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Tootsie Yr2: Schenectady, NY part 1
Apr. 13th, 2023 08:47 amWhat an early travel day!
4am - wake up, coffee, finish packing
4:30am - load luggage onto the bus
5am - leave hotel and arrive at airport
7am-9:30am - flight to Atlanta, breakfast
10am-noon - flight to Schenectady
We got to the hotel by 1, and amazingly the rooms were ready for us!
Clean and with a largeish fridge and a microwave :)
I walked to CVS hoping for leftover Easter candy but this one didn't have any.
Then decided to walk to Niskayuna Co-op since it was a lovely sunny day, 60 degrees.
A big change from cold and windy 35-degree St. Louis, where it had still been snowing; and hot humid 92-degree Fort Myers which we just left. Spring has just arrived in upstate New York, and there are buds on the trees and beautiful little purple and yellow ground flowers blooming all over the place. Robins hopping about for worms, the smell of fresh thawing earth...all of those things. It was a 3-mile walk to the co-op but it was enjoyable and felt like no time at all.
( CLICK HERE for Co-op Adventures )
The rest of my night was spent unpacking and going to bed around 10:30pm because it had been a LONG day.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday we woke up to a rather nasty surprise: our payroll company somehow deducted thousands of dollars from ALL of our accounts last night. Not fun at all. For me, I have actually had something like this happen before so it did not impact me greatly. But some people experienced overdraft fees, negative balances, or have nothing at all in their bank accounts until this is resolved. Really, really not good.
Since there wasn't really anything that I could do about any of it, I went about my morning as usual with breakfast and typing up this post before heading over to Perreca's Bakery for a hot fresh loaf of Italian bread.
Perreca's has been in business for over 100 years, baking bread and sandwiches and pizzas in their self-built coal oven.
Even though it's a random Tuesday, fresh loaves of bread were sitting in the window for purchase.
There were both large and small loaves, I got a small one.
They had other goods as well like pasta, sauces, olive oil, pizzelle, cookies, paninis, and deli meats.
I noticed some cannolis in the pastry case. Yep, can't leave without one of those!
Back at the hotel there was nothing new with our money situation, so around lunchtime I went back out to The Whistling Kettle, which mostly sells teas online but also has three physical locations that you can visit, and this is one of them.
They sell over 100 types of tea and in sample sizes, which I love because it helps me to discover what I like :)
I skipped the black teas for now and went with a white tea from China and a green tea from Japan, and one of their top-selling flavored rooibos teas. Excited to try them out!
For lunch I got a "sconewich": toasted herb scone with roasted tomato, onion, garlic, zucchini, eggplant, and squash, topped with pesto and goat cheese. I got it to go and when I got home, cooked an egg white souffle in the microwave and added that for protein.
It was incredibly good! I think the veggies had been marinated because they were a bit tangy, and coupled with the rich goat cheese and fluffy egg white and savory-yet-sweet scone, this was a very good flavor combination. I would love to try making something like this at home!
The cannoli from Perreca's was also fantastic. The nutmeg in the shell, and the creamy rich filling...so amazing and delicious :)
Sound check, and the theatre is adjacent to the hotel which is a great treat.
Walking over is so nice!
The theatre is pretty, kind of a Gothic style going on inside.
This was my view from the pit, which is really deep so it was kinda hard to get a good shot but you get the idea.
And backstage there were lots of little treasures. The building is very old; there are brass doorknobs and mail slots and opaque antique glass panels on all of the dressing room doors. I'm also constantly finding weird little mementos around every corner from shows past, including this strange display in a stairwell.
It seems to be made up of scraps and figurines meant to represent specific shows. Pretty cool.
And my dressing room table is a wall tag! There are several of these scattered around the building.
I got the Monty Python one!
Anyway, sound check was fine.
I brought some lemon cookies from Perreca's to share with the guys.
The pit is one of those that's on a mechanical platform that can be raised or lowered, so unfortunately it's quite wobbly, if one of us sneezes we all feel it haha. It's a bit annoying but I'm trying to pretend I'm on a cruise ship, since that also had unexpected and annoying motions when one was trying to perform.
The show went well, we had a great responsive audience.
And it looks like our money was returned to our bank accounts, which is "nice" considering it shouldn't have been stolen in the first place. I'm going to wait for the full explanation, but once all the facts are out about what happened I'll probably incorporate preventative measures.
---------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, I had nothing planned.
Did laundry in the morning, had breakfast, gave my trombone a bath in the afternoon.
Tried to nap and failed.
My friend Kriste came to the show along with a friend. I haven't seen her for almost ten years!
She seems to be doing well though we didn't get much time to talk unfortunately.
We had abysmal luck with dinner, first going to a place that was frankly too pricey for all of us, then the fire alarm went off minutes after we sat down and the staff could not turn it off so we left, finding ourselves in a much more chill cafe where we were able to get some sandwiches and scarf them down.
Regardless, I found the whole thing amusing, and hopefully they did too. What can ya do!
The show went well, the ladies had great seats so a good time was had by all!
--------------------------------------------------
It's Thursday and we have two shows. I'm making plans to spend Saturday morning with Kriste, but recent events might be interfering with that, we will see how it all plays out. We are all waiting for an explanation on why money was withdrawn from our banks at the start of the week. But I trust that answers will be forthcoming, I know that the company is working very hard to make things right.
