Well, dear readers, here I am, writing the beginning of these here notes whilst sitting on an aeroplane on my way to New York, New York. I arrived at the airport at six o’clock in the morning. The lines to get through the security check were very long, but I must say it went pretty quickly and I got through in fifteen minutes. I then headed to my gate and – OKAY, I am about to get up and throttle the big FAT CRETIN in front of me. He and his wife have one of those mewling babies who won’t stop crying, and fat cretin daddy keeps bouncing the baby, which, in turn, bounces his seat relentlessly, which, in turn, bounces my tray table and hence my laptop relentlessly. As you know, there is not a lot of room on these new-fangled aeroplanes and this is really annoying and has been annoying since the get-go and also the go-get. I have very nice people next to me, but another two mewling children in back of me, and several other mewling children towards the back of the plane. Where was I? Oh, yes, I went to the gate where I sat until boarding began. I got right on the plane, got my seat, and settled in. It’s a totally full flight so it took a while to get everyone on board, and then after about twenty minutes we took off. There was no chance at snoozing, what with the plethora of mewling babies and the fat cretin bouncing man in front of me. After a while, they served breakfast. I had no intention of eating said breakfast, but I did eat the fruit, gave my muffin to the man next to me, and had to take one tiny bite of this thing they served called Omelet In A Pita, which came inside a plastic bag. I noted that the whole concoction had 200 calories and 7 grams of fat. I took my one tiny bite and could not believe the horror that was in my mouth. I would have spit it on the ground but that would have been unseemly. I swallowed it quickly and that was that. I had a Diet Coke. The child is MEWLING, the fat cretin is bouncing and I just have to tell you that when my daughter was a baby she NEVER EVER mewled like that – in public OR private. I guess I was lucky. They’re showing Wall-E on the plane, and like its theatrical release, no one seems to want to watch it. We just crossed over the Continental Divide, which is appropriate since I’m flying Continental. I thought we’d be further along than Denver, but what do I know about the United States of America? And that’s the up-to-the-minute report from the aeroplane. I shan’t be snoozing and I’m trying not to get a headache from the various and sundried mewling babies and bouncing fat cretin man. I must say that Wall-E in full screen doesn’t look very good (it’s a scope film), and interestingly, whenever it cuts to one of the computer displays in the film it suddenly goes letterboxed widescreen, so I guess there was no way to reformat those shots. I’ll continue these here notes live from the hotel.
And here I am, live from the hotel. Plane was about fifteen minutes late arriving. I got off fairly quickly and got a cab right away. My driver was excellent and I was in the city about thirty minutes later. The hotel is very nice, although I did have to pop for the Internet at fourteen bucks a day. And the signal in here isn’t the greatest, which it should be for fourteen bucks a day. In fact, as I type this there IS no signal. Not good, and I’ll have to have words with them about this. But even with the weak signal, the Internet seems to be working okay.
I got settled in, unpacked Ye Olde Bags, unpacked the box I’d sent ahead and was dismayed to find that I had indeed forgotten to pack something this morning – my sleeping shorts. So, it’s sleeping in underwear, I guess. I then headed over to Joe Allen to meet dear reader Jose and the Bacharach musical director, Alex Rybeck. When I got outside the hotel it was pretty nippy, but I just started jogging and I ended up jogging all the way to Joe Allen, which is about three-quarters of a mile. The cold didn’t even bother me too much. I got there about fifteen minutes early, so I went in the DVD store across the street, where I found White Dog, out a week early. I bought it. I then went to Joe Allen and after a slight wait for the people who were at table 20 to pay and leave we all sat down. It was great to see Jose and we chatted about the iPhone quite a bit. Alex is always fun and we talked about the benefit and various and sundried other things. I was very good and had a shrimp cocktail and a large Caesar salad, both of which were yummilicious. I then jogged back to the hotel.
When I got back, I changed into my jogging clothes and went to the exercise room – I was the only one there. I got on the treadmill, got used to it pretty quickly, and ended up doing 3.2 miles and, according to the readout, burning 400 calories. Excellent. Just before coming back to the hotel, I’d stopped at the CVS down the street and bought some chocolate licorice and some batteries for the wireless mouse. I ate some chocolate licorice and put new batteries in the mouse, answered e-mails, and made dinner plans for tomorrow night. Right now, I’m waiting for someone to come up to the room because I don’t seem to be able to shut off the heater (don’t like sleeping with a heater on). And that was the day and evening. I already like being here.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below whilst we all ruminate on the fact that someone actually came up with the idea of a package that contains an Omelet In A Pita.
Today, I have a wakeup call at eight-thirty, and I hope to be in the exercise room by nine to do four miles on the treadmill. Since I seem to be going a little faster than I do on the real jog, it isn’t taking an hour to do four miles, so I’ll probably only be there for about forty-five minutes. I’ll then shower and be on my way to Ripley-Grier rehearsal studios for our morning of singers, and then we move to a bigger room and I’ll seen our two big ensemble numbers, Turkey Lurkey Time and our opening, Always Something There To Remind Me. I can’t wait to hear the singers, and see the two big numbers.
After rehearsal, Jose and I will venture down to J&R Music World – apparently there are some dirt-cheap Japanese mini-LP CDs there, so I want to see what they have. After that, I’ll head back uptown and meet our very own Miss Juliana Hansen for an early dinner. I don’t know where we’ll eat – not Joe Allen, certainly, but I’d like something fun and yummilicious. I’ll probably ask Jose what he suggests.
Tomorrow, there’s another rehearsal of the two big numbers, and then I’m hoping that my choreographer and I can go see the theater. I’d like to have a production meeting on Wednesday, so I’m hoping we can pull that together. Then it’s Thanksgiving, and then I may try to see a show on Friday night.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, arise, do four miles on a treadmill, attend rehearsals, go to a store, sup, and then come home and sit in my hotel like so much fish. Today’s topic of discussion: What’s the best trip you ever took (not acid)? Where did you go, what made it so special? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I dream of an Omelet In A Pita.