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My Fair Lady - Madison, WI part 1
Nov. 22nd, 2023 11:38 pmI went to bed between 7-8pm on Monday night, being utterly wiped out from that whirlwind of travel.
I woke up once in the night and had to read a bit to put myself back asleep, but didn't wake up again until 8:30am (which would have been 7:30am SLC time and 9:30am Orlando time so that worked out lol.) I probably got close to ten hours of sleep! Which is wonderful. I still feel a little tired, but was energetic enough to take the 1.5-mile walk to Willy Street Co-op!
Some of you may remember that I got to visit Willy St last year with Tootsie.
It was one of my favorite co-ops on tour, so much so that I even bought one of their enamel pins for my collection.
What a privilege and a joy to get to come back here!
Everything still looks amazing. Fresh produce, huge bulk section, local breads, a vegan hot bar.
There were several holiday displays showcasing local baked goods, chocolates, crafts, and other products.
Look at these adorable felt food ornaments!!
I picked up Simply Snackin' jerky, which is one of the best jerkies I've ever had so far in all my travels. They're low in sodium and fat, high quality lean protein, and the flavors are unique and phenomenal. I've only ever found them here, but you can buy them online too. Highly, highly recommend.
I exercised great restraint since it's Thanksgiving week, and only bought a few things.
But they had some Co-op T-shirts on the clearance rack, and I bought one because certainly that money goes directly to the co-op itself and I want to continue supporting such a wonderful place :) Here's one of their employees wearing the shirt; I couldn't find a pic of just the design, and had trouble getting a good pic in my hotel room for whatever reason.
(photo courtesy Willy St Co-op)
My haul from the grocery: the Simply Snackin' jerky, a little smoked salmon, locally-brewed Colectivo Coffee, Yumbutter almond butter, local dark chocolate, and a really interesting tinned fish meal (there were many flavor options but this one had the lowest fat and sodium by far compared to the others.)
As always I'm excited to try all of these! I had some of the salmon for lunch and it was wonderful.
At 5pm we had sound check. Since I was just here with Tootsie this theatre is very familiar to me.
On Tootsie our drummer was "remoted", meaning they had to play from a different room and watch the conductor on a camera. Here they crammed her in with us, so it's tight quarters but not THAT bad.
We had a different French horn sub here, his name's Cody, and he did ok. He hasn't done many shows of this style so there was probably a learning curve. Otherwise the show was fine, it seemed like a pretty full house which is good.
----------------------------------------------------
Wednesday I was up fairly early but just kinda slummed around. There was a group tour scheduled for Madison's capitol building, but I wasn't really feeling it today.
For lunch I met our cellist Elen at Little Tibet.
It's a tiny restaurant with only a few booths, clearly family run and with everything made to order.
I got chicken momo (dumplings), and Elen got the vegan momo and a bowl of curry.
We chatted and got to know each other a bit better as we waited for our food.
Elen is from Memphis, and has done a lot of studio recording there with her sister, who plays the violin.
We commiserated about not wanting to teach music, and having performance degrees for a reason :p
Here are my chicken momo. They were extremely delicious with the lovely cold tomato-garlic dipping sauce and the pickled veg.
You could see all of the fresh ingredients inside.
For dessert we split an order of gulab jamun: fried milk powder-based dumplings soaked in a cardamom and rose water simple syrup. I did not know that these were milk-based, so had to eat a bunch of Lactaid as soon as I got home! Still, they were delicious, sweet, and fragrant little bites.
Soon enough it was time for the evening show. It's gotten really cold here so I bundled up...which meant I finally go to wear the CVS receipt scarf that I bought a few weeks back!
I'm sure most of you know that the ridiculous length of CVS receipts has become kind of a societal joke. As a result there are quite a few products featuring the notoriously long coupon-studded receipt, including scarves, socks, dog toys, ties, and more. I'm one of those idiots who loves goofy shi*t like this, and just HAD to have it. Especially after wearing an actual CVS receipt as a scarf last year!
2022 vs 2023:
Everyone got a kick out of it; the Wardrobe department is right across from the band dressing room and they were SCREAMING (that's Gen Z slang for hysterical laughter.)
Anyway, the show went well, and it was our last day with our French horn sub Corey, who did an ok job!
------------------------------------------------------------
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and we have no shows. I'm spending the holiday with Jameson's parents as they live nearby. Jameson's mom is a formidable cook, so I'm excited for a potential feast! They're also going to come to our show on Sunday afternoon :)
Have a safe, happy, and delicious Turkey Day everyone!
