SassyBlonde

So, as many of you know, I'm leaving in the wee hours tomorrow for my orchestra tour of China. Two days of rehearsal in Orlando, then off we go. Nineteen hours on a plane with some of the craziest people I've ever met. (These guys make Wedding Crashers look like a bunch of choirboys-- they're on the make fro the moment they get to the rehearsal hall.)

That being said, I have my iPod and laptop in hand, chock-full of Battlestar Galactica and gems from Audible.com, and I'm also looking forward to seeing some friends on the tour who I've missed since the last foray. And let's be clear, I'm getting paid to spend two weeks in China.

I'll try (try, mind you) to do some posts and pictures when I get a minute, but in case I don't, enjoy the auto-posts that will be popping up until I get back.

Laughing can be good for you, it's true, but this guy is more insane than healthy in my book:

For more laughs: the laughing baby, more laughing babies, the best laugh ever, and laughing with consequences.

After getting up at the crack of dawn (well, for me anyway) to get on board my flight to Orlando, I was able to get to through security in a breeze and had time to sit in the terminal and contemplate CNN over breakfast. This really wasn't as relaxing as I thought it would be, because right after the stock ticker they returned to the main story: the "Killer Tornado" that just hit Florida north of (you guessed it) Orlando in the wee hours. Juggling baggage and yogurt and coffee, I managed to dial my friend who was picking me up and determine that he was fine, in fact, he didn't have a clue what had happened. I arrived safe and sound and was picked up by our wonderful Stage Manager, went to lunch with him at Dennys (OY), and grabbed a few other orchestra members from the airport on our way to the hotel. Gab, gab gab, all the way there. I haven't seen some of these people in almost four years!

We went out for a drink at a restaurant around the corner and were a little held up by the building being surrounded by fire trucks. We got back to the hotel to find that not only had our friend the Stage Manager gotten us tickets for the Orlando Magic game tonight, vs. the Nets, he had gotten us BOX SEATS (he has people). Fun times were had by all, even though we had too much to drink and didn't get back in time to practice before tomorrow.

Even better, my roommate is not a freak, but one of my favorite people from my last tour!! More tomorrow after rehearsal...

Ah, the first day of rehearsal. And unfortunately for us today, the only day. Tomorrow we leave for China bright and early in the A.M., and have to get up and out of the hotal at 4:45. F*ck.

Rehearsal actually went pretty well today, all things considered-- we had to cram all of the usual things into half the time. When a touring group comes together, there are quite a few stages of a sort of meet and greet that goes on, not on a social basis, but playing with one another. First you have to suss out the lay of the musical landscape: who plays well, who needs some work, whose style is matching up, whose isn’t, what the limits are of what you can and can’t do, say, and play with each other. Then over the course of the rehearsal you start to blend and match and coalesce into a single force. For us, that usually takes most of the first day, along with the reading of the music that we’ll be playing. It’s like building a scaffold inside which a cathedral arch is built.

We managed to cram that into the first three-hour rehearsal and sort of started to string it all together by the end of rehearsal today. It’s just an odd dynamic—new concertmaster, new orchestra members, and for me new equipment. (Ick and f*ck.) And our conductor was in fine and rare form—like most conductors, the less time he has, the stricter and tighter he becomes, and he was on fire today, man. Caustic, but with purpose and intent, so it didn’t really seem to bother anyone. He has a good feel for the people under his baton, and everybody responded pretty well.

I LOVE the woodwind section. Playing with these guys is GREAT. I’ve known the oboist for a long time, and the new bassoonist is not only a fabulous player but also a super fun chick also. The flutist is meeting up with us tomorrow (can’t wait!!) in Chicago, so we had a sub today who did a great job navigating some of the weirdness in the music we play. I don’t envy them their parts for a second—thy have more notes and crazier parts than anyone else in the group except the first violins. Ick—no way I’d be able to play that shit.

Today was also the day that we met up for the first time all together in terms of social interaction, too, meaning that if I hadn’t already sought someone out to say hello, I didn’t really particularly want to, but who has a choice, right? Nineteen hours on the plane together tomorrow. OY VEY. Of course, The Mullet was there and The Mouth, as well as the Troll. I’ll explain these little nicknames at some later point, because I’m sure they’ll all steal the limelight at some point in the next two weeks.

They laid us out a buffet dinner, but the real highlight of the night was the hot tub afterwards—the bassoonist and oboist and I got in and got all pruney for about forty-five minutes. ROCK. The only downside was that whatever they used to clean the hot tub made the ends of my hair all crispy—kind of like soap residue. Gack. Ah well, off to bed for a few hours—I’m sure I won’t be so perky when I have to get up tomorrow.

Riiight. Savvy traveler I am not-- I’ve had a crash course in getting ready for an overseas tour: shit has gone wrong and gotten turned around in ways I couldn’t have even imagined getting ready for this trip. Here’s how NOT to prepare for a two week trip book-ended by nineteen-hour flights:

