Finally - Hamilton!

A little over a year ago, I purchased subscription tickets for the Boston Opera house...mainly, because dammit--I wanted to see Hamilton and this was the cheapest and most effective way to do so.

Well...we went to a total of 7 shows starting last October through this year, most of them were very nice and wonderful.  I am very thankful that I had spent the money on the indulgence!  

But...today...well, today I had a sinus infection!  Yay!!  And the day before, Chewy did get officially laid off...(yay?)...but, today, we forgot about all that, at least for a few hours...and went to Hamilton!

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Having 3-4 hours sleep, I made sure to arm myself with throat lozenges and tissues, a dose of DayQuil...and we were off!

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It was so worth it.  I loved the staging, the music, the performances.  The musical stands up very well with repeated listenings in our house...and it has a brisk pace.  I think the brisk pace is partially because the songs are often uptempo, but some of this pacing is because there is a lot of ground to cover...

One of the best parts of the show was sitting next to Willow.  She and I are the bigger aficionados of this musical (I am unsure which one of us has played the soundtrack more--but I know she knows a lot of it by heart).  There were many times during the show that she grabbed my arm or trembled with excitement.  It was an incredible experience to witness her being so affected by something on stage.

Some other observations:

• Yorktown was a dazzling and moving as one feels when you hear it on the soundtrack
• At least in our touring company, the parts of Geo. Washington and King Geo. were well cast and they were exceptional
• It was hard at first to get used to hearing Alexander Hamilton not sounding like Lin Manuel...same with Burr.
• Live performances and touring companies always give you a chance to see different interpretations of characters...the gentleman who played Aaron Burr had a softer touch...it was hard to get used to at first, but I liked his performance in the end.  
• Willow quote: "It was everything I expected and more!"
• I know this is partially political, but people clapped during many segments which were obviously "resist-able" moments ("immigrants, we get the job done..")
• It was one of the most enthusiastic concert goers I had seen...it is obvious that Hamilton touched on something that was needed in musical theater, a relevancy.

Hello there...

Taking some time to read over my old friend, the Blog...

As of this past week, I have been unemployed for most of the year...one would think I would have written more here, but most of my thoughts have been of the immediate type.  I guess when you are not working, you have time to suss out your thoughts and memories more to the point that you don't necessarily need the outlet of writing it down...

I guess its a little bit of that.  A little bit of having nothing much to write about.  The days and weeks and months continue on and even without work to cause the time to feel like a "daily grind" they do move quickly nonetheless.  A state of limbo while the rest of the world is moving along.

I do feel that despite all that, I was able to capture this year 2018 pretty well in the few posts that I have made.

This is a year where I have been able to de-stress a bit from a very stressful job situation (unfortunately, life seems to still bring its own share of stress to these parts...).  This year, I fell in love with aqua aerobics and boxing.  I spent a lot of time trying to avoid some parts of my life (lots of M*A*S*H reruns and Netflix series...) and trying to spend time with the parts of my life who are trying to be independent from me....(My kids love me, but I am not their world anymore).

Some things have been successful this year...some things not so much.  I am healthier, but not much lighter.  Michael is still working towards the goal of a driver's license.  (Our new strategy is to practice TO the road test...which, in retrospect, is probably what we should have done before...) Despite his best efforts, Chewy may be laid off soon (project based contract work is often susceptible to this type of thing unfortunately).  Willow seems to be doing okay with 5th grade, but homework is still a bear...and it hasn't really ramped up yet....

Well.  At least I may have fixed the problem of one of the cats urinating in the corner in the bathroom....progress. 

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I am going to try to write more in this space. Writing whatever...hoping it makes sense...and even if it doesn't...well, that seems to fit my life to a "T". 

Growing up....

We finished off the summer activities with a BANG, with Tom coming up for a two week whirlwind visit.  We did the touristy things with him and went to the zoo, Count Orlocks, the MFA, and the aquarium...where Michael had a great seal encounter (a seal mistook him for an aquarium employee and followed him around through out the habitat).

Just as Tom left, Michael started his next semester of college.  Right now, Chewy and I are helping him to commute.  He has a RMV road test on September 18th...so hopefully he will get his drivers license and we will start easing him into commuting on his own...

Willow got sick the last few days before school (Tom shared some airplane crud with me and Willow).  On Thursday, she started the fifth grade.  So far, things are going well...

Meanwhile...this weekend was a breather weekend, where we did not plan anything.   And the children had some firsts....Michael shaved for the first time! And Willow started having her menstrual cycle!  On the same day, I was reminded how grown up they are becoming...and now the chocolate is not safe in the house!