Houston Day 169 - busy busy busy

It is 5:39am and I have given up on going back to sleep.  Haven't slept very well the past two nights because I am stressed about juggling my busy schedule over the next couple of months.  The Sound of Music Director finally called me on how much I haven't been prioritising that show, with the result that I am missing Lucas' birthday dinner to go to rehearsal :(
This morning's particular worry is the upcoming auditions for a performance of Ragtime at the Miller Outdoor Theatre.  I really want to do it because a) it's Ragtime and b) it's at the Miller Outdoor Theatre and c) the rehearsals are one street away from my house.  Those reasons are all undermined by the $550 participation fee, and the fact that I'm squeezing auditions in between Rudolph shows, Sound of Music rehearsals, and visitors from Australia.  But then, a) it's Ragtime, and b) it's at the Miller Outdoor Theatre.  I think I'll just clarify what the rehearsal schedule will look like, to see if I even can make that work.

Tom & Huck cast - me, Derrick & Shemica

This weekend just gone Lucas and I had a little mini-holiday.  He came to see the Tom & Huck show on Saturday, and then we checked into a hotel in The Woodlands.  Saturday night we went to a fundraiser dinner in Conroe, about an hour away from our place, that Lucas' work friend James had invited us to, for his kid's school.  That was kind of the reason for the holiday - to make a fun weekend of it, rather than just a massive long drive.  Check out the map here.
The Woodlands is a strange beast.  Before we moved here, we were told "if you have kids, you want to live in The Woodlands; if you don't, you want to live in The Heights."  The Woodlands is all a bit perfect, and artificial, and...underwhelming.  Think of Caroline Springs and Disneyland having a baby.  I think I detected more of that stereotypically Texan/conservative American attitude (which is less common in Houston proper).  E.g. 1: the woman we met in the hotel elevator who thinks that travel to anywhere further than Hawaii is not really worth it.  E.g. 2: this mug I saw in a Texas memorabilia shop which assumes that Texan=religious=patriotic=yay military=appalling punctuation.  (O'Lord? God is Irish???)

E.g. 3: the woman I walked past in World Market who "hadn't ever realised that other parts of the world have all these different kinds of food."
But it was really fun to have a weekend together.  I popped my Macy's cherry and bought some new slippers (it's definitely getting colder), and our visit to World Market rewarded us with Tim Tams, interesting beer from Mississippi, Bundy ginger beer, and good curry paste.  Saturday lunch was at a cool Irish pub on the Waterway (which is The Woodlands' less impressive answer to San Antonio's Riverwalk).  Fall here is beautiful.  It's not the same as autumn in Melbourne....for one thing, the weather is consistent enough to make the change of seasons quite a different experience (remember my complaints about three straight months of 40-degree weather?), and for another thing, here the cold doesn't mean grey or wet nearly as much as it does in Melbourne.  So I'm doing things like walking around in the mild sunshine while the leaves change colour wearing warm hats and chunky knit sweaters.  I feel like I'm in an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue, or a romantic comedy.  It's rather lovely.