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taz_39Here it is, the hectic final week before our second layoff!
Two shows in Johnson City, a one-nighter in Blacksburg VA, a long travel day to Worcester involving both buses and planes, and then a weekend of matinees. Goodness.
I've booked myself a massage in Worcester, because even though I hate being touched I need to find the source of this weird twinging in my side, and since I carry a lot of tension in my back and neck let's get it loosened up first. Then I've made an appointment with our tour's traveling physical therapy specialist. They're usually booked solid (I mean, people are DANCING up there, obviously they need PT first and foremost) but I managed to squeeze in on the coming Saturday.
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On Monday we loaded the bus and got going. It was a typical ride, but I was excited.
Our lunch stop was at some mall, which I could care less about...but next to the mall was Prostor Market, an Eastern European supermarket! As soon as we arrived I sped through the mall (they parked on the opposite side that I needed, go figure, but hey I got some steps in) and dashed across the parking lot in the rain.
I didn't have my hopes up; a lot of Slavic import shops are small and stocked with ingredient/pantry foods.
So when I stepped inside and was greeted with aisle upon aisle of snacks, drinks, teas, cookies, canned goods, dried meats, candies, chocolates, and more...I knew I was in heaven (and financial trouble lol.)
There were bulk candy shelves on every end cap. That alone guaranteed I wasn't walking out empty handed.
This was an aisle dedicated to tea biscuits, cookies, and wafers. There were especially a lot of the bagel-shaped biscuits, that resembled Italian taralli but seemed to all be sweet. The flavors were lemon, mint, vanilla, honey, poppyseed, cranberry, "iced," and "country style." Next to them were the same quantity of gingerbread cookies with all the same flavors but including chestnut and some berry that I couldn't identify (looked kind of like a goji.) There were lots of delicious-looking rectangular tea biscuits, but every single one that I picked up contained either condensed milk or pure whey/milk powder, which meant potential digestive problems for me, so I had to leave them.
The next aisle over was entirely tea, in almost every flavor you could think of. I saw so many that I'd love to try! There were a lot of fruit-flavored teas and especially strawberry. I saw spiced plum, lingonberry, "forest herb" which included pine or birch, strong black teas, barley teas, and much more.
Next, an aisle of chocolate bars and chocolates. All of the usual Nutella, Kinder, Milka, Cadbury, Ritter Sport, etc bars, but quite a few that I had never seen before with beautiful wrapping and labels in Russian or Polish. I badly wanted one but have to keep my luggage light right now.
Next aisle was canned and dried goods, like sauces and pastas. There were a lot of pickled whole veggies, mostly tomatoes but I saw garlic and onions and pickles and all sorts of things really. This is something that I would love to buy to ship to myself in Florida.
Finally came the beverage aisle (pictured earlier.) It was mostly energy drinks and sodas, lots of high-sugar things so not much that I would realistically drink. But the flavors were appealing. Look at these, I'd love to try them all! But the sugar content was like 50 grams, yikes.
There was a dried meats section that had jerkies, sausages, and loads of jerkied or dried fish.
Even whole gutted fish, like this silver carp! Under different circumstances I would have loved to try one!
There was a refrigerated section with SO much meat, imported sausages and brauts mostly, but there was also caviar and sides of beef, steaks, frozen meal boxes, etc. There were cheeses and butters too of course.
After I had picked out my things, I went to check out and saw the pastry case with cakes, pastries, and hand pies fresh-baked in house. The cashier spoke almost no English but did understand some spoken, so I was able to ask for a sausage rolled up in a brioche-looking dough. She heated it in the microwave for me. It was very good!
I had to run back through the mall to make it onto the bus (usually I'm early for the bus call but not today haha.)
Here is my "haul," rather a small one but again, I need to be careful about what I buy right now.
- Georgian mineral water: This is just sparkling water, but I was amazed at how much flavor it had. The label says something about it being helpful for stomach acid or ulcers, I think? Sounds like just what I need. Anyway, this was not the same as American sparkling water and I enjoyed it.
