

Thursday's Trip Down Memory Lane

Today we're closing on our house and I'm more excited than I can say! The thought of having our own walls, our own yard, our own mortgage interest deduction, fills me with joy!! I was trying to think of a parallel from the past and I immediately recalled the first time I left home and moved into my "own place."

It was Fall 1993 and after spending two years at home going to community college, I was moving into an apartment at Illinois State University. I escaped the dorms (which in retrospect might not have been the best idea, I think I would have become connected with the school a lot quicker had I done the dorm thing) and I moved in with Spooky who was my best friend from high school and another girl I didn't know. We had a two bedroom apartment furnished with the most ridiculously cheap furniture you can imagine ... cheap wood with stained cushions, a rickety table and chairs and bunk beds. I'm thinking that between the three of us we were paying about $800 a month or so which was sheer highway robbery. Of course at the time I didn't care, I was so excited about being on my own. I could come home drunk, or not at all, sleep in as late as I wanted, shop for my own groceries and have my own address. It was incredibly liberating!!

My then boyfriend helped me move in before he was off to college far away in Cincinnati. Despite being "so in love" ... of course it barely lasted until Christmas break. But that first day when I moved in, ready to start my life in college away from home - I felt on top of the world!!

And yes, I'm a dweeb

By the way, the last post was composed as I'm sitting in the office wearing my pajamas and my wedding veil. The kindly mailman delivered it early this afternoon and I of course couldn't resist putting it on right away. I'd probably be sitting around in my dress too if I wasn't worried about getting it dirty!!!

sidenote: thanks to the future in laws for hooking me up with the veil maker. I paid a whopping $27 for it!!

A Bonus Hour!!

Sometimes in life you get screwed, and there's nothing you can do but grin and bear it. This weekend was a prime example ...

I was scheduled for my usual nights shifts (7 p.m. to 7:30 a.m.) all weekend and didn't realize until Friday that this was the dreaded "Fall Back" time of year for daylight savings time. If you've never worked a 12.5 hour hour shift and then been FORCED to relive 2 a.m. AGAIN - you seriously don't know what you're missing. It happened to be a particularly slow night for me anyway since I had an easy two baby assignment so it was completely excruciating. I know that it's only one extra hour, but seriously, I felt like time had stopped. I was wishing Hiro would show up and teleport me to the end of the shift ... instead I just had an extra helping of caffeine.

Then of course the stupid dayshift staff come in and talk about how they "tried to sleep in that extra hour, but woke up anyway." Like I want to hear about the extra hour YOU were given to sit in bed and read your Sunday paper. Have you no humanity?? I had to whack myself in the head to stay awake for my 13 and a half hour shift, so just shut it!!

While we're on the topic of work - I'll just say that IVs are the bane of my existence. I'm a really bright girl and I think I'm a damn good nurse. I can spot a change in my patient's condition, have a fairly good idea about what needs to be done about it, and even sometimes talk the idiot resident (OK, they're not ALL idiots ... probably about half ..... or maybe three-quarters???) into trusting my instincts. We'll just say that in the past, there have been some fairly life-threatening crises averted due to my gut instinct and hounding the doc until I got the x-ray or diagnostic test that was needed. When it comes to putting in IVs ??? I suck.

As a new grad, I worked at a hospital where our patients always had great access in place so it was rare that I had to even need to try to stick for a line. After about a year or so and having very few successful IV experiences, it started to become one of those things I'd obsess over because I knew I wasn't good at it. When I started traveling, I didn't worry too much about it because there's ALWAYS someone around who rocks at IVs, and every now and then I do have some luck. Unfortunately I'm now working at a hospital where it's less common to have a patient with what I'd consider *good* access (PICC line, Broviac etc), so I'm needing new IVs all the time. Last week, it was god awful and almost every patient I took care of had IVs that went bad, and had shit for veins since everything had already been stuck. Of course it wasn't just me, even the kick ass IV starters had troubles which certainly made me feel a little better, but didn't stop me from thinking "Jenn, you suck!" So I decided that instead of cringing every time I need a new IV, I will welcome it as an opportunity to try to improve. I mean seriously, you could probably teach a chimp to put in an IV ... though they wouldn't look nearly as cute as I do in my scrubs!

