Fa la la la HOLIDAY!

David and I have just finalized and booked our holiday getaway -- this July, we'll go to Puerto Rico for 2 nights, and then onto Bonaire for 6 nights!

Puerto Rico will be the "cultural" and "historical" part of our holiday -- which means we hope to go salsa dancing, learn about Puerto Rican rum and cuisine..... oh, and of course, check out Old San Juan and its historic sites, where we will be staying. When we have any time off for a holiday, we've tended to do beach-only trips involving very little to no tourist-ing. We travel so much with work, traveling and having to think on our vacation has not been our inclination. This year, however, we thought we'd vary it up a little. Since there is no way to get to Bonaire without going through Puerto Rico or Curcao, we chose Puerto Rico, give our Spanish language skills a little test drive. Of course, the beach is never too far away in Puerto Rico, but we will get a little urban flavor, too, and we are looking forward to it.

Bonaire reputedly has fantastic snorkeling and diving, as well as bird watching. We have aspirations to learn to dive this year -- time permitting, since it'd be best to get the dive schooling out of the way right here in New York before we get to Bonaire, so we don't waste precious time in the water. We are now pouring into guidebooks and learning about our chosen destinations.

This stretch of time when we will be in Puerto Rico/Bonaire is truly the only time we are able to go anywhere non-work related... so we shall make the best of it! It will be busy busy until then, hopping between NYC, London and Toronto, but at least the flights and accommodations are booked, we have this getaway to look forward to.

Woohoo!

Taking Turns Being on the Mend: David's Wisdom Teeth Extraction

My CAT scan results turned up no problems with my insides -- everything looked normal, or, as medical reports like to note, "unremarkable" -- which seems an unnecessarily pessimistic term to use -- I mean, can't they just say that my liver size was "normal," as opposed to "unremarkable"? I beg to differ that my liver is "unremarkable" -- it's gone through some pretty heavy partying over the years and still looks good. Anyway, so after all the testing, my gastro- doctor concluded that I must have some sort of virus and that the pains were caused by viral spasms. And now, a few days later, I feel much better. Not much tenderness, no more spasms, I feel good as new.

Now, it's David's turn to be a "patient" of a sort. He had all 4 of his wisdom teeth taken out surgically yesterday. It was a big procedure, since one was impacted, another was turned towards another tooth, one had a cavity... I had all 4 of my wisdom teeth pulled at once when I was 20 years old, and this was an almost barbarically simple procedure and a kind of anti-climactic experience, as tales of wisdom teeth pulling go: I had novocaine injections locally, and the dentist proceeded to pull out one tooth at a time -- or almost wrenched out one at a time -- and I could hear the crunching and feel the pulling, but it didn't hurt. I recovered quickly, ate everything just fine afterwards, and flew to Scotland for the summer.

(David after the teeth extraction -- photo taken with my mobile phone, in the "recovery room")

David's wisdom teeth extraction experience was more complicated. He had an intravenous sedation, which knocks you out, basically. He had a proper surgeon, whom I met, too -- he was nice, friendly, thorough and professional. While David had his operation, I waited in the "recovery room" next door -- which is basically a tiny room with a bed for the patient to rest on after the operation. The procedure was surprisingly quick. David was in and out in 30 minutes. He came out of the operation very happily trippy on the drugs he'd been given, and excitedly repeated, over and over, "That was fun! I want to do it again!" -- until he fell fast asleep for about 30 minutes.


After a thorough explanation of David's care and a few prescriptions for pain, we went home. David slept much of the remainder of the day, and I made him a big batch of broccoli soup. He was in too much raw pain to eat yesterday, but he's much better today, he can eat, very slowly and gingerly. For the next few days, it will be soft foods, rinsing with salt water, taking anti-biotics (which he hates to do -- this is my most difficult task, to get him to finish the required prescription amount).

We are relieved that the operation went smoothly, with no problems with hitting nerve endings or anything like that, about which we were concerned beforehand. Now it's making sure the four corners of his mouth heal properly.

sundown time, across NYC skyline

Gotta love the light around this time of the year in NYC -- when you know spring is here and it will won't be long before summer heat arrives!