- Birch Juice: This only had 3 ingredients and fairly low sugar, plus, birch juice!! I thought it might taste similar to American birch beer? But it wasn't carbonated. After doing a little research I decided it's probably straight-up birch sap, with a little added sugar and preservative. It seems like there are many antioxidants and desirable minerals in birch juice, most notably 130% DV manganese. It tasted...just sweet, maybe a little bit of a musky flavor like a very mild maple sap flavor. I actually would mix this with the mineral water! Very good.
- "Champagne" tea: This was over by a self-serve Keurig. I asked the cashier if I could buy it and she just waved her hand at me: "Take it." It's a green and black tea blend with strawberry and floral flavors. Interested to try it!
- Honey-flavored gingerbread cookies: I got these to share with the band. Honey flavoring in European sweets usually means a strongly FLORAL flavor. These cookies took a bit of getting used to--I watched my bandmates make weird faces smelling and biting into them, not expecting such a strong flowery sweetness--but later on people kept coming back for more, so they weren't all THAT bad :p They were softer than they looked, and would have been perfect with unsweetened green or black tea (which is of course how they were meant to be eaten.)
- Misc bulk European chocolates: I got these for Jameson and I, two of each to share. There was not a word of English on the labels so I just picked what looked good. The blue-and-white candies are very likely "birds milk" chocolates, which I've had before and are very delicious. One candy has a poppy on it so I assume poppy seeds? Another had a lemon or lime. Some had pictures of hazelnuts. And some are a complete mystery. Excited to try them out with Jameson soon!
That's the most foodie excitement I'm likely to experience on this leg of tour, lol.
We rode the bus the rest of the way to the hotel and arrived with no time to do anything but throw our luggage in the room, get changed, and rush to the theatre for sound check. The theater has a very deep pit so we can't see the audience at all, and I can only see the ceiling which is bland and beige. Oh well, we're only here for two nights.
The show went well except that we had to stop and hold in the middle of the show again, I'm not sure what for but this is the third time it's happened this week. Now I suspect that something is actually broken, and they're trying to make it to the layoff with the broken part?
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Tuesday I woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a truck. Johnson City is a bit higher in altitude so that's certainly part of it, but also just doing a lot of shows and then cramming onto a bus every other day will take its toll. I typed up this post and had breakfast, making sure to hydrate EXTRA, then Ubered off to do laundry. That went smoothly, so from there walking to Earth Fare for some travel groceries.
On the way I had some long texts with Jameson, who got some bad news about his hand (he injured it while playing keyboard several months ago, and it has not gotten better and is painful for him every day.) The doctor says there is little to nothing that they can do for him, and that his best bet is to wait and see if it improves or changes. Not what he'd been hoping to hear. Being in pain when you wake up, all day, and when you go to bed...and then being told "Just wait and see"...yeah. Not ideal.
I want to believe that it will get better, and he'll be ok. But mostly, I'm worried about what this will do to his mental health.
Right now there's not much I can do except express that I'm here for him, for anything.
At the grocery it felt like I was doing math, trying to calculate what I could or could not buy, what I'd eat before the flight on Thursday, what could survive 3 hours on a bus, etc. But I think I did a pretty good job of not overdoing it. They had lemon plums which I'd seen before but never tried; now's the time! Don't they look weird?
Once I got it home I found out that they're not ripe until the whole fruit is the reddish color of the tip. So I'll have to wait, and/or this Weird Nipple Plum is coming with me on a plane. Emotional Support Plum. Lol.
I did a partial luggage packing and ate lunch, then continued mathing out my meals in MyFitnessPal. Partly for nutrition like I always do, and partly to see how long my food will last and what is likely to end up in my luggage instead of being consumed in the next 48 hours. It's a pain in the butt but I don't like to waste food, and looking ahead helps to prevent that.
In the late afternoon our drummer Laura arranged for a cute Galentine's meet up at the hotel pool, with all the ladies of the orchestra! She made us strawberry cream Baileys shots, and brought us cupcakes iced to look like roses. So thoughtful of her! It was my first Galentine's celebration ever :) I didn't stay long, but it was nice to have a moment with the ladies.
