I don't even know what to say right now...
Okay, I'm a little drunk. Embarassingly so, because it's only 11:47pm, I'm in New York City, I've only had about 3 or 4 drinks and I'm at home blogging for christ's sake! Those of you who know me can attest to the fact that I'm not typically such a cheap drunk. But in my own defense, let me tell you that I am also functioning on aproximately 3 hours of sleep, minimal food, maximum caffeine and adrenaline, and I also managed to sucessfully (very successfully, if I do say so myself) run our tech rehearsal this afternoon and stage manage our opening night show tonight - woo hoo! So maybe my body is slightly more vulnerable at the moment. Maybe...
Okay, anyhow. Yes, we had our opening night performance tonight. We rocked the house. Or rather, Tracey did. I just struggled to stay focused, and not be distracted by her great performance, and run the technical cues with as few gliches as possible. Okay, maybe I am being overly modest. Though T.E.S. is certainly The Star, I know I done good too. (Just goes to show, it's easy to be good at something that you care about, right?)
Alright, is anyone at all curious about why I only got 3 hours of sleep last night? Well, it's not because I stayed up all night to do laundry, though I did do that too. No, I was up until about 3am last night finishing my application to York University's Concurrent Bachelor's of Education program. And when I say 'finishing', I really mean starting, and then finishing. And then emailing it to my dear friend, and current saviour and hero, Guntar, so that he could print it and hand deliver it for me before the 4:30pm deadline today. Oh my. This will be a great story if I actually get in to teacher's college and become a teacher... "I started and finished my application to teachers college in less than 12 hours, while I was in New York City production managing a play..."
Yep, that's me for ya.
So, since it is late-ish (don't you even think about trying to make me feel bad about the fact that I am essentially at home on a friday night in new york city - I have been working hard!), I am going to wrap this blog entry up with gratitude, large gratitude...
I am thankful to be in New York City, working a job that I care deeply about, with someone whom I admire, and have much to learn from, and I have fun with... I am thankful that I am in a position to "network" with so many new yorkers, who work in and around the theatre world, and that I am letting my personality shine through every interaction that I undertake, and that I am making the most of the opportunities that surround me...
I am thankful for the time I got to spend in Vancouver as a result of this "job" with Tracey, in particular, I am thankful for the time I got to spend with my brother in Vancouver and for the fact that I was able to attend the celebration of my friend MLE's life...
I am thankful for all of my recent and upcoming travels & adventures... Las Vegas in Dec 2006, Thirteen Moons Retreat Centre in Peterborough County in Jan 2007, Vancouver in Feb 2007, NYC in Mar 2007, and up next: Halifax at the end of Mar 2007, followed by a road-trip to (and BFF Reunion in) Burlington, Vermont in April 2007 and then a departure from Canada at the end of April 2007 so that I can spend the Spring/Summer working in the South of France...
The Burning Bush World Miracle Tour is also hoping to perform at the Acco Festival in Israel in the Fall, followed by Hawaii or Las Vegas, whichever I can work out quicker... lol ;)
After which, we will likely have to make our way to Chicago since Oprah will be dying to meet us before our Off-Broadway run begins in 2008! (Maybe I will just be too busy travelling to go back to school and teacher's college)...
I am also thankful that the FRIGID Festival that we are a part of here in NYC is being run by such cool, down-to-earth, talented, hard-working and interesting individuals... And that we got Justin (one of these four awesome above-mentioned individuals, as well as the Tech Director for the festival) as our technician...
I am thankful that I have a dear friend (who also happens to be my upstairs neighbour and landlord in Toronto) who will do things like print my application to teachers college and drive up to York University to hand deliver it for me with less than 24 hours notice...
I am also thankful that when it is time to pry myself away from the adventure of travel, that I will have a beautiful, clean, cozy and familiar home to return to. And that there are many people that I am looking forward to seeing and re-connecting with, including my friends: Mark, Alison, Cheryl, Kathy, Devon, Zoja, Guntar, Thea, Karen, Cathy and... lots and lots of others...
F*@#, I am a lucky girl.
(And I am grateful too)
*NAMASTE*
Friday, March 9, 2007
I just figured out how to put pics on here!
