Decidedly Uninspired

I'm only posting so that Katherine will not give me a hard time. :-)

The weekend was very low key for around here - yesterday I was decidedly domestic: Trader Joe's, laundry, packing and catching up on some TV on Hulu. I was supposed to go to a movie out in Maryland, but Maryland is far from here and when you get there...you are in Maryland, so I bailed. Bailing also allowed me to have a wonderful skype date with friends in Toronto. So wonderful to see and hear you!

Today I went to the matinee of August Osage County. I saw it on Broadway and didn't love it but I thought I'd give it a second chance (since it's free and all). This is the same tour that just left Toronto FYI. Well, still didn't love it. I still feel most of act one doesn't need to be there and the thing could be a good hour shorter (this is not asking that much since it is 3 1/2 hours long!). I think I liked it even less than I did on Broadway as there was some atrocious acting - a couple of stand-outs as well of course - however this seems to be the theme of theatre in DC.

Anyway, I'm not sure exactly what this week will bring. Next Sunday night is Honors and next Sunday morning I move - so that's all very exciting. The lead up so far feels calm, but I'm not sure if it's calm-before-the-storm calm or just regular calm. So I enter the week slightly apprehensive!

It's a Ghetto Watergate Christmas

Yes it is 1974 and this is the best they could do...

The 600

I feel perhaps I've been remiss lately in not talking about the time I spend in bars. It's what the people do here!

The 600 is the bar that is physically closest to the KC without actually being in the KC. It is in the Watergate building on street level and if you were to dine at the 600 it would be remarkably expensive. Especially considering that the food isn't very good and the service generally speaking worse. However, because of it's proximity to work, we go there a couple of times a week (hey, if you are seeing shows at the rate I'm seeing them currently you'd need a drink too!). And if I've only learned two things in my time in theatre, then i thought they should be good ones. The first, as I believe I've covered here before, is to be nice to your box office staff, the second, is to be nice to, and get to know, your bartender and if it's somewhere you ever want to go again, try and tip well. I find that DC folk tip badly so the latter isn't too hard to do, even on what I'm making now.

So there are several regular bartenders at the 600 - Matt and Andre are the only two to deal with though and if they aren't working, you might as well just leave. I achieved a milestone this week in the bartender/patron relationship: I have reached free drink status. A few of us had been in there on Monday briefly after work (in light of the rotation debacle - which has now all been sorted out fortunately). Neither were working - as it's the dark night at the KC, the 600 is dead dead dead. Anyway, the service was beyond awful - and I mentioned to Matt on Wednesday when we were in there before the Nutcracker how relieved I was to see him. I ordered the usual happy hour red wine (swill as I like to refer to it because it's pretty awful) and he said that he had something better for me to try and low and behold, a free round of really yummy wine!

Tonight, before the NSO Pops concert (Marvin Hamlisch conducting the music from the Music Man - lovely) I paid only happy hour swill price for what I was pretty sure was the yummy wine. Far more drinkable. My work here is done.

Football

I would be remiss if I did not speak about football on American Thanksgiving. It's everywhere.

I was told, when I asked a real live American why Thanksgiving was on a Thursday, that FDR tried to move it but that would have interrupted the football schedule so there was great protest and hence nothing changed. America is weird. And actually the whole Thursday thing comes from Lincoln, but my friend didn't know why.

I could also go to Target at 5am tomorrow if I wanted to (I'm not). Also weird. Some stores are opening at 3. Crazy.

Will write more tomorrow but am at my FFFs place tonight on her funky french keyboard!!!
Happy Thanksgiving all y'all.

Another week, another stat holiday

Yes indeed tomorrow is American Thanksgiving so that would be two randomly placed mid-week stat holidays for this month. I'm going in to work on Friday but I think it will be a fairly deserted place - I just didn't see the point in using a vacation day when I wasn't going anywhere. And this way I can slack. And maybe even wear jeans to work (imagine!). For tomorrow, one of my fellow fellows has invited the stray fellows for dinner at her parents' home so I think that should be quite lovely. I am really still baffled by why Thanksgiving is such a big deal here. I mean people hugged me before leaving today (now I am very huggable of course :-) but still).

Tonight I saw the Pennsylvania Ballet version of The Nutcracker. It was Ballanchine's choreography which I thought somehow would make it more interesting. It didn't. Not really anyway. I mean it was very pretty (lovely snow - Alistair would have liked the snow) and the music was gorgeous of course, but I just find the dance itself a bit...random. And dull. Act one is more dull, act two more random. So I suppose the randomness is at least somewhat interesting to watch. I apologize to all the ballet lovers out there, it's just not my cup of tea.

However, I felt I should take advantage of the opportunity since it was there to be had.

Goodnight y'all.

OH, I said "uh huh" today instead of thank you the way Americans do!!! Ack!!

Work was pretty dire today. Everyone is all stressy about Honors (which is only 10 days away). The big thing currently is seating. Who sits where for the show and where for the dinner etc etc etc. For those of you who worked on it with me, picture the Lion King opening night seating times about 12 with two Presidents thrown in for extra fun (as yes, it is believed that President Clinton will be attending with his wife the Secretary of State...so that's two Presidents in one room). This happened once before when Bush Senior attended with Bush Junior, but it wasn't quite so politically charged as you can imagine. And of course everyone and their next door neighbour want to be here this year with the Obamas. I think I'll end up seeing it from the parking lot we are that over-booked currently...

All the Fellows are in a twitter because we got our rotation assignments yesterday and many people are not happy. We'll see how it all comes out eventually but there are major rumblings. I actually did pretty well and got what I asked for more or less. I had requested to do a theatre programming rotation around our McNally festival which is happening in the spring. Because of the weird timing though, this meant that I had to fudge dates as it doesn't work with the rotation schedule. So the plan for me is to go next to marketing but only for half a rotation when I will then go to theatre and stay there for the duration. I absolutely love our VP of marketing so am quite pleased to get to work with him a bit more but am also pleased to not to have to do a full rotation in marketing. We do some interesting stuff, so there is much to learn, it's just not an area I want to focus in long term.

As for the others, I think some really poor decisions were made and I think that there needs to be an explanation given for them. Hopefully this will be forthcoming. Ultimately, I think the structure of the program needs an overall - and I've said as much to the program manager. However, that won't happen this year for sure. Hoping for a less tense tomorrow and that calmer winds will prevail heading in to the holiday on Thursday....

One of the places we discovered this weekend was a different and far superior, sculpture garden. I believe there is jazz in the summer at this one. It is part of the Hirshorn Museum (I think I'm spelling that wrong...) which is part of the Smithsonian. It's just on the other side of the Mall - really just across the street from the other one. This garden is full of Rodin and Henry Moore and just really beautiful and peaceful work. It's a place I hope to visit again and where you could go just to sit for a while and be...