I probably won't do much other than the shows today, but tomorrow I'd like to walk to the Schenectady Central Park Rose Garden.
4am - wake up, coffee, finish packing
4:30am - load luggage onto the bus
5am - leave hotel and arrive at airport
7am-9:30am - flight to Atlanta, breakfast
10am-noon - flight to Schenectady
We got to the hotel by 1, and amazingly the rooms were ready for us!
Clean and with a largeish fridge and a microwave :)
I walked to CVS hoping for leftover Easter candy but this one didn't have any.
Then decided to walk to Niskayuna Co-op since it was a lovely sunny day, 60 degrees.
A big change from cold and windy 35-degree St. Louis, where it had still been snowing; and hot humid 92-degree Fort Myers which we just left. Spring has just arrived in upstate New York, and there are buds on the trees and beautiful little purple and yellow ground flowers blooming all over the place. Robins hopping about for worms, the smell of fresh thawing earth...all of those things. It was a 3-mile walk to the co-op but it was enjoyable and felt like no time at all.
( CLICK HERE for Co-op Adventures )
The rest of my night was spent unpacking and going to bed around 10:30pm because it had been a LONG day.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday we woke up to a rather nasty surprise: our payroll company somehow deducted thousands of dollars from ALL of our accounts last night. Not fun at all. For me, I have actually had something like this happen before so it did not impact me greatly. But some people experienced overdraft fees, negative balances, or have nothing at all in their bank accounts until this is resolved. Really, really not good.
Since there wasn't really anything that I could do about any of it, I went about my morning as usual with breakfast and typing up this post before heading over to Perreca's Bakery for a hot fresh loaf of Italian bread.
Perreca's has been in business for over 100 years, baking bread and sandwiches and pizzas in their self-built coal oven.
Even though it's a random Tuesday, fresh loaves of bread were sitting in the window for purchase.
There were both large and small loaves, I got a small one.
They had other goods as well like pasta, sauces, olive oil, pizzelle, cookies, paninis, and deli meats.
I noticed some cannolis in the pastry case. Yep, can't leave without one of those!
Back at the hotel there was nothing new with our money situation, so around lunchtime I went back out to The Whistling Kettle, which mostly sells teas online but also has three physical locations that you can visit, and this is one of them.
They sell over 100 types of tea and in sample sizes, which I love because it helps me to discover what I like :)
I skipped the black teas for now and went with a white tea from China and a green tea from Japan, and one of their top-selling flavored rooibos teas. Excited to try them out!
For lunch I got a "sconewich": toasted herb scone with roasted tomato, onion, garlic, zucchini, eggplant, and squash, topped with pesto and goat cheese. I got it to go and when I got home, cooked an egg white souffle in the microwave and added that for protein.
It was incredibly good! I think the veggies had been marinated because they were a bit tangy, and coupled with the rich goat cheese and fluffy egg white and savory-yet-sweet scone, this was a very good flavor combination. I would love to try making something like this at home!
The cannoli from Perreca's was also fantastic. The nutmeg in the shell, and the creamy rich filling...so amazing and delicious :)
Sound check, and the theatre is adjacent to the hotel which is a great treat.
Walking over is so nice!
The theatre is pretty, kind of a Gothic style going on inside.
This was my view from the pit, which is really deep so it was kinda hard to get a good shot but you get the idea.
And backstage there were lots of little treasures. The building is very old; there are brass doorknobs and mail slots and opaque antique glass panels on all of the dressing room doors. I'm also constantly finding weird little mementos around every corner from shows past, including this strange display in a stairwell.
It seems to be made up of scraps and figurines meant to represent specific shows. Pretty cool.
And my dressing room table is a wall tag! There are several of these scattered around the building.
I got the Monty Python one!
Anyway, sound check was fine.
I brought some lemon cookies from Perreca's to share with the guys.
The pit is one of those that's on a mechanical platform that can be raised or lowered, so unfortunately it's quite wobbly, if one of us sneezes we all feel it haha. It's a bit annoying but I'm trying to pretend I'm on a cruise ship, since that also had unexpected and annoying motions when one was trying to perform.
The show went well, we had a great responsive audience.
And it looks like our money was returned to our bank accounts, which is "nice" considering it shouldn't have been stolen in the first place. I'm going to wait for the full explanation, but once all the facts are out about what happened I'll probably incorporate preventative measures.
---------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, I had nothing planned.
Did laundry in the morning, had breakfast, gave my trombone a bath in the afternoon.
Tried to nap and failed.
My friend Kriste came to the show along with a friend. I haven't seen her for almost ten years!
She seems to be doing well though we didn't get much time to talk unfortunately.
We had abysmal luck with dinner, first going to a place that was frankly too pricey for all of us, then the fire alarm went off minutes after we sat down and the staff could not turn it off so we left, finding ourselves in a much more chill cafe where we were able to get some sandwiches and scarf them down.
Regardless, I found the whole thing amusing, and hopefully they did too. What can ya do!
The show went well, the ladies had great seats so a good time was had by all!
--------------------------------------------------
It's Thursday and we have two shows. I'm making plans to spend Saturday morning with Kriste, but recent events might be interfering with that, we will see how it all plays out. We are all waiting for an explanation on why money was withdrawn from our banks at the start of the week. But I trust that answers will be forthcoming, I know that the company is working very hard to make things right.
I probably won't do much other than the shows today, but tomorrow I'd like to walk to the Schenectady Central Park Rose Garden.