Hello Tokyo! I mean, HELLO NEW YORK!!! (Sorry, we travelled for so long I was SURE we had reached another timezone)
She leans over precarious ledges... She punctures herself with thumb-tacks... She gets tangled in double-sided tape... She is THE MASTER of Bush Marketing and Promotions and she has conquered the staple gun!
A likely sight: T.E.S & Meg conduct a business meeting over Dunch at Cafe MSG, er, I mean the Yaffa Cafe...
Just because I think it's so damn hot, check out my favorite publicity image for The Burning Bush:
And now, A Vancouver Retrospective:
T.E.S & I with the Chutzpah Festival Poster at the Vancouver JCC
Me, my brother & Tracey at the Joshua Nelson & the Kosher Gospel Singers' concert at The Chan Center at UBC
My bro, getting Joshua Nelson to sign his CD after the concert...yeeeah!
And, who knows, really?
She leans over precarious ledges... She punctures herself with thumb-tacks... She gets tangled in double-sided tape... She is THE MASTER of Bush Marketing and Promotions and she has conquered the staple gun!
A likely sight: T.E.S & Meg conduct a business meeting over Dunch at Cafe MSG, er, I mean the Yaffa Cafe...
Just because I think it's so damn hot, check out my favorite publicity image for The Burning Bush:
And now, A Vancouver Retrospective:
T.E.S & I with the Chutzpah Festival Poster at the Vancouver JCC
Me, my brother & Tracey at the Joshua Nelson & the Kosher Gospel Singers' concert at The Chan Center at UBC
My bro, getting Joshua Nelson to sign his CD after the concert...yeeeah!
And, who knows, really?
Thursday, March 8, 2007
How do I entertain you at 7:16am?
So, for the last 3 days, I've been waking up every morning at 6am. I've done my morning yoga/pilates routine (which pretty much consists of 2 Tori Amos songs worth of sun salutations and Eminem's "Lose Yourself"'s worth of pilates exercises), hopped in the shower, dressed quickly and then parked myself at my computer. By 8 or 9 am T.E.S. is usually up and we have a "morning meeting". Then I either get back on my computer, or we head out into the work of NYC...
On Monday we went out to pick up posters from the printer, buy some other random supplies from Staples (ooh, this was an exciting stop because TES and I swear we saw stuff at that Staples that you can't find at Staples in Canada, as we walked out of the store I whispered in her ear, "I can't believe I'm saying this but I kind of love America!") and buy a stand-alone, three-paneled screen that is an integral set piece for The Burning Bush show. On Tuesday morning, post-morning meeting, we schlepped ourselves to the upper west side (I think) to drop off some posters and flyers to the Manhattan JCC, and then back down again to the east village for a FRIGID Festival Orientation meeting. Throughout this time I was text messaging with my friend Brad in Halifax, whom I had just learned that morning via email is producing Halifax's first ever Chutzpah! Jewish Cultural Festival! (He hadn't been reading my blog so he had no idea that I was currently the World Tour Manager - oh yes, I've been promoted! - of the hottest jewish-canadian show about a stripping Rabbi EVER!) In any case, throughout the course of a day that had me on the subway, in several FRIGID Festival meetings and walking around the east village postering for The Burning Bush, I also somehow managed (mostly via text messaging) to work out a deal with my friend Brad, on Tracey's behalf, to bring The Burning Bush to Chutzpah! Halifax at the end of this month! (I think that may be the reason my 'production manager' title got promoted to World Tour Manager!)
Alright, so yesterday, Wednesday, I forced myself to spend the first few hours of the day (you know, 7-9am) dealing with some of my own pressing issues, like emails to schools and work on my applications to York's Concurrent B.Ed. program and my applications to theatre school (at York and Studio 58). This, of course, was followed by a morning meeting with TES, followed by some more work from our "home office", then another field-trip out into the (cold and snowy) NYC world, to pick up some more postcards from the printer this time. We interrupted our hectic day with a lovely DUNCH (see definition in last post) at the most incredible place in SoHO... It's a completely Parisien cafe called Balthazar, and it was really and truly like a little trip to Paris just being in there! As we walked out, I said to Tracey: "Wow. That was lovely. Who knew you needed a vacation when you were already on one!?"
