Well, dear readers, it is late and I am tired and therefore I shall write these notes in a trice. Perhaps I’ll even write them twice in a trice or, if I’m feeling my oats, thrice in a trice. I should think that if I took my own advice and wrote these here notes twice or thrice in a trice it would be nice, even paradise. What the HELL am I talking about?
Yesterday was a day that began early and ended late. I find that happens a lot. I was up by nine, had a local dealer here at 9:45, the helper arrived at ten and we were at Costco at 10:15, or in a trice. We got Christmas Do items such as water and soda and some plastic cutlery, and my ubiquitous bottle of champagne for New Year’s Eve. I take one little sip then keep the bottle in the refrigerator until I open the new one – it’s a tradition. I also got some dimmable light bulb things for the kitchen (last time I’d bought the wrong kind and there were four of those in the kitchen sockets and they buzzed like crazy – all is well now), and a few other odds and ends and also a few other ends and odds. All this we did in a trice and for a price. Then we came back to the home environment, unloaded the goods and off the helper went to do the last of the shipping before she leaves town for the holidays.
I then wrote the two blurbs for our Monday announcement, got the packaging that needs approval where it needed to go, did a bit of other writing and also had a ham and Swiss at Jerry’s Deli to tide me over until dinner. I picked up only one teeny-tiny package, then came home and relaxed until it was time to leave.
I went to Barry Pearl’s home environment, and then he drove me, Kay Cole, his ever-lovin’ Cindy and himself down to far off Thousand Oaks, a hideously long drive in hideously awful traffic. Needless to say, we did not get there in a trice.
Once we did get there, we convened at P.F. Chang’s, where we met Don Petrie and his wife. We all ordered lots of appetizers – it was way too much food. All I really wanted to do was pick at things, but of course we all ended up eating too much, which was infuriating for one important reason: P.F. Chang’s is just about the worst Chinese restaurant in history. I have NEVER understood the allure of this chain – their food is terrible. I have never had anything more than mediocre there, and I’ve tried a lot of stuff. But still, we all sat there and ate it. After that, we all moseyed on over to the place where we were seeing the show that Barry directed, a musical version of The Gift of the Magi at a community theater.
I didn’t care for the show itself at all and I’ll just leave it at that, save to say that the book of the show wasn’t very good and the score, while it had some okay melodies, was not varied enough, never moved the story forward and was far too repetitious in its lyrics and what the songs were about. Happily, it was over by ten. I met some of the cast, had a nice chat with our Li’l Abner stage manager (Barry basically appropriated most of my Abner team), and especially had fun with our Li’l Abner musical director, Wayne Moore, who did a very nice job with his four piece band (two keyboards, bass and drums). We laughed a lot and then we went back to Barry’s and I came home.
Today, I shall hopefully arise after a good night’s beauty sleep. I will jog come hell or high water or even heaven and low water, I shall relax, and then Doug Haverty, Adryan Russ and I are going to Genghis Cohen for dinner (that will get the bad taste of P.F. Chang’s out of my mouth) and then on to see a production of Putting It Together.
Tomorrow I’m relaxing all the livelong day then supping with a friend I haven’t seen in over a decade. Monday I’m up early to announce our final two releases of the year, then other than hopefully printing out a LOT of orders, I’m basically on vacation for two weeks, during which I shall be doing a lot of thinking about the new book, along with making notes, and doing some other writing and composing. Of course, on Wednesday we have our annual Christmas Eve Do, on Christmas I shall hopefully see the Darling Daughter™, then I attend a Christmas partay at the home of Cissy Wechter.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, hopefully pick up some packages, relax, sup, and see a show. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your all-time favorite Christmas-themed plays, musicals, movies, books and stories? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall hopefull fall asleep in a trice.