Week in NYC

Well, we spent our week in the ‘Big Apple’ for auditions. People ask, ‘what did you do’ ‘did you see any shows’ – answer ‘nothing’ and ‘no’.
Audition days go from getting up at 7 a.m. (two people in the room to shower and all), to about 9 or 10 p.m. by the time we get done with talking over the people seen that day to see if we want to call them back or not.
Some times we have done a show, a few years ago we went to ‘Wicked’ on Friday after a week of auditions – bad move, we were all too brain dead to appreciate it. So now we plan show trips for different times than auditions.
‘Did you do anything’ – well, this year our schedule was different than the usual travel on Sunday, audition Monday through Friday, travel on Saturday – we traveled on Wednesday and the next Wednesday, auditioned Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday and had Sunday off. Monica and Doug visited friends, Lynne had brunch with a friend and slept, and I went to the ‘International Center for Photography’ and saw an interesting show of fashion photography; some great photos of 'stars' from the 1920's and 30's like Carol Lombard, Kathryn Hepburn, Amelia Earhardt, some great photographers works - what a difference in not only the clothes, but the photos and how the clothes are displayed from then to now - back then it was all about the elegance, style, now - well, some of the photos I couldn't tell what it was about and some I didn't want to know! Walked around and then went to the zoo in Central Park. Didn’t ride the carousel, but I did smile at the animals – they have penguins, I love penguins – and smile more at the kids looking at the animals. What a neat little zoo that is. Penguins, puffins, sea otters and sea lions, polar bears, a whole ‘rain forest’ house full of birds - that was some noisy, let me tell you - along with some spiders, lizards and snakes, some sort of monkeys, I don’t remember what particular type, black headed swans, and I’m no doubt leaving some out. Some of the things the kids were getting most excited about were the ducks and geese – oh and turtles, a pond full of turtles (the hardware store here in town has a little indoor pond with turtles in and the kids go nuts for those, too). I was sitting on the ledge around the turtle pond and a little girl came up and was looking for them, so I pointed her to one in the water right next to us and her eyes got huge and she said ‘oooh!’ Wasn’t it great to be the age when a turtle makes you go ‘oooh!’?
Had a nice dinner on Sunday night, even though we gave up our newly traditional one at Carmine’s because there were only three of us, everyone else either was busy or sick, and with only three people there’s no sense going to Carmine’s unless you can do a lot of doggy bags and we couldn’t because of being in the hotel. Carmine’s does way too much food!
Saw a bunch of good people (about 550 or 600 and some of them we saw twice, with call backs) and even more not so good ones, and some that were good but just not for the shows we are doing this summer. Saw some friends from past seasons. Told some stories, caught up on some news.
The weather was good, so Monica and I walked to and from the studio, about 20 blocks, which was a nice ‘airing out’ from sitting in the room all day long. We order lunch in because there isn’t time to go out and have it, and after trying a couple of places that someone in the group complained about each day we made Tuesday ‘GYOFL’ Day (Get Your Own Flippin’ Lunch) and everyone liked that, especially me not having to listen to complaints.
Too many people, try to walk down the street and there’s always someone to dodge around who isn’t going to move aside or slow their path for you; too much noise – at 3 a.m. a couple of mornings I got woke up by people yelling outside, could hear them even on the 10th floor, sirens and of course that wakes me up every time. Twice they stopped outside the hotel, the one time Monica said ‘those sound awful close’ and I said ‘yeah, they’re right out front’. Don’t know what it was but nobody told us to leave the hotel so we didn’t.
Came home and now we have to do it again this Wednesday, not for as long this time, though. And in not so crowded and hectic a part of the city.
New York City. Nice place to visit, I guess. Sure wouldn’t want to live there – and I did for a while a long time ago. Nope, not any more.