One Officer, Officer Dunne, says, "Okay folks sorry to tell you this, but you are NOT going to get in." The deer-in-the-headlight looks from all the comics made him elaborate.

"I'm not kidding. This is the deal. The casting people are only staying till 5 PM. Each comic has to go in, fill out papers, say hello, audition for three minutes, etc. We calculated the last person who could audition by counting all the people in line. We put a cut off point by a door way up front. Now you are welcome to stay in this line... but I'm telling you now you are not getting in, so you are wasting your time. We suggest you all go home. I'm sorry."

We all just stood in the line. We’re comics; maybe this is a cruel joke.

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Okay, I know the title sounds like a passage from the Bible, but don't worry, now that I've thawed out from the Ice hotel… I'm not about to give you a sermon. Instead this is about how in one week I went from almost being judged by two people…to judging twenty. Typical in Fran's world.

So here's the scoop. All of my friends know that I'm a stand up comic. They also know that I go on auditions of all types… from acting, to voiceovers to hosting, so if they happen to hear about an audition, they tell me about it, with the hopes that one day I will land a steady part on a TV show.

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When my son, Spencer was fourteen, I used to drive him every Sunday morning to Aikido class at a Judo School in Forest Hills, Queens.

It was his choice to take this form of martial arts. Aikido is martial art that combines fluid movement, grappling techniques and channeling of internal energy, your *ki, to defend yourself. It teaches you to not oppose the force of an attack or what is coming at you in life, but to redirect its energy into something you desire. As a philosophy of life, it teaches you to take any negative energy away from you and turn it into something you can handle. Week after week, I would watch and want to join the class.

*Ki can be thought of as positive thinking, belief in yourself, faith, confidence, or a state of mind/body unification. You have used ki quite naturally many times in your life, at those moments when something totally captured your interest and imagination. It may have been while you were playing a sport, working late into the morning on a project that was important to you, playing with your child, or simply spending time with someone you love. – from http://www.bodymindandmodem.com/KiEx/KiEx.html

But Spencer and I had an agreement; this would be his own special thing, something that he wasn't doing with his mom. Being always one to want to participate in life, and not sit on the sidelines, I needed to turn my anxious energy of wanting to join in on the class into something positive. So every Sunday, I would watch a few minutes of the class and then stroll into the surrounding neighborhood to unleash my energy. At first I would walk briskly, but soon I would get into the rhythm of the neighborhood.

Forest Hills is an upscale, quaint area filled with English Tudor homes, turn of the century streetlights, and private winding roads. Just two blocks off the bustling Metropolitan Avenue, you get lost in almost a Hansel and Gretel type atmosphere.

I would walk along Ascan Avenue and admire the well-manicured homes with their stained glass windows, and arched doorways. There was a very peaceful quiet in the neighborhood. Every Sunday I would turn down any street and just follow the path trying to keep my sense of direction about me. It was a little game I played; I would just follow my heart and turn corners on a whim, and then go down interesting little back streets and see what I would discover. Then I'd try to make sure I could figure my way back to Spencer before his one-hour class was up.

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My third nature call came at 7:30. I tried to hold it as long as possible knowing that our wake up call was coming soon. At 8:15 I was about to burst and decided that I was getting up for good.

I took my clothes and ran to the heated trailer. People were already up, and in the hot tub. I zoomed by.

At 8:30 I got the troops up. Jamie was already up apparently the polar bear woke her up as well.

After we all got dressed I went back to my room to take pictures of my frozen sculptured lips. People were already coming into the room and surveying the place.

After a delicious WARM breakfast, we hung around waiting to experience one of the many activities the ice hotel has to offer, dog sledding.
We could have chosen ice fishing, sliding, igloo building, snow mobiling or ice skating, but we thought dog sledding was the most unique.

At 1 PM our dog sledding adventure began. We drove about 1/2 mile to another trailer. We filled out some release forms that basically said, the sport could be hazardous...were not responsible if the sled turned over, you banged into anything, you fell off a cliff, etc.

I thought, come on...it can't be all that dangerous. Spencer and I had dog sledded in Alaska when he was three. The guides mushed the dogs there and we sat in the sleds nice and comfy. Here we were going to mush our own sleds, which to me was totally awesome. We were all dressed in layers. I was wearing a snowsuit, a cute little snowsuit that I bought six years ago, that was rather snug now. I would be totally fine if I was standing or sitting, but if I fell, I'd be like a weeble unable to get up because the suit was too tight. I was hoping my balance exercises in yoga class paid off.

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Last I left you guys I had introduced my crazy family to you and was off on another Capo adventure, this time to the Ice Hotel.

Joining me on my adventure were my son, Spencer, my fiancee, Steve and his daughter, Jamie. The three people I love most to drag into these things.

The Ice Hotel or as the French say it, "Hotel de Glace" is twenty minutes west of Quebec. It is the only hotel of its kind in North America. Now in case you haven't guessed it, the Ice Hotel is not just the name of this hotel…it is a hotel made completely of snow and ice…12,000 tons of snow and 400 tons of ice to be precise. It is in partnership with the famous Ice Hotel in Sweden, and was a heck of a lot closer for us to get to.

Each year a totally new hotel is built in about five weeks time, with 20 people working on the hotel and 15 people working on the interior stuff like tables, bars etc. The place consists of 34 rooms. Some rooms are just a plain square ice room with an ice bed and nothing more. Other rooms, for those with fancier tastes, have themes to them like a James Bond room, or an Egyptian room…or whatever the sculpturer's imagination fancies that year. The cool thing is even the hotel owners don't know what the themes are going to be till the artists get there.

In addition to the theme rooms are an Absolut Ice bar, a wedding chapel (where you can get married in a white flowing parka), two exhibition areas - complete with photos and some new age music pumped in, a huge dance club called the N'Ice club (get the pun…good) and two courtyards surrounded by snow covered walls which house both a hot tub and sauna. The place takes up 3000 square meters, which translates into 32,291 square feet…(hey, if the math is wrong blame the conversion table on google, not me.)

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