"Salve Imperator! Quis volis bibere?"

My Latin sucks. I know that. But, anyway, tonight was the Harvard Club's Haloween party. I don't know exactly who all gets invited , but I think it's current and recent students.

And, well, there were THREE people dressed up as Roman emperors.

Anyway, the way we do cash bars at the Harvard club is that you've got one guy with the cashbox selling tickets, and the bartender collects tickets in return for drinks. The guy who was selling tickets with me is a Classics major at BC, so he helped me with my Latin a bit, but I promptly forgot.

Of the people who dressed as Romans, of whom I asked what they wanted to drink in Latin, they often ordered wine. I am now wondering if that's simply because everyone knows the word "vinum", and fewer people would think to say "fermentum" or "aquae vitae".

It was remarkably busy, and I made $44 in tips. One rather cute Asian girl did try to cadge free drinks off of me, but she failed utterly. I mean, after all, what's in it for me? I DID have money in my pocket and COULD have used it to buy a drink for her had I wanted to, but I had no reason to do so.

In other news, Collum, who is the head day barback, and has been working as night assistant beverage manager since Kevin Trainor, the night ABM, left to teach English in Japan, is leaving to teach English at Boston Latin School. This leaves us with no ABM and no acting ABM. But that's okay, because apparently John, who is the beverage manager, has ALSO given his notice. This sucks, because John is not only a decent guy, but actually a competent manager.

I wonder if I wouldn't be a good beverage manager. . . I actually would be, frankly, but I'm so unqualified on paper that I'm not even going to try. But what would be cool would be if Nelson became beverage manager. I wonder if they'd hire me as an ABM . . .

Rehearsal, then work.

So, we rehearsed the final number in Iolanthe.

It was an unmitigated disaster.

So, navrins looked pained at us, and remarkably patiently went over what we did wrong, and we did it again. That time, it was a mitigated disaster.

We did it again, and it came together. We're not QUITE there, yet, but it started to work.

Then we did the first couple bits of Act II -- #15 and #16 -- and it sucked. Then we did it again, and it sucked less. Then we did it again, and it was pants-wettingly funny. It's not quite there yet, either, but it's a hell of a lot closer.

And we're really close to getting #17 working, too.

Then I went to work. Rehearsal ended at 5, and I was to show up at work at 5. And they're across the river from each other. Seriously, they're not far away -- MIT is on Mass Ave in Cambridge, maybe two or three blocks from the Charles River, and the Harvard Club is on the corner of Mass Ave in Boston, maybe two or three blocks from the Charles River. So, really, rehearsal is like six blocks plus the width of the river away. The river, of course, is 364.25 Smoots + 1 Ear wide, so the distance is really only approximately, say, 6 blocks + 370 Smoots or so. It's an easy fifteen minute amble, and I DID let work know I'd be half an hour late. And it turned out that John had called everyone for half an hour earlier than he really needed to, since there was this Red Sox Appriciation parade today -- (in the chilly autumn drizzle, which pretty much meant that there was zero chance of any sort of riot breaking out).

Work was a wedding, which was fine, except it meant that I couldn't go to the Dresden Dolls tonight, which would have been fun. Oh well.