And, We're Off!

I spent the weekend in Saratoga Springs, NY, for a day at the races with my sisters. We were celebrating my sister's and sister-in-law's birthdays. They've hit the bit 50!

We had a great time (can you tell from our smiles?). We arrived early in the hopes of snagging a picnic table but we couldn't find any even though my sister-in-law, Liz (middle back) was the third person in the gate. Turns out, people go to breakfast at the track at some ridiculously early hour in the morning and "save" tables then.

But as you can see we found a great spot under a tree. I won $14 in the first race (on a 2 dollar bet) but did not have much luck after that. One of the cashiers finally told us the way to bet is to put 2 dollars on 3 horses in an "exacta box" on each race. This means that you are betting that 2 of the 3 horses will come in first and second in the race. Apparently, this pays the best if you do this for every race. Unfortunately, we didn't learn about it until our last race. But we'll know next time!

Win or lose, we had fun chatting, drinking wine, and pretending we understood the racing book. We had a lovely dinner in downtown Saratoga Springs at the Caroline Street Bistro after a glass of wine at the Wine Bar. A perfect day with perfect weather.

It also had the added benefit of keeping my mind off of rehearsals which start tomorrow. Even though I've done everything I can think of to prep for rehearsals, I would have spent the entire weekend fretting. Did all the actors get the message? Did I make enough copies of the contact sheet? Are the pencils sharp enough? Don't laugh, I need my sharp pencils. My husband Brian cannot understand why I go through pencil sharpeners so quickly.

But the pencils are sharpened and the actors know the schedule and the weekend is over. It'll be nice to finally put faces to the names on the contact sheet. As nervous as I am about the "bigness" of the show, I'm excited to see it get off the ground.

And we're off!