Perilous Adventures in Abdominal Pains

Last Friday, early morning, I woke up with severe abdominal pains -- something along the lines of aggressive cramps that wouldn't go away. It kept on into the afternoon, so David took me to the emergency room... which lead to blood tests, IV drips, and an ultrasound conducted by a mustachio-ed man with an accent. 8 hours later, at midnight, I was discharged, with no conclusive understanding of what was wrong with me, and still in pain. No fever, no vomiting, just terrible abdominal pains.

The pain kept on over the weekend, on and off, in a strange fashion, because I didn't "feel" sick, but then I would be accosted with awful abdominal pains. I've had cramping before, but this was above the belly button, which made it odd. I couldn't eat much, although I was hungry, because putting food in my stomach seemed to irritate it. On Monday, I ended up seeing a gastro- doctor, who was very nice. He signed me up to get a CAT scan, to do a thorough check on my insides.

Today was my CAT scan. I had confused it with my previous experiences with an MRI. I have never had a CAT scan, and this one was for images with contrast. I arrived at the medical offices thinking that, by "with contrast," it simply meant I would have photos of my insides taken with a more, say, textured, 3-dimensional, chiaroscuro black and white quality.

I was gravely mistaken, and only found out my misunderstanding as I found myself signing off to injections and their possible side effects. (One of which was "On rare occasions, death may be a risk.")

A CAT scan with contrast apparently involves you drinking about a 1.5 liter bottle of white cranberry juice with iodine and something else (?) in it in 30 minutes, from which you wait 90 minutes, then getting an IV to have more iodine injections, and finally lying down on the CAT scanning machine, your arms up, with tube running from yet another machine injecting more stuff.

The thing is, I am not a fruit juice person. And certainly not a fruit juice from concentrate person. Yes, I know, I am a foodist snob. But I shall say it -- I don't think this 1.5 liters of white cranberry juice came freshly squeezed, and, dare I say it, I do not think those cranberries were organic. I think the last time I had cranberry juice was in a Cosmopolitan. I have not drank so much crappy sugar-laden drink in... like, maybe even ever. I mean, this is New York City, can't they do better than this nasty stuff for people who actually care about what they put in their bodies? I was completely sugar high as a result of this liquid concoction.

After consuming this 1.5 liters of concentrated grossness, buzzing off bad sugar, I was taken to see a rotund Asian lady who squeezed my arm in search of a good vein. Despite my protests that perhaps she could puncture my right arm -- my left arm becoming a pin-cushion of late, what with blood tests and IV at the ER and then more blood tests with the gastro doctor -- the lady tapped at a vein mound just above my wrist, said, "Ah, that's a good one" as if she were selecting a live lobster out of an aquarium to eat, and then jabbed it with the needle. The final injection whilst one lies on the CAT scan machine has the effect of making you really warm and funny-feeling, almost trippy. With the sugar rushing through me and iodine and whatever else injected into me as I lay on a funny looking machine, I felt like some alien abductee.

Anyway -- so it went -- I had my first CAT scan with contrast today. Results are not in, but it appears I do not have appendicitis, which is good. And I am feeling better than I have since Friday today, and am able to eat without having stomach aches.

David is off to Toronto tonight, where he will be doing preliminary dance auditions for the Toronto re-cast through Friday. I plan to have a mellow few days, mostly at home, chilling out, catching up on some emailing, watching TV, eating take-away or something along those lines with a glass of wine, but I will definitely not drink any cranberry juice in the near future, even if it came in a Cosmopolitan.

We (heart) Elsie

We have been casting in New York for the last three weeks. For our final week of casting, our director James's family traveled to New York from London to join him. Elsie's first trip to New York! She is only 21-months old, but has already racked up many air miles, having traveled to 6 countries. Fortunately for us, Elsie remembers us despite only seeing us occasionally during the production period in one territory or another. She apparently told the US Customs official at the airport, when he asked what Elsie was going to do in New York, "See Moku, see Day-id." (Seriously -- she is a brilliant chatter-box. SO smart. SO communicative. A genius!)

("Moku" is what Elsie calls me... short for "Tomoko," clearly.)

We had Elsie, James and his partner Sarah over for brunch, and had a wonderful time playing with Elsie. Here are a few snapshots of the gorgeous girl:

(Elsie examines the giant frittata with David...)

