OMG, Food!
I don't know how the rumor got out that Glenn and I were starving to death, but y'all can rest easy now... we have way too much food in the house, and 99% of it is in chocolate form! For pity's sake, between all of the gifts of chocolate-covered cherries and boxed chocolates and chocolate truffles and homemade cookies and sweets and MORE CHOCOLATE, I'm running out of places to store everything. And then our next door neighbors went and gave us a gourmet food gift basket!
Then again, now that I think about it I realize that we GAVE a lot of chocolate to people... huh. Now that's an interesting take on "what goes around, comes around."
And with all of this chocolate in the house, what treat am I currently in love with? My mother's ginger cookies. Which are now completely gone, because I could not stop eating those suckers. She gave me the recipe but I'm hesitant to make more because of the aforementioned problem with not being able to stop eating them.
To add to our already overstuffed larder, we went and made a turkey with all the trimmings for Christmas dinner. God bless us everyone, but I love turkey and I do not love the current trend of serving ham for the big holiday meal. Nope, Christmas is about nostalgia and I grew up eating turkey and stuffing with cranberry sauce, doggone it. So did Glenn and his brother, so said brother and sister-in-law were our dinner guests. We even used the good china! It was lovely.
Because I worked on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, Glenn and I drove to my folks house for a pre-Christmas visit with them and my brother. My gift to my dad was a big hit: I bought a mini version of the "major award" lamp from A Christmas Story. It's only about a foot and a half tall, and it's a tea light holder instead of being a plug-in electric lamp. I couldn't see spending something like $250.00 on a full-sized replica, but I just couldn't resist getting a much more reasonably-priced version. To make it more fun, I packed it in a wooden crate with paper shavings, and wrote FRAGILE on the crate, just like in the movie. My parents laughed like crazy when he opened it.
Glenn also laughed at my exceedingly romantic gift of a wheeled trash bin with a hinged lid. He'd been complaining about our old trash can, which was really tough to open and had a broken handle. Oh COME ON, I gave him some DVDs, too, I'm not a total Philistine! (The Fountain and the latest director's cut of Blade Runner)
On the evening of Christmas Eve, I dressed up in my Dickens wear and sang Christmas carols with 2 fellows at the Ritz-Carlton in Georgetown. It was pleasant enough, and it's a very nice hotel. I noticed some official-looking guy giving us the hairy eyeball all evening, but our audiences definitely enjoyed us. Also, a new fan of my solo act surprised the heck out of me by showing up! Thankfully, I had brought the hammered dulcimer and I played a few tunes. After we finished, I strolled through chilly Georgetown and was very amused to discover that even the Starbucks was closed.
Oh, but I DID NOT want to get up on Christmas morning. But I got up, moved around slowly, put on my Dickens wear again and drove to the Ritz-Carlton in Tysons Corner. It was in the green room that I got some unpleasant news: Mr. Hairy Eyeball from the night before wrote a snotty email to the agent who booked us because he apparently thought our performance was, to quote him, "substandard." When an email opens with, "Where do I begin?" and gets snarkier from there, it's not good. What can you do. I have to admit that we did sound a little rough in spots but we showed up on time, started on time, and worked very hard. We were exceedingly professional, and while we could have sounded better, this person really was just being a snot. In my opinion his email was very unprofessional. Had I been in his shoes, I would have written a note to myself to call our agent after the holidays and ask to talk about it. Or I would have written a note to myself and saved it for next year when it's time to book acts for Christmas again.
Then again the agent was rather unprofessional herself, reading the scathing letter to us in the green room and then declaring that she was outraged by it. While it was nice to hear that she was loyally defending us, did we even have to know about any of it? She clearly needed to vent, but it was just unecessary and the whole thing let the air out of my sails. Why didn't I blow it off? Well... the thing is, we did sound rough on Christmas Eve -- to the point where I was feeling uncomfortable about it. I've sung these gigs with the same people for something like 4 or 5 Christmas seasons, but this time the lineup was slightly different, we didn't have a strong lead, and our sound suffered for it. I took the lead on a few songs but I typically sing harmony so when I sang lead we did lose some harmony vocals. Later I talked to the guy who booked me (not the agent) and told him that very thing. I think that I have pretty high artistic standards, and I couldn't pretend that we were perfect on Christmas Eve 'cause we sure as heck were not. On the other hand Mr. Hairy Eyeball was surprisingly critical, slamming our occasional lack of vocal harmony. Most clients are pleased if you show up on time and make the audience happy. I would expect that kind of criticism from A Music Critic at a major publication, not from someone who manages a hotel.
But the important thing is, on Christmas Day we sang for lots of very happy people who were brunching at The Ritz-Carlton, including heleneotroy and scarydavedc, who made the nutcrackers decorating their table sing along with us. And when I grabbed a nutcracker to do that right back at them, I didn't get fired. Also, the guy in the Frosty the Snowman costume was a freaking riot. And there was a wonderful jazz band that backed us up for a few songs... that was great fun.
