Friends: I Take You With Me
To All My Friends:
I take you with me.
Though we may not share every moment of our lives,
Though years may pass without our sharing a single day,
I take you with me.
You are with me, and you are loved.
Michael and I have already mentioned, probably more than a dozen times, people in our lives, past and present, that we’ve thought of on our trip. You see, friends, you are always in our hearts and minds.
People I meet, share time with, develop relationships with– impact me daily.
Even thousands of miles from home I can’t help but think of many people along the way.
*Walking the streets of Old Town in Stockholm, I immediately thought of Gay and her love of European life and culture. I pictured her here, remembering all the many students she exposed to the world with her many trips to Europe.
*When we visit Danzig, how will I not think of my cousin Ginger, whose character in the musical RAGS escaped from there?
*When we visit the Stutthof Concentration Camp, how will I not have my friend Kathy, close in my thoughts? She and I shared a close bond and understanding of the events of the Holocaust and the importance of telling the stories to future generations.
*How will I not think of Jason after our frequent Patti LuPone conversations, while she performs on our cruise?
Yes, my friends, I have brought you all with me. I carry you with me every day of my life. Your impact and importance in my life goes far beyond the times we might have shared or the experiences we encountered. I think of you often.
Rejoice and celebrate every connection you make. You’ll be surprised how sometimes the most unexpected people influence you the most.
Stockholm
We arrived in Stockholm late afternoon Saturday and after checking in to the Sheraton Stockholm, decided to just set out to explore the city with no clear destination. We were both pretty exhausted after the long flight but quickly got our second wind and set out to experience our new surroundings.
Stockholm is such a beautiful city full of history and art. For all the people out and about, it was still so quiet and relaxed. Old Town is full of the charm and quaint beauty I hoped to experience on this trip. There are so many squares and open areas just to sit and relax and take in the ambiance. Old Town is full of restaurants, bars and unique shops; combined with the eclectic mix of people, giving it an artsy, romantic vibe. I think I might have found the second place in the world I’d like to live (after NYC).
If we had a little more time here, I’d definitely be heading back to one of the squares, just to sit, read, and take it all in. It’s just beautiful here.
Dream Vacation Itinerary: Broadway On the High Seas
Michael and I celebrate our 20th anniversary in September and are ready to leave on our dream vacation to celebrate. I didn’t know anything about it until March. Michael wanted it to be a surprise but knew (or thought) we’d have to be sure I could take off work to go on the trip. Well, that’s not a problem now… and we’re all packed, extremely excited and ready to go.
By the time this posts, we should already be in Stockholm where we’ll have some time to sightsee before boarding our Baltic cruise on the Regent Seven Seas cruise line. This is a special sold out cruise (only 700 on board!), half of the passengers signed on for the Broadway On the High Seas tour which will feature special activities and performances by Broadway greats Patti LuPone (Evita, Anything Goes, Sweeney Todd, Gypsy), Howard McGillin (Broadway’s longest- running Phantom), Norm Lewis (Porgy and Bess) and all things NYC and Broadway– Seth Rudetsky.
Due to data rate and internet costs, I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to post or share while we’re overseas but I wanted to share a little advance taste of our next two weeks.