Speaking of which. I'm tired. I mean, I don't know if what I'm doing sounds like much to you, my dear readers, but this isn't even the half of it. We literally do not stop - ever. We pack every "spare moment" with talk about the show, calls and emails to promote the show, plans for how we will promote the show, etc. TES had a realisation two nights ago that we are not even taking 5 minute breaks, so we are trying to self-impose them every now and then. When we do this, I get to pick a song from Tracey's ipod (she has those portable speaker-thingys) and then we put it on and dance a little. Some recent picks include: Grandmaster Flash's "White Lines", Great Big Sea's "When I'm Up (I can't get down)" and Shakira & Wyclef's "My hips don't lie".
So this morning, instead of waking of half and hour earlier than usual at 5:30am, like I had planned, I ended up sleeping in an hour until 7am. But trust me, I needed it. I also decided to allow myself the luxury of writing on this 'ere blog before I even checked my emails. And you know, it's felt good. I've managed to wake up a little, and now TES is up too (she seems to still be feeling pretty sick - yikes!) and I should probably re-focus and get on with our work day...
So, sorry if this blog entry has been a little dry, it is still before 8am! (And I didn't even tell you about how I went last night, by myself, to the opening night performances of the festival, and saw my friend Emily Morwen perform her very good show, Spotless, and gave out Burning Bush flyers to everyone and anyone, and brought flowers to the FRIGID Fest organisers on behalf of Tracey and I, and... and... and... okay, I'll stop now)
Headin' back to work now (with lots o'gratitude, excitement, and energy for the day!)
xoxo, Triple M in NYC
On Monday we went out to pick up posters from the printer, buy some other random supplies from Staples (ooh, this was an exciting stop because TES and I swear we saw stuff at that Staples that you can't find at Staples in Canada, as we walked out of the store I whispered in her ear, "I can't believe I'm saying this but I kind of love America!") and buy a stand-alone, three-paneled screen that is an integral set piece for The Burning Bush show. On Tuesday morning, post-morning meeting, we schlepped ourselves to the upper west side (I think) to drop off some posters and flyers to the Manhattan JCC, and then back down again to the east village for a FRIGID Festival Orientation meeting. Throughout this time I was text messaging with my friend Brad in Halifax, whom I had just learned that morning via email is producing Halifax's first ever Chutzpah! Jewish Cultural Festival! (He hadn't been reading my blog so he had no idea that I was currently the World Tour Manager - oh yes, I've been promoted! - of the hottest jewish-canadian show about a stripping Rabbi EVER!) In any case, throughout the course of a day that had me on the subway, in several FRIGID Festival meetings and walking around the east village postering for The Burning Bush, I also somehow managed (mostly via text messaging) to work out a deal with my friend Brad, on Tracey's behalf, to bring The Burning Bush to Chutzpah! Halifax at the end of this month! (I think that may be the reason my 'production manager' title got promoted to World Tour Manager!)
Alright, so yesterday, Wednesday, I forced myself to spend the first few hours of the day (you know, 7-9am) dealing with some of my own pressing issues, like emails to schools and work on my applications to York's Concurrent B.Ed. program and my applications to theatre school (at York and Studio 58). This, of course, was followed by a morning meeting with TES, followed by some more work from our "home office", then another field-trip out into the (cold and snowy) NYC world, to pick up some more postcards from the printer this time. We interrupted our hectic day with a lovely DUNCH (see definition in last post) at the most incredible place in SoHO... It's a completely Parisien cafe called Balthazar, and it was really and truly like a little trip to Paris just being in there! As we walked out, I said to Tracey: "Wow. That was lovely. Who knew you needed a vacation when you were already on one!?"
Speaking of which. I'm tired. I mean, I don't know if what I'm doing sounds like much to you, my dear readers, but this isn't even the half of it. We literally do not stop - ever. We pack every "spare moment" with talk about the show, calls and emails to promote the show, plans for how we will promote the show, etc. TES had a realisation two nights ago that we are not even taking 5 minute breaks, so we are trying to self-impose them every now and then. When we do this, I get to pick a song from Tracey's ipod (she has those portable speaker-thingys) and then we put it on and dance a little. Some recent picks include: Grandmaster Flash's "White Lines", Great Big Sea's "When I'm Up (I can't get down)" and Shakira & Wyclef's "My hips don't lie".
So this morning, instead of waking of half and hour earlier than usual at 5:30am, like I had planned, I ended up sleeping in an hour until 7am. But trust me, I needed it. I also decided to allow myself the luxury of writing on this 'ere blog before I even checked my emails. And you know, it's felt good. I've managed to wake up a little, and now TES is up too (she seems to still be feeling pretty sick - yikes!) and I should probably re-focus and get on with our work day...