• Renew your passport via Expedited Service two months before you leave. Feel very proud of your accomplishment in remembering this.
• Realize that your manager needs your passport tomorrow two days after putting it in the mail to the Passport Authority. Shit.
• Receive passport in mail, immediately drop it in the mail to your manager without making a copy in case of emergencies to leave with your husband. Shit.
• Realize that you don’t have a carry-on for all your various expensive medications and paraphernalia. (My spell check just told me that, yes, that is indeed how to spell that word.) Shit. Ask your Mother for one for Christmas. Even though you’re now almost thirty years old, apparently your parents are still Santa Claus.
• Search for another pair of pants that your husband bought you for Christmas (you’d fight anybody who tried to take them away from you) that fold up into a sandwich bag and feel like a hug. Discover that apparently they have fallen into the Gap they came from and are no longer available in any size but extra small. Shit.
• Plan out all the medications you need for the trip. Forget to order them. Order them the week before the trip and pay hefty FedEx fees for your stupidity.
• Think about whether to take your laptop. Think better of it and determine you can check email via your PSP, which is lighter and smaller and you can use to play Death Junior.
• Fool around with the PSP and decide that entering text via a joystick kind of sucks. Decide to take laptop.
• Buy expensive airline adapter for laptop then determine that your flights will have no outlets for it as you are neither cool nor rich enough to afford First or Business class.
• Make a list of everything you need to pack. Have an Oh Shit moment at the length of your carry-on list and decide not to take laptop. Who needs to be sane on a thirteen hour flight anyway when you can talk to the crazy smelly people in your group.
• Forget about your packing list and update your blog.
• Go get your hair cut by the lady who is taking over for your usual hairdresser. Discover the next morning that she is one of those hairstylists—it looked great when you left the salon but you will probably never be able to replicate the look yourself without your blowdryer.
• Burn out blowdryer trying to replicate new haircut. Give up and buy a travel dryer for your trip.
• Buy various adapters and transformers for your electronics, never mind that you have no idea which ones you’re bringing yet.
• Do a trial-run of packing you carry-on and find out all those things on the list are, in fact, really small and you still have room for your laptop. Score!
• Leave your unopened suitcase lying around if you have a cat. He will decide it’s a litter box and take the appropriate action. That smell never comes out. Chuck the suitcase.
• Wait until two nights before you leave to check out your husband’s suitcase. The wheel will fall off when you take it out of the closet and roll under the couch, and you will have a shit-fit, because now you have no viable suitcases in the house.
• Wait until the night before you leave to try and find a new suitcase. Invariably the one you want will be discontinued and sold out and you’ll have to settle for a navy blue off-brand, which even though it’s cheap, is still navy blue and off-brand.
• While rushing to pack, forget to charge your cell phone. Shit.
• While doing said packing, forget to pack cell phone charger. Shit.
• After you’ve packed it, realize all of your flight information is on your laptop. Unpack it and print your boarding pass. Repack it, but forget to turn it off so it dies a slow hibernation death while you sleep.
• Get up and decide not to take a shower, you’ll just do it when you get to your sunny humid destination.
• Notice when you get to the airport that you packed your sweater but are wearing your heavy coat. Remedy the situation in the freezing cold from the trunk of your husband’s car at the departure curb.
• Discover after a smooth check-in and security check that the place where you’re going has been storm-struck. Call your friend to make sure he still has a house.
• Get on your flight and immediately place the carry-on with all of your entertainment items in an overhead bin above a very belligerent looking fat man in the row behind you. Shit.
• Discover that you could have bought one of your gadgets cheaper in the SkyMall magazine, meaning you really got ripped off.
• Arrive at your destination and forget to call your spouse to tell him you got there safely. Shit. Ditto for your mother. (Yes. Thirty. You still have to call your mother when you arrive.)
• Discover upon trying to call your husband that you have a dead cell phone and no charger. Shit.
• Try to charge cell phone with newfangled airline charger thingamabob. Discover that your service provider is a pack of bastards that will only let you use “approved charging devices”. Shit.
• Give up, buy expensive new cell phone charger while waiting in the airport for the second leg of your trip. Search for any available plug in the terminal, then sit on the cold tile floor next to the charging tram car and finally talk to your husband.

Oy. FUCK. Trans-Pacific flights are a bitch.

We got up this morning at the crack of dawn-- actually earlier-- to make the trek to the airport and get on going to Beijing via O'Hare. All went pretty well until we got to the airport: true to fashion for this group, we were given limited information and got yelled at when we did what we were told, not what they had in mind. We made it through, though, and everything worked out peachy. I even got to sit next to my new friend Guitarman on the plane to Chicago.

Got a hot dog for lunch at O'Hare-- did you know that in Chicago a hot dog with "everything" comes with mustard, onions, a dill pickle spear, hot peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers, all ON the dog?? Crazy shit, that.

The Klatch worked it out so our seats were all together on the Beijing flight, which was easy because the flight was nowhere near full. That even got me moved up to Economy Plus, which has more legroom!! I got to sit with Pixie B, our bassoonist, and we had all three seats to ourselves. The Muse will be exceptionally proud of the movies I got to watch-- The Queen, All The King's Men, and Man of the Year. Pixie B taught me a great new card game from Japan that I'll talk about more later.

Everything went pretty well until the intermission between films two and three, where all the hip chicks were gathered around our group of seats and giggling. We were catching up after two to four years of being apart in some cases-- gossip had to be shared and jokes made. It was dark out, and this part of the flight functions as sleep-time, so the steward comes up and makes a snarky comment about how we need to keep it down because this is an overnight flight and people have paid "thousands of dollars" for this flight. Now, I've seen our e-tickets for our itinerary, and I know the flight from O'Hare to Beijing is killer expensive, but honestly people. We were served ramen noodles for the next meal, and it's not as if we could sleep-- they came by every forty-five minutes to wake us up to ask if we wanted water. Endless amounts of giggling ensued for a minute, but then we sat down to watch the next movie.

Arrival in Beijing was pretty easy and we got to the hotel all right-- the Plaza Royal Hotel Beijing, the only Five-Star Platinum HoJo I've ever heard of. The hotel staff here is fantastic-- they know we speak little to no Mandarin, and most of them speak at least a little English. (Honestly, I hate being that person who expects everyone to speak English in another country, but I could barely remember the words, much less the inflections to give them the right meaning... I've got Hello, Thank You, and I Don't Want Any pretty much down and I think that may be the extent of it for the time being.)

We get breakfast and dinner on travel days and concert days we get all three meals, and the hotel restaurant has a great dinner service. It's pretty much split between Chinese cuisine (the real kind) and improvised American food. Good stuff. They even give you filtered water with meals (water here is basically non-potable for Americans-- you could do it but you'd have the trots for a good while, and maybe worse) and their coffee is amazing. All righty-- sleepy time here-- I'm about dead and I get to sleep until 8(!!) tomorrow before we go downtown to to a little sight-seeing. Lata!

The Great Hall of the People is indeed a hall, but is not in fact "Great".

This morning we awoke to the sound of my roomie’s alarm clock and I popped up out of bed like a jack in the box. WTF? I am SO not a morning person normally, and I popped up like it was my job. Maybe it was the fact that I had thirteen hours of sleep last night? After dinner we were all so exhausted that we went straight to bed and passed out totally. Our schedules are still a little off, but I managed to sleep for about four hours at a time even though I did get up around 4 AM and have to force myself back to sleep.

The hotel where we’re staying is really nice, and it has the biggest towels I’ve ever seen. You could wrap two of me in those suckers, and that’s saying something. Hotel rooms in China have a couple of very interesting features—when you walk in the door, there’s a card slot on the wall where you slide in and leave your room key to activate the power for the room. If you take out the key, the power goes out, as I found out when I was leaving to go down to breakfast and took the key, leaving my roommate in the dark on the toilet.

Speaking of toilets, here in China there are two types—the regular seated kind, which are rare and usually only found as handicapped toilets or in places where you’ll find a lot of foreigners, and the infamous “squatter”. Basically this type is a urinal turned horizontal and installed on the floor. You have to squat to go, and it’s been interesting learning to balance and aim. Fortunately for us the hotel has the familiar kind, although the venues will probably force us to expand our repertoire a little.

We decided to go down to see the Forbidden City this morning, and we piled into two taxis to get there. It’s about 9 km from our hotel, and walking would have been a long haul, not to mention we’d have to dodge traffic. We get directions from the concierge and took our hotel cards with us so we could get back. (There’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to find anyone that speaks English in the city, so the hotel provides you with cards that list the name and address for the hotel in Chinese so the driver can understand where you need to get to—the Chinese names bear no resemblance to the English translation most of the time.) The cab ride was interesting and we bumped through traffic for about thirty minutes to the North Gate. When we arrived, of course there were lots of guys waiting to sell us tchatchkes, fake watches, and fake Olympic gear, but we had our fearless leader Cello Chick, who promptly sent them packing.

