Well, dear readers, what can we say about Time Warner that hasn’t already been said. Truth be told, it’s been okay for the last six months or so, but they sure made up for lost time yesterday, with a more than six-hour outage. Yes, you heard that right, dear readers, a more than SIX-hour outage, which is an outrage and what is an outrage but an outage with an “r” thrown in? That is just inept and not a way to run a company. If they have problems they should have a back up in place. And I see no reason why a problem should take SIX hours to deal with. But the problem is, they don’t care, they don’t give a flying Wallenda because THEIR Internet is fine because THEY do have back up stuff in place. From the time I got home at three to the time I left at six-thirty it was down – it had BEEN down since one and it stayed down until after seven. I gotta tell you.
Otherwise, yesterday was a surprisingly nice day. I was up at six to announce our new title. I went back to bed at seven and slept until about nine-thirty. Then I got up and printed out orders, answered e-mails and did some other work on the computer. I had a few telephonic calls, too, and then I had to get ready for my lunch meeting.
We met at a little jernt in the Dena of Pasa called The Green Street Restaurant, which isn’t too far from the Pasadena Playhouse. Joanna Erdos and I (we make up the theatre academy alumni association) met with all the new folks from the LACC Foundation. I liked all of them a whole lot, and the head of it and I have many things in common (he was in the film business for years), and we all gabbed and talked about how we might help the theater department in various ways, so we’re going to proceed in trying to do a few things together, including another all-star benefit for the department to raise some very needed money for their yearly productions, as well as try to resuscitate our wildly successful cabaret series of 2006. So, we’ll be meeting with them again very soon and I think maybe we can forge a very good relationship. And as good as the meeting was, the food was equally good – I had their famous Diane salad – basically a Chinese chicken salad but the best I’ve ever had – a very light dressing but so yummilicious that I just kept shoving it into my gaping hungry maw.
After that, I picked up one little package, then came home to find the Internet down. So, I did a little reading until Adryan Russ came by and then we met with a potential Abner. I liked him and he certainly looks the part, but he’s out of town until May 1, which means he’d miss the first two weeks of rehearsals. The first week isn’t really a problem, but the second week is, of course, because we’ll be blocking by then. So, I’m trying to wrap my mind around the concept of not having someone for the first two weeks, but I’m being resistant to the idea for many reasons. That said, right now there really aren’t other candidates, although we’ve really put the word out now. The guy knows both Barry Pearl and our just-signed Marryin’ Sam, John Massey. They all did the tour of Happy Days together. So, I’m pondering and just trying to meet other candidates.
Then Adryan and I moseyed on over to The Federal to see Jason Graae’s new show, directed by our pal Heather Lee. I wasn’t planning on eating anything heavy, but I decided to try the beef stroganoff. It was okay and I ate about two-thirds of it, but it certainly wasn’t a patch on the butt cheeks of MY stroganoff. But I should never have eaten that much – should have had the salmon or something like it. Ah, well – must seriously go back to my 1200 calorie a day regime for the next three weeks. I’ve gained back about ten pounds, mostly due to not running and also it just happens when I’m writing a book. It’s been MUCH worse weight gain in previous years, so I’m not beating myself up about it, but it’s time to get serious and lose it and then another five beyond it.
Jason was hilarious and wonderful, as always. The fun part of this new act was basically all new material, which is what he really needed to do. Not all of it works perfectly yet and if it were me one number has to go or be moved to a different place, because I felt it was the only number that didn’t land, and it went on for a very long time with no real payoff. But that’s a tiny nitpick in what otherwise was a wildly entertaining evening. Very well directed, and beautiful musical direction from John Boswell.
It was a starry affair – in attendance were Oscar nominee June Squibb, Nancy Dussault, JoAnne Worley, Andrea Marcovicci, Michael Kerker, Fay DeWitt, Carole Cook and Tom Troupe, and many others. It was a grand time for all.
Then I came home and happily found the Internet working again. I printed out more orders and caught up with other stuff and that was that.
Today, I have lots to do, hopefully I’ll pick up some packages, and then I have a meeting with our Daisy Mae, Maddy Claire Parks. I’m hoping to watch more of House of Cards in the evening.
The rest of the week is meetings and meals, work sessions, and seeing shows and final song choices and gathering up all the sheet music.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do errands and whatnot, hopefully pick up some packages, have a meeting and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite peculiar words, words that just tickle you to say? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy that we’re past the outage outrage.