Things are about to be interesting, but not much has happened in the last couple of weeks. It’s been very hot – spend most of my day holed up in the office with the air conditioner. Got some house projects done, like reorging the butler’s pantry and going through a lot of the ‘weird linens’ we have – tablecloths that are too short for the dining room table, runners, doilies, a bunch of Irish linen napkins and stuff that we never use. A lot of that is going out of the door (nice stuff, like the Irish linen, is staying).

I also took down almost all the pictures in the back hallway (except the ‘wall of wedding’, which is its own thing and which I’ll have to deal with at some point). We had a section that was my family – I’d long grown tired of the pictures we had up. I have better ones in mind. Many of the other pictures were of C’s family, old enough that they’re not people I ever met, so those will go back to C’s brother. Other pictures will go to Duane’s family, or to people I know in the pictures. And I’ll re-curate other pictures for that space.

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Have taken a couple of little bike rides. Once it cools down, that’s going to be my go-to exercise, since I’ll want to be in biking-shape by the time I go to Cape Cod. That trip is all booked, by the way, happy about that.

All my Gilbert & Sullivan friends are now converged on Harrogate (England) and have started rehearsals for The Grand Duke. I’m missing that camaraderie. I was in the last Savoynet Grand Duke in Buxton in 2009. That was the weird trip where C and flew to Frankfurt, then I left him to go to England while he trained to Munich and Berlin on his own. After the festival we reunited in Frankfurt, then went north to Cologne and eventually to Amsterdam before returning to Frankfurt for a third time to fly home. That was fun, although I’m still irritated that I haven’t been to Berlin or Munich yet.

Savoynet has also put out the call for director’s for next year’s show. (three titles have been identified, it will be one of the three) I’m applying. If all goes well, I’ll have a show next spring and next summer, and will have to start prepping for both pretty much right away. Nice to have things to look forward to.

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Much more coming up after this weekend. Today is the company picnic – I’ve never been to one at this company (COVID shut them down), so that will be fun. And tomorrow I’m off to the Catskills to visit my in-laws and stay with my friend Van, who is also a recent widower. So much to report after it happens.