CC has been to China before, and is full of advice about what to eat, what not to eat, and all sorts of protocol and custom. The tap water isn’t drinkable in China, so everything you drink and eat has to be made with filtered water. That means of course, no drinking water from the tap, but also no brushing your teeth, no fresh produce that you can’t peel, and no salads (they’re washed with water). Of course, this problem isn’t necessarily China-specific—when I was in school I had a really wicked case of the trots for about three weeks after I moved to Phoenix. That shit ain’t right, so bottled water it is.

Anyway, the Forbidden City was really incredible—we hired a guide and hand a good hour and a half to tour the site. Our guide’s name was Linda and she was really great—funny, knowledgeable, and her English was excellent. (Pictures here)

We had to leave early for our concert venue, the Great Hall of the People at Tiananmen Square. This building is also the venue for the Chinese congress, and seats about nine thousand people. When arrived there, we were ushered through security to the hall and shown a roundabout route to the dressing rooms, which were moldy and a little waterlogged from a leaky toilet. (This later overflowed, and the whole bottom floor smelled like a herd of yak.) The audience section of the hall itself was gorgeous, even though the wood floor of the stage hadn’t been properly cared for and was splintered and broken across its whole expanse. It was a pretty surreal setup—colored lights and these shiny balls hanging from the ceiling that reflected different colors. They had to mic everyone because of the acoustics of the hall, and we found out in spades in our rehearsal that we couldn’t hear ANYTHING.

This was probably a good thing in the case of the cello section in particular. The official story so far is that they couldn’t bring their own instruments over due to flight restrictions (we think it’s more like the promoter didn’t want to pay for the extra seats needed to fly them in—cellos and oversized string instruments are normally given their own seat on an airline so they won’t be crushed in the cargo hold.) So thus far they’ve been borrowing instruments wherever we go. In Orlando, this wasn’t a problem because some of the section was from there and had a couple of extra instruments.

When they received their loaner cellos at the Great Hall, the looks of horror were intense—these were basically the cheapest and worst student instruments any of us had ever seen, and not only were they bad instruments, they were in terrible repair as well. There was a frenzy of fixing and tuning and adjusting, accompanied by the *pop* of strings breaking. They consigned the worst instrument to use for parts and cannibalized it thoroughly. They made it though all right, but CC and the Licker (he’s a cellist, obviously) looked like they needed either a beer or a shotgun by the time it was all over.

For our part, the woodwinds had a decent night, even though we really couldn’t hear anyone else. I started getting really sleepy during the last couple of numbers, but made it through all right in the end. It’s kind of like pulling an all-nighter and then playing a jury when you’re in school—more than a little foggy, but as long as everyone gets out alive you count it a success.

One more concert in this venue tomorrow night, then we’re on to Wuhan. Feh. It can’t come soon enough.

The Great Wall of China is a motherfucker. It makes grown men cry.

This morning after a nice breakfast in the hotel restaurant, we headed off to the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs for a little touristy goodness. You can set up a tour through the hotel in Beijing and they’ll fix you up with a guide and a bus for an outrageous sum, but at least you won’t have to find your own way there and back. First we stopped at the Ming Tombs (pictures here) and then moved on to the Wall by way of a tourist trap jade factory. It was interesting, but clearly there’s a racket going on there—the guides must be paid to bring in tourists to the store where they can buy all sorts of cheap tchotchkes. The jade carvings were beautiful, if extremely overpriced for the market. I walked out with a couple of small things for family members and left it at that.

The Great Wall was incredible. As we started climbing, we noticed other people stopping and resting every couple of stairs. Pansies, eh? Right. I only made it up to the first turret up the hill, but that was quite far enough thank you. As I was climbing I passed a man sitting on the stairs crying with his friend consoling him. I’m right there with you, buddy. You don’t really think about it when you see it in pictures, but the stairs on the Wall are HUGE. Most of them on the steep uphill sections are as high as at least two normal stairs, and they’re uneven and pitted, so it takes constant foot readjustment and attention. Several of the really fit little girls in our group hauled ass up to the top of the mountain, and we watched, awestruck, from where we stopped.

Shel helped me down the stairs because my knees were knocking together from so much exertion—what a great guy. He’s one of the few guys on this tour that you can absolutely count on for a helping hand and not be suspicious of his ulterior motives 90% of the time. (He’s the stage manager I told you about who picked us up from the airport, and our bass trombonist. That being said, though, the other 10 percent of the time he can be skeevy.)

We ended up eating lunch at a little tourist trap on the way home—the tour guide, I suppose, gets kickbacks for bringing his fares to these places. It was all overpriced and cheap goods, with no bargaining allowed. That’s no good in China, eh?

Tonight we were back at the Great Hall of the People, and we took a little time to go outside to Tiananmen Square and take some pictures (see them here). It amazes me unceasingly that the Chinese people find us so interesting to look at: we went over to the square to take some pictures before the concert, and happened to walk up during a guard changing or flag lowering ceremony. There were lots of people there to see the ceremony, but as we walked up, little by little they turned from watching the uniformed soldiers in front of them to point and stare and take our pictures instead. Rock stars, all of us. (Especially me, who left my coat at the hotel like an idiot and turned into a popsicle before I got back to the hall. My shirt had an insane boobie quotient going for it. OY.)

Beijing is a study in contrasts—old junked out buildings next to new flashy construction. This includes the new Olympic stadium and complex, which is amazing (pictures). Dust and dirt covers everything, from the museum exhibits to the concert piano (a baby grand in a 9,000 seat hall? Give me a break. That’s bullshit.) It seems to be a part of the ambient attitude-- what's important to clean and what's not. A result of Communism? Who knows, could be.

The hall tonight was a horrific experience. During the first couple of numbers we started to smell a really pungent odor—some sort of solvent like acetone or paint thinner, and it only got worse throughout the concert. By the time we got to the encore I thought I was going to throw up on my shoes. I couldn’t be happier that we’re out of here after tonight. It’s been a trying experience. If it wasn’t for the Wall, today would have been a real trial.

We are not in Kansas anymore Toto.

One thing about this tour that's beginning to get on my nerves is the lack of information. our promoter here seems to think that any travel info is on a need-to-know basis. In other words, we have no idea where we're going or how or when we're getting there until it's happening. That would be perfectly fine if we were in the States, but we're here in China where none of us speaks the language or knows our way around. Fuck.

We got up at the crack of dawn this morning to set out for Wuhan. The whole airport experience was a huge clusterfuck-- we had no idea of where to go or what to do and were running the whole time to get it all done. Passports and tickets werre flying back and forth. We made it onto the plane by the skin of our teeth and settled in for the short flight to the city of Wuhan, which provided much-needed time for a short nap.

