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Tootsie Yr2: Huntsville, AL
Feb. 20th, 2023 07:20 amI have been to Huntsville before, with the circus, in 2015 and 2016
(click the dates to see the posts, some of which are a little broken from age.)
We bused to Tampa, then had a short flight to Birmingham, then a 1.5 hour bus ride to Huntsville.
The hotel here is very far from the theatre unfortunately, so it's another batch of rental cars and more commuting.
I would much rather be able to walk, tbh.
We are back to "meh" hotels again apparently.
It's just old, not very clean, musty, and everything somehow feels damp.
However we are next to an ALDI and some thrift stores, so I'll be checking those out.
Today I hoofed it over to Trader Joe's, there was one about a mile away.
We're rarely close to one so this was a nice treat. I got three days' worth of groceries and hustled back in the rain (my umbrella lives in the band box which I can't access until load in tomorrow) and arrived back at the hotel looking like a drowned rat. But hey, I got exercise and also a nice pasta salad for dinner.
I unpacked and just kinda chilled out for the rest of the night, calculating nutrition for the next several days and wanting to do some work but just mentally not there for it.
Off-subject, here are the Forever 21 pants that I got at the thrift store that I am so pleased with.
(photo taken in the nicer previous hotel)
For one thing, they are the perfect length, I won't have to get them hemmed (most retail pants have 32" inseams and I'm a 30")
For another, they're very comfortable and fit perfectly.
But the best part is that the elastic waistband was sewn in a sort of "folded under" way, and I was able to undo the stitching to raise the waistband about an inch so that it would ACTUALLY sit at my actual, natural waist!!
(I am super self-conscious about showing my stomach/figure, so no negativity please. I'm a human being with a body like everyone else, if you don't like it just scroll past.)
It is very difficult for me to find pants that sit at my natural waist, in fact it's pretty much unheard of.
I have a long---I mean LONG--torso.
99.99% of all pants for sale sit well below my belly button, either giving me a very undesirable muffin top or fitting so loosely somewhere between my hips and my actual waist that they're constantly sagging. Either way making me feel uncomfortable and self-conscious unless I'm wearing a loose-fitting shirt. Even most sweatpants, leggings, and pajama pants don't fit me well.
It's a very rare treat to experience pants that actually fit. And for only five bucks!
Anyway, I'm so thrilled to have found these pants for $5 and to have modified them for myself that I had to share, self-conscious or not :)
-----------------------------------------------------------
Friday was a bit of an odd day. We are so far from the theater, and adding a commute to our show schedule really cuts into free time.
So several of us asked to carpool in early with our drummer, who needs to set up around 2pm.
I rode the early carpool and immediately recognized this arena/theatre/entertainment complex.
The parking lot was right next to these loading dock doors, which is where we would drop off the elephants when we arrived in town.
I have fond memories of walking here from the train yard, watching the elephants mosey inside while winding up the yellow nylon rope that we used to keep plebs from trying to touch/harass the animals, and from there heading downtown to explore. Good times.
Today I walked to The Poppy and Parliament, as you can guess from the name it's a British-style restaurant.
Their menu looked amazing but also affordable, and I was bitterly annoyed that I couldn't get one of their fascinating cocktails because I had to work in a few hours. Instead I ordered their pastrami sandwich to go.
This restaurant cures and smokes their own meats in-house!
So this was NOT ordinary pastrami. It was not overly salty, and had beautiful spices and herbs crusting the outside.
It's kind of deconstructed because I told them it was for dinner (hours later), so they packaged it in parts so it wouldn't get soggy.
Very kind of them!
Anyway, here it is as an open-face later on:
House-cured pastrami sandwich with apple, radish, and cabbage slaw, pommery mustard, pesto, and horseradish on crusty toasted bread.
It was REALLY good. If we were here longer I'd definitely go back for a cocktail and another meal.
Also, here is a fridge(?) where they are curing a bunch of meats. So cool!
From there I walked to a coffee shop and got an "Alpine au lait", basically an almond milk latte with lingonberry and citrus flavors.
Not something I would normally get, but it was rather cold out and I was still bitter about not being able to have a cocktail, and this filled me with warm winter thoughts and beautiful flavors :)
Then a quick walk to Publix for q-tips and bleach wipes, FINALLY, the last several grocery stores have not had them and I used up all of my bleach wipes in the roach hotel.
Then came sound check. The pit is very deep and has hard sides, so there was a lot of feedback and reverb to deal with but we all made do.
For dinner I ate my lovely sandwich and brought Miss Piggy's Guide to Life to the women's dressing room so that more people could enjoy it. Fun fact, I rarely spend time with the ladies of the cast because the high level of extroversion means a lot of questions, sometimes a lot of loudness, a lot of attention that I kind of don't want. I like to have quiet time between shows. But this week we have no Green Room, and there isn't enough time to get back to the hotel between shows, so I'm setting up camp in there and being a little social for once.
The show went well, though it sounded like we didn't have a very big audience (literally can't see a thing from this deep pit).
----------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, two shows.
I did an hour of data entry early because I'd promised some of the ladies that I'd go thrifting with them in the morning.
