Rain Down On Me

So Raleigh turned out to be a bit of a mixed bag. Here are some of the highlights and lowlights:

-The hotel was nice enough, but it was full of little annoyances. Firstly they did not offer free wireless internet. They supplied us all with cables to access the internet in our room. Unfortunately that set up went wonky in the middle of the week. So I was basically without internet for most of my time in Raleigh. We heard phantom construction noises all morning and afternoon in the hotel. It did not bother me too much, but most of the actors did not enjoy waking up to the sound of drilling and sawing early in the morning. Then there were the children. On Friday and Saturday, the hotel was host to some sort of Christian Children's event. I truly felt like I had died and gone to hell. They were loud and obnoxious, and woke everyone up in the morning. I personally fell prey to the old "push every button in the elevator" ploy. Thankfully I was only going down a couple of floors. Our perseverance did pay off in the end. Enough of the company complained about the kids that the hotel gave every member of The Wedding Singer company a free night.

-The warm weather lasted only two days in Raleigh. For those of you out there (Scott) who may have been doing the bad weather dance in the general direction of Raleigh it worked. We went from 80 degrees and sunny on Friday to the 40s and rainy on Saturday. I discovered this as I was leaving to make the 20 minute walk to the gym Saturday morning in my t-shirt and shorts. That was a miserable walk especially coming back after sweating for an hour!

-I did find one good restaurant to eat at, The Red Room Tapas place. Everything else was a bust. I had what was probably the worst Pad Thai that I have ever eaten while in Raleigh, and I have eaten Pad Thai in many different places!

-Oh and speaking of the rain, we discovered on Saturday that the theatre's roof was a bit leaky. I had a couple drops of rain hit my shoulder while sitting in the pit. I let the Stage Manager know about it (not that he could really do much though). It turned out to not be a problem until Sunday. On Sunday the drips were worse. They were falling on the conductor, on one of the keyboards, on me, and on the edges of the stage. In fact at one point there was so much dripping that it looked like it was raining on stage! Now we do have a water effect in the show, but this was ridiculous. The picture above is of the puddle that had collected by my chair in the pit. Here I am suffering for my art!

- I am now in Fort Myers where it is sunny and will hopefully stay so. I also get to look forward to visits from Jimmy and Uncle Glenn and his entourage. It promises to be a fun week! I even went out and bought some swimming trunks tonight. Me at the beach. I think that the camera will be staying home if that happens!!!