Joshua Zamrycki's Weblog

Here’s a little note to all you budding cat burglars out there: we’ll be out of our house for most of the month of December. That’s right, we’ve just booked our December travel plans!

Our adventures begin just after we close Private Eyes when we’ll be flying to Florida on December 6. We’ll be splitting our time between my Nana’s house, my Mom’s, and my Dad’s. We’ll have two full weeks to soak up the winter sun in Miami and Tampa before we fly back to Barcelona on December 20. I hope we’ll be able to sort out our jet lag in 48 hours because we then fly to England on December 22. After our traditional Christmas with Jan’s parents and a few snowball fights, we fly back to Barcelona on December 28, just in time for New Year’s grapes and Cava in Catalunya.

So, anyone planning on being in the North Miami Beach area? Or Tampa? Or Outwell? Let’s set a play date!

[Mostly copied from last year. I couldn't be asked.]

Yesterday I held auditions for my next play, Private Eyes by Steven Dietz. We had a really great turnout. I think there were about 20 people auditioning for five roles. And (almost) all of them were excellent! I’ll keep the intimate details to a minimum as you never can tell who is lurking around here and I don’t want to offend anyone. But suffice it to say that I will have my work cut out for me if I hope to cast this thing within the next couple of days so that we can start rehearsals next week. It’ll be a very short rehearsal period (probably 14 in total) before we perform over the last two weekends of November. I can’t wait to get this ball rolling!

On our way to the swimming pool today, a bus drove past us with a picture of Jesus Christ on the back, advertising some art exhibition at some museum or something. Emily watched it drive by, paused for a moment, and then said:

Emily: I’ve seen that man before.

Me: Oh yeah?

Emily: I’ve seen him lots of times!

Me: Really? Where have you seen him lots of times?

Emily: Whenever we play cards. I think he’s the Jack.

10 years ago today, Jan and I were returning from our month-long Mexican vacation. It was one of the best holidays I have ever taken; and that’s taking into account that the temperature (and resulting tempers) were so high at one point in Merida that we actually broke up for a few hours. But I digress.

Facing The Moon Pyramid

On September 11, 2001, Jan and I boarded an early-morning transatlantic flight from Mexico City to Barcelona via Amsterdam. The flight path had us traveling up along the east coast of the US before crossing the north Atlantic and heading back to Europe. We passed over New York City at approximately 7:30 a.m., roughly one hour before Flight 11 crashed into the north face of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. We, of course, had no idea. Nor was there mention of the incident at any point during our flight, which makes very good sense.

We landed in Amsterdam to switch planes for our connecting flight back to Barcelona and, as we were passing through airport security, the girl checking passports noticed that I was American and said to me, “We were just talking about your country.” Oblivious me wryly asked, “Oh yeah? Good or bad?” To which she coldly replied, “Bad. Very bad.” And she proceeded to share the little information that they had received at that point, namely that airplanes had crashed into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Tired and confused, I did not know how to process this information so I thanked her for the news and was on my way… to board another plane.

I remember Jan asking me if I thought they were mistaken and I decided that they must have been mistaken because the World Trade Center and the Pentagon aren’t anywhere near each other. They’re in completely different states. With about 200 miles between them. Yes, they were definitely mistaken.

Other passengers must have also heard something before boarding that flight to Barcelona with us, yet not a word was spoken the entire journey.

We landed safely and made our way home. All I remember next is spending the next six hours in front of the television with my mouth open.