Now, Beijing was a pretty dirty city, but it was pristine in comparison with Wuhan. In Beijng the dust and dirt seems to have more to do with age, but in Wuhan it seems to just be dirt. We arrived at our tiny hotel on a dark side street, the Swiss-Belhotel International, and promptly took advantage of a couple of hours of nap time. My roommate popped in her earplugs and was soon snoozing away while I grabbed the opportunity to send some email and catch up on a little blog reading.

We took off super early to the venue, the Royal Opera House, and got there with about three hours to spare. This seems to be a trend here-- after our first day, where we were an hour late due to traffic, the powers that be have decided that we should be there insanely early just in case. This, of course, gives the percussionist time to set up and the cellos time to make the best of a bad situation and the rest of us time for pictures and walking around outside the venue, which is exactly the course we decided to take.

We stopped at a corner shop for some water and then headed around the corner to find... a music shop! Even though the proprietress spoke no English, we got along and tried out a bunch of fabulous traditional Chinese instruments that I still don't know the name for. Each of us bought a couple for a song and scurried back over to the dressing rooms to try them out thoroughly. Sassy Jo and Pixie B found some double-reeded instruments like shawms that even came with tiny double reeds!! Of course, they set about adjusting them immediately and hilarity ensued. We were all laughing hysterically at the honks and squacks the horns made. I bought one instrument that looks like a big bulb of garlic attached to three pipes. It sounds kind of like a single harmonica and it a total hoot to play. The other thing I bought looks like a flute, but has a single metal reed which makes it sound like a little Foghorn.

The hall was not bad in terms of sound, but there were other problems: the risers we were sitting on weren't at all safe-- walking on and offstage we were sure one of us was going to put a foot through them or fall over becasue they shifted. And the poor cellos-- their instruments were even worse here than in Beijing. Cello Chick's was so bad she was almost in tears-- it had a really wicked wolf which made it do this insane reverb thing. Icky.

At any rate, the day was fairly trying but was redeemed by the instrument purchases... who knew? On to Guangzhou tomorrow, in the sunny South.

After Wuhan, Guangzhou seems like a tropical paradise.

This morning we took off for Guangzhou. Hopping on and off of planes is already getting a little old, but at least we're sort of used to the process now. The mantra of this tour has turned out to have more to do with releasing our control tendencies than anything else. Things run differently over here, and we've just had to learn to trust that we'll all survive and everything will turn out okay, even if we have no information until just before things are supposed to happen.

This trip is really starting to take a toll on some of the orchestra members-- our poor accordionist had to carry her accordion onto the plane out of its case and then do battle with the flight attendants to get to sit with it on the flight. The cellos haven't gotten any better and I think the cellists are past frustrated and close to insane at this point.

On the drive from the airport to the hotel, we were amazed to see the amount of green in Guangzhou-- this place is a tropical paradise compared to the places we've been. Everywhere around us on the highway we could see rooftop gardens on the top of high-rise apartment buildings, and even the highways have planter boxes lining the overpasses.

The only downside of a lush landscape like this one is the fact that everything grows, including the mold on the walls of our hotel room. In Cellco Chick and Pixie B's room it was really bad, so CC is sleeping in our room and Pixie's staying with Sassy Jo and TinyFlutist, since the hotel was completely full up and there were no more rooms available to switch them into.

Speaking of the rooms, they all have peek-a-boo showers. Seriously. There's a glass window that can be covered with a shower curtain, and no curtain on the pathroom side of the shower (not necessary because there's no water pressure to speak of).

The BlueSky hotel is not precisely a hole, but we were all also extremely amused that the room rate board lists the rates as follows: Single Standard, Double Standard, Single Deluxe, Double Deluxe, Suite and HOURLY. Huh? Really? Not surprising I guess, considering that the third floor of the hotel is a BROTHEL. The Mouth got out on the third floor to try and ask a few questions (of course, it was more miming and less communcation), but one thing was unmistakable: the smell of SEX. As soon as the elevator doors closed we dissolved into laughter and choruses of "Happy ending!!!!" Yecch.

There are two redeeming things I've experienced here, though: the Huanghuagang Park across the street and Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall. We passed the gardens when we went out walking and decided to go inside on a whim-- it turned out to be a fantastic idea. The gardens were quiet and peaceful, and we walked around them for an hour or so peering at the plants and monuments and observing groups of little old men and women playing cards or chess. It was better than any nap, and by the time we got back we were ready to headoff to the venue.

Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall is gorgeous, inside and out. The building is eighty years old and has all the grandeur inside of the U.S.'s famous movie palaces. The outside matches the glory of the inside with bright colors and intricate architecture, and is surrounded by beautiful gardens. the rose beds in front of the hall held flowers of such a vibrant red taht my camera had a hard time capturing them without distortion, and my eyes watered from looking at them in the setting sun.

The concert tonight was pretty good, with the exception of the percussion instruments. Not too bad, except that the only gong they gave us was one of the tiny New Year's gongs used by the drummers that accompany dragon dancers. Its sound was so entirely inappropriate that the woodwind section completely lost their shit in the middle of the first piece in the second half-- an Asian flavored arrangement of Love Is A Many Splendored Thing with solemnly timed gong soundings meant to be played on a large and resonant instrument. As it was, it sounded like someone was dropping a wash basin down a staircase, and we laughed until tears ran down our faces every time it happened. Just when we though we had it pulled together it would start up again, and it took us a good five minutes to get ourselves under control after the piece was over.

Dinner was interesting tonight-- served family style. We had a lot of really phenomenal dishes, but the highlight was when they brought out the chicken, served with the head fried up as an ornament for the plate. People were having shit-fits. Really, when you think about it it's not surprising for a place that had vats full of snakes in the hallway. (No kidding-- see the picture here.)

Tomorrow, for a change, we're taking a bus to the next city, Shenzhen. Goodnight until later!

I laughed so hard the first time I saw this that I couldn't breathe. Maybe it's having a cat that gives it a frame of reference, but still.

And remember, The Cat Came Back.

Another day, another venue, another hotel.

Shenzhen wasn't really remarkable today for anything except a reasonable venue and a nice hotel room. We drove here from Guangzhou by bus on a highway that wound through fields of banana palms and sugarcane. It only took about two hours to get there and the hotel was a welcome sight.

The hotel was downtown and around the corner from a supermarket, so we stocked up on crackers and chocolate and oranges, and of course bottled water. You can get half-liter bottles of water for about 2 RMB there, as opposed to 20-50 RMB in the hotel. Nice markup, right?

The hall was pretty nice and the concert well-handled, so we had a fairly good time. the only thing on most of our minds, though, was the fact that tomorrow we have a day off from playing, even though we have to schlepp back to Wuhan by plane for a corporate buy-out concert at the Opera House.

