back but it doesn't feel like it

For those of you who have no access to national news outlets, California is experiencing a severe heat wave. I got back from D.C./NYC less than a week ago to 100 degree days in Santa Barbara. Now it's hot and the sea layer has moved back in (hopefully to cool things off a bit at some point) so it's hot, humid and hazy. I feel like I'm back on the east coast!

I had an excellent time on my trip. We managed to grab tickets to Spamalot with my brother and his girlfriend and had some excellent Italian food and some terrible Irish pub food (that place apparently stays in business by being known as a serious meat market).

Even without the original cast, Spamalot was funny (to me as well as to the large portion of the audience unfamiliar with Monty Python). It's always a bit odd being the only one in a large room laughing, but I now realize that I must subject my immediate family to a Monty Python fest the next time we are all together so that they can understand the "inside" jokes. I was only sad that "Help, I'm being oppressed!" was never shouted during the course of the show. There was a random reference to "suspenders and a bra" so I can't complain too much. Kristen from the Thursday knit group tells me that the Wynn (win?) in Vegas is doing a permanent installation of the show and should have most of the original cast back at the beginning at least. I'm tempted to try for tickets given that it would include Hank Azaria, David Hyde Pierce and Tim Curry.

Wicked was fantastic despite major changes to the plot (only one completely contradicted the novel where scarecrows are a small race of people and not a spell that only half worked on a single individual as in the musical). The cast has also changed (although Carol Kane is still in it) but I think the new woman in the Glinda role is better than the original if the CD recording is anything to go by. Mom loved the show largely because of Glinda's performance even though she got the tickets as a treat for me and hasn't even read the book.

I'll try and post photos from the trip tomorrow. We tried hard to get good touristy ones from Times Square and Rockefeller Center so they should be cheesy.