Lazy Sunday

Oh the simple luxuries that I will never take for granted again. A Sunday morning with the apartment all to myself. Tea and toast in front of the Food Network still in my PJs. It would only have been improved upon had I been able to watch Coronation Street (what's happening on it BTW people??? :-) ) Now I'm listening to Friday's Q from my CBC podcast - a little voice from home.

I should put some laundry in and then decide which DC walking route I am going to tackle today. The lovely Miss Tracey Nolan gave me a box of city walks and I've intentionally and accidentally been working my way through them. It's another beautiful sunny day and again around freezing so I may not north into Adams Morgan and see how the other half live....or I may end up just at the local coffee shop, we'll see....

Beautiful day...

I had a surprise brunch with a fellow fellow followed by a stroll through my funky new neighbourhood. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and only around zero (all the locals just thought is was freezing and I had to open my jacket...) It was just one of those beautiful-feels-like-winters-over days that in Canada you get in March. I'm not saying winter is over, even here, but it just filled my heart (that is so corny, but true!). It is always better when the sun is shining.

I saw a matinee of a play at Studio Theatre - now just a few blocks from me at one of my favourite intersections, 14th and P. The play was called In the Red and Brown Water and was by a young black writer from Florida. He used some imagery from the Cuban Orishas (gods) and played with some interesting structure to his writing. I mention that he's a black writer because here everything is so black and white. It's so extreme. I went with my friend Damion and he said he just wanted to see a black play without death in it. I said I just want to see "white" plays with some black actors in them. Here it seems all the work they get is in "black" plays. I realize it's hard enough in Canada, but I don't think it's quite this extreme. Today's had a couple of excellent actors in it, some of the best I've seen in my time here. The lead reminded me of a young Raven Dauda - she had the same power that Raven does, but less polished. What I thought was good though was how diverse the audience was, and this is a good sign I think. Of course it was a pay what you can preview (I am on a budget!) and so I think that brought out a lot of young people, but it was good to see all ages and colours in the audience. Something we in Canada could do better.

Mini-Wheat injury

I had an 8am meeting this morning (yes, the KC is yet another one of those arts organizations that like early morning meetings - I miss the Mirv days when nothing happened before 10am...) and while sort of rushing through my mini-wheats (maple and brown sugar flavour - 0% sodium) I managed to chip one of my lower front teeth. Not entirely sure how I achieved this but I did. It's not visible at all as the chip is on the inside, and it doesn't hurt at this point, but it's awkward and a nuisance and rubs roughly against my tongue (which I can't seem to stop doing even though it hurts to do it!). So next week I will have my first adventure (and hopefully my only one) with the American "healthcare" system when I visit the dentist. I have a very nice dentist in Toronto I wish I could be seeing!

This dentist is actually very close to work and apparently good. I had to be "approved" as a patient however before they would book an appointment. I'm assuming this was them checking my health insurance. Actually my dental benefits are pretty good - and shamefully better than the Americans' coverage for the people I work with. I guess that's one benefit of the particular Visa I'm on, the healthcare requirements were mandatory. But yes, I could have been rejected for any number of reasons - too many other patients on the same insurance, inadequate insurance coverage etc etc

Hopefully it won't get worse over the weekend. I'm eating soft foods as a precaution! I haven't tried a cup of tea yet, I will test that in the morning and see how I do with hot. Blah!

Jupiter

The best planet of all...

(oooh look, I got this embedding thing to work!!) This is of course not the NSO. Hearing this passage live though did make sitting through the first act worthwhile. The played quite well together tonight actually (though the Elger in act one was still painful). I give this credit to Leonard Slatkin the conductor this evening. He seemed to energize them in a way I haven't seen before.

The most amazing passage starts about 3 minutes in and to me it is one of the most beautifully written movements in classical music. It fills me with British pride (I don't even know if Holst was British, but this must have been used as theme music in enough BBC films for it to forever be linked in my mind). Hum along if you like....

playing catch-up

I've been quite tired this week, unused to all the activity from my week in Toronto I think. I'm looking forward to Saturday and a bit of a sleep in honestly...

Tonight I'm going to an NSO concert which includes Holst's The Planets in its program. I remember my dad used to blast the record of this on Hallowe'en when giving out candy. I believe it was the Mars section which was favoured for this. I'm sure I'll enjoy it, and the evening won't be a late one, but I think I need some caffeine first to keep me going. These next few weeks here are quiet as January isn't a great time to sell tickets so I want to see what I can with the limited choice.
I'm going to try and see some plays at other theatres in the next week as well. I've got tickets to see Stick Fly at Arena Stage next week (one of the shows featured in the talk I went to - thus proving that free programs can lead to ticket sales!)

And for those of you on Facebook, if you are "fans" of the Kennedy Center, it's me updating our status this week. Yes, for very brief moments this week, I am the Facebook voice of the KC. The responsibility is heady!

I gave directions!

This is actually the second time I've done this, but the first time in my new neighbourhood which is really the height of confusing with the diagonal streets and round abouts every few blocks.

I was on my way home after stopping at the Communist Safeway and someone asked where Dupont Circle was - they were walking in the wrong direction and I re-directed them (AND I was right! after they set off I had a moment of "oh, um, actually..." but I needn't have doubted myself or scurried off in the opposite direction in case I was wrong...)

I love 17th street where this Safeway is (the grocery store itself is terrible - the produce section in particular...). It is the heart of DC's gay district and it is just so lively and friendly. The homes are beautiful and the stores and restaurants really diverse and interesting. I'm not sure what the area is referred to as officially so I call it "the Street of the Gays" like the Avenue of the Americas. It seems to fit and so far no one has corrected me!

(I apologize if any of you consider this to be a politically incorrect posting. It is of course said with love...)

Back in DC

After a very whirlwind visit to the home country, I am back in DC where it is surprisingly cold. It's all windchill (or Real Feel as my father says they refer to it as in Boston - hilarious) as the air temperature is only like -1C. However, windy windy.

Today was just one of those days. First day back after two weeks off and 100s of email to sort through (the marketing folk love their email). My watch battery died, and I didn't realize this until it was 10:30 every time I looked at it for likely 20 minutes - until I clued in that there was a problem with this and was late for a meeting because of it. I couldn't remember how to do one of the daily reports I'm responsible for this week - which hadn't been updated in my absence so there were many weird sales days to sort through to get it right. Anyway, it was really just one of those days.

I went to a panel discussion tonight on race and the stage which was pretty interesting but relied too heavily on references to a play that is in previews currently for the theatre hosting the discussion. It's a new work so only four audiences worth of people have seen the play - of which only five individuals were in the audience for the discussion. I'm all for plugging your season (and certainly I'm now very interested in seeing this play), but the discussion was advertised as a much broader issue and I would have liked to have seen it addressed more in depth. In the states, the race issues only refer to black and white, there was no reference to any other race or demographic. This makes sense given this country's history, but it is different from the discussions I've participated in in Canada. I'm not convinced that we offer more opportunity for other races and cultures to participate in the theatre than they do here, but perhaps those communities in Canada have a greater opportunity to speak out and be heard as part of the work. There is a huge divide in this country and it truly handicaps their arts community...