In light of our day off tomorrow, the Klatch decided to hang out in the bar over a couple of bottles of wine. Who knew-- the Chinese have their own wine industry, and the red wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The white was worse.

And now that I have a head full of wine and a head cold, I'm off to bed to snore until tomorrow.

... to say that we love Barack Obama. Hooray! This is the best news I've had all day. Further reasons we love this man:

"It's time to admit that no amount of American lives can resolve the political disagreement that lies at the heart of someone else's civil war,"

...and...

(On Abe Lincoln)"The life of a tall, gangly, self-made Springfield lawyer tells us that a different future is possible," Obama said. "He tells us that there is power in words. He tells us that there is power in conviction. That beneath all the differences of race and region, faith and station, we are one people. He tells us that there is power in hope."

Run, Barack, Run.

The airport ate my day off God dammit.

We had a nice half-day this morning to futz around, and I slept late and took naps while the rest of the klatch got massages. Not the happy-ending kind, either, for a miracle. They all raved about it, but I wasn't in the mood, and I think it'll be my one regret this trip that I didn't indulge in one myself.

Schlepp to the airport, wait wait wait. Our flight was delayed two hours, so we walked around the terminal looking for food and lo and belhold, found a 7-11. WTF? All I cared about was that they had DIET COKE!!!!!! (Or rather, Coke Light. Same thing.) And yogurt and pistachios and Kinder Bueno chocolate bars. They also had KFC and McDonalds, but I'm still not that desperate yet.

Bass Boy taught us a new version of Uno while we waited-- my attention span was way too short for that but I had a blast watching everyone else have at it. It's kind of like Speed combined with Uno, and I won't explain it here but it makes regular Uno look like a kindergartener's game.

After we finally got on the plane and to Wuhan, we schlepped back to the Swiss-Belhotel, where the hotel manager, Sergio, had dinner waiting for us. At midnight!!!! I understand that he was not contractually obligated to provide us dinner at all tonight, but he did anyway. I swear, the service we've had at these hotels in extraordinary, especially at this one. It might not be the poshest one we've stayed at, but he and his staff made it my favorite.

All righty-- off to bed so I can enjoy my day in Wuhan tomorrow before the concert.

Wuhan again.

I've managed to stay mostly well this tour until today, but it caught up with me a little after yesterday's G.I. escapade. At lunch yesterday I ate something that didn't agree with me, or maybe it was just the cold starting, I don't know. At any rate, blood sugar was all over th map today so I stayed in while everyone went shopping and did a few things. Had some lovely alone time and surfed the web and uploaded pictures up through the Forbidden City trip. (I know, I know, I'm behind, but I'd rather be out doing and getting more pictures than uploading the ones I have.)

Concert again tonight at the Opera House. Not a bad venue, but Cello Chick was in tears over her cello. Poor cellists. I hope our manager has learned something from this little (*ahem*) problem. If someone's too cheap to buy plane tickets for the instruments next time he needs to kick their asses into submission.

We went back over to the music store to get a couple more things-- all out of Suzuki Books, but I got a nice xiao and another hulusi. (Oh yeah, I found out what all of those things were that we bought-- Melody of China has a nice instrument encyclopedia on their site.)

Decent concert tonight, even though we almost fell through tthe risers when the Mouth vaulted back to talk to the percussionist. We also got really snazzy red silk scarves from the company sponsoring the concert to wear during the second half, and we get to keep them!

On to Shanghai tomorrow, where the real shopping begins!

My husband is the man.

We hopped the plane to Shanghai from Wuhan and arrived early in the afternoon. When we walked in the door the concierge handed me a big bundle of roses from my husband. Everyone oohed and ahed and I grinned until my face hurt. It's a day early for Valentine's, but that's a good thing. He better be taking off on Monday-- I'm gonna lock him in the bedroom for this one.

I've always made fun of people who go to foreign countries and run right to McDonalds, but I have to admit when I saw that Starbucks it was downright ridiculous how happy it made me. We all trooped in and got our expensive American coffees and then sat on the patio in a state of bliss. I'm not saying we're giving up on the food here, but it was soooooo nice to have a familiar cappuccino that it instantly made us feel better.

After that we were refreshed enough to walk down to the Bund from our hotel and take pictures of the lights that were popping on on the opposite bank. The Pearl Tower is an amazing structure, and the lights around it across the river were really cool.

We hoofed back to meet everyone for dinner at a restaurant around the corner from our hotel. Family-style, as usual, and pretty good food. One thing I've been missing this whole trip is diet soda-- at dinner they only usually have regular soda (Coke and Sprite) and beer. Needless to say I've been drinking a lot of beer-- Tsingtao, Snow Beer, Carlsburg (that one surprised me a little). More like water than beer, but still better than the alternative. At least if I'm going to get the calories, I should get something out of it, right?

Already you can hear firecrackers going off. The Lunar New Year begins on Sunday and we're going to be here to see it!

I swear I've lost five pounds walking around this country.

I called hubby via Skype (holy crap I love that service) to say Happy V-Day, even though he's a day behind back there. It was really nice to hear his voice, and I miss him tons.

This morning we got up early to walk around the city. We took the subway over to the Pearl Tower and ascended to the observation decks to look around. The city of Shanghai is vast-- it extends out seemingly endlessly from the tower in every direction.

After the tower he hiked from the subway down to the Yuyuan Gardens, which are reached by working your way through a maze of tourist shops. It's unreal how aggressive the shopkeepers are in attracting peoples' attention. They will ahout anything to get you to come over and look, from "Hey lady, you beautiful," to my favorite "Lookee lookee, very cheap!". Sassy Jo even heard one woman shout out "Hey shopping lady, come and smell my wood!"

We went into the gardens for a look around and took some fantastic pictures, pausing to adjust cameras and take comic shots of each other. We had to be back for an early departure for the hall, so we scooted out of there after about and hour and a half and took a taxi back to the hotel.

The Shanghai Oriental Arts Center was our venue tonight and will be tomorrow too. It's an absoulutely beautiful venue, a veritable palace for the arts. Viewed from overhead it looks like a phaelenopsis orchid, with each petal a different performance hall or space. I would have loved to see the aerial view during our concert, as the roof is fitted out with lights tuned to change with the sounds produced inside.

The facilities inside were wonderful-- beautiful dressing rooms and a sparkling concert hall. Since Shanghai has much more English speaking residents, our manager was able to make our dedications in English, and the crowd was very responsive.

Only one more concert to go at this point, then we have a couple of days to play round in Shanghai before going home!

Getting up early is becoming a real trial.

Rock Star Roomie and I decided to bag the group trip and go to the market by ourselves later this morning. It was great-- we stopped in to look at whatever we wanted without waiting for everyone all the time. Going with a big group is fun, but alone and small-group time has been really lacking and it was nice. And boy, did we shop. Pillow covers, chops, dresses, scarves, masks, you name it. By the time we came back we had perfected our bargaining skills and come home with a huge pile of loot. RSR got another suitcase to carry all of her loot home in, so we hopped a cab back to the hotel for a little nap.