(Elsie with chocolate around her mouth... she'd dug into Caramello Koala, an Australian treat.)

(Not sure what was happening here... but it's a funny photo...click on the photo to enlarge, it's even funnier, the expressions on them both!)



(Elsie loves my straw hat and totally rocks it... fabulous.)

It was a beautiful spring day in New York -- so we walked leisurely up to Central Park after the brunch. Sarah had to go pick up a bike she had rented and I had to stop by the office to do a little bit of work, so David and James went on to the park with Elsie themselves. They looked like lovely gay dads in the park, taking turns pushing the swing! I did join them a little while afterwards, and got to push Elsie on the swing, too. (That's James in the back ground.)

Amazing day!

The Unthinkable has Happened

I joined a gym today. That's right. A gym. Where people work out and stuff. I have become a member of Crunch Health Club. There are 14 locations in New York, one of which is attached to our apartment building. This means going to the gym is just a ride down the elevator, out the door, and back in through the gym doors (there used to be direct access from the apartment building, apparently, but some residents were abusing this convenience by sneaking in non-members, so now everyone has to go through the front entrance of the health club). Residents of our apartment building get a special discounted rate. David joined yesterday and I decided that I would do the same today.

People who know me know that I have an aversion to gyms. To put it bluntly, I really don't work out. At all. And if I do, I don't like to do it with other people around, especially strangers. I have preferred just rolling around on my yoga ball or using free weights at home. But since my back problems, I've needed to be more careful about doing random pseudo-work outs by myself. I still need to find a private pilates teacher here in New York, to work on rehabilitative strength building... but I thought maybe a bit more cardio in my life wouldn't hurt, either.

My first time in a New York gym was pretty painless. I did a little bit on the elliptical machine, then tagged along David's weight training regimen. He's an excellent teacher, so this is useful for me, in addition to lessening my fear of gym culture by way of being my "male escort/body guard/husband."

The gym offers various classes, so I have aspirations to partake in them. Who knows, maybe this is a step in being more toned this year! (Let us hope.)

DONE! with the cleanse... and on with casting

David and I finished the 5-day liver cleanse this past Saturday. Yesterday -- Sunday -- was the first day in 5 days we were allowed to eat a real, cooked meal. What a wonderful day we had yesterday. We had brunch at Telepan with our friend Gerald, who was in town for the weekend from Philadelphia (where he goes to business school). Then, for dinner, we went and treated ourselves at Morimoto, where we had lovely sake and lots of food -- the kind that you have to chew, as opposed to drink in liquid form.

Strangely, having a full meal for the first time in 5 days prompted me to be wide awake. Strange, because for the last 5 days I found myself extremely sleepy by 10PM.

In any case, we are glad to have done the cleanse, and have aspirations to do it once a year.

Today, we are back to casting -- a very long day today, as it was a full day of dancers of a mixed variety -- some equity dancers, many non-equity. We ended the day with a handful of interesting dancers called back to partner later this week. But this is how things tend to roll at this point in the casting process.

Tomorrow is invited dance call. We hope to see some good people (crossing fingers). At least we carry on the casting process knowing our livers are cleaner than they were when we started casting the Chicago company the end of last year.

Hangover Headache without Alcohol...

I have a dull pounding headache akin to one one would have after a serious night out of boozing. Except I have had no booze. Apparently, as I detox my body of toxins, I may experience the toxins as headaches. Is this fair? So many a morning I have escaped having a hangover after having a little too much to drink, to David's irritation, who is never as lucky. Now that I am detoxing, I wake up hungover without ever having had alcohol!

I just hope I don't get all the years of hangovers I might have had in the next 3 days. This would be brutal.

Bad Ass Cleanse-ers

Hi David here,
The below mentioned herbal tincture does indeed taste like ass. -- but I am putting on brave face for Tomoko and trying to enjoy the ass-"e"-ness. It is a potent blood cleansing formula that contains some herbs which were once banned by the federal govenerment (of America).

You know it's funny. I spent two and a half hours in the kitchen tonight preparing food yet no "food" has passed our lips today nor will any for the next three days. Juice and broth is so much more time consuming than roast chicken--- OOOH don't say roast chicken!