Here’s our itinerary:
CRUISE ITINERARY
SUN 04AUG13 Stockholm, Sweden 06:00 PM
MON 05AUG13 Turku, Finland 09:00 AM 05:00 PM
TUE 06AUG13 Helsinki, Finland 08:00 AM 06:00 PM
WED 07AUG13 St. Petersburg, Russia 08:00 AM
THU 08AUG13 St. Petersburg, Russia
FRI 09AUG13 St. Petersburg, Russia 06:00 PM
SAT 10AUG13 Tallinn, Estonia 08:00 AM 03:00 PM
SUN 11AUG13 Klaipeda (Memel), Lithuania 12:00 PM 08:00 PM
MON 12AUG13 Gdansk (Gdynia), Poland 07:00 AM 02:00 PM
TUE 13AUG13 Berlin (Warnemunde), Germany 08:00 AM 10:00 PM
WED 14AUG13 Copenhagen, Denmark 06:00 AM
OUR TOURS
Turku Castle, Naantali & Ruissalo 05AUG2013 Turku, Finland 10:00 AM
Walking Tour Of Helsinki 06AUG2013 Helsinki, Finland 09:15 AM
Classical St. Petersburg 07AUG2013 St. Petersburg, Russia 08:30 AM
An Evening Of Russian Ballet 07AUG2013 St. Petersburg, Russia 06:45 PM
Peter The Great’s Grand Palace – Peterhof 08AUG2013 St. Petersburg, Russia 07:45 AM
St. Petersburg Cathedrals 08AUG2013 St. Petersburg, Russia 02:00 PM
The Hermitage, A Wealth Of Art And History 09AUG2013 St. Petersburg, Russia 09:00 AM
Canal Cruise And Shopping 09AUG2013 St. Petersburg, Russia 02:00 PM
Upper Town And Rocca Al Mare With Folk Show 10AUG2013 Tallinn, Estonia 08:45 AM
Fairy Tales & Legends Of The Witches Hill And Amber Bay 11AUG2013 Klaipeda (Memel), Lithuania 01:30 PM
Private Tour Stutthoff Concentration Camp 12AUG2013 Gdansk (Gdynia), Poland 09:00 AM
Echoes Of The Past – Jewish Heritage 13AUG2013 Berlin (Warnemunde), Germany 07:30 AM
Whether I can post while we’re gone or have to wait until we get back, I’ll have plenty of pictures and stories to share!
Starbucks: Tarnished Gold
If you asked my opinion of what I considered to be one of the best (or best branded) companies in America my answer would be easy : Starbucks.
I jumped on the Starbucks bandwagon long after the craze started but quickly became addicted to everything that Starbucks represents. It has such a positive vibe. I love the company’s philosophies and community involvement… not to mention great coffee and amazing baristas.
A typical cup of dark roast.
They have a solid brand and business model, a quality product line — and create a friendly, laid back, in-store atmosphere that feels like home. What could be better than that?
How about a rewards programs for frequent customers?
Sounds good, doesn’t it?
I’ve been a Gold Card Rewards member since October of 2011. The kids at school seldom saw me without a cup of joe in my hand.
30 stars (purchases) and you’re a gold card holder. Then every 12 you get a free drink or food item. Beautiful!
So imagine my dismay when early last May, they swiped my card and it came up ACCOUNT DOESN’T EXIST! Imagine the confusion and embarrassment! Especially, since I had just reloaded my card the day before.
What’s the deal Starbucks?
It seems that all that glitters, isn’t gold. Or at least in my case, the gold was somehow tarnished. My account was frozen… and so was my cash. So what was the deal?
As it turns out, when you sign the agreement for terms of service on the rewards account, you are also agreeing to not purchase any cards or e-certificates from third party vendors. But what exactly does that mean? (They don’t consider Facebook, Target or other retail stores third party!)
Well, after several months and a half dozen calls to customer service, I still don’t have a clear answer. The best I could gather is that if you buy a card or certificate from anyone but Starbucks– you risk having your account frozen. I was merging cards and certificates (even ones purchased directly from Starbucks) and somehow my account was flagged and frozen.
And it’s still not resolved.
The last customer service rep I spoke with (for over an hour), did their best to explain what might have happened. I guess their accounting, card and tracking systems aren’t advanced enough to know whether cards are accurate and purchased legally, so this is their attempt at preventing fraud. But isn’t freezing my money that they let me load on the card a form of fraud in itself?
So here I was, gold card frozen and my faith in one of the current, great companies in America: TARNISHED. It took me some time to process it and decide if I should stop frequenting Starbucks. I really had to look at the situation from both sides.
I had purchased a few cards online from gift card sites that sold them at a small discount. We all want to save money, right? Bottom line is that Starbucks can’t seem to tell whether these cards are legally purchased, fraudulent, or stolen.
Luckily, I was able to get my money back from the website I purchased the cards from– but here it is over three months later and Starbucks still has not resolved the issue and their fraud department has not completed their investigation.