So, sorry if this blog entry has been a little dry, it is still before 8am! (And I didn't even tell you about how I went last night, by myself, to the opening night performances of the festival, and saw my friend Emily Morwen perform her very good show, Spotless, and gave out Burning Bush flyers to everyone and anyone, and brought flowers to the FRIGID Fest organisers on behalf of Tracey and I, and... and... and... okay, I'll stop now)
Headin' back to work now (with lots o'gratitude, excitement, and energy for the day!)
xoxo, Triple M in NYC
Monday, March 5, 2007
Da Bush is ON FIRE!!!
Aiight, so I guess it's Day Two of 'The Burning Bush Crew' being in NYC - and man, have we made it a good day! First off, let me just say that anyone who knows anybody in New York City should tell them to check out: http://frigidfest.com/shows/BurningBush.html and book their tickets to see one of only six performances of the sure-to-be-sold-out run of Tracey Erin Smith's "The Burning Bush"! Do it now!
So, back to today. T.E.S. woke up this morning with a little laryngitis, which I told her was probably a sign from her body that she needed to slow down and tune in to her own body, as opposed to barrelling forward at 1,000 miles an hour until her opening night this friday. Have you ever noticed how your body often becomes sick or injured only at the times when either you really need it, or you have the time or care around you to handle it? Well, I think this is true, and as I (yes, slightly direction-deficient ME) led Tracey and myself downtown on the NY subway system this morning, I reassured her that she was in good hands. One of my favorite things about Tracey is that when I offer unsolicited observations like the one above, she listens very earnestly and often seems to agree with me. Yeah, I like that in a friend.
Okay, so this morning was a triumph of picking up our posters from the printers (they accidentally printed 250 for us when we only ordered 75, so we got 250 for the price of 75!), finding the last of our remaining set pieces and supplies that we needed, and stopping by both the FRIGID Festival office and our performance space and posting our posters and flyers (you can look forward to some great pics of me tentatively using a staple gun, and boldly hanging over a ledge to put up our posters - anything for bums in seats)! Then we had "Dunch" - my new favorite meal, a hearty mid-afternoon meal that is later than lunch and not quite dinner - at what has come to be our favorite cafe: Yaffa Cafe. Unfortunately, post-meal we deduced that the very crazy, intense, searing, shooting-pain headaches that I've been having for the last day and a half are likely a result of the MSG in the tasty food (stir fry broccoli, vegetable curry, etc) at Cafe Yaffa. So, although it is totally irresistable with it's kitschy eclectic decor and free wireless internet access, TES and I have decided to forgo such frequent dining at "Cafe MSG", er, I mean the Yaffa Cafe.
(As a sidebar note, the last time I remember eating MSG was YEARS ago, at a Chinese restaurant with Tiina, Thea, Kyle and Joseph, I think. It was the summer before Tiina and Brendan left Toronto for Halifax and I can vividly remember the searing headache and the entire lower half of my face going numb! Yikes!)
So, perhaps still a little messed up on MSG, TES and I returned home to our fabulous (and HUGE) NYC apartment in the East Village (we're on 1st Ave at 16th Street). We had a power meeting to further strategise what I have named "Operation Bums in Seats for Opening Night" and then TES made some phone calls. Some very good phone calls.
First, she called Joshua Nelson and seemed to reach him on his cell phone somewhere on the road to a gig. Now, I must tell you that Joshua Nelson is a mind-blowingly amazing Black Jewish Gospel singer whose sold-out concert Tracey and I took my brother to see when we were in Vancouver for the Chutzpah Festival last month. Now, I'm not Jewish, nor have I ever really listened to much gospel music, and I was really sick the night of the concert, but I had an amazing time. After the show, I went to get some air and Tracey and my brother managed to buy a CD each from the 20 remaining CD's he had to sell at the end of his tour, AND they managed to meet Josh Nelson, get him to autograph their CD's and take a photo with them. That was when he told Tracey he would be into seeing her show in New York (he lives in New Jersey).
So Tracey calls Josh Nelson this afternoon. She talks to him, sings to him a little (she has an amazing voice herself) and then I hear her say "Yes... the show opens this friday... Sure, I'll put some comps aside for you and your friends" - oh my!!! This is very cool.
