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This post covers Monday and Tuesday.
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MONDAYI was awake early, tired but excited because I am Treating Myself today! YAY Golden Day!!
(A "golden day" is slang for a true day off on tour. No shows + remaining in the same city.)
The plan: Houston's Galleria mall (possibly, no pressure), a noon showing of Zootopia at a fancy theater, and Central Market!
Breakfast and admiring my "clown lips" in the mirror. My lips are swollen, chapped, and kinda burn-y. This is because A) it's the first week back on tour after a layoff where I played less than half as much as usual; B) we had a temperature drop of 30 degrees a few days ago; and C) the streets between Houston's skyscrapers create wind tunnels, i.e. skin gets windburnt and dried out faster. It may not LOOK that chapped, but it FEELS chap-tastic.
But don't worry fam. This is nothing new.
Ringling Bros Circus, circa 2014.
"Clown lips" at the end of a 6-show weekend (12 hours of playing.)
I was sitting on the ringmaster float backstage, waiting for the bus.
I slather on chapstick or Vaseline, wear a mask or scarf, and take every possible precaution, but this happens at least once each winter no matter what I do. It makes playing a bit harder for a while, but ultimately resolves itself. Just thought I'd share one of the joys of brass musicianship!
Right as I was finishing breakfast, housekeeping came by to do my room. Yay! I ran away and goofed off in the lobby for 15-20 minutes and that was enough for them. How nice to start a new week with clean sheets and towels :) Then an Uber to The Galleria to look around!
The Galleria is a big fancy mall with lots of high-end stores selling stuff I can't afford like Hermes watches and designer clothing and "real" jewelry. But they also have some shops for Us Poors, like Macys and Hot Topic. I went to the former to rifle through their clearance rack, and the latter to see if there was any new Hazbin Hotel merch. Nothing found for me, but I did get Jameson a
Hellfire Club shirt.
From there I walked to the movie theater which was in an even snootier, even MORE posh shopping plaza, with people in rare $,$$$,$$$ sports cars cruising up and down and security posted at the entrances to most shops. I didn't even recognize the names of most stores...it was true designer stuff, premium leather goods, platinum jewelry, and even an upscale tobacco shop. The movie theater had a fine dining restaurant and bar in the lobby, no cheapo popcorn or candy to be seen (though it's on their menu.) The theaters are small and intimate with maybe 30-40 seats, all of which are plush recliners complete with fluffy blankets and little tables for your food. I had the entire theater to myself today!
I had arrived early on purpose so that wait staff could serve me before the movie started and not have to grope around in the dark. I got a sauvignon blanc and a bison burger with white cheddar, blueberry aioli, sunflower seed pesto, arugula, and fire-roasted tomatoes on brioche. It came with sweet potato fries. Oh and there's bacon on there (I took some of it off tbh)
Now THIS is luxury! Having that whole theater to myself, it was essentially a private showing. The burger was delicious and the wine hit the spot. Zootopia 2 is almost as good as the first movie! I only wished they'd fleshed out the primary reptile character a bit more so that the emotional connection to them might have been stronger at the end (it was still a very touching ending.)
A chill movie and some comfort food were just what I needed today. Afterward I walked to a nearby Central Market for my groceries for next week. Central Market is H-E-B's upscale answer to Whole Paycheck, and it is AWESOME! They have normal groceries, but also so much interesting food that I'll spend an hour or more just staring at everything.
They grow many of their own herbs and mushrooms in house.
There are always delicious-looking fresh fish in the seafood area, and the cuts of meat look amazing too. There were a lot of people at the butcher counter today so I didn't get a picture there.
The bakery section is massive and mostly features their own house-made loaves. There are so many flavors that I want to try!!
In addition to the huge bulk section with grains and dried fruits and nuts and candies, they've got a whole bulk chocolate section with every kind of chocolate you can think of including rare ones like
ruby chocolate or
couverture chocolate.
