I had most of this drafted to post last night but then we had way too much fun cooking and dancing and watching the teevee, so… happy Monday!

🍴:

Mon — balsamic herb baked chicken thighs with potatoes and kale

Tues — seared tuna with a quickle radish/carrot/cucumber and edamame, salad with ginger dressing

Wed — to use up some burger buns and Brie, turkey/brie/apple/(terrible) bacon sammies with fries and salad

Thurs — impromptu dinner party with a friend in town for work, pomegranate molasses chicken thighs with a walnut relish from the new Bon Appetit, and quick sautéed shrooms and kale. Delish and easy. Even if the veg were meant to go on the sheet pan. And Hampton forgot the pom aril garnish.

Fri — Hampton suggested a clean-the-fridge pasta with pancetta and peas in a cream sauce with salad and given that he is almost as little a fan of peas as Young Ann, I took him up on it. (Please don’t tell her how much I love to throw them into things.)

Sat — Cugino Forno for Incendiary Brewing‘s maple syrup and maple syrup stout release.

🐶:

Hampton sent me this the day he asked if we could go to Incendiary for those aforementioned special releases. There’s a reason we have dogs.

📚: I DNF’d two books this week that reminded me of why it’s so hard to be a good writer. One reminded the reader *repeatedly* how risk averse the protagonist was, while not describing anyone physically at all. I noped out at the top of chapter 4 when the writer brought in “prudent” to the adjective mix. The other… I guess I wasn’t paying attention to the description, but it was about a group of neighbors who were also swingers — but literally no one was attractive, they were all terrible people so… yeah, bye, moving out of this cul-de-sac.

🎭: As mentioned a time or two: We’re open! Here’s to my first and probably only ever mention on Cultural Voice of North Carolina. This reviewer was very kind to me in my community theatre life back when the local paper still reviewed community theatre.

Also, I had to tape my first audition tracks this week. For a show I forgot about and for which I missed auditions. But they were still taking videos. I realized this while chatting with my Man of La Mancha director, so I texted a castmate from across the room to see if we knew who was directing… and it was him. Awkward…. haha. So after submitting a bootleg video from another another show [shhhhh], I got called back for two similar-sounding yet vastly different in age parts because God bless community theater. And now we wait.

Speaking of Him: Easter service is booked! …Thanks to our travel agent friend, who is also the partner of the castmate I mentioned above, because the Triad performance scene is the smallest world ever.

Hashtag booked (and maybe booked and also booked) and blessed.

On top of all this, thanks to weird opera day off rules, we got to see my wife/Hedwig/Ethan and some other stupid talented local folks in First Date at Summerfield Stage Company. It was literally one of the most fun nights I have ever had in a theatre. The script was better than I was expecting and, again, this cast was So. Strong. Even Hampton was dying with laughter, and he’s not a musical theatre guy. My only regret is that we saw closing night, so I can’t tell you to go!