And then I got my paycheck and went home to a house that smelled of turkey. I love it when a house smells like that.
Then again, now that I think about it I realize that we GAVE a lot of chocolate to people... huh. Now that's an interesting take on "what goes around, comes around."
And with all of this chocolate in the house, what treat am I currently in love with? My mother's ginger cookies. Which are now completely gone, because I could not stop eating those suckers. She gave me the recipe but I'm hesitant to make more because of the aforementioned problem with not being able to stop eating them.
To add to our already overstuffed larder, we went and made a turkey with all the trimmings for Christmas dinner. God bless us everyone, but I love turkey and I do not love the current trend of serving ham for the big holiday meal. Nope, Christmas is about nostalgia and I grew up eating turkey and stuffing with cranberry sauce, doggone it. So did Glenn and his brother, so said brother and sister-in-law were our dinner guests. We even used the good china! It was lovely.
Because I worked on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, Glenn and I drove to my folks house for a pre-Christmas visit with them and my brother. My gift to my dad was a big hit: I bought a mini version of the "major award" lamp from A Christmas Story. It's only about a foot and a half tall, and it's a tea light holder instead of being a plug-in electric lamp. I couldn't see spending something like $250.00 on a full-sized replica, but I just couldn't resist getting a much more reasonably-priced version. To make it more fun, I packed it in a wooden crate with paper shavings, and wrote FRAGILE on the crate, just like in the movie. My parents laughed like crazy when he opened it.
Glenn also laughed at my exceedingly romantic gift of a wheeled trash bin with a hinged lid. He'd been complaining about our old trash can, which was really tough to open and had a broken handle. Oh COME ON, I gave him some DVDs, too, I'm not a total Philistine! (The Fountain and the latest director's cut of Blade Runner)
On the evening of Christmas Eve, I dressed up in my Dickens wear and sang Christmas carols with 2 fellows at the Ritz-Carlton in Georgetown. It was pleasant enough, and it's a very nice hotel. I noticed some official-looking guy giving us the hairy eyeball all evening, but our audiences definitely enjoyed us. Also, a new fan of my solo act surprised the heck out of me by showing up! Thankfully, I had brought the hammered dulcimer and I played a few tunes. After we finished, I strolled through chilly Georgetown and was very amused to discover that even the Starbucks was closed.
Oh, but I DID NOT want to get up on Christmas morning. But I got up, moved around slowly, put on my Dickens wear again and drove to the Ritz-Carlton in Tysons Corner. It was in the green room that I got some unpleasant news: Mr. Hairy Eyeball from the night before wrote a snotty email to the agent who booked us because he apparently thought our performance was, to quote him, "substandard." When an email opens with, "Where do I begin?" and gets snarkier from there, it's not good. What can you do. I have to admit that we did sound a little rough in spots but we showed up on time, started on time, and worked very hard. We were exceedingly professional, and while we could have sounded better, this person really was just being a snot. In my opinion his email was very unprofessional. Had I been in his shoes, I would have written a note to myself to call our agent after the holidays and ask to talk about it. Or I would have written a note to myself and saved it for next year when it's time to book acts for Christmas again.
Then again the agent was rather unprofessional herself, reading the scathing letter to us in the green room and then declaring that she was outraged by it. While it was nice to hear that she was loyally defending us, did we even have to know about any of it? She clearly needed to vent, but it was just unecessary and the whole thing let the air out of my sails. Why didn't I blow it off? Well... the thing is, we did sound rough on Christmas Eve -- to the point where I was feeling uncomfortable about it. I've sung these gigs with the same people for something like 4 or 5 Christmas seasons, but this time the lineup was slightly different, we didn't have a strong lead, and our sound suffered for it. I took the lead on a few songs but I typically sing harmony so when I sang lead we did lose some harmony vocals. Later I talked to the guy who booked me (not the agent) and told him that very thing. I think that I have pretty high artistic standards, and I couldn't pretend that we were perfect on Christmas Eve 'cause we sure as heck were not. On the other hand Mr. Hairy Eyeball was surprisingly critical, slamming our occasional lack of vocal harmony. Most clients are pleased if you show up on time and make the audience happy. I would expect that kind of criticism from A Music Critic at a major publication, not from someone who manages a hotel.
But the important thing is, on Christmas Day we sang for lots of very happy people who were brunching at The Ritz-Carlton, including heleneotroy and scarydavedc, who made the nutcrackers decorating their table sing along with us. And when I grabbed a nutcracker to do that right back at them, I didn't get fired. Also, the guy in the Frosty the Snowman costume was a freaking riot. And there was a wonderful jazz band that backed us up for a few songs... that was great fun.
And then I got my paycheck and went home to a house that smelled of turkey. I love it when a house smells like that.