Joshua Zamrycki's Weblog

Hey, wanna see the lovely photos I took at this year’s premiere calçotada?

Calçot Specialist

Calçot is a variety of green onion. They are milder and less bulbous than onions. A calçot is roughly the shape of a small leek.

The most traditional way of eating calçots is in a calçotada, a popular gastronomical event held between the end of winter and March or April, where calçots are consumed massively. Calçots are then barbecued and dipped in salvitxada or romesco sauce, and accompanied by red wine or cava. Pieces of meat and bread slices are roasted in the charcoal after cooking the calçots.

The best part of a calçotada, besides the fact that they’re delicious, is that they’re sooo messy! You first have to slip the charcoal husk from the calçot, then you drench it in the sauce, tilt back your head, and lower the whole thing down your face. Wash it down with red wine and repeat!

A couple of months ago, we were invited out to the Catalan countryside to celebrate the birthday of one of Emily’s friends and to eat ridiculous amounts of calçots. Seriously, ridiculous. I brought my camera. Here are the results:
**Fancy-shmancy full-screen slideshow**

I woke Emily up this morning (as I do every morning) and she quickly hid under her covers to avoid the morning sun (as she does most mornings). So I followed her under the covers and, in an effort to wake her up, said, “Wow! Look at this cave! Is this your cave? Is there a party going on down here? Is it a cave party? Can I come? Will there be dancing at the cave party? Do you wanna dance now?” Sleepy half-asleep Emily just looked at me blankly and used her first words of the day to say, “You look like Winnie The Pooh.” I LOL’ed.

So who should show up next but our friendly neighborhood Sebastian. He climbs up on the bed with us and starts jumping. You know, because it’s morning. He’s jumping a little too close to the edge of the bed so Emily lunges for him and grabs his ankle. She tells me, “I stopped him from falling off the bed.” So I said, “Wow, you must really love him a lot.” And Emily informs me, “Yeah. We’re gonna get married. Not now because we’re little. So we can only get married like pretend. But when I’m bigger and Sebastian is bigger, then we’re gonna get married for real.” Very cute.

And speaking of cute…

It’s all happening too fast! Sebastian is already a year and two months. And he’s big. But we’ve known for a long time that he’d be a big boy, like when you see a little puppy with unusually large paws. Sebastian has unusually large feet and hands. Do you know how hard it is to find extra-wide baby shoes? In Spain?!

Laundry Day

Here are a few “what’s new” kinda things you can share with your friends:

• Sebastian started walking by nine months and hasn’t slowed down since. He can now run fairly quickly and, after getting bored with horizontal motion, has moved on to climbing. He enjoys climbing up to beds, the couch, Emily’s chairs, stairs of every shape and size, and even the step stool in the bathroom. Getting down is usually a trivial task, but not 100% of the time. Sebastian is definitely out-pacing Emily in the bumps and bruises department.
• Manual dexterity has seen a marked boon lo these past few months. Instead of simply hurling his building blocks across the room as was par for the course, Sebastian now occasionally opts to build towers with them. Sometimes reaching as high as five or six stories. He also seems to understand that the trains go on the tracks and that the shapes go in the box. He still puts everything in his mouth, though.
• I’m ashamed to admit that, as physically adept as our boy is, he has yet to utter his first real word. I’m not counting all the noises that might sound like mummy, daddy, yeah, and uh-oh. He has yet to prove to me that he’s got a firm grasp on their meaning. The clock is ticking on this one.
• He may not be speaking, but Sebastian is finally starting to understand what the heck we’re talking about. For example, he’ll usually oblige if I ask him to hold my hand. We can finally start teaching him tricks!!
• Trick #1: jump. This one started a couple of weeks ago. Sebastian loves jumping. He just doesn’t actually leave the ground yet. But if you ask him to jump, he’ll give you a huge smile, bend his knees, hold that position for just a little too long, and then quickly straighten his legs and back. And then he’ll laugh. Jumping is fun.
• Trick #2: spin. This one only started yesterday. If you ask him to spin, he’ll give you a huge smile, lower his chin to his chest, and then meticulously spin round and round until he eventually either falls down or bumps into something. And then he’ll laugh.
• Sebastian can eat any type of food he likes; we’re finished worrying about these silly childhood food allergies. He will happily eat eggs, milk, peanut butter, fish, bread, and soy – all without swelling up or changing color in the slightest.
• He’s not sleeping all the way through the night yet, but we’re almost there. Sebastian now only wakes up once, maybe twice during the night. I can usually rock him back to sleep but, if he decides that he’s hungry, there is nothing that will stand between him and his mummy.
• He’s such a nice guy.