After that I had to call maintenance to my room because my cheap aquarium thermometer let me know that the fridge was not getting below 50°F (10°C) which is NOT safe for food storage. It was a brand new fridge too, there were still pieces of packaging stuck to it. The maintenance guy confirmed that I was NOT crazy, it was too warm and it must have a bad compressor. Switched it out and the new fridge is fine, but I didn't feel safe about my turkey wrap I'd gotten for the bus ride (also the warm fridge had leaked condensation into the container and now it was soggy :/) so I did end up throwing that out. Everything else was unopened yogurt and protein and fruit though, so I felt it was still in the "ok" range.
The joys of minifridges. Glad that I started carrying cheap thermometers with me exactly for this reason!!
The evening show was mostly good, but we had ANOTHER hold that interrupted the show.
We are now up to FOUR of these and it's unprofessional and ridiculous. I do not know the details about what is causing these show interruptions, but it has to be some sort of issue with moving large setpieces or with a recurring safety concern, I don't think anything else would stop our shows four times in a row like this. We still have six shows to go before the layoff, I really hope they get it worked out because it's been very disruptive, and not what people are paying to see. I can't be the only one annoyed about this.
After the show there was a wall tag to sign (on canvas, which means the theatre will be able to move it! See thatmarlinkhylacat ?) but the lighting backstage at this theatre is all ultraviolet blue for some reason, so there was NO way to get a decent pic :/ Signed it and loaded onto the bus back to the hotel.
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Wednesday (Valentine's Day!) was weird because we didn't leave our hotel until 11:30am. That's pretty late, but it's because Blacksburg VA is only about 2.5 hours away, and if we get there before 3pm we won't be able to check in. So I got to enjoy a slow morning and taking my time packing before we loaded onto the bus. Which one of our cast members decorated for Valentine's Day!
We rode our romantic charter bus through the mountains, and arrived with enough time to ACTUALLY unpack and get ready for the show for once. I was fortunate to get the handicap-accessible room, with a wide-open floor plan and a whole living room setup. Too bad we're only here for a few hours.
The Moss Center for the Arts, on the campus of Virginia Tech, is a beautiful building inside and out.
I snuck out to the lobby to have a peek, having seen these hexagonal windows on the ride in. Very beautiful.
The show was sold out, and FOR ONCE we didn't have a hold! Thank god!
But during "Just You Wait" some diphthongs rained down on me. What strange weather they have here in Virginia ;)
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Now it's late and I have to get to bed, because we have a heck of a travel day tomorrow.
First a 3-hour bus ride to Raleigh International (WHY, omg) then a flight to Boston, then another bus from Boston to Worcester during rush hour. Sigh. This layoff can't come soon enough.
Almost forgot: the handwashing signs backstage at this theatre had, instead of the standard "Effective Hand Washing" sign, this one that incorporated Lady MacBeth's monologue, in which she is attempting to wash a spot of blood from her hands in a dream.
Gave me a good laugh!
Two shows in Johnson City, a one-nighter in Blacksburg VA, a long travel day to Worcester involving both buses and planes, and then a weekend of matinees. Goodness.
I've booked myself a massage in Worcester, because even though I hate being touched I need to find the source of this weird twinging in my side, and since I carry a lot of tension in my back and neck let's get it loosened up first. Then I've made an appointment with our tour's traveling physical therapy specialist. They're usually booked solid (I mean, people are DANCING up there, obviously they need PT first and foremost) but I managed to squeeze in on the coming Saturday.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
On Monday we loaded the bus and got going. It was a typical ride, but I was excited.
Our lunch stop was at some mall, which I could care less about...but next to the mall was Prostor Market, an Eastern European supermarket! As soon as we arrived I sped through the mall (they parked on the opposite side that I needed, go figure, but hey I got some steps in) and dashed across the parking lot in the rain.
