Well, dear readers, I am still very full from a very full birthday dinner at my beloved Barone’s – the birthday girl being Peyton Kirkner, whose first name I borrowed for the second half of GEE. Newly thirteen but looking nine. Her dad and brother went to a movie, so it was just Peyton and mom and my very own self. Last time we were all there she tasted my carbonara and loved it so that’s what she had, as did I. While it isn’t quite the artful carbonara of Tony’s Bella Vista, it’s awfully good. We both had salads with their house Eyetalian, which is great. Mom had half ravioli half spaghetti, I think. And rather than pizza, thank goodness, we had the stuffed mushrooms appetizer, one of their signature dishes, and boy were they good. Peyton had two of those while mom and I had one.
Even though we were all stuffed, we had dessert, too. Mom and I had the chocolate mousse and it was superb, and Peyton had her spumoni. Now, in one of those crazy things, they have music on the weekends – the last time it was pretty insufferable. Last night, Grant Geissman was playing with the pianist and drummer. He came to the table before it began and I already knew he was very sorry he ever said yes to doing it. But we were already done and ready to leave so we didn’t really hear anything.
Prior to that, I was up too early, she of the Evil Eye arrived and I went and had a light breakfast and read through the rest of the draft of the musical I’m working on. I took many notes and Doug and I will meet at noon today to go over them, as we’re not quite on the same page about what show we’re writing, and we have to be. After that, I picked up no packages, then came home. I did some work at the piano and on the computer, and then relaxed for a bit until it was time to get ready for the dinner.
Prior to arriving at Barone’s, I stopped at Muse Margaret’s and gave her her signed copy of GEE. We had a fun chat before it was time for me to mosey on over to Barone’s.
Once home, I sat on my couch like so much fish and put on the Blu and Ray of Holiday in Spain (aka Scent of Mystery) and skimmed through it. Dave Strohmaier labored mightily on it, but I just wish it were better and I certainly wish it were Scent of Mystery. I found out the other day that a negative on that version had actually been found but was completely unusable – what a shame, what a shame. I loathe what they did to it to turn it into Holiday in Spain, shorn of twenty-something minutes, with terrible added narration, moving the brilliant intermission point (it’s on there in the extras but he should have used the actual thing they used for the intermission slug, which was the famous gun with the flower in it – Dave used the Holiday in Spain intermission card, which is awful). There are times when it looks pretty good, and times when it doesn’t. Sound is very nice.
Then I relaxed, had a telephonic conversation, and that was that.
Today, I’ll try to sleep until about ten-thirty, then I have the lunch meeting at noon o’clock, and then the rest of the day and evening is a ME day.
Tomorrow, I have to call and get a stage plot for the Richard Sherman event so I can start figuring out how to lay out the band and stuff, because that’s going to inform my decision on a couple of numbers. I’ll be writing a lot this week, for the musical, and have bunches of meetings and meals and I’m really going to watch calories this week. No desserts whatsoever, and as little bread as possible. I’m going to try and do a lot of chicken and fish with no meat and see how that works out.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, sleep, have a lunch meeting, and then have a ME day. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, still full from the birthday dinner.