Ciao from 30,000 feet.

I'm on the Alitalia flight to Rome where I'll then transfer for a flight to Barcelona. This is the first rFamily Vacations in Europe, and I'm psyched. If you don't know, rFamily Vacations are for gay parents and their kids but this time, we don't have a kid along. Juli still has school next week, so James and I are doing a working/romantic vacation. Aaahhh. However, let me first talk a little about the lead up to the flight.

James left his passport on top of the suitcase the night before our flight because that way he'd be "sure to remember it." I thought it should be put away in the knapsacks we carry every day, but he said we'd be walking through New York City with them, and they could get lost. It was smarter to leave it within plain sight and then put it in our bags as we left. Cut to, we packed and as we got into our car to go the airport, James suddenly realized that he had no idea where his passport was. I didn't lance him with my first reaction, which was

Listen to Seth's Podcast: Passport to Theatrical Adventures

" I told you so"…but mainly because we were standing on the street under the blazing sun and I was too hot to muster the energy. Instead, we threw the suitcases on the sidewalk and started rifling through them, and he then ran into the house to search the bedroom. It wasn't in the house, and we finally found it, buried in one of the suitcases. We made it to the airport with plenty of time, and all's well. However, that kind of happy ending doesn't happen for everyone. Anika Larsen (from the recent Xanadu tour) is the other singer on the cruise. When she was packing her passport, she took a quick peek and discovered that it expired! Luckily, they let her on the flight without a passport after I vouched it was really her. That last sentence was brought to you by the year 1975. What really happened is that she has to pay (a lot) to get her passport expedited and then she can fly to Barcelona. But they can't do anything on the weekend, so she's going to meet the cruise on Tuesday at one of our Italian ports. Her solo show isn't scheduled until Thursday night, so it works out fine — except for the medication she'll probably have to start taking after her heart briefly stopped when she looked at the expiration date.

	Juli at the piano

Next… iPad, iPod, we all scream for iPad! What? Ignore that and let me say that Juli is obsessed with winning an iPad in a contest she entered where you had to make something out of Moishe's Moving Company boxes. My friend Jack Plotnick came over, and they both came up with the concept and design of the box piano. I put the picture up in this column and if you sympathize with a little girl's need for something that's an incredibly expensive toy she has no actual need for, please vote! And because I know most of you need a break every afternoon from work, please vote daily. We're too cheap/poor to buy her one, so please help a little girl eat…if "eat" means download free apps and play mind-numbing video games for hours. Go here for the actual voting: http://apps.facebook.com/contestshq/contests/34092/voteable_entries/4985874?order=recency&%3Bview_entries=1&ref=mf

This is my first Alitalia trip, and I can't help but notice that they employ a flight crew whose facial expressions have two looks: blank and sneering. Let's just say I don't think they're fans of my Sirius/XM radio show...or humans in general. They're not flat-out rude, but that's like saying the Elephant Man wasn't completely horrific-looking. I'm so nervous whenever they come by to do any service. It reminds me of being in high school when your teacher assigns you a lab partner who's one of the cool kids: They do what they're supposed to do, but you know that inside they completely hate you. At one point, the male attendant just leaned across us and closed our window shade. No comment…or facial expression. I guessed it was because the movie had begun… but usually there's an announcement asking the passengers to do it as a courtesy. And as soon as the movie began, the cabin lights were turned on to full power. So…they don't want the film ruined by the light spilling in from the completely black night outside our window, but a myriad of 200-watt fluorescent bulbs are a must for viewing enjoyment. Of course, as I was writing this, I heard another woman complaining to her mother ("That flight attendant is a b**ch!), so we just had a full gossip session. She told me that the passenger next to her ordered a wine, but her tray table wouldn't come down. As she was fiddling with it, the flight attendant said, "Will you hurry up, please? I don't have time to stand here all day!" Hmm…at least her English is good.