I have repeatedly offered to help in any way I can but they tell me there is nothing I can do and I probably will not see any restitution or reinstatement of my gold card. Not very good customer service.
After my last call, I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt for the time being, and start a new account from scratch and I just achieved gold status on my new account a few days ago.
What angers me about this is that I can’t understand why a company of this size would treat one of their elite reward members like this. They have made no effort to contact me in anyway regarding any type of resolution, nor did any of the customer service reps apologize for the inconvenience or assure me that I was a valued customer.
On the other hand, the baristas and store managers I have spoken with have been absolutely wonderful. They’ve given me free drinks, apologized for the inconvenience and asked me for updates.
So I’ve decided to give it a little more time but corporate really needs to get their act together on this or I will stop supporting them with my patronage.
In the meantime, I’m cutting back and grinding more beans on my own.
‘GYPSY’ 20 Years Later: Celebrating Strong Women
Twenty years ago, I had the pleasure of directing the Jule Styne, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents musical, GYPSY for Elgin Summer Theatre at Hemmens Auditorium in Elgin, Illinois. It was the combined effort of the City of Elgin, Independent Players and the Elgin Theatre Company (then, Elgin Community Theatre). It was a big, colorful spectacle that I’ll always hold close to my heart as one of my most important professional accomplishments that had a huge lasting impact on my personal life.
Peggy Pipilis as Mama Rose in the 1993 Elgin Summer Theatre production of Gypsy.
For those of you not that familiar with the show– it coined the phrase, “Sing out, Louise” and introduced the legendary “mother of all mothers” — the biggest stage mom of them all, Mama Rose. The character was originated by stage icon, Ethel Merman, in 1959 and later portrayed on film by Rosalind Russell. There have been many famous Mama Roses over the years including Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters and most recently: the sensational Patti LuPone.
In the story, single mom Rose foregoes all hopes of a normal life for her two daughters, pushing them in the dying vaudeville circuit, only to have her eldest (her star) leave her. In one last-ditch effort, Rose forces her younger, less talented daughter Louise to become a stripper. That stripper became perhaps the most famous of all time, Gypsy Rose Lee. Rose was blinded by stardom. If not for her, then for her daughters, no matter what the cost.
I’ve had this blog post mulling around in my head for a couple months now. i just wasn’t completely sure how I wanted to approach it… until last night.
Last night, I was reunited with a very good friend I hadn’t seen in almost thirty years. When our friendship began all those years ago– I remember her being a strong, level-headed influence in my life. Of course we reminisced about the old days, last night but more importantly, we started to get caught up on our lives since. Tara is indeed, still the strong, intelligent woman I remembered (and missed) from so many years ago.
I’ve been blessed to know many strong women over the years– which brings me back to our production of Gypsy and start of probably the greatest friendship of my life.
Peggy and I met working on a previous show but didn’t connect on a personal level until production of Gypsy started. She was (and is) my Mama Rose. I was still living in Chicago at the time and Peggy offered to drive me to the train station after rehearsals each night, giving us extra time to talk about her role and quickly establishing a tight bond that went far beyond a typical actress-director relationship. We just clicked.
I can’t even begin to go in to all the adventures we’ve shared over the the years but her family is my extended family. I think I’ve probably shared as many, if not more holidays and special occasions with them than with my own immediate family.
Our friendship and the relationship with her family, to me, is an example of what life is all about.
Gypsy also brought at least four other strong women into my life that have made a lasting impact on me. Two are brilliant single moms that single handedly raised amazing children; one is the most positive cheerleader I’ve ever known; and a wonderful performer, now teacher, that I was fortunate enough to reconnect with recently and is doing incredible work training future young artists. All strong women… all with unique challenges and circumstances… all important role models in my life.
All of us take our connections and circumstances for granted at some point in our lives. We seldom know what relationships or events are going to have the biggest, lasting impact on us at that time. This is why it is so important to cherish the moments, the people and the opportunities while they are happening. I’ve been reminded time and time again over the past few weeks exactly how important those experiences are in making me who I am today.
How Do You Measure 525600 Minutes? 