I am justifying it because I will have a year-end bonus soon, and because we have a place to stay in NY, which will save lots of money.

And because I WANT IT.

I'm convinced.

I just bought a ticket to Hamilton.

Yay! That's terrific! I got the soundtrack for Christmas and I've been listening to it . . .

(Wait for it)

Non-stop.

(Wait for it)

I see what you did there.

Non-stop.

And there.

Last place I'll spam this:

So, here is a request from ita's sister:

ita's birthday is next Monday (January 4th), and we want to commemorate it somehow. A friend of mine had a fabulous idea (respect, Ghenete!): we could all do something at the same time on Monday that remembers ita in some way.

Wouldn't that be great - to have all of our energy conjuring up ita all across the world all at the same time? She'd love that (and probably figure it's nothing less than she deserves).

So, here at home, my parents and I are going to eat some hardo bread (a Jamaican white bread), which was one of ita's favourite foods ever. I will be wearing my Princess Bride shirt or my Community shirt, and her Batman wrist cuff. I'll probably wear some of her jewellery, and try to slip in something pink.

ita had so many interests that I'm sure you'll be able to think of something to do. But for those of you who knew me more than you knew her, here are some ideas:

• anything to do with any martial art (her favourite was krav maga - she also loved capoeira) - you could wear a shirt with a martial art image / actually do a couple forms / punch/kick someone in the face/body / whatever
• anything to do with comics - you could wear clothes with the images / you could read one/some / whatever
• anything to do with TV shows like Supernatural / Community / anything Joss Whedon has ever written
• anything to do with superhero movies
• anything to do with the movie Princess Bride
• eating any delicious dessert (she loved baking sweet things!)
• eating any Jamaican food / drink
• playing / dancing / singing along to anything by Prince / Bob Marley
• do something intellectually challenging (e.g. play Scrabble, do an IQ test)
• read a scifi book
• do some drawing / sketching / photography

And, given that her favourite colours were pink and black, how about wearing one/both of those colours on Monday? When you're doing your ita thing, or all day - whichever works?

What would also be great is if you could take pictures of yourself doing whatever it is you do (if that's possible, depending on what you choose to do), and then send it to me, so I could collate them for posterity and maybe send them out to everyone as well. This is not at all essential - just a suggestion.

What about 4pm Jamaica time? That means 4pm on the East Coast of the US and Canada, and:

I just bought a ticket to Hamilton.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yay, Dana! When are you going?

(I tried to just strike out my earlier post, but it didn't work. Oh well)

I also just bought a ticket to Hamilton.

Dana, when? We finally broke down and bought tix on Stubhub for late February. (I could kick myself for getting the kids addicted to the music, because if we weren't buying 4 tickets we maybe would have sprung for orchestra seats. But, alas.)

I'm so thrilled, Dana! My niece and I are scheming to get tickets for Chicago in September. We'll have a free place to stay and it might be marginally easier to get tickets since the theater is bigger. OTOH, it won't be the original cast.

Kat, thanks for posting that. I will wear my bright pink sweater over a black t-shirt on Monday.