The 'fo

The long and short of Tootsie orientation was that most things are the same as last year, with a few notable differences:

- Covid restrictions have been eased. We can mostly take rapid tests rather than PCRs, we will have less testing overall, and masks will no longer be required most of the time, just when in close proximity.
- We are now allowed to transport ourselves between cities if we choose (at our own expense of course, but sometimes this is handy, for example when passing through/near towns where you could be visiting family).

That's pretty much it.

I'm still waiting with bated breath for the route sheet so I can update my Foodie Finds.

I spent the rest of Monday night watching recipe videos for the Itaki that I've bought.

----------------------------------------------------

I got up early for discount court reporting.
It was a fairly normal day, all of the cases took place for once and all of them went smoothly.

Jameson went on a walk without me and came across a large alligator!
I was so jealous! We always look for them when we pass near the little pond a few blocks from our house.
He said it was sitting on the shoreline and scrambled to the water as he came near.

Jameson went to a baseball game with a friend, so I spent my night mostly cleaning.
Washed our sheets, vacuumed, dusted, took the recycling out, mopped the tile, cleaned the bathrooms.
I wanted to go for a walk (and look for the alligator!) but it stormed for nearly two hours.

In the mail I got a small package of resistance bands, some of which I'll take on tour with me.
They are extremely small and thin, about the size of a silk scarf. I hope I'll actually use them.
I also got one of my other wastes-of-money, a tree star on a keychain.
If you don't get the reference, were you EVEN around in the 80s?

(photo by the artist)

The artist had only made eight of these, each one carefully crafted by hand.
I couldn't pass it up. She sells them on a corded necklace, but I asked for a keyring and she obliged.
The movie, and this silly little tree star, remind me of my mother, and how she left her hopes behind for me to carry.
Reaching a "Great Valley" is futile of course, just like in the movie.
The proverbial  asteroid will come and we'll all be dead regardless if we "make it" to whatever goals we set.
But the tree star is a reminder to try; to keep going; to endure despite.
At least, that's what it is to me.

--------------------------------------------------------

Wednesday, is it?

I woke up to find a route sheet and contact sheet in my inbox. FINALLY!
Although disappointingly, the route sheet is almost half incomplete.
Whatever, I need to keep reminding myself that this is second year of tour and we have probably been delegated to an informational backburner, not to mention it can't be easy booking flights and hotels with the way things are right now (staffing shortages, inflation).

But I was excited to update my Foodie Finds list.
The hotel in Worcester is a twenty minute drive away(!) so I had to look up new grocery stores and restaurants in that area.
There is more to research to do, but for now I just did the most immediate cities.

In the evening, drove all the way to Millennia Mall area for my extremely expensive haircut fix.
It was one of those salons that does hair for wedding parties and such, or for rich trophy wives or whatever.
You know, scalp massages and complementary beverages and such.
Things that make me feel incredibly uncomfortable.

But it was fine. What I was paying for was someone so experienced that they could fix another stylist's work.
And I got that. My hair is shorter than usual, but that's ok.
At least now it lies well, and I won't have to waste time fighting it every morning.

For dinner I treated myself to IKEA, because smoked salmon salad for only eight bucks is a steal these days.
They had a new "vegan soft ice", so I gave it a try. Pretty good!
It's just strawberry puree and some juices, fluffed up and run through a soft serve machine.

----------------------------------------------------------

Thursday. We both had a lot of work to do, Jameson because he's covering for some other teachers right now, and me because I didn't do data entry yesterday.

So after breakfast we could both be found plunking away in front of our computers.

After lunch I practiced my newly-written solos for about an hour.
It's amazing how much more comfortable one feels once the music is learned. It's a lot of pressure off the shoulders, already knowing the book and just getting to work on these little four-bar solos for the entracte. Not sure if I mentioned this before, but I wrote a whole bunch of Aladdin references into my new solo as a sort of ironic reminder of "what might have been". Because it amuses me. It would amuse me even more if someone actually recognized the tunes, but it's a bebop solo that flies by fast so I don't expect that to happen.

And today we received flight information, and my flight gets in around 3pm, which is fantastic for me as I hate night flying and also love having time to unpack and get groceries. So we fly out on the 13th and rehearsals start on the 14th.

I worked a little more on Megan's Foodie Finds (MFF), mostly just checking links to restaurants and poking the formatting a little.
It's good that I checked because at least one upcoming restaurant is closed for relocation, and another requires reservations and I hadn't realized that.

After practice Jameson was in a meeting so I went for a walk.

Tonight we are going to see Roger Waters at the Amway, so I'm going to post this before that happens as we'll get back late.
Stay tuned for fun pics of that, I'm sure!