Beauty and the Beast - Durham, NC: Food, Swag, Family!
Sunday, September 7th, 2025 09:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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This post covers the weekend.
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FRIDAY
I woke up still feeling like crap but without body aches, so perhaps that's improvement, idk. Took a Covid test, why not, and it came back negative. I'll take another on Saturday so I can make sure I don't have it before seeing my Aunt.
I'd wanted to explore Duke University this week but decided it would be better to focus on recovering. So instead, here are reviews of the foods I picked up at misc Durham groceries:

- 365 Maple Almond Butter Granola: 9/10 Very good. Tastes a lot like the homemade stuff I've baked before. Strong maple flavor, would be nice with almond milk or on yogurt.
- Rogue Maple Brown Sugar Beef Jerky: 7/10 I liked this a lot, especially how some of the sugar crystallizes on the jerky and gives it little crunchy sweet texture :) But it was more sweet than salty, and kind of one-note...I felt like it was missing something. Maybe a small amount of coarse cracked black pepper?
- Chewy Banana Bites: 9/10 I bought these only because there were no ripe bananas at any of the stores. But hey, they taste great, love the chewy texture, and it's pretty much just soft-dried bananas. Honestly for travel purposes I'd buy 'em again. Also, they are ugly-looking (brown) but don't let that put you off, they're delicious.
- Mush Pumpkin Pie Overnight Oats: 7/10 Tasted just like pumpkin pie filling mixed with cooked oats. And that would have been lovely except there's pureed dates in here, and I can feel them slicing the inside of my mouth like little fiberglass shards. This is a personal preference, I HATE the texture of pureed dates. If it weren't for that I'd definitely eat these again because it tasted like dessert for breakfast.
- Good Culture Pumpkin Spice Cottage Cheese: 9/10 For some reason I didn't realize there'd be pumpkin puree in the bottom, that was a pleasant surprise! Really nice seasonal option, and lower in sugar than the fruit-puree flavors. I really liked it and would eat it again.

- Seaweed Bagel: 7/10 I already kinda reviewed this in a previous post. The bagel itself was awesome, grassy and briny just like nori. I'd love to try it with lox. I gave it 7/10 because there was way too much everything seasoning, I felt it was overly salty and onion-y, drowning out the bagel flavor. Personal preference. Still a really good bagel.
- Spiced Fig Bagel: 8/10 It looked pretty boring on the outside, but when I cut it open there were huge chunks of juicy fig! A nice surprise. This one would be bangin' with some cinnamon swirl/honey walnut cream cheese, or with peanut butter. Not overly sweet, in fact the dough itself was surprisingly salty (I didn't care for that very much tbh.) Overall a great bagel flavor!
- Pecan French Toast Bagel: 8/10 Delicious! Crunchy pecans inside a buttery spiced dough. This one would be so good toasted and with melted salted butter. Even plain I really enjoyed it.
Other things that I accomplished on Friday:
- Laundry
- Walking to Everything Bagel for a Pretzel Bagel and a Blackened Lime Sea Salt Bagel for the weekend
- Working on my will (it's not morbid, it's being realistic and considerate.)
- Finally booking my layoff rental car (Greensboro to Orlando) and flight (Orlando to Michigan post-layoff) and the Candlelight flights (San Antonio to Orlando and back)
- Lunch
- Walking to an empanada place for 1/4 chicken for the weekend (ran low on protein)
- Trying to watch Swan Princess and losing interest after all of the dialogue was sung lol
After dinner I walked to the theater a bit early so I could swap black sweaters out of my trunk and spend some time warming up without exposing others to my germs. Additionally, I swung by Company Management because I heard that there were custom-designed posters up for grabs! They were laid out nicely with small packing tubes for storage.

(I am sneaking one to my Aunt. Ssssssh!)
A little before showtime, Aaron (Assistant CM) came by with our pay stubs and some new All Access badges for us! It seems that some folks' badges have been wearing out or breaking so they're replacing all of them. The "old badge" was the same size as a credit card with a laminated finish. These are about 1/2-size larger, with an iridescent finish. Oooo, shiny!