Got a shower and packed a bag and a meal for the theatre since I won't get to come back and rest between shows.
Thrifting was fine, it was just a few of us digging through the aisles of clothes and laughing over interesting shirts that we found.
Like this gem:
Or this one, which we considered buying to have a ceremonial burning, lol:
I didn't find anything super-necessary, so left after 20 minutes to get myself a gelato from Sam & Greg's downtown.
It's a pizza parlor, they do personal pizzas and full-size pies, but they also have house-made gelato and spiked milkshakes.
Can't say no to that!
In addition to typical gelato flavors they have a seasonal rotation, and as we're coming off of Valentine's Day a lot of the flavors were themed as such. Strawberry Tastycake, chocolate peanut butter hearts, and strawberry shortcake moon pie are some examples. But they also had "Alice in Wonderland" themed flavors like Cheshire Cat (cotton candy), Unbirthday (birthday cake), and Mad Hatter (it was either chai tea or Thai tea, we weren't sure)
Mad Hatter with tan tea biscuits on top that said "Eat Me" and "Try Me".
I got that, and peanut butter cup. It was wonderfully good!
When it was time for the show we packed up and headed over.
The show was fine, no issues.
During the break I stayed at the theatre so I could do more data entry, and had planned to work on my taxes but then my stepmom called to ask for help setting up an online account (I was secretly glad because I was in no mood for depressing taxes). Then I posted another Miss Piggy's Guide to Life quote on my social, and shared the Foodie Finds sheet for the next city, which is Hartford.
By the time I did all that and ate dinner it was time for the second show.
It went well...when shows go "well" with no major issues, and the audience gives a normal/tame reaction these shows all kind of run together. Which isn't to say, "ho-hum", just that it's repetition where we focus on maintaining quality and improving our sound, no matter how many times we've played the show.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, I woke up annoyed because I don't want to pack :p Someone else do it for me today pls!
Had breakfast and started packing anyway.
Took the rental car to get a small amount of food for the travel day tomorrow, which will save me $$ at the airport, especially since it looks like we don't get much of a layover.
The first show was fine, and I drove myself and three band guys back to the hotel where I did some more packing, got a shower, and had dinner. Then back to the theatre for the evening show, pretty well attended I think, and load out.
So, a standard weekend here in Huntsville.
I had hoped to get to the train yard where our circus train used to sit, but there just didn't seem to be time with five shows in three days.
Now it's 6:30 on Monday.
I'm expanding upon my Foodie Finds for Cincinnati, making it two pages instead of one because it is our first two-week city.
In about an hour we load onto the bus for a day of flying to get to Hartford.
(click the dates to see the posts, some of which are a little broken from age.)
We bused to Tampa, then had a short flight to Birmingham, then a 1.5 hour bus ride to Huntsville.
The hotel here is very far from the theatre unfortunately, so it's another batch of rental cars and more commuting.
I would much rather be able to walk, tbh.
We are back to "meh" hotels again apparently.
It's just old, not very clean, musty, and everything somehow feels damp.
However we are next to an ALDI and some thrift stores, so I'll be checking those out.
Today I hoofed it over to Trader Joe's, there was one about a mile away.
We're rarely close to one so this was a nice treat. I got three days' worth of groceries and hustled back in the rain (my umbrella lives in the band box which I can't access until load in tomorrow) and arrived back at the hotel looking like a drowned rat. But hey, I got exercise and also a nice pasta salad for dinner.
I unpacked and just kinda chilled out for the rest of the night, calculating nutrition for the next several days and wanting to do some work but just mentally not there for it.
Off-subject, here are the Forever 21 pants that I got at the thrift store that I am so pleased with.
(photo taken in the nicer previous hotel)
For one thing, they are the perfect length, I won't have to get them hemmed (most retail pants have 32" inseams and I'm a 30")
For another, they're very comfortable and fit perfectly.
But the best part is that the elastic waistband was sewn in a sort of "folded under" way, and I was able to undo the stitching to raise the waistband about an inch so that it would ACTUALLY sit at my actual, natural waist!!
(I am super self-conscious about showing my stomach/figure, so no negativity please. I'm a human being with a body like everyone else, if you don't like it just scroll past.)
It is very difficult for me to find pants that sit at my natural waist, in fact it's pretty much unheard of.
I have a long---I mean LONG--torso.
99.99% of all pants for sale sit well below my belly button, either giving me a very undesirable muffin top or fitting so loosely somewhere between my hips and my actual waist that they're constantly sagging. Either way making me feel uncomfortable and self-conscious unless I'm wearing a loose-fitting shirt. Even most sweatpants, leggings, and pajama pants don't fit me well.
It's a very rare treat to experience pants that actually fit. And for only five bucks!
Anyway, I'm so thrilled to have found these pants for $5 and to have modified them for myself that I had to share, self-conscious or not :)
-----------------------------------------------------------
Friday was a bit of an odd day. We are so far from the theater, and adding a commute to our show schedule really cuts into free time.
So several of us asked to carpool in early with our drummer, who needs to set up around 2pm.