Some other interesting things that I saw, not pictured, included floral-infused salts, black cherry brie potato chips, ube potato spread, herbal sparkling water from France, basil hawthorn berry tea, camel milk yogurt, and so much more! I only needed a few things and am trying hard not to overbuy, so just looked for the most part. But I can never resist picking up at least a few intriguing things to try!
Here's my Small Haul.
As in the past, I will do a review once I've tried one of everything. The two little orange fruits are "mandarinquats." I expect them to be like a larger and slightly sweeter kumquat. I was SUPER intrigued by the two shelf-stable milks in banana cream and cookie flavors...they are whole milk so I'm gonna have to take Lactaid with them, but could not pass them up. Those little tuna tins are relatively low in fat and sodium, I wonder if they can still manage to taste good? As usual, can't wait to try everything!
Back at the hotel, put everything away and had a nice hot shower and tried a new face wash (it seems fine?) A very light dinner and lots of hydrating, starting on the 3rd season of Vox Machina, chatting with Jameson and my sisters via text. This was a very nice Golden Day :)
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TUESDAYWoke up "late" for me, 8:30. Breakfast and kind of wondering what to do with myself...the whole day was free until the evening show. As it turned out, it was rainy wet and cold for the entire day so my motivation to do anything at all went directly down the toilet.
Ate lunch, read my book, watched anime, had a nap, and the only productive thing I did all day was to work on building a powerpoint presentation for future masterclasses that I might do. This is one instance where I will allow AI to interfere, because formatting the slides myself is both tedious and doesn't look good. I only got through the introductory slides and the first portion of the "gig info" slides, but did learn how to effectively insert pictures and video. From here on most of the slides should be fairly copy-paste as far as layout.
Dinner, and I tried eating a saffron gummy for mood/anxiety about 2 hours before showtime. The dosage is 2 gummies but I'm paranoid about medications that could impact my work, so I'm doing half for a week and then adding the other half next week. The reason for this, by the way, is that I am a tense and anxious person. Up until now I've handled it with
square breathing and Saint John's Wort, but was recently informed by my birth control provider that I need to stop taking that as it interferes with the birth control. I'm trying to find a substitute, so it's saffron first and if that doesn't work I'll try L-theanine.
Anyway, I walked to the theater a bit early to put my horns together and warm up. As band buddies filtered in we asked each other about our days off; some people had gone to see local bands perform, or had gone out of town with loved ones in the area, or eaten at nice places. I had a new sticker to add to my case as well: it's 1930s Mickey Mouse (who is public domain) riding an alligator, holding a six-shooter and smoking.
I didn't share this on my socials because while
Mickey HAS had guns (Minnie too for that matter), he's never smoked. Maybe we can pretend he picked up the habit from Walt? There's a corresponding Minnie Mouse sticker where she's riding a flamingo, has a python around her neck like a scarf, and is equally six-shooting and smoking. As a Florida Person I thought it was funny and cute.
The show was nice, there seemed to be some high school-aged school groups here and they were energetic, cheering for just about everything and REALLY cheering during bows :) And at intermission lots of young little kids and their parents came to the pit edge. I answered lots of the usual questions ("How many people are down there?" "How do you GET down there?" "What's this net for?" "Why are the drums in a box?") and when the questions ran out I made slidey noises and race car noises for the kids. There was lots of giggling over it! Gotta teach 'em young why the trombone is THE COOLEST :p
On the walk back to the hotel I saw two interesting things.
The first was a Waymo sitting at the light across from me. Apparently they are edging into Houston now too. But they've got drivers here.
The other was a juvenile raccoon (at least I assume because it didn't look full grown) sitting directly in the middle of the sidewalk. It got up as I approached but didn't run away, just moved to the side. I spoke gentle words as I passed, and weirdly, it moved as though it wanted to follow me then. But I kept walking and saw it hesitate, then turn and trot into the bushes. Perhaps someone has fed it or been kind to it...which is nice in the moment but ultimately puts these animals in danger.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------Wednesday: One evening show and a trip to the fine art museum!
Thursday: One evening show. Possibly a Foodie Find? Haven't decided yet.
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