Scary Things!

On this day after Halloween I thought I'd muse about several unrelated topics that all qualify as "scary things."

Scary Thing #1 - My wedding dress
I went to the bridal shop yesterday and picked up my wedding dress. Remember when I said I was having the champagne colored satin dress trimmed in plum?? Well, believe you me - it's purple!! My first thought was "I LOVE IT!" but then the confidence was replaced by misgivings of "Jenn, are you seriously getting married with purple all over your ass end??" I think as I was surrounded by all of the white and ivory traditional concoctions around me, I was having some doubts about my own unique vision. Will my mom think it's hideous? Will BJ hate it?? As I tried it on, there were some people in the shop who clearly applauded how unique and personal it was. Betsy who sold it to me loved how it turned out and thought I looked adorable in it. Then there was the other shop worker who CLEARLY thought - hmm definitely a fashion don't. Of course I have to remember that when I started this whole wedding thing I wasn't even going to wear anything remotely traditional, I had wanted to get a red, green or purple dress and forgo the bridal look all together. Now I'm at least in a mostly white dress and planning on wearing a veil - so what if I have bright purple on my chest and my train?? Since when am I a cookie cutter kindof girl???

Scary Thing #2 - Wedding Vows
Luckily BJ and I both agree on having a civil ceremony. I'm NOT the religious type though I would have been willing to have a religious based ceremony IF it were really important to him. The folks who are marrying us are basically letting us design our own ceremony so I have spent the last week or so researching various ceremony details like vows, exchange of rings, readings etc.

We already decided that we would find pre-written vows to repeat from the justice of the peace in lieu of writing our own. I think the whole composing our own is a tenuous situation for what is already a nerve wracking moment, as beautifully illustrated by one of his good friends who vowed in front of all those in the church to never "sperm" his wife as opposed to "spurn" her.

While looking up vows on the internet here and here, there are some things that are absolutely vomit inducing, either because of the whole misogynistic overtone or the ridiculously sappy, and then the strangely Dr. Seussian. Our favorite find thus far was this Celtic vow, seriously we'd bring the house down with this one ...

"I pledge to you that yours will be the name I cry aloud in the night and
the eyes into which I smile in the morning
I pledge to you the first bite of my meat and the first drink from my cup
..."

Scary Thing #3 - Unity Candles
Interestingly enough when we discussed the actual wedding, my deal breaker was having anything overtly Christian, while his deal breaker was having a unity candle ceremony. I assumed his objection was to the whole cheesiness of the unity candle, but actually he is very opposed to what it represents as he has seen it performed in weddings ... the two separate candles used to light the center and then the separate ones blown out ... to him that symbolizes that the individual identity is extinguished. Now when I've seen the unity candle back north, the Moms of the bride and groom light the individual candles at the very beginning and then during the wedding, the couple takes those individual candles and lights the center. There are then three candles that remain lit, sortof symbolizing the joining of the two families. I always thought it was cheesy but sentimental at the same time.

For giggles and grins, I did some research on the unity candle (here, here and here) and it's meaning and found that it's used both the way BJ sees it and how I have described. Even after discussing this with him, he is still adamantly opposed and cannot get the "traditional" symbolism out of his mind because he finds it so distasteful, especially to the woman. Methinks he's been to too many Baptist type weddings here in the south where people still promise to obey :)

Scary Thing #4 - Haunted Houses
I'm not big in the Halloween scene and I hate scary movies and all things creepy in general. BJ though is a big fan of such things, so we decided to go to a haunted house last night. There are several options in the Little Rock area, but we chose the Haunted Hospital which had received the highest reviews on the Arkansas Times website. It was actually pretty good, they had lots of "actors" who came out to scare, and even touch the participants. I think BJ derived great enjoyment out of watching me steer clear of the creepy chainsaw guy who ran down the hall after us :)