I didn't have my hopes up; a lot of Slavic import shops are small and stocked with ingredient/pantry foods.
So when I stepped inside and was greeted with aisle upon aisle of snacks, drinks, teas, cookies, canned goods, dried meats, candies, chocolates, and more...I knew I was in heaven (and financial trouble lol.)
There were bulk candy shelves on every end cap. That alone guaranteed I wasn't walking out empty handed.
This was an aisle dedicated to tea biscuits, cookies, and wafers. There were especially a lot of the bagel-shaped biscuits, that resembled Italian taralli but seemed to all be sweet. The flavors were lemon, mint, vanilla, honey, poppyseed, cranberry, "iced," and "country style." Next to them were the same quantity of gingerbread cookies with all the same flavors but including chestnut and some berry that I couldn't identify (looked kind of like a goji.) There were lots of delicious-looking rectangular tea biscuits, but every single one that I picked up contained either condensed milk or pure whey/milk powder, which meant potential digestive problems for me, so I had to leave them.
The next aisle over was entirely tea, in almost every flavor you could think of. I saw so many that I'd love to try! There were a lot of fruit-flavored teas and especially strawberry. I saw spiced plum, lingonberry, "forest herb" which included pine or birch, strong black teas, barley teas, and much more.
Next, an aisle of chocolate bars and chocolates. All of the usual Nutella, Kinder, Milka, Cadbury, Ritter Sport, etc bars, but quite a few that I had never seen before with beautiful wrapping and labels in Russian or Polish. I badly wanted one but have to keep my luggage light right now.
Next aisle was canned and dried goods, like sauces and pastas. There were a lot of pickled whole veggies, mostly tomatoes but I saw garlic and onions and pickles and all sorts of things really. This is something that I would love to buy to ship to myself in Florida.
Finally came the beverage aisle (pictured earlier.) It was mostly energy drinks and sodas, lots of high-sugar things so not much that I would realistically drink. But the flavors were appealing. Look at these, I'd love to try them all! But the sugar content was like 50 grams, yikes.
There was a dried meats section that had jerkies, sausages, and loads of jerkied or dried fish.
Even whole gutted fish, like this silver carp! Under different circumstances I would have loved to try one!
There was a refrigerated section with SO much meat, imported sausages and brauts mostly, but there was also caviar and sides of beef, steaks, frozen meal boxes, etc. There were cheeses and butters too of course.
After I had picked out my things, I went to check out and saw the pastry case with cakes, pastries, and hand pies fresh-baked in house. The cashier spoke almost no English but did understand some spoken, so I was able to ask for a sausage rolled up in a brioche-looking dough. She heated it in the microwave for me. It was very good!
I had to run back through the mall to make it onto the bus (usually I'm early for the bus call but not today haha.)
Here is my "haul," rather a small one but again, I need to be careful about what I buy right now.
- Georgian mineral water: This is just sparkling water, but I was amazed at how much flavor it had. The label says something about it being helpful for stomach acid or ulcers, I think? Sounds like just what I need. Anyway, this was not the same as American sparkling water and I enjoyed it.
- Birch Juice: This only had 3 ingredients and fairly low sugar, plus, birch juice!! I thought it might taste similar to American birch beer? But it wasn't carbonated. After doing a little research I decided it's probably straight-up birch sap, with a little added sugar and preservative. It seems like there are many antioxidants and desirable minerals in birch juice, most notably 130% DV manganese. It tasted...just sweet, maybe a little bit of a musky flavor like a very mild maple sap flavor. I actually would mix this with the mineral water! Very good.
- "Champagne" tea: This was over by a self-serve Keurig. I asked the cashier if I could buy it and she just waved her hand at me: "Take it." It's a green and black tea blend with strawberry and floral flavors. Interested to try it!
- Honey-flavored gingerbread cookies: I got these to share with the band. Honey flavoring in European sweets usually means a strongly FLORAL flavor. These cookies took a bit of getting used to--I watched my bandmates make weird faces smelling and biting into them, not expecting such a strong flowery sweetness--but later on people kept coming back for more, so they weren't all THAT bad :p They were softer than they looked, and would have been perfect with unsweetened green or black tea (which is of course how they were meant to be eaten.)