Getting a cab in Shanghai can be dicey sometimes-- you show them your card and either they won't go or they try to take you out of your way to increase the fare. Fortunately we haven't had a problem with this so far, nor have we really been hassled, unlike a lot of members of our group. Maybe it's the fact that I told RSR to walk like she had five ton brass balls-- who knows.

Back at the Arts Center tonight. and it was a great concert. Good thing, too, because it was taped for Chinese TV-- seven cameras. Maestro has promised me a DVD when he gets one, so I'll let you know how it turns out.

Tonight is the beginning of the end of the trip-- our last concert. Thank goodness, too, because this cold is ramping up and my sinuses are going crazy. At least I don't have any more playing until next Wednesday.

Only a few more days until the Lunar New Year celebration, which TinyFlutist is already making plans for. Apparently we're going to boogaloo until the next morning-- rock on. Work's over-- now it's time for play!

Sometimes you just need to groove.

Ah, a day off at last. I decided to sleep late and go late to the Shanghai Museum. It was SO NICE to be able to sleep in a little. I goofed around until lunch time and then RSR and I decided to go down to our provided lunch. Total strike-out, that one. Yet another family style Chinese meal consisting of things which we couldn't identify with people who may not necessarily be our favorite people to deal with. Don't get me wrong-- as I've said before, I'm all for trying new things and participating and experiencing new cultures, but after a while your taste buds get a little tired of the shock of these things and we all know I get really sick of socializing after a while. Alone time has been at a premium this trip and these guys don't help sometimes.

RSR had gotten to the market to exchange her dress and we headed down to meet up with the crew for the museum. This was one of those bizarre occurrences where one after another we just started picking up people for the walk over-- it morphed from a two person stroll to a nine-person tour trip, with me in the lead. How the f*ck did that happen?

The museum was amazing, and we ran into the rest of the klatch there and decided to hook up later for a trip to a local dumpling restaurant that was supposed to be fabulous. I had benGi feeling a little vague all day so I took a time out in the museum's tea house for some jasmine tea and a cream puff with strawberries (the best shit you will ever eat-- if you're in Shanghai, run, do not walk). Finally, Bass Boy and I moseyed on back toward the hotel by way of the underground shopping mall under the park. He found some seriously fabulous shirts while I hung about vaguely and then we ambled back to our respective rooms to gear up for dinner. Still no shoes and I have no hope of finding clothes here. Apparently Asian women don't come in my size. Fuck.

The dumpling place? UN. FUCKING. BELIEVABLE. Seriously, I think I may never be able to eat dumplings anywhere else again-- these were just too good, and I think I'm ruined for life.

After dinner we popped into the Paulaner brew house next door and Cello Chick and Groovemaster D promptly dove into liter-mugs of beer. Holy fucking balls, Batman, that's a lot of beer. I stuck to a wheat brew and was happy to do so. One beer turned into two, and then three, by which time my sugar was crazy and I was falling asleep on the table and getting more than a little snarky. I chugged a coffee, which was great but functioned more like high-octane rocket fuel, at which point everyone decided to go home and go to bed. Fuck. I was not pleased-- it took two sleeping pills to get me off to dreamland after I walked in and woke up RSR, who was nursing a serious sore throat. (I felt so terrible about that-- not only was she feeling bad, my snoring was loud enough to penetrate her earplugs the night before... I could have crawled in a hole over that one.)

The moral of this story is don't stay out late unless you're willing to take a cab home by yourself, and don't drink coffee before going to bed. Last off day before going home tomorrow, which is also the eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year. Hooray!

I need to take a moment here to talk about someone I loved dearly who passed away this week-- Dr. Gerald Loren Welker. He was the Director of the University of Alabama School of Music and the conductor of the Wind Ensemble and Contemporary Ensemble when I was in school there, and inhabits most of my most vivid memories of that time.

If it wasn't for this man, I wouldn't be a musician, pure and simple. He was one of the most flamboyant and inspiring musicians I've ever known, and his charismatic presence and conducting style inspired everyone around him, particularly an impressionable and idealistic thirteen-year-old from suburban Birmingham. His inspiration and guidance is one of the main reasons I persevered in music when I could have easily taken another path, and his demand for musical excellence made me strive to excel far harder than I could have on my own. I grew up with his children in the Alabama music system, children who have gone on to have wonderful musical careers of their own. He introduced me to composers like Messaien and Birtwistle, and taught me to love the ideas they and other new music composers championed, which planted the seed for some of the projects I'm involved in today.

"Write yourself a note," he would say. " 'Dear Me, don't be a goober, Love, Me." in his deep and resonant voice. He had the tall, lanky and fluid swagger of Jack the Pumpkin King, with a face like a devil and wild hair. He always smelled of pipe tobacco, a smell that I can't experience today without being flooded with memories of him. His good humor let you make a mistake without taking it personally while making a point to improve on it. His smile was infectious.

Dear Me, I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me.

Though I hadn't seen him in a few years, he always held a very special place in my heart. He was one of my favorite teachers and his musical touch still resonates through the playing that I do every day. He will be sorely missed, but always fondly remembered.

Happy New Year from Shanghai! It's the Year of the Pig-- Kung Hey Fat Choy!

From Alejandro
From the Twins

Dancing the night away on New Year's Eve is not, as I had before believed, an unworthy pastime.

Holy fucking balls-- that beer caught up with me this morning. I very nearly had a hangover, and I heard later that Groovemaster D worshiped the porcelain gods over last night's debauchery. Oops. Of course, TinyFlutist drank us all under the table with no problem. WTF? She kicks ass, that one.

I woke up at 7 AM starving and a little hung over, so I sneaked out of the room to breakfast without waking up Rock Star Roomie. Of course, my conductor was at breakfast and commented on my disheveled state of being, whereupon I informed him that TinyFlutist put us all to shame, and that was no shame. Coffee and toast has never been so welcome, but today's eggs were the Chinese pickled variety, so no dice there. Drinkable yogurt, check.

Back in the room I caught up on some work-- the project group got a write-up in the CityPaper this week, which was really favorable and should help us drum up some audience members. Woohoo. (Note the lack of exclamation point-- even my blog is tired at this point.)

We headed over to the Jade Buddha Temple later in the morning, which was amazing-- the incense smoke was everywhere and people were praying all around us as we reverently snapped photos. Gorgeous.

The mall with the Starbucks was the lunch venue of choice, and the Korean noodle place we stopped at provided one of the best $1.50 meals I think I've ever had. Beef noodle soup with kimchee and tea for 12 RMB. Beautiful. We split up and walked around to do some shopping, and I managed to finish up my list of gifts with no stress.