The show went all right, our MD accidentally ate something with eggs in it (he's got an allergy) so one of our Assistant MDs filled in and did a great job. I made more mistakes than usual and was displeased with myself about it, but there will always be nights like this as long as you're human.
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SATURDAY
Two shows. After breakfast I took the Do Not Disturb hanger off, and very soon housekeeping came by to refresh my room. I only get my room refreshed if we stay in a city for more than a week; for one thing, you don't change your sheets and towels every single day at home, do you? And for another, I am good at keeping my living space clean.
After lunch I went to the theater a bit early again to warm up. This cold-virus-thing is easing up, thankfully, so I should be ok to spend time with my aunt on Sunday as long as she's comfortable being around me.
First show was pretty good, no complaints. Audience was a bit subdued but each city is different. Between shows the usual thing of eating dinner at the hotel: white rice, tofu, toasted edamame, low sodium V8. Second show was also good, though our MD sat out again and the secondary assistant MD had a turn conducting. He did a great job.
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SUNDAY
I didn't sleep well due to congestion and the pesky "female thing" that come around once a month.
My cold feels worse today, like it's trying to escape into my chest and sinuses making those feel irritated and stuffy. Upper respiratory issues make it hard to play the trombone, but they're still better than stomach issues by far so I'll buckle down and get through it with nose-blowing and without further complaint.
My Aunt, uncle, and two cousins came to the matinee. I was nervous and made more mistakes than usual, but thankfully unless you're a musician (or so discerning that you can pick out the live musicians underneath the wall of sound that is keycomp) you would never know any mistakes had been made :p
I went to meet my Aunt in the lobby and she ran to hug me. She'd felt emotional at the downbeat of the show...and down in my spot in the pit, I'd been thinking about what it might feel like for her, and getting a little emotional myself! The best way to explain it is that she's been here for a huge part of my life-journey that has led to this point. She saw me graduate high school and then college, and I lived with her while working retail in New Jersey and struggling to get started as a musician. She's essentially watched me stubbornly plugging away to become a musician since the very beginning. And now she gets to see me do a Disney Broadway show. We both get emotional.
I've said this before but my Aunt has been one of the most supportive, strong, and influential people in my life. I would not be here doing this wonderful show if she hadn't encouraged and supported me. I am SO GLAD that she could see the show, and am always so thankful for her support and love. I am lucky to have such an awesome Aunt!!
We met my uncle and cousins out at the sidewalk, and together walked over to Luna Rotisserie and Empanada where we shared a really nice meal. They had lots of tempting stuff on the menu, but most of us wanted to try the empanadas or the rotisserie (it's in their name, right?)
I got one pork and one chicken empanada with a side salad.

It was very good, I really liked the seasonings in the fillings and on the salad. Honestly the empanadas weren't mind-blowing, but they were well made and flavorful with lovely flaky golden crusts and I'd happily get them again. My uncle and cousin seemed to like their rotisserie chicken well enough. We talked about this and that, mostly the show of course. Incidentally several members of the orchestra had reserved a table further down so we got to wave at each other as we ate!
Too soon we'd finished eating and it was time for us to part ways. We walked back to the garage and I gave everyone a hug. My Aunt is gonna come and kidnap me tomorrow morning! We don't have a show on Monday so I'll stay overnight with her and she'll deposit me back in Durham on Tuesday afternoon.
I still had the evening show to do. My chest was feeling stuffy again, and this made it feel like I couldn't get a full breath (I probably could, it was just the sensation that I couldn't if that makes sense.) I got through the show and everything was fine, but between this and the jaw pain last week I am getting really damn tired of something always interfering with my ability to play to the best of my ability. This had better be the last health gremlin for a while!!!
In closing, enjoy this photo of one of the venue parking staff.
She is dressed as Lumiere! (Her hat has a candle flame on top too, you just can't see it past her lovely smiling face!)

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Monday: A day with my Aunt! No idea what we're doing but it doesn't much matter, just enjoying each others' company!
Tuesday: A partial day with my Aunt, hopefully grocery shopping, and a show in the evening.