- Misc bulk European chocolates: I got these for Jameson and I, two of each to share. There was not a word of English on the labels so I just picked what looked good. The blue-and-white candies are very likely "birds milk" chocolates, which I've had before and are very delicious. One candy has a poppy on it so I assume poppy seeds? Another had a lemon or lime. Some had pictures of hazelnuts. And some are a complete mystery. Excited to try them out with Jameson soon!
That's the most foodie excitement I'm likely to experience on this leg of tour, lol.
We rode the bus the rest of the way to the hotel and arrived with no time to do anything but throw our luggage in the room, get changed, and rush to the theatre for sound check. The theater has a very deep pit so we can't see the audience at all, and I can only see the ceiling which is bland and beige. Oh well, we're only here for two nights.
The show went well except that we had to stop and hold in the middle of the show again, I'm not sure what for but this is the third time it's happened this week. Now I suspect that something is actually broken, and they're trying to make it to the layoff with the broken part?
------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday I woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a truck. Johnson City is a bit higher in altitude so that's certainly part of it, but also just doing a lot of shows and then cramming onto a bus every other day will take its toll. I typed up this post and had breakfast, making sure to hydrate EXTRA, then Ubered off to do laundry. That went smoothly, so from there walking to Earth Fare for some travel groceries.
On the way I had some long texts with Jameson, who got some bad news about his hand (he injured it while playing keyboard several months ago, and it has not gotten better and is painful for him every day.) The doctor says there is little to nothing that they can do for him, and that his best bet is to wait and see if it improves or changes. Not what he'd been hoping to hear. Being in pain when you wake up, all day, and when you go to bed...and then being told "Just wait and see"...yeah. Not ideal.
I want to believe that it will get better, and he'll be ok. But mostly, I'm worried about what this will do to his mental health.
Right now there's not much I can do except express that I'm here for him, for anything.
At the grocery it felt like I was doing math, trying to calculate what I could or could not buy, what I'd eat before the flight on Thursday, what could survive 3 hours on a bus, etc. But I think I did a pretty good job of not overdoing it. They had lemon plums which I'd seen before but never tried; now's the time! Don't they look weird?
Once I got it home I found out that they're not ripe until the whole fruit is the reddish color of the tip. So I'll have to wait, and/or this Weird Nipple Plum is coming with me on a plane. Emotional Support Plum. Lol.
I did a partial luggage packing and ate lunch, then continued mathing out my meals in MyFitnessPal. Partly for nutrition like I always do, and partly to see how long my food will last and what is likely to end up in my luggage instead of being consumed in the next 48 hours. It's a pain in the butt but I don't like to waste food, and looking ahead helps to prevent that.
In the late afternoon our drummer Laura arranged for a cute Galentine's meet up at the hotel pool, with all the ladies of the orchestra! She made us strawberry cream Baileys shots, and brought us cupcakes iced to look like roses. So thoughtful of her! It was my first Galentine's celebration ever :) I didn't stay long, but it was nice to have a moment with the ladies.
After that I had to call maintenance to my room because my cheap aquarium thermometer let me know that the fridge was not getting below 50°F (10°C) which is NOT safe for food storage. It was a brand new fridge too, there were still pieces of packaging stuck to it. The maintenance guy confirmed that I was NOT crazy, it was too warm and it must have a bad compressor. Switched it out and the new fridge is fine, but I didn't feel safe about my turkey wrap I'd gotten for the bus ride (also the warm fridge had leaked condensation into the container and now it was soggy :/) so I did end up throwing that out. Everything else was unopened yogurt and protein and fruit though, so I felt it was still in the "ok" range.
The joys of minifridges. Glad that I started carrying cheap thermometers with me exactly for this reason!!
The evening show was mostly good, but we had ANOTHER hold that interrupted the show.
