PNewL PNewS
Volume 26 Issue 5 “All the pnews that phits.” December 2018
The Hamilton Edition
I am going to write this now while it’s fresh in my mind and because I have 38% battery and the hotel I am staying in has no power so after that I will be sitting in a dark room with nothing to do and it will be, like, 5:30pm.
[Ed. Note: I have now been fiddling with this for a couple weeks + and I think I have to just say I am done. I am done.]
I saw Hamilton. (Big bucket list check.)
In retrospect, I could have bought a $500 ticket a couple years ago and saved money and wear and tear, but since that seemed outrageous at the time, I guess it is appropriate that I did it my way.
In March of this year, I heard that Hamilton was going to be part of the Broadway Series that comes to Greenville SC each year. I got on the “I want to buy a series of tickets” list because darn it, I was going to see Hamilton, and theatre tickets were things that grown ups buy and I am an honest to god grown up, though I don’t act like it much. In June, after trying to sign up online, I reserved on the phone because I could not figure out how to do it online—proving I am an old grown up. The nice man got me great seats—I got two because it’s a distance and I thought it would be more fun with two.
The tickets arrived—except for the Hamilton tickets—in August and I wondered what I was thinking. What are these plays?...But I am going to see Hamilton! The first play was silly (The Play that Goes Wrong), the second was pretty (Anastasia). They were well done and well staged, just not my thing. And while it kinda is more fun with two, it can be complicated. I think this is an experiment that is a slight fail but there are still several to go so I shall reserve judgment, and by the way, did I mention I saw Hamilton?
By the way, the actual Hamilton tickets arrived later, much later. Turns out there were some discrepancies (hacking?) and so those tickets didn’t arrive til about three weeks before the show. Security has been tight—recommend covering the bar code if taking a picture of tickets and posting them on social media. Wow.
The week before My Hamilton—December 9—weather reports started ramping up for one of those Storms of the Century, which either will or won’t happen. As it got closer, the bulls eye of the storm was going to be My Hamilton Day—Sunday December 9th. Kinda reminds me of the time I was coming home from Cuba right into the center of a triangle of a surprising storm that stretched from Atlanta to Charlotte to Knoxville while the rest of the country was quiet—welcome to my world. (I wound up in a motel far from home then too…) Anyway, yes, I am very lucky to have these opportunities but I sometimes find the circumstances, like…really? I love me a good storm but I prefer to be hunkered down and ready to play in the snow, not trying to drive somewhere I really need and want to be.
After they started talking about Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel coming to town, I figured I needed to get prepared. Patsy and Ernie and I were planning to go grocery shopping and see Marnie and Stephen 2.5+ hours away each way on Friday so I decided to send Roger the Dog to Puppy Camp for the weekend. We had a great trip to Greensboro, shopping til we dropped whilst visiting. (I’m sure Roger’s time was equally great.) Meanwhile, I spent way too long trying to decide where to stay in Greenvillefor the show. Since I was beginning to question whether I was going to come out of the show and be able to pop onto the road and drive back home, I figured I was in it for two nights so I’d aim low and a little bit away from downtown. I went for a La Quinta, which on first look was walkable to downtown, but turns out was a lot of freeway away.
Driving down the mountain on Saturday morning to beat the storm, the snow started to fall but nothing was sticking and it wasn’t slippery. When I arrived at La Quinta, it seemed pretty calm—cold rainy but nothing ominous. I stocked up on snacks to supplement the supplies I had brought from home in case getting out for dinner wasn’t possible. When I got to my room, which was fine, I found the Internet wasn’t working. Bummer.
Oh and did I mention I was getting a cold? Friday morning, as we took off for our long distance grocery shopping extravaganza, my voice was getting rough and my throat was rougher. (Dr. Ernie recommended Motrin for a sore throat and, by jingo, it helped!) By Saturday, I had a cough and the start of laryngitis. By Sunday, I was pretty much silenced. This was just the latest in a series of illnesses that started in early November. I was whipped.
