I got home from NYC last night, and thank goodness I caught an earlier flight!! I was scheduled for a flight which was supposed to get me home around 8:30pm, but LGA weather and traffic being what it is, that plane actually arrived in Raleigh at 12:30am. I managed to squeak, standby, onto the last seat of a flight that should have left at 2:50 but left the ground at 5pm, which got me home before e-baby's bath, around 7:15. We were so happy to see each other. She had a great week all alone with SNG, but I was pining for her the whole time. SNG was considerate enough to send little pictures and videos to my cell phone throughout the trip. They were like water to me. Today I've had a lot of trouble putting her down because those little baby hugs feel sooooo goooood.

Tuesday night I had some time to waste so I went to see Les Miserables on Broadway. I paid half-price for the tickets, which was still $60. I figured that since I love the movie and I waded through all 10,000 pages or whatever it was of the book-- including all 100+ pages on the battle at Waterloo and countless chapters on the geography of Paris and its development over the 1700s-early 1800s-- and still loved the book, but had never seen the musical, it was high time I saw it. I didn't even know any of the songs from it. I knew people in college who would get weepy over the very thought of "Les Miz" but then again, I was a theatre major in those days and I knew people who would get weepy over dance belts.

It was fun, and the music was nice, but the lyrics? Ugh!

Please oh please don't let the next line be "And my name is MA-ri-us!"

It might have been better if I didn't understand English. The rhymes were obvious and the lines were forced. What funny is that I read over the lyrics afterwards, and it doesn't read nearly as awkwardly as it sounded live. Perhaps we had a poor cast that night. There were understudies filling in for understudies who were filling in for the billed actors who took their places after the big-name billed actors had long-since retired from the cast. In fairness, the guy playing Enjolras, the boy playing Gavroche, and the woman who played adult Ponine were outstanding. The little girl who played child Cosette made me want to stick an ice pick into my ear. The guy playing Javert appeared to have a metal rod holding him up from the base of his spine to the base of his skull. But his voice was fantastic.The costuming and set design were wonderful. It was worth the $60 just to go and see a show. And if I'm completely honest, I will get weepy over the scene with the Bishop no matter how many times I see/read/hear it.

Wednesday night I went to dinner with my cousin Cosmo and we had a ball. Good sushi, good company. If all my trips were fun like that I'd be on the road every week.