Thursday night was my night to indulge in my other hobby--theatre. I ventured out to Milburn, NJ and the Papermill Playhouse to see a new musical, HAPPY DAYS: THE NEW MUSICAL. It was a nice fluff piece that I enjoyed. Felicia Finley, a good friend of Broadway Cares, is an extraordinary stand-out. There was several giggle moments that only if you grew up with the show you would get them like references to an not-seen-friend named Jenny Piccolo and the "Laverne & Shirley" entrance dance. Added bonus was seeing the writer Garry Marshall, director of "Pretty Woman," "Princess Diairies," and a slew of others, and also the other creator, Paul Williams, award-winning songwriter who I remember in a slew of TV shows from the 1970s (yes, I'm that old), at the theatre. I don't see it coming to Broadway anytime soon but there is a lot of potential.
I spent the weekend doing several things. After lounging most of Saturday around my apartment, I trekked over to Water Taxi Beach in Queens for the final weekend of its season. It has been a lot of fun there and I will miss the beautiful city view we got there. Then one of the guys, David, held a cook-out
at a place nearby so that we could toast out the final weekend of WTB. I went back into the city for a friend's birthday party and then after that met back up with some of the WTB people for some billiards fun. It was another late night/early morning ending.My Big City team needs more practice time as we prepare for our first game this Thurday so on Sunday we met up in Queens at a park with a free "foam" court. It was not concrete but it had a tough texture, not quite astro-turf but not really sand. Anyway, we did several drills thanks to our friend Rich and we got a lot accomplished so I'm looking forward to our first game this week.
Then we cleaned up, picked up a few things, and headed over to the restaurant where our friend Mary Z. was having her birthday dinner. The place is near her apartment so, obviously, she picked it and Claire did all the invitations and reservations. The restaurant was so cute and they were ready for us even when we arrived early especially since we had a reservation for 22. We had a room all to ourselves and the wait staff was excellent and so was the food. We even did a mini-show of what we learned in class on Tuesday (side note: already planning to bring more people to class next
Tuesday) with me, Mary, and Claire stepping up to the task with no music, just a lot of eyes watching. Mary enjoyed herself and all the people who came out to Brooklyn for her birthday on a late Sunday evening. Of course, I think only three of us had the day off on Monday. But it was a lot of laughter and a great way to start the week.As for today, a day off, our policy is that if the post office close then we close. So I slept in really late and got up and did some photo edits from the weekend. I finally got them all up late this evening. I was also cleaning out my DVR queue, and I moved several things to DVD like a bunch of "Hairspray" clips, Reba appearances, and Drum Corps World Championships, and caught up on last week's episodes of "Ugly Betty," "Aliens in America," "Friday Night Lights," "Private Practice," "Grey's Anatomy," "Brothers & Sisters," "Desperate Housewives," "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," and "Gossip Girl" (and I watched a lot last week, I thought). I also did the usual laundry and a bit of clean-up for my room as I'm going home for a quick visit this weekend before we start fall collections next weekend. Six weeks of theatre visits. Hooray for a four-day week!!!