Has it been three months since I’ve posted a video of my kids? That’s not cool!

Salutations, Tenors!

I hope everyone’s batteries are recharged after this past holiday week and subsequent rehearsal-free weekend. It’s been non-stop here in the Jocular front office, but I guess I’ve got no one to blame but myself

First and foremost, I would like to thank our valuable team members whose efforts take place mostly behind the scenes and don’t always receive the recognition they deserve.

Rosa has been dreaming with the show and is doing her all to make sure that you all look absolutely fabulous when we open next month. If you haven’t met with her already, prepare for a visit from the costume fairy. You should know what costumes we’re looking for so you can, you know, go look for it! We want you all looking gorgeous and rehearsing in your final costumes by May 1 at the latest.

Joe has been feverishly brainstorming publicity schemes and is hard at work developing a fabulous poster to draw in the masses. Think “art deco”. Oh no, I’ve already said too much. We should have posters and flyers for you to diligently distribute in the coming weeks.

Ed has been measuring and planning and sketching and designing our grandiose set (to fit into our big new theater!). While we’re prancing around playing silly theater games this Saturday, Ed will be chopping down an entire forest to build our elegant hotel suite – and doors.

Siavash has been meticulously maintaining our props (search) list while, at the same time, assembling the musical accompaniment for this theatrical extravaganza. Have you found all your props yet? Starting this Saturday, if a prop appears in one of the scenes we’re rehearsing, I’d like to have it there! Pretending to throw vases and drop suitcases only works for so long. I imagine we’ll have our sound effects ready for the 1st of May. Huzzah!

What a great team we have.

Oh yeah, and then there’s our actors. Anyone feel like fleshing out some of these scenes we’ve been blocking? Good, me too. Here’s where we’ll begin Phase 2:

Saturday, April 10
Acting Act 1 Scene 1 – pages 11 to 31
11:00 am: Ben, Jo, Hunter, Julian, Nicole, Alex

Sunday, April 11
Acting Act 1 Scene 1 – pages 32 to 52
10:00 am: Ben, Jo, Hunter, Julian, Nicole

Please note that Sunday’s rehearsal is called for 10:00 instead our usual 11. We will continue to rehearse at the Riereta until further notice.

I know I promised shorter emails. Maybe next time.

Please reply to this email RIGHT NOW to confirm that you have received, read, and understood this weekend’s schedule and these instructions.

Thank you,
The Management

ps – off book yet?

Dammit, I gotta break this dry spell. I get into this viscous circle of not posting, planning too many amazing (and long-winded) posts in my head, then feeling overwhelmed by all the things I should be writing about, and then not knowing which to attempt first and so I just don’t write. I need to just write something. Anything! Even if it has nothing to do with the many amazing stories currently clogging my brain.

I’ve also fallen behind with uploading my photos. I’ve got a backlog dating back to the beginning of 2010! But here’s one of my favorites from January:

Don’t Do It!

As I’ve promised umpteen times before, I’ll try and write more frequent short posts and then I won’t feel so bad about not getting around to the long ones. Maybe I’ll post a poll asking which “long” stories you’d like to read about. If there’s anyone still reading this page…