Over night, the weather deteriorated. Glazed tree branches scraped against the windows throughout the night as high winds buffeted the building. When I woke up before dawn, I realized there was no power in the hotel. “Emergency lighting” in the stairs were those green light sticks that were standing on the top of what should have been lit in an emergency. There was no warm breakfast but the cereal and yogurt were fine. The front desk was taking notes on clipboards. I can’t imagine how they deciphered what they had written. The phones were out.
When I determined I didn’t want to drive to the show—it was a skating rink out on the roads, I ordered a Lyft and got nervous as it took a while for a driver to agree to come. I waited up on the main road and shortly before the driver showed up, a large tree cracked and fell, breaking all the wires across the road and taking out a pole. Explosions and fireworks. I looked around and I was the only one witnessing this—it felt like the Twilight Zone. Not much hope for power ever returning to La Quinta! My Lyft arrived and he was a nice guy in 4wd and I felt very safe. I tipped him well.
My second ticket was supposed to be taken by a friend who finally figured out she wasn’t going to make it and fortunately found someone who was not only thrilled to be going, she would also pay for it. Score. I met her out front of the theatre—we took pictures of each other in front of the Hamilton sign. She was darling—a 20-something med student. She was very excited. And she spent most of the time in anticipation of the show on her phone. She convinced her dad to take me back to the hotel after the show, where the power was still out but they had added more emergency light sticks! I was almost tearfully grateful—for the ride, not the light sticks.
The show was great—energetic, inspiring, with fabulous music. There had been discussion prior whether we needed to study the story and learn the music. Most of it was familiar and I had only done a little of each. Aaron Burr was my favorite actor. Oh and King George. Totally worth it and I hope I don’t have to go to such extremes again. And I have seen Hamilton!!!
Things I am Learning
& Miscellaneous Observations
• There is much to be said for how you spin it. There was one woman at the front desk of the hotel (motel?) who responded to my questions—two on two separate days—by saying that what was happening (the internet being down on Day One and 27 hours of power outage as I was leaving) was not their fault. As I was checking out, I said to one of the guys, something like I’d like to say it was a pleasure staying here but well you know (haha), and again, the woman at the front desk who I was not talking to said, you know none of this is our fault while the guy said, this has not been the kind of service we like to and typically do provide our customers. I prefer the latter.
• Batteries and zippers – the weak links in my world.
• Alexa doesn’t do so well with a voice afflicted by laryngitis.
• For the 39 hours I was at La Quinta, the power was out for 27 and of the remaining 12, I was asleep for 8 of them. No internet, no phone, no refrigeration. No discount.
• If you are heading into a possibly incapacitating weather situation, bring snacks. On top of being inconvenienced, being hungry doesn’t help. And a battery phone charger is another good idea. Pretend you are going camping. Bring all that stuff.
• I just received the request from La Quinta to evaluate my stay, The questions are hard to answer—how was the bathroom? Hard to tell, I couldn’t see it! Breakfast? Hmm. Not worth discussion. [Note: I did fill out the form and mentioned the employee who kept saying it wasn’t their fault. I got a phone call from the manager, I think, wanting to follow up on my evaluation. I lost his number. Oops]
• I think the most frequent call I get on my cell phone is me trying to find it…
Things I am Thankful For
& New Years Resolutions
Thankful for…
• Cool smart people I have met this year or gotten to know better who inspire me.
• Roger the Dog
• Opportunity
• The van
• Sock darning videos (among others—youtube in general)
New Year’s Resolutions…
• Darn the socks
• Make more donation toys
• Learn more about the trees that live near me. (I don’t know why I can’t retain this information…)
• All the usual suspects continue to apply: Eat better, get more exercise, laugh more, have more fun, dance more. Figure out something to do at the holidays other than getting sick.
“Overcoming fear is first and foremost about having the courage to look under the bed.”Brittney Cooper, Eloquent Rage