RSR decided to hang back on dinner and dancing and we headed off to Xintiandi again for dinner and a little bar hopping. we really liked this are last night, so we decided to go again and check out another restaurant. Great idea, except that Chinese New Year kind of functions like our Chirstmas-- lots of things close early including restaurants and bars. We ended up at Din Tai Fung again and this time got stashed in a private room with a great waitress dedicated to our party. Did I mention how great this place was? Amazing. Afterwards the girls got some gluwein from the Paulaner kiosk and we hung around outside to watch fireworks. We even got to see some super close-up on the street that bisects the club/restaurant block! They were setting off fireworks that were bouncing off buildings and raining on roofs, but no one seemed to mind and I got some great video. (By they I mean people aided by city policemen. Public safety? Gotcha. Keep that firebucket handy.)

After the street fireworks, we headed back into the block to scope out the bar options and got sidetracked by a woman drumming up business for La Maison, a Moulin-Rouge style cabaret house and dance club. We seemed a little iffy, so she waived the cover fee for our group. Boy, did we get a surprise!! After being seated at the table, we were treated to the remainder a dance show featuring women I can only describe as having exquisite bodies-- those thongs showed off perfect asses and the abs below the beautiful bra-costumes were smokin' hot. The emcee was a gorgeous guy who entertained us with a song and his witty bater, and there was even a magician (a very, very HOTT magician) who really dazzled us with his skill at leger domain.

After the show, we moved over to the dance club on the same floor wher we proceeded to boogaloo until we were sweaty and giggling. The drinks were a bit expensive, but it was worth it for the ambiance.

I have to admit, I have a total girl-crush on Bass Boy. He's a beautiful fey boy, and a fantastic dancer. I love him all the more in that he put up with my limited dancing skills and used his much more considerable ability to twirl me around the dance floor more than a few times. He made me feel like dancing (no small feat, mind you), and I would have stayed there all night if I could have. We scooted downstairs to the Paulaner, where were boogeyed some more to the sounds of the Gems, the cover band we'd heard there the night before. One of the singers recognized us and came up to talk, and later applauded after BB and I finished a dance together. Yay!

After a while we moved on back to the hotel, leaving BB and Sassy Jo to cut a rug in Le Club and close down the place. I can't imagine having more fun on any New Year's, and now I don't want this tour to end-- everyone's going home tomorrow and many of us may never get together like this again. Ah well-- here's hoping we all stay in touch in the future... this has been the best tour I've ever done in terms of colleagues and camaraderie. Tomorrow is our flight home, and we have at least twelve hours more of each others' company. All right, off to sleep (or try, with all the fireworks). Zai jian until tomorrow, and Happy New Year!

Home.

This morning we were awakened by the drums of the lion dancers, and Rock Star Roomie and I rushed outside to take pictures and watch the festivities. We were in such a hurry we simply thew on pants and coats over our pajamas and hurried through the pedestrian underpass and into the square on Nanjing Road.

The dancers were magical-- long bright dragons controlled by bamboo poles bobbed and swayed and weaved around us, moving to the beat of the drummers. The drummers were fantastic to watch-- circled around the dancers, they beat out a deafening cadence.

After breakfast, we packed up our stuff for the last time and hauled everything down to the waiting bus. Schlepp, schlepp to the airport, where we waited patiently for check-in and boarding. We have lots of time to wait, we thought. We'll say goodbye when we get to O'Hare.

Twelve more hours on a plane with RSR (lucky break, that one) and everyone was more than ready to get off and headed in their respective directions. Hurried goodbyes were followed by one more short hop home-- we spread out from O'Hare like a web. Los Angeles, Orlando, Omaha, Vancouver, New York, Charleston, San Antonio.

And waiting at our locations, loved ones smiling and kissing and hugging. Hubby was waiting at the baggage claim along with the Maestro's wife, Guitarman's girlfriend and Groovemaster D's brother. After hurried goodbyes we scurried to our car covered in ice and salt and drove home over frozen streets.

There are not words enough to describe my delight at a warm feather bed inhabited by the two of us and our two furry friends. A long cozy snuggle awaits me, so I'll talk to y'all tomorrow.

Here I stand facing the looking glass-- one more fantastic journey completed and now it's time to go back to work, life and reality. It always seems like such a sudden stop when I get to this point-- the experience is still vivid and personal, too close and too dear to let go, and yet there is nothing left to do but move on.

But before I close this chapter, I feel like I need to say something to all of you who shared this wonderful experience with me these past two weeks: if you're from the tour and reading this, know that you're one of the people whose acquaintance and friendship I treasure. You all made this tour a time I will hold dear all of my life and look back on as a truly life-changing experience in some ways.

Thank you for the dancing, the drinking (!), the laughter. Thank you for your professionalism, your artistry, and your flexibility. Thank you for your grace under pressure. Thank you all for your time, your confidence, your good humor, and your patience.

I hope to see you all again soon. Zai jian and xie xie.

One of the beauties of going on tour with a bunch of friends is the amount of verbal gems you come away with by the end of the trip. Here, for your enjoyment, are some of ours (and if you don't know, I'm not explaining). Yes, there are over thirty, but who can choose? Those of you wonderful people frm the group who are reading this-- if I've left any out, click here and leave them in the Comment section. Rock out.

“THOSE are not hers.”

“People paid thousands of dollars for these tickets…”
“Big daddy”
“Rock star!”
“I am local people. You come have tea with me?"
“Where’s Danny?”
“What is that smell?”
“Get them ALL out of here! Her too! I am TRYING to run a rehearsal!”
“I have a bowing change,”
“Dun-didda-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-didda-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun…”
“Please!”
"Why the hell am I so hungry all the time? It seems like half and hour after I eat I... oh. Right. It's Chinese food."
“When are we leaving again?”
“And yet… he’s hot-- I’d do him.”
(To the tune of Come On Over)"I itch, I scratch, 'cause I just shaved my snatch..."
“I have fabulous hair.”
“I love that there are so many mirrors in this elevator.” ”Yeah—so you can look at your hair.”
“Happy ending?”
“Travel buddy!”
“Fuck these people. Fuck ‘em.”
"And... scene."
“Seems like one of you married girls could help a single brother out.”
“I just want to know what it is I’m putting in my mouth in the first place.”
“I’d say a third of my shoes never leave the bedroom.”
“Does it have snake in it?”
"And... scene."
“Lookee lookee!”
“Hello shopping lady, come smell my wood!”
“You beautiful. Yes?"
“GucciPradaBagWatchArtComeLookeeVeryGoodPriceHello?”
“You’re from Birmingham and you’re talking to me?”
“With love and cellos,”
“So what’s the groove for today?”
“What exactly IS the use of a man’s room attendant? I mean, has any guy ever REALLY looked over at this guy and said ‘Excuse me, could you hold this for me for a minute?“
“And… diminuendo.”
“Look honey, I am not your girlfriend, I am not your bitch, and I am not your mother-- I don’t want to sit with you and I definitely don’t want to hear about your hemorrhoids.”
“One more beer-- fist in mouth.”
“Holy thong, Batman!”
“Dances with curves”
“There is just an ambient layer of schmutz on this whole country.”
"After all, all it really takes to make her happy when I get home is a fat check, a silk dress, and a woody."
"Bu yao motherfucker."