So after that victory, I convince her to call this Rabbi here in New York that I call Rabbi Gonzo, because he wrote a book that Tracey is currently reading called "Gonzo Judaism". She eventually gets his home office number, and leaves a great voicemail message for him too. And she also calls and leaves a message for Jackie Mason. Jackie Mason is a pretty famous former-Rabbi-turned-comedian, whom Tracey has met a few times, and has loved for a long time, and who is sort of a central character in her show. Tomorrow we will drop a press package off to his wife/manager and I will make a follow up call. Mark my words, we will be on Oprah before you know it!!!
After all this excitement, I left TES with her computer to do some more emailing and I walked a few blocks over to the grocery store to pick up some dinner supplies and sustenance for the week. Little did I know, I was not entering just any grocery store, I was walking into the first and only "Trader Joe's" in New York City. From what I can tell, "Trader Joe's" is a large-ish american chain grocery store that sells mostly healthy, gourmet, organic food and lots of ready-to-eat stuff, and for very, very good prices. It's quite an amazement! No wonder half the city was shopping there after work on a Monday evening!
I swear I am not exagerrating even a little when I tell you that I stood in a line-up that wrapped around the perimeter of the entire store for about 45 minutes to pay for my groceries. Standing in line consisted of about half the time that I was gone, I managed to shop and walk to and from the store in to the other 45 minutes! But you know, I've never been so happy standing in a line-up in my entire life. Maybe I was still a little high on the MSG, or maybe this really is my city, but I have just been so darn happy from the moment we arrived here! I think that I am destined to live here, for at least a little while, at some point, someday...
Until then, I'm here now and I'm livin' it and lovin' it!
I heart NY!
X's and O's to all, with joy from Triple M
So, back to today. T.E.S. woke up this morning with a little laryngitis, which I told her was probably a sign from her body that she needed to slow down and tune in to her own body, as opposed to barrelling forward at 1,000 miles an hour until her opening night this friday. Have you ever noticed how your body often becomes sick or injured only at the times when either you really need it, or you have the time or care around you to handle it? Well, I think this is true, and as I (yes, slightly direction-deficient ME) led Tracey and myself downtown on the NY subway system this morning, I reassured her that she was in good hands. One of my favorite things about Tracey is that when I offer unsolicited observations like the one above, she listens very earnestly and often seems to agree with me. Yeah, I like that in a friend.
Okay, so this morning was a triumph of picking up our posters from the printers (they accidentally printed 250 for us when we only ordered 75, so we got 250 for the price of 75!), finding the last of our remaining set pieces and supplies that we needed, and stopping by both the FRIGID Festival office and our performance space and posting our posters and flyers (you can look forward to some great pics of me tentatively using a staple gun, and boldly hanging over a ledge to put up our posters - anything for bums in seats)! Then we had "Dunch" - my new favorite meal, a hearty mid-afternoon meal that is later than lunch and not quite dinner - at what has come to be our favorite cafe: Yaffa Cafe. Unfortunately, post-meal we deduced that the very crazy, intense, searing, shooting-pain headaches that I've been having for the last day and a half are likely a result of the MSG in the tasty food (stir fry broccoli, vegetable curry, etc) at Cafe Yaffa. So, although it is totally irresistable with it's kitschy eclectic decor and free wireless internet access, TES and I have decided to forgo such frequent dining at "Cafe MSG", er, I mean the Yaffa Cafe.
(As a sidebar note, the last time I remember eating MSG was YEARS ago, at a Chinese restaurant with Tiina, Thea, Kyle and Joseph, I think. It was the summer before Tiina and Brendan left Toronto for Halifax and I can vividly remember the searing headache and the entire lower half of my face going numb! Yikes!)
So, perhaps still a little messed up on MSG, TES and I returned home to our fabulous (and HUGE) NYC apartment in the East Village (we're on 1st Ave at 16th Street). We had a power meeting to further strategise what I have named "Operation Bums in Seats for Opening Night" and then TES made some phone calls. Some very good phone calls.