One more thing -- I (partly) sold this detox to Tomoko because I said that after a day or two of not eating you start to feel kind of "up" and happy-go-lucky. This has NOT happened and she is suspicious.

P.S. Liver Detox

By the way, the tinctures we must consume for this liver cleanse is APPALLINGLY DISGUSTING. One tincture especially, I think tastes like AS* with wasabi. No joke. You have to try to believe it... but you'll probably hate having tasted it. We have to drink this nastiness FIVE TIMES a day for all of the 5 days of the cleanse. Painful. And the herbal tea is just too bitter to have any soothing qualities.

I have just tried to pass a banana as a "juice" I could drink, if I blended it with orange juice and strawberries. David has patiently explained to me that this is not a "juice," as required by the cleanse for us to drink, but rather, a "smoothie." In an effort to explore whether any juice could potentially be extracted from a banana, we put one through the juicer (as opposed to a blender). Absolutely not a single drop of juice was extracted.

Once and for all -- there is no such thing as a banana juice.

The Intricacies of the Liver Detox

(Above - our dinner last night. I pretended we were little bears in a forest on a picnic...)

Day 2 of the liver cleanse today... and it's getting a bit difficult. Today, tomorrow, and the day after that, we are only allowed to consume liquids. This means vegetable juices in the morning and during the day, and fruit juices in the evening. We can also drink our homemade vegetable broth. At casting today, I envied Amber eating a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch, and Eleanor having a half roast chicken..... I think these liquid only days will be long and trying! David is finding it hard, too, but not as much as me. His commitment to the cleanse is absolute, and he is making the vegetable broth for tomorrow as I type. It's funny because we have to pack the various liquids we will consume over the course of the day and bring them to casting. Which means we arrive at the studio with two bags loaded with water bottles. We look positively hardcore in our healthfulness!

(Chopped kale and carrots... ingredients for our potassium rich vegetable broth)

(David chopping up more vegetables for the broth...)

All I can think at the moment is... I want a juicy rib-eye steak and a martini when this is done.

Spring Cleaning of the Body

Today, David and I began Dr. Schulze's 5-Day Liver Detox, after having completed Dr. Schultze's 5-Day Bowel Cleanse last week. The liver cleanse program requires that we prepare and drink various liver cleansing and detoxifying herbal liquid concoctions. The first and the last days of the cleanse we eat only raw organic vegetables and fruit in addition to the fluids. The middle 3 days, we do not consume solid foods -- only drink fluids consisting of herbal teas, diluted vegetable and fruit juice, and a potassium broth we home brew with organic potato shavings, carrots, beets, onions, garlic, and kale.

Today, we also began our final stretch of casting for the Chicago/US tour. This week we are seeing actors for principal roles. The day went well, despite our envy of our colleagues' warm, protein-ful lunches along the way. David is very excited about our doing this cleanse, and I am grateful that I have my very own personal herbalist -- kind of like a personal trainer!

Proud owner of...

David and I recently purchased a wall unit (is it a chest? a buffet table? we're not exactly sure what to call it... but it holds things and looks nice) and a bedside table from a furniture store called Environment Furniture. Environment Furniture makes beautiful wood furniture from reclaimed wood, mainly from Brazil. We chanced upon the relatively new Manhattan store several months ago, before we left for Amsterdam. We both fell in love with the pieces from the store, but were not sure what kind of item would be a good fit for us, the store has serious grown-up type furniture, and we needed a grown-up commitment to justify acquiring something from the store.

David especially loved the furniture from the store... and so was ecstatic when we finally decided that this wall unit would be great in our apartment, and also extremely functional and useful.

Below are photos of David with the said wall unit:

(David is so happy with the furniture, he not only likes to pet it, but likes to climb on it to demonstrate his flexibility -- and just how sturdy the piece is.)

It's Great to be HOME!

David and I have been back in New York a little over a week now, and we have been so happy. We're loving being back in our own apartment -- picking up the "setting up the apartment" process, playing on the Wii (we are addicted to "Mario Galaxy"), seeing friends we haven't seen in months, and getting back into the New York swing of things.