We are now up to FOUR of these and it's unprofessional and ridiculous. I do not know the details about what is causing these show interruptions, but it has to be some sort of issue with moving large setpieces or with a recurring safety concern, I don't think anything else would stop our shows four times in a row like this. We still have six shows to go before the layoff, I really hope they get it worked out because it's been very disruptive, and not what people are paying to see. I can't be the only one annoyed about this.
After the show there was a wall tag to sign (on canvas, which means the theatre will be able to move it! See that
marlinkhylacat ?) but the lighting backstage at this theatre is all ultraviolet blue for some reason, so there was NO way to get a decent pic :/ Signed it and loaded onto the bus back to the hotel.---------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday (Valentine's Day!) was weird because we didn't leave our hotel until 11:30am. That's pretty late, but it's because Blacksburg VA is only about 2.5 hours away, and if we get there before 3pm we won't be able to check in. So I got to enjoy a slow morning and taking my time packing before we loaded onto the bus. Which one of our cast members decorated for Valentine's Day!
We rode our romantic charter bus through the mountains, and arrived with enough time to ACTUALLY unpack and get ready for the show for once. I was fortunate to get the handicap-accessible room, with a wide-open floor plan and a whole living room setup. Too bad we're only here for a few hours.
The Moss Center for the Arts, on the campus of Virginia Tech, is a beautiful building inside and out.
I snuck out to the lobby to have a peek, having seen these hexagonal windows on the ride in. Very beautiful.
The show was sold out, and FOR ONCE we didn't have a hold! Thank god!
But during "Just You Wait" some diphthongs rained down on me. What strange weather they have here in Virginia ;)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Now it's late and I have to get to bed, because we have a heck of a travel day tomorrow.
First a 3-hour bus ride to Raleigh International (WHY, omg) then a flight to Boston, then another bus from Boston to Worcester during rush hour. Sigh. This layoff can't come soon enough.
Almost forgot: the handwashing signs backstage at this theatre had, instead of the standard "Effective Hand Washing" sign, this one that incorporated Lady MacBeth's monologue, in which she is attempting to wash a spot of blood from her hands in a dream.
Gave me a good laugh!
no subject
Date: 2024-02-15 12:21 pm (UTC)I wonder if the Georgian water is the same I have had in the past? I can never remember what it is called but my best friend brought it back for me when she was on holiday in Uzbekistan. Sparkling water is my beverage of choice and it was the best I had ever tasted. We went to a Georgian restaurant in London a couple of years later and I had some there too - so good.
no subject
Date: 2024-02-15 12:56 pm (UTC)You can see the bottle of Georgian(?) mineral water in the photo that I posted of it, perhaps you might recognize the label. There were many types and brands so maybe it was the same or maybe not.
no subject
Date: 2024-02-15 01:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-02-16 03:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-02-15 04:31 pm (UTC)Once or twice we've been able to help them out since as an arena we have what many theatres don't (spaaaaace to lay things out), but that doesn't often help with the time/available labor issue.
no subject
Date: 2024-02-15 08:50 pm (UTC)If they are trying to limp a set piece through the end of this leg, I hope they are doing it at least safely. That’s all I can really say without knowing which piece, or whether it’s multiple issues or the same issue.
no subject
Date: 2024-02-16 02:03 pm (UTC)Lemon Plum got damaged during flying yesterday, and it's not ripe yet either, so I may have to try and eat what I can of it today.
If you use hotels a lot/use box fridges which all have wildly fluxuating temps due to having to cycle on and off, these cheap aquarium thermometers are perfect. As soon as I check into a new room I throw one in the fridge, then when I'm about to go buy groceries I have a look. If the strip is entirely black the fridge is too cold and I turn it down before going to get groceries (I've had loads of veggies and Greek yogurt ruined through freezing.) If I see any of the temps above 43 highlighted in green or yellow, it's too warm and I need to either crank the cold up or request a new fridge. And if I see 32-39 degrees highlighted in green/yellow, it's just right and I don't need to change anything.