Greetings

Well hello again. It's been another eventful weekend with American Airlines and O'Hare. They both suck. I went to Montreal over the weekend and had a fabulous time, but it was bookended by horrible travelling experiences. Going there on Friday was a little bit better than coming back. The flight was technically American Eagle, which is basically American's Ted-type service, and the gates are in the basement of O'Hare where it smells like homeless people and there are no cell phone or wireless signals. The plane was only about 20 minutes late, but then once we got on, the plane smelled like a litter box and they realized that the bathroom was completely backed up. They had to get a crew on board to come and fix it, which took about another 40 minutes, and then because it was such a small plane (about 20 rows with one seat on the left and two on the right, very rickety which I don't like) and people had moved around to get as far away from the smell as possible, they had to reshuffle people around to balance the load (again, not reassuring at all), and one guy who had apparently had a few before getting on board was rather non-cooperative. Fortunately someone else jumped in (I would have myself except I was already in the area they needed more people to move in to), and we got on our way and made up about 20 minutes of that in the air, so we weren't too late arriving.

Montreal was beautiful, but I got horrendously sunburned Saturday early afternoon, and then rained on and soaked Saturday late afternoon. It went from hot and sunny to cloudy and rainy about as quickly as New York, although it did not rain nearly as hard and was actually pleasant to walk in. It also helped that I was not carrying a bag full of books, theatre tickets, and dressed in khakis and a dress shirt. Shorts and a t-shirt are much more preferable when walking in the rain, they don't cling to you when they're wet and they dry out much quicker when the rain stops. The only slight disappointment was that there was almost no cultural activity that night, no theatre, no symphony, no opera, or anything. So, instead, we had a leisurely, wonderful dinner at a French restaurant (called Le Grill) in the old town area, had some wine at the hotel after, and called it a day fairly early, which was fine because we were exhausted after walking all over the place. Sunday we went to the Fine Art Museum and saw their Yves Saint Laurent exhibit, which was very cool, I really felt like a Top Model, they even had a catwalk through one of the exhibit halls. Then it was time to head to the airport to come back, and everything was fine until it was about time to take off. It's a very nice airport and very well set up. Heathrow and Charles DeGaul could really do to take notes from Montreal. The only annoyance was that we had to play musical gates about 3 times because all of New England was being deluged with rain and all the flights were cancelled. We were fine however until about 20 minutes to boarding when we were informed there would be an hour delay, for no reason. After about 15 minutes they told us we were going to board because there was a window to get out, so we boarded, and were then informed that we were going to have to pull out to the tarmac and wait about another 50 minutes (again on a rickety little jet that did not inspire confidence) because O'Hare's radar system had gone out and they were working on sight, which meant the entire airline system was getting backed up. Now, this happens like every other week, you'd think O'Hare would stock up on radar parts or just buy a new system. It's so ridiculous, but we got out in 50 minutes and again made up some of it in the air. The nice thing was that we went through customs in Montreal so we were able to land at one of the regular terminals, my companion could get his suitcase, and we could leave without jumping through any more hoops. He then saw my new car for the first time and loved it, and we rode home. So, as usual, it was a great weekend marred only by the country's sucky air travel system. Somebody's got to do something about that.

Other tidbits that I've been forgetting to mention:

I did get the magnets and the Glory Days shirts. The front of my fridge at work is now very nicely adorned, I've actually got room for maybe 1 or 2 more, or 3 or 4 if I put a couple on the sides. But, it's very nicely spaced out without being cluttered, so it would have to be something good. The Glory Days shirt is very nice and very comfortable, I did wear it to Mamma Mia so I could show off my showtune pride. I was worried it would be one of those scratchy almost polyester-like ones, but it is very soft and light. It's a keeper, and I've got another one wrapped up in cellophane for safe keeping.

Paging Michelle Pfeiffer, New Line announced plans to make a movie musical sequel to Hairspray, penned by John Waters and involving the same creative team as Hairspray, with hopes for the original cast to return. Grease 2 anyone?

It's been another good weekend for Mamma Mia at the box office, shrugging off those bad reviews and hauling in another $17-some million. You go dancing queen!

Check this out: http://www.playbill.com/news/article/119885.html Nothing shocking, but still very revealing, and I'll never get tired of seeing that picture. Still, remember anyone who caught Damn Yankees, I mean ANYTHING for a picture of him in the Washington Senators uniform.

I did get the rest of Catered Affair from emusic and as I was going for Kelli O'Hara's album, I came across a link to a compilation she contributed to of Jule Styne's music called Jule Styne in Hollywood. As luck would have it, it contained just as many tracks as I had downloads remaining, so I got that instead. Next month I'll get Kerry Butler's and Kelli O'Hara's and then start on The Frogs. Now that I've got the actual Evening Primrose recording, I don't need the earlier studio recording, I can get the Broadway Cast Recording with Nathan Lane instead, since that's the one emusic has, and not have to worry about losing out on Primrose.

So, I think that's about it for now. I know I still have to post a picture of Lucille, and I'll throw in a picture of my fridge in its showtune pride glory, but that takes some doing, so I'll get to it later. A week from tomorrow is Idina. Hopefully I'll keep next week in a Wicked theme if my friend will get around to getting the Wicked tickets he's been promising. I think she's coming here from one show and heading right out to another, so I don't think Tuesday night's Wicked audience can expect any surprises, but you never know. I just hope she does Defying Gravity or I'm Not That Girl for us on Wednesday. And with that, it's time to work, so talk to you all later.