Games you can't lose

Link gleefully snarfed from hitchhiker:

http://3dpancakes.typepad.com/ernie/2005/02/games_you_cant_.html

The flight to Boston

Delta has a "zone"-based seating system: people with window seats go in last. I'm impressed - I think of myself as creative, but I never would have thought of that!

The only thing worse than a redeye flight with a plane change is a redeye flight with a plane change where my seat doesn't recline. (It was broken.)

Delta plays incredibly loud* advertisements every ten minutes for the first half hour of a flight. Even a redeye. Y'all just lost my business, folks.

A women's restroom in the Atlanta airport bore unmistakable signs of someone having shaved in one of the sinks. You know: white grunge in a ring around the sink, liberally peppered with tiny black dots. No, faithful readers, I'm not asking for an explanation from anyone who wasn't there.

One of the flight attendants on the Atlanta to Boston leg had very humorous mimed interpretations of the safety presentation. She also pranced up and down the aisle wearing pink flashing deelyboppers she'd borrowed from a small child. Y'all might get my business back some day, folks.

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* "Incredibly loud" means I can hear them just fine with my ears plugged.

The Mikado

The Mikado was fun and humorous. I loved what the choreographer had done with bits of it, and I was impressed with how difficult it was to recognize my parents in whiteface. Pooh-Bah was a great sneerer, Yum-Yum had wonderful diction, the Emperor was awesome decked out all in gold, and I swear I didn't even notice that my mother was so flustered she went onstage with her watch on. I truly enjoyed the show.

After the matinee the group convoyed over to a nearby church for dinner. The Sudbury Savoyards started as a small group of church members trying to raise money for charity by putting on a Gilbert and Sullivan sing-along... in 1963. To this day they are allied with the church, using its hall as a practice area, and to this day they donate all their profits to a group fighting to end world hunger. One of the announcements at the dinner was the total donated in 2004: thirty-some thousand dollars. Another was a certificate of appreciation for a guy who had been involved, so far, in forty Sudbury Savoyards productions.

Before the evening show I met the costumer, then went backstage to help tie belts. When the "fifteen minutes" call went out I figured I better go sit down.

The second show had a more responsive audience. I think the matinee crowd laughed silently, but the evening crowd let loose. There are lots of little funny bits in G&S shows. It was good to hear the laughter.

Unsurprisingly, I suppose, I got very little work done that day. I'd brought some, but...

The rest of the Boston trip

After the second show of course we stayed up until 2AM talking. I am amazed that my parents really wanted to be up that long -- they hadn't had a lot of sleep lately either. I even showed them some photos from Japan. (click I don't remember what this one is. click Or that one. click Oh look, a pagoda. click Oops, blurry. click Yeah, that nostril, you guys have been through that too. click These street musicians were weirdos. click Octopus! click)

I got upstairs to the guest room and surprise! the heat hadn't been turned on. Just like home! :-) (Our furnace isn't working. We haven't bothered to call anyone yet.)

Jax Cheese Curls are the most amazingly superbly delicious snack in the entire universe. Stores in my area don't carry them, but every time I go back to Boston I pick up a bag or two. There was a pile of them in the guest room. My mother had bought me four bags of this delicious crack snack!

Also included was a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. The note on it, in my mom's writing, said "CJ: These are TERRIBLE! I bought you a box before I knew how bad they were." :-)

Murphy's Law says that when you get to sleep at 2:30AM, the phone will ring before eight. Sure enough my sister was an hour away from Boston and could she meet up with us? HECK yeah! So we got our sorry butts in the shower. Before leaving the house I had repacked and two entire bags of cheese curls were inside my luggage. The other two would have to ride in a shopping bag.

I got to see the kitchen my sister and her boyfriend remodeled this winter, and also got to meet their new dog, Indy. The kitchen is gorgeous, and Indy is an affectionate and energetic cutie.

Then, y'know, the flight back, the fights over the armrest, the screaming children, etc etc. Life in the fast lane.

My house smells really musty. There's not much air flow with the windows all shut and the furnace off.