First, she called Joshua Nelson and seemed to reach him on his cell phone somewhere on the road to a gig. Now, I must tell you that Joshua Nelson is a mind-blowingly amazing Black Jewish Gospel singer whose sold-out concert Tracey and I took my brother to see when we were in Vancouver for the Chutzpah Festival last month. Now, I'm not Jewish, nor have I ever really listened to much gospel music, and I was really sick the night of the concert, but I had an amazing time. After the show, I went to get some air and Tracey and my brother managed to buy a CD each from the 20 remaining CD's he had to sell at the end of his tour, AND they managed to meet Josh Nelson, get him to autograph their CD's and take a photo with them. That was when he told Tracey he would be into seeing her show in New York (he lives in New Jersey).
So Tracey calls Josh Nelson this afternoon. She talks to him, sings to him a little (she has an amazing voice herself) and then I hear her say "Yes... the show opens this friday... Sure, I'll put some comps aside for you and your friends" - oh my!!! This is very cool.
So after that victory, I convince her to call this Rabbi here in New York that I call Rabbi Gonzo, because he wrote a book that Tracey is currently reading called "Gonzo Judaism". She eventually gets his home office number, and leaves a great voicemail message for him too. And she also calls and leaves a message for Jackie Mason. Jackie Mason is a pretty famous former-Rabbi-turned-comedian, whom Tracey has met a few times, and has loved for a long time, and who is sort of a central character in her show. Tomorrow we will drop a press package off to his wife/manager and I will make a follow up call. Mark my words, we will be on Oprah before you know it!!!
After all this excitement, I left TES with her computer to do some more emailing and I walked a few blocks over to the grocery store to pick up some dinner supplies and sustenance for the week. Little did I know, I was not entering just any grocery store, I was walking into the first and only "Trader Joe's" in New York City. From what I can tell, "Trader Joe's" is a large-ish american chain grocery store that sells mostly healthy, gourmet, organic food and lots of ready-to-eat stuff, and for very, very good prices. It's quite an amazement! No wonder half the city was shopping there after work on a Monday evening!
I swear I am not exagerrating even a little when I tell you that I stood in a line-up that wrapped around the perimeter of the entire store for about 45 minutes to pay for my groceries. Standing in line consisted of about half the time that I was gone, I managed to shop and walk to and from the store in to the other 45 minutes! But you know, I've never been so happy standing in a line-up in my entire life. Maybe I was still a little high on the MSG, or maybe this really is my city, but I have just been so darn happy from the moment we arrived here! I think that I am destined to live here, for at least a little while, at some point, someday...
Until then, I'm here now and I'm livin' it and lovin' it!
I heart NY!
X's and O's to all, with joy from Triple M
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Zen and the Art of Waiting at the Airport
We're here, we're finally here! In New York City!!! This is exciting because although NYC is only about an hour-long flight from Toronto, and thus relatively accessible, it took Tracey and I about 8-9 hours to journey here yesterday. Unfortunately, most of these hours were spent at the Toronto airport - first in a 2 hour long lineup where we discovered that we had been bumped from our 9am flight to a 7pm flight, which we thankfully got re-booked yet again to a 1pm flight. Then we had to schlepp (yes, I've been spending A LOT of time with Jewish people lately!) ourselves and our rather massive luggage from the chaotic Terminal 1 to the more familiar Terminal 3, since not only had our flight times changed about 5 times, so had our airline. We smoothly checked in for our new 1pm American Airlines flight, only to end up spending another few hours in the wierd limbo, timeless, place-less sort of space that is the departures waiting area. Of course, our flight was about an hour late to depart.
Finally we boarded the plane. Oh yes, the plane. A cozy little 50 person vessel... oh my! I'm pretty sure it was the smallest plane I've ever been on, and thus, also probably the bumpiest ride... But we made it, finally. After waking at about 5am in the morning, arriving at the Toronto airport around 7am, I finally stepped off the plane (I got to use STAIRS that take you right down on to the tarmac, like you sometimes see in movies!!) in New York City around 4pm. By 6pm-ish I was sitting on the floor outside of the room at the Upper West Side YMCA that Tracey and I had rented for just our first night, because Tracey had to run back downstairs because our keys weren't working yet! Oh my.
Well, I have never, ever said that I'm not a fan of adventure. And adventure it certainly was. Although, it was kind of more an adventure in finding humour, hope and calm in the face of confusion, frustration and exhaustion, but hey, everything in life is a lesson, right?