I woke up once in the night and had to read a bit to put myself back asleep, but didn't wake up again until 8:30am (which would have been 7:30am SLC time and 9:30am Orlando time so that worked out lol.) I probably got close to ten hours of sleep! Which is wonderful. I still feel a little tired, but was energetic enough to take the 1.5-mile walk to Willy Street Co-op!
Some of you may remember that I got to visit Willy St last year with Tootsie.
It was one of my favorite co-ops on tour, so much so that I even bought one of their enamel pins for my collection.
What a privilege and a joy to get to come back here!
Everything still looks amazing. Fresh produce, huge bulk section, local breads, a vegan hot bar.
There were several holiday displays showcasing local baked goods, chocolates, crafts, and other products.
Look at these adorable felt food ornaments!!
I picked up Simply Snackin' jerky, which is one of the best jerkies I've ever had so far in all my travels. They're low in sodium and fat, high quality lean protein, and the flavors are unique and phenomenal. I've only ever found them here, but you can buy them online too. Highly, highly recommend.
I exercised great restraint since it's Thanksgiving week, and only bought a few things.
But they had some Co-op T-shirts on the clearance rack, and I bought one because certainly that money goes directly to the co-op itself and I want to continue supporting such a wonderful place :) Here's one of their employees wearing the shirt; I couldn't find a pic of just the design, and had trouble getting a good pic in my hotel room for whatever reason.
(photo courtesy Willy St Co-op)
My haul from the grocery: the Simply Snackin' jerky, a little smoked salmon, locally-brewed Colectivo Coffee, Yumbutter almond butter, local dark chocolate, and a really interesting tinned fish meal (there were many flavor options but this one had the lowest fat and sodium by far compared to the others.)
As always I'm excited to try all of these! I had some of the salmon for lunch and it was wonderful.
At 5pm we had sound check. Since I was just here with Tootsie this theatre is very familiar to me.
On Tootsie our drummer was "remoted", meaning they had to play from a different room and watch the conductor on a camera. Here they crammed her in with us, so it's tight quarters but not THAT bad.
We had a different French horn sub here, his name's Cody, and he did ok. He hasn't done many shows of this style so there was probably a learning curve. Otherwise the show was fine, it seemed like a pretty full house which is good.
----------------------------------------------------
Wednesday I was up fairly early but just kinda slummed around. There was a group tour scheduled for Madison's capitol building, but I wasn't really feeling it today.
For lunch I met our cellist Elen at Little Tibet.
It's a tiny restaurant with only a few booths, clearly family run and with everything made to order.
I got chicken momo (dumplings), and Elen got the vegan momo and a bowl of curry.
We chatted and got to know each other a bit better as we waited for our food.
Elen is from Memphis, and has done a lot of studio recording there with her sister, who plays the violin.
We commiserated about not wanting to teach music, and having performance degrees for a reason :p
Here are my chicken momo. They were extremely delicious with the lovely cold tomato-garlic dipping sauce and the pickled veg.
You could see all of the fresh ingredients inside.
For dessert we split an order of gulab jamun: fried milk powder-based dumplings soaked in a cardamom and rose water simple syrup. I did not know that these were milk-based, so had to eat a bunch of Lactaid as soon as I got home! Still, they were delicious, sweet, and fragrant little bites.
Soon enough it was time for the evening show. It's gotten really cold here so I bundled up...which meant I finally go to wear the CVS receipt scarf that I bought a few weeks back!
I'm sure most of you know that the ridiculous length of CVS receipts has become kind of a societal joke. As a result there are quite a few products featuring the notoriously long coupon-studded receipt, including scarves, socks, dog toys, ties, and more. I'm one of those idiots who loves goofy shi*t like this, and just HAD to have it. Especially after wearing an actual CVS receipt as a scarf last year!
2022 vs 2023:
Everyone got a kick out of it; the Wardrobe department is right across from the band dressing room and they were SCREAMING (that's Gen Z slang for hysterical laughter.)
Anyway, the show went well, and it was our last day with our French horn sub Corey, who did an ok job!
------------------------------------------------------------
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and we have no shows. I'm spending the holiday with Jameson's parents as they live nearby. Jameson's mom is a formidable cook, so I'm excited for a potential feast! They're also going to come to our show on Sunday afternoon :)
Have a safe, happy, and delicious Turkey Day everyone!
