Still in ‘normal normal normal’ mode, although that’s about to change. April and May are quite booked with stuff. I did have my first Utopia, Ltd. (with Utopia Opera) orchestral rehearsal yesterday. This is going to be fun! Not that the horn part is anything to write home about, or even that the show is good (it’s not – unequivocally, it’s the worst of the G&S operas), but it holds a dear place in my heart, because the 2003 Savoynet production at the G&S festival was my first show at the festival, and I had a great role, Phantis. And this is a cast and orchestra of friends. Show goes up next week!

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So what’s been going on? Mostly chugging through life. I’ve been cooking more than usual. I went through the freezer, realizing that anything that Mr. C put in there either needs to be used up soon or thrown away. I pulled one of the packets of pesto out and have been using it on panini (a cooking experiment on the Griddler, sometimes successful, sometimes burned). I saw that the puff pastry expired in 2019, but decided to try making a pizza (like this is something I’d ever done before) and it came out just fine. (oh, that’s what those little cans of sauce in the pantry were for), and I’ve got another sheet and more ingredients left for another round of that. I made a meatloaf for the first time in decades, and that came out great, so I’ll keep that in the rotation.

And the chicken bones and cheese rinds… I was like, really, am I ever going to make stock? But I looked up how to do it, and it actually looked pretty easy, and so last weekend I went to the farmer’s market and grocery story and bought carrots and celery and stuff and did make the stock and it turns out it is easy and came out great. I don’t see myself doing that often, because it takes a lot of bones to make not a lot of stock, and I don’t usually (or at least yet) cook up whole chickens or whatever. But I guess there’s nothing stopping me from just buying a big bag of chicken wings, and the veggies are easy, you don’t even have to peel them.

I also bought a large turkey breast at the farmer’s market (very pricey, but OK, everything is an experiment right now), and roasted that up on Thursday. That also turned out to be really easy, and I’ll have to hold that in my repertoire. And I made the creamy turkey vegetable soup recipe that my niece had sent me, using the breast and the stock I’d made and the other veggies.

This also came out great, I had a ton of leftovers and half a cooked turkey breast left (that all went into the freezer). Who’d have thought I would be making soup from scratch? (well, the pasta came out of a box)

An obvious side effect is the more of this stuff I do, the more comfortable I am and the more likely I am to just try things. (also, the more likely I am to already have ingredients). These are all positives.

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Some excellent excursions. Vance and Craig lured me out to drag bingo again last Sunday – we didn’t win anything – oh, I lie, Craig won a round, but spun the wheel and only got 2 drink tickets. But we had a great time. I went to Flushing for soup dumplings with Susan and Renee – I’d never had them before, that was yummy. And tapas with Tessa on Tuesday, he said alliteratively. That was great. (also, while waiting for Tessa, ended up 2 feet from Swan Guy, waiting to cross the street. The Met just finished a run of Lohengrin, and at every performance, there’s been an audience member wearing a swan on his head. He assured everyone, he takes the swan off when he sits down.)

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Haven’t seen any more shows… yet… but have my eye on White Girl in Danger and Dancin’ and of course, Sweeney Todd. Oh, and I scored a ticket to Merrily We Roll Along on my birthday in September. Unfortunately, that’s a Monday night (and an 8:00 curtain, what’s that about?) but still! I love that show, and this is supposed to be terrific. Although the buzz is that Daniel Radcliffe’s girlfriend is pregnant, and maybe he’ll be out on paternity leave by late September, who knows? But I’m not seeing the show (just) for him, so.

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What else? Found out, along with everyone else, that my dear friend Ori Siegel, a G&S friend of mine from Toronto, passed away. He was just the sweetest and funniest man. Last time I saw him was in NYC just a few years ago, when C and I took him out to dinner. Now they’re both gone, and Vikki too and… jeez, my loved ones are dying. Welcome to middle age, Eric.

As far as Mr. C, things have gotten a tad bumpier there, though not seriously so. The lawyer for the co-op has asked (perfectly reasonably) for a particular document which I have not yet been able to find. So I’ll be spending some time on that today. (Also, the rep from my lawyer, who communicated the ask, seems to be on vacation this week, sigh, so my questions back to her aren’t going to get answered soon.) And the trusts for the kids – it’s still unclear to me that I need or don’t need some sort of actual document spelling out the terms of the trust. What I have is a letter of trustee, and my lawyer doesn’t seem to think I need anything else but EIN’s (which I now have), but when I tried to set up the trust accounts online, they were asking for stuff that I don’t think I have… so yeah, need to pull those two separate strands together somehow. Not urgent, not a panic, but I’d like to get it done.

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What else? Had a couple of sessions with a trainer at the gym, I’m going to keep that up, I think. Haven’t lost a bit of weight, but am getting stronger, so… I think what I will do is, now that it’s getting warmer, try to get out on my bike again on the weekends. Then, once summer hits, if we get half-Fridays off, maybe I’ll start skating again – I could go to coffee club during particular weekday mornings and then make up the time on Friday. We’ll see. (speaking of skating, I love my new DVR. I was able to tape all the Worlds, which were all broadcast at 6:00 am. Of course, I’m watching them too slowly and am getting results spoiled all over the place. But still!)

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Yeah, scattershot. I’ll probably step up the blogging and the coherence once things start really happening again.