So we finally arrived in our tiny little room at the YMCA (today we will move to the apartment in the lower east side that we are sub-letting for the rest of our time here) only to have to quickly dash back out again. As I am yet again travelling with the lovely (and Jewish) T.E.S., we had tickets to some event geared towards "young, hip jews in their 20's and 30's" that celebrated "Purim" - which everyone just keeps explaining to me as "the jewish halloween".
Now, I realise that I was crazy exhausted, and as a result of our ridiculously long travel day felt more like we had made a journey to Tokyo as opposed to just across the border to NYC, but I did find the Purim event a little bizarre. Now, I will be the first to admit that when you don't know anything about something, it is a lot easier to judge it. So I won't do that. I will just say that we were tired, and it started with a reading in hebrew that I didn't understand (though that did include some fun boo-ing and noise makers every time they said the name of the bad guy in the story!), followed by a somewhat entertaining "theatrical" presentation that used both video and live performance, and Stepen Colbert(!), and spoofs of popular TV shows like American Idol and Project Runway to tell a comedic version of the Jewish story of Purim. It wasn't terrible at all, but we were tired, so instead of partying it up with all the other wild young jews, we schlepped ourselves down the street a few blocks to our home at the Y for the night.
This morning, TES and I woke up to a bright, sunny, New York day on the upper west side, took a little walk past Central Park to a diner recommended by the helpful woman at the YMCA security desk - "it's good" she said, "you can eat decent food and sit by the window and watch the traffic go by". Which we did. Blissfully. And now it's time to close up those massive suitcases one more time before we plant ourselves semi-permanently in our east village apartment for the next two weeks. We are going to stop in at the theatre this afternoon for a 4 hour rehearsal, then head over to our new, NYC home for the next two weeks!
I'm lovin' it.
Finally we boarded the plane. Oh yes, the plane. A cozy little 50 person vessel... oh my! I'm pretty sure it was the smallest plane I've ever been on, and thus, also probably the bumpiest ride... But we made it, finally. After waking at about 5am in the morning, arriving at the Toronto airport around 7am, I finally stepped off the plane (I got to use STAIRS that take you right down on to the tarmac, like you sometimes see in movies!!) in New York City around 4pm. By 6pm-ish I was sitting on the floor outside of the room at the Upper West Side YMCA that Tracey and I had rented for just our first night, because Tracey had to run back downstairs because our keys weren't working yet! Oh my.
Well, I have never, ever said that I'm not a fan of adventure. And adventure it certainly was. Although, it was kind of more an adventure in finding humour, hope and calm in the face of confusion, frustration and exhaustion, but hey, everything in life is a lesson, right?
So we finally arrived in our tiny little room at the YMCA (today we will move to the apartment in the lower east side that we are sub-letting for the rest of our time here) only to have to quickly dash back out again. As I am yet again travelling with the lovely (and Jewish) T.E.S., we had tickets to some event geared towards "young, hip jews in their 20's and 30's" that celebrated "Purim" - which everyone just keeps explaining to me as "the jewish halloween".
Now, I realise that I was crazy exhausted, and as a result of our ridiculously long travel day felt more like we had made a journey to Tokyo as opposed to just across the border to NYC, but I did find the Purim event a little bizarre. Now, I will be the first to admit that when you don't know anything about something, it is a lot easier to judge it. So I won't do that. I will just say that we were tired, and it started with a reading in hebrew that I didn't understand (though that did include some fun boo-ing and noise makers every time they said the name of the bad guy in the story!), followed by a somewhat entertaining "theatrical" presentation that used both video and live performance, and Stepen Colbert(!), and spoofs of popular TV shows like American Idol and Project Runway to tell a comedic version of the Jewish story of Purim. It wasn't terrible at all, but we were tired, so instead of partying it up with all the other wild young jews, we schlepped ourselves down the street a few blocks to our home at the Y for the night.
This morning, TES and I woke up to a bright, sunny, New York day on the upper west side, took a little walk past Central Park to a diner recommended by the helpful woman at the YMCA security desk - "it's good" she said, "you can eat decent food and sit by the window and watch the traffic go by". Which we did. Blissfully. And now it's time to close up those massive suitcases one more time before we plant ourselves semi-permanently in our east village apartment for the next two weeks. We are going to stop in at the theatre this afternoon for a 4 hour rehearsal, then head over to our new, NYC home for the next two weeks!
I'm lovin' it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
