Quite a week last week, I must say.
Short week because of Thanksgiving. I was only working Monday and Tuesday, although there was a meeting important enough on Wednesday that I attended it (remotely, as we all did).
Monday I worked from home, but Tuesday I went to the office for a variety of reasons. One was that they were serving pie as a midday treat, the other was that we were having a meeting of our little creative writing group around lunchtime. I’d found and submitted for discussion the beginning of a story I’d written about 20 years ago, and unearthed, surprised by how not-bad it was. It was fun to discuss, and I may pick up where I left off there.
Tuesday night, my buddy Carol D, founder of Light Opera of New York (LOONY) was hosting her own birthday party in the form of a concert/fundraiser. It was right around the corner from my office, and although I could have hovered in the office and gotten paperwork done or something, I ended up spending an hour at Havana Central, drinking cosmos. (and incurring the wrath of Ghost Charles. We went there once for a pre-theater dinner, and he ordered a martini and it was green. No Wicked connection, just a bartender who didn’t rinse out his shaker. C, with major restaurant service experience behind him, was furious. ) Cosmos were good, though!
The party/concert was in a black box theater and since I had just had two cosmos on an empty stomach, I zoomed to the snack table and filled up a plastic cup with snacks, to get something in my stomach. Mingled and chatted with almost everyone (they’re all friends or former colleagues). Our buddy, the great Gary S, was there – it was also his birthday – and we got caught up.
The concert part was lots of fun – we’d have a half hour set, then break for more party, then another one and so on. There was actual opera (Pearl Fishers duet, Una Furtiva Langrima), operetta, G&S (We’re Called Gondolieri, Leave Me Not to Pine), and Broadway (Siddown, You’re Rocking the Boat, I Know Him So Well) and party pieces (A Word on My Ear).
Tons of fun, but I left at a reasonable hour.
Wednesday I basically had to pack, sit in on this one meeting, then fly to Rochester for my 3rd annual Thanksgiving with the Adamses. (I used to spend Thanksgiving regularly with them in my single days Before Charles) They have a lovely large house, and good friends who I know, and adult sons who live nearby. No problems with the travel, especially nice since it was that heavy travel day, and Susanna picked me up at the airport. We had a pleasant calm evening, with a simple pasta dish and the chocolates I’d bought them on 5th Avenue.
Thanksgiving, I mostly stayed out of the way while they all cooked. We had a quiche to start with, and then I went upstairs to call all my relatives. The Percontis (who’d I seen with the Adamses in London just a few months ago) showed up to help, and then Patrick’s brother and wife, and the sons. The meal was traditional – turkey, stuffing, potatoes, rolls, a squash dish, green beans. The rolls didn’t rise as advertised, but were yummy anyway, and everything else was perfect. Three pies – pumpkin, apple and chocolate pecan.
Eventually everyone left but the sons and the Perconti daughter and her boyfriend (and their two dogs) and we played Articulate!, which I’d never played before. It was a ton of fun. My proudest moment was when I was feeding clues to Christopher for the People category.
“President who was assassinated.” “John F. Kennedy”. “Yes”
Then I looked at the next card, grinned and said, “She sang him Happy Birthday.” “Marilyn Monroe” “Yes”
The toughest one that we nevertheless got was me trying to figure out how to convey ‘earwig’ (Nature category) and came up with something like “first syllable is on your head, second is fake hair”.
Friday was nice and low-key – we walked down to the bagel place and got bagels, then they started decorating the house for Christmas while I worked on booking hotels for my trip with my dad this month. We decided to have a late lunch of snackies, then went to see a late-afternoon showing of Wicked (Part I). It was at a small neighborhood theater, but they’d remodeled it in the Alamo Drafthouse vein, so you could order food and drinks. We ended up getting Irish coffees, which were perfect for the moment.
Wicked did not disappoint. I loved it, and honestly couldn’t think of a lot that I would change. I was intrigued by a change they made to the movie – Elphaba’s not actually at Shiz to attend, but to help her sister for a while (but that changes). I thought everyone was really well cast – well, almost everyone. Much as I love Michelle Yeoh, I can think of a dozen actresses I would have rather seen in that role. But how great to see Keala Settle and Bowen Yang and the great cameos in the Emerald City scene. I didn’t have any problem with the length, and thought it made perfect sense to make each act as a separate movie. Let’s see if they can resolve the mess of Act 2 in next year’s script.
Afterward, we came home and had sandwiches and pie and it was lovely.
Saturday, Susanna made a strata breakfast that was eggs, ham, cheese and mustard (!!!) that worked really well. We decided to go to the Rochester Market and poke around, which we did, although we didn’t buy much except hot cider. Then we went to the Eastman House to see their annual gingerbread house display. That was fun, and the house itself is absolutely beautiful.
Then after a respite at home, we went out to dinner (my chance to pick up the check and repay them every-so-slightly). We went to Branca, which was excellent. I started with a cosmo, of course (it had been days) and we got some really nice wine. We started with a simple appetizer of house-made ricotta to spread on bread, and it was so good. Then they ordered standard entrees (Susanna had pasta, Patrick had a pork chop) and I ordered what I thought would be teeny little appetizers, which turned out to be enormous – calamari (which was fried, and I was fine with that, but wasn’t expecting it) and roasted brussels sprouts. No way I could finish them, and it turned out, to my horror, that neither of the Adamses like calamari. No point in taking that home, but they did get about half the brussels sprouts.
I did get a scoop of gelato, in ‘coffee cake’ flavor, which sounded fun, but actually wasn’t great in the execution. Ah well.
And Sunday I flew home and then did laundry! Very exciting.
This week is about various activities (an audition coaching, my company’s holiday party, a dinner with Tessa) and prepping for my big trip. Next week I’ll be in Durham, to celebrate my dad’s ninetieth birthday and to finish trip planning, then he and I go on a two-week road trip: Vegas/LA/shore points/SF/Reno. It’s going to be lots of fun, but I’m not nearly the trip planner that Charles was and I just finishing booking the hotels today. We’ll kind of figure out the sites we want to hit next week when I’m at his place – but really it can be as structured or as lazy as we want. Dad is hale and hearty, but I wanted to make sure we did some traveling while we still could.
Which means, kids, that Christmas is not happening this year, at least from me. No cards going out, no decorations, and I’m doing Christmas movies now before I leave, because Dad won’t want to. I’ve seen Haul Out the Holly and Violent Night and about half of Hot Frosty, which is a hoot. I grabbed some more Hallmark on the DVR, and have more films on streaming. Maybe I can persuade Dad to watch Remember the Night or something.
Yeah, so … happy December!
(and I’m continuing to NOT WRITE about the election. And that’s… OK for now.)
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