The international creative team arrive in New York tomorrow/Monday, as we get ready for the "finals" for the Chicago casting process. The casting is held in New York, which is great. We get to work in our own city for a change!

More updates soon...

On the Title Page

Normally, Associate Choreographers of a major theatrical production do not get billing in the title page along with the core creative team. David, however, has defied this norm and have been given a billing along with the heads of various artistic departments and the producers. This distinction has been given to David as a way for the producers and the production to recognize his significant creative and artistic input to show. This means his name will appear on the title page of the Playbill, the souvenir brochure, posters and ads, as well as the front of houses of the theaters in which we play.

David's name became included in the title page in this way in Toronto - and it's a wonderful and well-deserved inclusion. But because David himself is still a bit shy about it all (although very pleased), I thought I would share it here.

Congratulations!

P.S. > At the Amsterdam Schipol Airport, we had an extra suitcase between us, for which we had to pay excess. When we went to the excess baggage payment counter to pay our due, the woman helping us noticed that David was wearing a DD hoodie. They asked if we worked on the show, we said "yes." This caused a slight commotion behind the glass window, as a group of middle aged Dutch women working at the excess baggage payment counter huddled around to get a look at David. It was as if they were seeing "Johnny" before them... it was funny and the first of such response we have gotten traveling through airports, often with DD gear. Helped, of course, by some excellent reviews we'd gotten from reputable Dutch newspapers.

David, of course, was quite pleased... although bashful.

Back in New York, New York

David and I had a lovely flight back to New York today, and are now happily in our own apartment, getting ready to sleep in our own bed. We are first re-enjoying our fantastic LCD 42 inch TV... which we've missed!

Tomorrow we are right back to the DD grind -- open dance call for the Chicago company/US tour. Things will continue to be busy... but it's good to be home.

DD Utrecht Premiere

Last night was the premiere of Dirty Dancing Utrecht -- and the evening was wonderful. The show was fantastic with high energy, the audience response was excited, eager and extremely positive, and everyone was in fabulous spirits. My friend Abbie and her fiance live in Amsterdam, so they came to the premiere as well. It was great for us to have friends not involved in the theater be there supporting the show and partying with us in celebration of opening. Valerie attended the London premiere as well, so it was interesting to get her reaction and feedback on how much the show has evolved since London.

Here are a few snapshots of the premiere:

(David, Valerie, me, Michael Conlon and producer Kevin Jacobsen in front of the DD photo-op banner)

(Me and Kevin)

(David, Abbie's fiance Derek, and Abbie)

(Abbie, me and Valerie)

(David with the ladies)

(Crazy musicians perform lying down on the floor to get the party started)

(Alice from the London DD office -- without whom I would lose my mind and certainly lose track of time and travel itineraries. She is a star.)
(David rocks out with James, our director)

(David and Michael both sported Paul Smith suits, and were very excited)

(With Penny and Conrad)

(David with Eleanor and Michael)

(Valerie and me)

(Cheesy? For sure... but funny, and priceless)

Party Time!

Really very great day today -- in brief, as we must to bed -- we had a private canal boat ride with the creatives and their families and special others complete with wine, food from one of the top hotels in Amsterdam, a band and a private boat tour guide. Very festive and merry, the ganag's all here.

Our friend Val arrived from London to join in on the festivities with opening night, people are crazily wrapping presents and writing cards all around, there are decisions to be made about outfits and plans about after parties.

It's all happening, very buzzy, but we are all excited and thrilled about the opening. The show is in good shape, at this point the stresses and anxieties have given away to a desire to party as one big rowdy family.

Soon!

It's All Happening

Today is the EPK -- filming the electronic press kit. This means we have no rehearsals in the rehearsal sense, just shooting several choice moments, scenes and sequences.

In the mean time, the London DD office has arrived, every day more and more international members of the extensive Dirty Dancing team arrive in Holland in preparation for the premier on Sunday.

It's all happening!

And here we go again...!

Previews began Thursday night -- and are going very well. Excellent audience reception thus far: attentive and eager. Literally the second the lights go out at the end of the show, they are on their feet clapping and cheering. It's been great for the cast to finally have an audience, to experience such a passionate and responsive packed house.

TOI TOI TOI!