It's official. This tour has beat my ass like a drum. I gave up on trying to be stoic about the jet lag yesterday and slept from 2 PM to 8 AM this morning via sleeping pill.

Later today I'm getting my ass to the MD to kick this sinus infection (I've put up with is since Beijing and I'm done. Stick a fork in me.)

I have not yet begun to unpack and the house is a wreck. (Partially my fault from all the crap I dragged home and partially the fact that hubby has been running like a crazy man since I left)

Much love to you peeps, but I have to get my ass to the gym. I managed to somehow lose ten pounds in the course of this jaunt (Walking? Food with heads? No one will ever know) and I'd like to keep that pattern moving.

If I can just stay awake.

So I thought you guys should have a look at the man who long ago started down the road that led to the touring commentary of the past few weeks: Annunzio Paolo Mantovani. He was a really prolific recording artist in his day and one of the more famous musical personalities of the twentieth century. (That being said, I didn't recognize the name when I got the gig at first-- doh.)

No Charmaine to be found, but here are a couple more tunes to check out:
Lonely Ballerina
Lazy Gondolier
Sous les Ciels des Paris
Come Prima

This kind of encapsulates how I feel about this number myself:
Lucky Stillwagon's Singing Debut

After spending so much time captioning my photos from China, I've been thinking a lot about good photography and I realized I've never posted about one of my favorite sites-- The Earth From Above, part of the photography site of Yann Arthus-Bertrand. There are pictures on that site that range from awe-inspiring to hilarious, and they're all beautiful.

He has a huge repository of aerial photos from countries all over the globe, many of which can be downloaded as wallpapers for your desktop. My WebShots wallpaper folder is crammed with them.

Let's be clear about one thing. I want to look even half as good as Helen Mirren does when I'm her age. Good God damn.

There were notably fewer fashion mishaps this year than in past years, even in terms of poor fitting frocks. Cate Blanchett was more than a little uncomfortable in her dress, but at least there were no Alison Janney moments on camera, even if there were a few hitches during her red carpet interview. Anne Hathaway's dress was almost a bad choice, if only because it featured that huge bow across her chest. She made it work, but it was a near thing-- the stills are pretty incriminating, even if she looks good on video. Faye Dunaway and Eva Green are not even topics of discussion-- they're weird enough that the frock wouldn't help even if it made sense.

Meryl Streep wasn't quite as frumpy as I expected, but it really seems like she would have learned something from the movie-- it makes me absolutely frustrated enough to throw something to see her looking like a dumpy housefrau at these awards shows after seeing how fantastic she looked in Devil. She deserves to show herself off better-- she's too talented an actress for this shit she's been pulling fashion-wise.

Nicole Kidman was hot in the red dress, but whatever she had perched on her her right shoulder could have been excised to much better effect. Naomi Watts had a great dress too, but let's be honest: if you show up to the Oscars with Nicole Kidman, be prepared to look like the fat friend (I realize that there's some buzz about her being preggers, but still). Reese Witherspoon and Gweneth Paltrow were my personal favorites of the night (yes, hell has probably frozen over-- I liked Gweneth's dress). If I ever find a black dress as kick-ass as Reese's I'll retire from public outings forever-- I will have reached my peak.

And what was with Jessica Biel smirking at her co-presenter's accent? The more he talked, the more she gawked at him and tried not to laugh. Unless I'm missing an inside joke, she just got made as a total bitch in prime time.

Hooray for Jennifer Hudson!! It was great to see her win, but it was equally great to see the shit-eating grin on Beyonce's face as she made her speech. One more indication that B needs a little work as an actress. I couldn't be more excited that Forrest Whittaker won, too. His speech was fantastic.

As much as I was traumatized by Pan's Labyrinth when hubby and I went to see it back in January, I was really happy to see it win so many awards. I'd have to say it's one of the most powerful movies I've seen in years, in terms of the real effect it has in drawing you into the story and leaving a lasting impression. The music is absolutely gorgeous, too. Go see it, and worry about how you'll sleep at night later.

All right peeps, off to bed to dream about expensive dresses and even more expensive shoes.

There are many reasons why I love Jessica Hagy, as do many others. Her blog, Indexed, features often hysterical and always insightful graphs drawn on index cards, ranging from the complex to the simple. All are hilarious and/or thought-provoking-- run grasshopper, go forth and chortle.

All righty. We loves us some Obama in this house, but are any of us here man enough to wear this tee-shirt? Hmmmm.

I know I left that half a mil somewhere... updated yearly per my habit, my worth has gone down exactly $445,220.00 on HumanforSale.com to $1,677,466.00. Fuck. And I was doing so well.

I have a feeling it's the extra weight and another year of age, per their breakdown. Ah well, we all depreciate I suppose. That's what turning thirty gets you, I guess.

Just so you know, I am not to be allowed to go out to the laundromat with precious clothing items.

For the third time in as many trips to the 'mat I left my delicates hanging out there as I came home to teach. Dammit.

Unfortunately, this time the delicates in question contained the cashmere sweater I took with me to China and my favorite concert black sweater, both of which were gifts from my father-in-law. In truth, I was more worried about the concert sweater than the cashmere one, and fortunately no one thought it was worth taking-- it was hanging on a folding table hook when I scurried in later tonight to search. That one I can't replace-- I use that thing at least twice a week for gigs and I know I'd never be able to find another one like it if I tried.

The cashmere, of course, had disappeared. I assume it has had the unfortunate affliction of being taken home by one of the incredibly unattractive members of the human race that I encountered there earlier today-- it's no doubt stretched over some ugly beer gut as we speak. Poor sweater-- it survived the rigors of a two week tour in Asia only to be left at a laundromat here to perish. Damn, damn, damn.

If anyone sees me leaving to do laundry next week, please stop me and remove from my possession all cold-water-wash-line-dry lovelies so that they don't end up the property of some fat redneck. Damn.

Spent the better part of today playing for hubby's school musical with all of his students. Jesus fuck I'm tired.

His kids aren't bad, per se, but pit orchestras are notoriously like a bull in a china shop and my ears and brain are just fatigued to hell. Not to mention I ate too much mango at dinner and now you could tap me for maple syrup. Feh.

I promise to be more interesting tomorrow-- there's a lot I want to talk about, but I'm to tired to spell check at the moment, and my typing skills are shot, so I'll hook up with you peeps after a little snooze. 'Night!