I celebrated my birthday with Bernie, Jack and Vivi on Monday night since I was traveling on Tuesday. Bernie surprised me by making an awesome eggplant parmesean and red velvet cupcakes (both on my list of favorite things). Have I told you lately that I love him?
On Tuesday I needed to get my license renewed before I left for the airport. A word to the wise: don't wait until the expiration date to do this. You now have two options: a verified license and an unverified license. The unverified is easy. You bring your expired license and get a new one. However, it gets stamped "not for federal identification," which in my mind renders it wholly useless. The verified license requires everything but a DNA sample. The list of necessary documents is longer than Jack's Christmas list. Get organized a few weeks before you head to the DMV or AAA. You'll thank me later.
I had the unusual privilege of working in Georgia on this trip. Georgia is not usually part of my territory. This meant that I was able to spend two nights with Aunt Kelly and Uncle Rich, and have dinner with my cousins Lindsey and Jeremy. We celebrated my birthday there too. As always, it was great catching up and just being able to hang out with them.
I love seeing my family near Atlanta. I hate the mad dash to Hartsfield Jackson at rush hour. I left Duluth (31 miles from the airport) at a little after 7am for a 9:55am flight to Tampa, and I made it to the gate just as boarding began. The traffic is insane. It took me 45 minutes just to get out of Duluth. The airport recently opened a new terminal. Instead of continuing to add on to the monstrosity why not follow in the footsteps of other large cities and open a second airport on the other side of town (Houston, Dallas, Chicago, NYC, etc.)? How about half way between Duluth and Blairsville? That would be convenient (for me at least - LOL). I landed in Tampa on time for my mediation, and yesterday turned out to be a productive day.
Last night, I checked into the hotel in Tampa, ordered dinner, and found the couch in my room in time to catch the opening scenes of "The Sound of Music Live." I recognize there are a lot of haters out there but overall I thought it was well done. I appreciate what the producers were trying to accomplish. The Sound of Music is not an easy score to sing. Anyone who has done theater recognizes how hard it is to do on stage. The added element of being live on television only makes the performance even more complex. I don't think it is fair to compare Carrie Underwood to Julie Andrews. Can anyone replace Julie Andrews? Putting Underwood in that role accomplished the goal of reaching an audience that had probably never even heard of The Sound of Music. To make live theater (something that is monetarily out of reach for a lot of folks), easily accessible, can only be a good thing. It was the most entertaining three hours of television I've seen in awhile. I hope other musicals will follow suit. As an aside, it did irk me that Walmart was allowed to use the score in their commercials. That is just plain wrong in my book.
In stark contrast to Atlanta, I had a 7:30am flight from Tampa this morning. I left my hotel room at 6:25am. I arrived at my gate at 6:53am; 28 minutes later. In that 28 minutes, I returned the rental car, checked a bag, took the tram to the terminal, went through security, and obtained a Starbucks skinny vanilla latte. Amazing, right? It probably would have taken 28 minutes just to get the latte in the Atlanta airport.
While I was away, Bernie was in charge of the elves. He complains about this task, but secretly, I think he enjoys finding new ways to surprise Jack. The first thing Jack does in the morning is look for Lewis and the girl elf (we want Vivi to name her so she remains "the girl elf" until that happens). I love how excited Jack gets when he discovers their latest antics.
On Tuesday night, the elves toilet-papered the Christmas tree.
On Wednesday night, they went fishing:
Last night, they became "newsicians" and tried to make the sock monkey disappear.
I am headed home and really looking forward to seeing more live theater as Nick stars in "The Tale of Two Cities." Pictures (and maybe video) will follow.
Stay warm and have a good weekend!