I rode the early carpool and immediately recognized this arena/theatre/entertainment complex.
The parking lot was right next to these loading dock doors, which is where we would drop off the elephants when we arrived in town.
I have fond memories of walking here from the train yard, watching the elephants mosey inside while winding up the yellow nylon rope that we used to keep plebs from trying to touch/harass the animals, and from there heading downtown to explore. Good times.
Today I walked to The Poppy and Parliament, as you can guess from the name it's a British-style restaurant.
Their menu looked amazing but also affordable, and I was bitterly annoyed that I couldn't get one of their fascinating cocktails because I had to work in a few hours. Instead I ordered their pastrami sandwich to go.
This restaurant cures and smokes their own meats in-house!
So this was NOT ordinary pastrami. It was not overly salty, and had beautiful spices and herbs crusting the outside.
It's kind of deconstructed because I told them it was for dinner (hours later), so they packaged it in parts so it wouldn't get soggy.
Very kind of them!
Anyway, here it is as an open-face later on:
House-cured pastrami sandwich with apple, radish, and cabbage slaw, pommery mustard, pesto, and horseradish on crusty toasted bread.
It was REALLY good. If we were here longer I'd definitely go back for a cocktail and another meal.
Also, here is a fridge(?) where they are curing a bunch of meats. So cool!
From there I walked to a coffee shop and got an "Alpine au lait", basically an almond milk latte with lingonberry and citrus flavors.
Not something I would normally get, but it was rather cold out and I was still bitter about not being able to have a cocktail, and this filled me with warm winter thoughts and beautiful flavors :)
Then a quick walk to Publix for q-tips and bleach wipes, FINALLY, the last several grocery stores have not had them and I used up all of my bleach wipes in the roach hotel.
Then came sound check. The pit is very deep and has hard sides, so there was a lot of feedback and reverb to deal with but we all made do.
For dinner I ate my lovely sandwich and brought Miss Piggy's Guide to Life to the women's dressing room so that more people could enjoy it. Fun fact, I rarely spend time with the ladies of the cast because the high level of extroversion means a lot of questions, sometimes a lot of loudness, a lot of attention that I kind of don't want. I like to have quiet time between shows. But this week we have no Green Room, and there isn't enough time to get back to the hotel between shows, so I'm setting up camp in there and being a little social for once.
The show went well, though it sounded like we didn't have a very big audience (literally can't see a thing from this deep pit).
----------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, two shows.
I did an hour of data entry early because I'd promised some of the ladies that I'd go thrifting with them in the morning.
Got a shower and packed a bag and a meal for the theatre since I won't get to come back and rest between shows.
Thrifting was fine, it was just a few of us digging through the aisles of clothes and laughing over interesting shirts that we found.
Like this gem:
Or this one, which we considered buying to have a ceremonial burning, lol:
I didn't find anything super-necessary, so left after 20 minutes to get myself a gelato from Sam & Greg's downtown.
It's a pizza parlor, they do personal pizzas and full-size pies, but they also have house-made gelato and spiked milkshakes.
Can't say no to that!
In addition to typical gelato flavors they have a seasonal rotation, and as we're coming off of Valentine's Day a lot of the flavors were themed as such. Strawberry Tastycake, chocolate peanut butter hearts, and strawberry shortcake moon pie are some examples. But they also had "Alice in Wonderland" themed flavors like Cheshire Cat (cotton candy), Unbirthday (birthday cake), and Mad Hatter (it was either chai tea or Thai tea, we weren't sure)
Mad Hatter with tan tea biscuits on top that said "Eat Me" and "Try Me".
I got that, and peanut butter cup. It was wonderfully good!
When it was time for the show we packed up and headed over.
The show was fine, no issues.
During the break I stayed at the theatre so I could do more data entry, and had planned to work on my taxes but then my stepmom called to ask for help setting up an online account (I was secretly glad because I was in no mood for depressing taxes). Then I posted another Miss Piggy's Guide to Life quote on my social, and shared the Foodie Finds sheet for the next city, which is Hartford.
By the time I did all that and ate dinner it was time for the second show.
It went well...when shows go "well" with no major issues, and the audience gives a normal/tame reaction these shows all kind of run together. Which isn't to say, "ho-hum", just that it's repetition where we focus on maintaining quality and improving our sound, no matter how many times we've played the show.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, I woke up annoyed because I don't want to pack :p Someone else do it for me today pls!
Had breakfast and started packing anyway.
Took the rental car to get a small amount of food for the travel day tomorrow, which will save me $$ at the airport, especially since it looks like we don't get much of a layover.
The first show was fine, and I drove myself and three band guys back to the hotel where I did some more packing, got a shower, and had dinner. Then back to the theatre for the evening show, pretty well attended I think, and load out.
So, a standard weekend here in Huntsville.
I had hoped to get to the train yard where our circus train used to sit, but there just didn't seem to be time with five shows in three days.
Now it's 6:30 on Monday.
I'm expanding upon my Foodie Finds for Cincinnati, making it two pages instead of one because it is our first two-week city.
In about an hour we load onto the bus for a day of flying to get to Hartford.
