September 30 – Day 24: Steak Frites At Last!


Another low-impact day.

On Saturday, I’d gotten a message from John asking if he could come by Sunday to change my sheets and the towels. I told him that, while I hadn’t gotten my Sunday schedule yet, I expected to be called from about 1:00-5:00, so any time in there would be fine.

As it turned out, I was called at 12:30 (for more ensemble work), so I planned on that (meaning leaving here at about 11:30). As I was getting ready to go, though, I got a text from Elizabeth, our invaluable assistant stage manager, telling me I’d been pushed back to 1:30, so I suddenly had an hour to kill. I surfed a little, figuring if John showed up, I could just leave (since he seemed so freaked out to find me here the first time he changed the linens), but he still hadn’t come when I left.

We were at the Flea again, and I took an alternate route of my own, mainly to see the infamous Five Points, which (according to Wikipedia) “gained international notoriety as a densely populated, disease-ridden, crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.” I had little doubt it had all changed, but I was kind of surprised at how scrubbed, bland, and non-descript it all is now.

 This playground is a real den of iniquity.

I got to the theatre a little early, so I sat in the lobby (listening to someone rehearse a song that sounded like a bad imitation of Brecht and Weill) until it was time to go downstairs. I had no idea what to expect, air-conditioning-wise, given that it had been freezing the first time and moderate the second. I thought about bringing a jacket, but didn’t want to deal with the bulk and weight, so I wore a long-sleeved shirt, figuring I could just roll down the sleeves. It turned out to be cold (not meat-locker cold like it had been), so my sleeve strategy was fine.

We didn’t get to run any ensemble stuff (which was fine with me), but we did a stumble-through, finishing with about three minutes left in the day. As well as it went—and it went very well, for the most part—I’d imagine there’s still going to be a lot of changes when we get into the theatre on Tuesday. The one thing that kept throwing me off was that someone was rehearsing something in the room above us, and whatever it was involved either stomping on the floor or throwing cannonballs at each other or parading elephants.

My plan was to walk back home (taking yet another new route that I kind of made up as I went along), then see if PMF was quiet enough to have dinner at. I ended up on St. Marks and it was a nice enough evening that I decided to stop to Bua and have a drink on the patio, then got the idea to see if Dave’s Cafe had steak frites. They did, so when I was done with the drink, I moved a few doors over and had a very good supper (even if there may have been too much watercress in the salad that came with it).

 The waiter wanted to take the bread. I wouldn't let him.

While I was eating, I got another message from John asking if he could clean up Sunday night rather than the afternoon (which had already long since passed), since he had to go upstate for a couple of days. I wrote back that I was at dinner and probably wouldn’t be back for an hour, so it was fine.

Knowing I had that to deal with, I took my time both eating and getting back to the apartment, but when I opened the door, I found John standing next to the TV, pointing the remote control at it, apparently scrolling through channels. He turned to me and asked, “Do you know how to find the old movie channel?” I took the remote, tuned it to TCM (Channel 230 on this system), and he said, “Yeah. That’s it.” We talked about old movies for a second, and I asked him why he was going upstate. He said something about having to get his car repaired and his guy is up there. The whole thing didn’t make a lot of sense to me, but it seemed to to him, so I accepted it for being what it was.

The rest of the evening was devoted mainly to getting through a stack of newspapers that have been building up, while catching up on some DVRed stuff in the background.

 I've let the papers go, but not to this extent.

I ended up staying up much later than I expected to, but since Monday was the day off and I didn’t have much in mind except to buy pants, try a new pizza place, and watch the two National League Playoff games. There was more in store than that, though.

 

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