The Day that NOTHING happened

OK, I don't know how many people log onto the Sympatico/MSN webpage in a day, but I think we need to talk about what qualifies as NEWS !!!! Now, I don't think news should be a part of anyone's daily life to begin with, certainly not the news as we know it today. However, when two of the top 5 stories on MSN are Nick Lachey (who?) being grumpy because he didn't make the cover of Rolling Stone, and somebody suing J Lo over some television thing, clearly the entire world must have come to a stand still. OBVIOUSLY, NOTHING that actually matters happened in the world today, because surely, if there had been anything of even moderate importance, it would have taken precedence over Nick & Jenny. No? Am I wrong? Does anyone else see this as a problem?

THE pope NEEDS A LIFE

I just read an article explaining that the pope has decreed that a 'lack of love' is responsible for the decline in births around the world. He says that this 'eclipse of love' is caused by the turbulent era we are living in and that this keeps couples from choosing marriage...Because EVERYONE knows that ONLY married couples who are in LOVE have children, right? And regardless of how poor you or your country may be, a child is an expression of that love, right?
Maybe Mr. Pope-ala needs to get a job at a 7-11 and try putting two kids through elementary school !! (We don't want to terrify him with university right off the bat). Or maybe his Holyselflessness should live in a corrugated tin shack...in a country that is trying to cope with civil war....with a family that has 8 kids to feed.
Or how about this........
Maybe his starched, laundered, bleached, pressed, refreshed and ironed, pampered ass should get out of his little fucking kingdom, or take a walk away from his little glass motorcar, out into the real world. The world where people live and die, fight and fuck, sing and swear, struggle and succeed or fail. The REAL world where everyone is busy trying to decide what works and what doesn't. The REAL world where there are many, many people who are spending a ridiculous amount of time trying to develop a personal relationship with 'god' and don't need some stuffy old poop interfering.
I mean, you'd think that with all the money the Catholic church has, they could afford to send his largeness to a resort once a year where he could at least have a rum & coke and see the beach from the same vantage point as the rest of us. What are they worried about, paparazzi? Are you telling me that YOU could recognize him without his big hat and dress?

Cold = Cheap ?

Ah yes, my days of working in hotels and restaurants are flooding back to me. To be honest, I know that people, generally speaking, are stupid. Tourists, generally speaking, are stupidest of all and usually inconsiderate to boot. Working in a restaurant is simply a daily reminder of these facts. Perhaps it was so noticeable simply because it was so incredibly slow today. When the place is at it's usual frantic buzz, there's no time to really notice the idiocy around you.

When I arrived at noon today, the two staff that had opened at 11 were already bored. With the cold weather, no one was on the streets, so that means no one was coming in for lunch. We stood, staring at the door, taking each prospective customer in turns, out of fairness. Problem with cold days? Too many people looking for 'just a cup of tea'. Great. Tea. The most labour intensive beverage in the business. When a table asks for two teas, you end up carrying out more crap than you do for a table of four having a full meal. And what do you get for it? The satisfaction of a job well done and, if you're lucky, a shiny quarter.

Among my motley collection of tables today I had:
A group of four American teen girls. I knew I was in trouble when they asked to share fish and chips but wondered if they could get fries instead of chips!!!

A group of four elderly Brits. They all had a main course and coffees to follow. Total bill, $60.00. Total tip, .20 cents. Now if I had been a total prick to these people, I could understand the tip, but since the place was dead slow, they got top-notch service. So why even bother leaving the .20 cents. Do you think I'm desperate for change for my parking meter? Or were you hoping I'd throw it at your cheap ass so that you could sue the restaurant? It's interesting that no one wanted to appear cheap enough to pocket the .20 cents, but everyone was perfectly fine to appear cheap enough to leave it as the tip.

Then there was the Japanese couple that only wanted 2 coffees. They spoke no English at all, but had a little tourist book to help them work through the basics. I saw them working out the money, which they managed just fine, but apparently a 3% tip is the norm in Japan. Again, why bother leaving anything at all.

Dominican Republic - final chapter

I'll let these photos be my entry for the last two days of our trip since we didn't really do much other than swim, snooze, drink, eat and lie in the sun. *sigh*

The view from our beach chairs.

 

Rep. Dom. - Day 5

It has rained heavily through the night. We wake early because the bus for our excursion it to pick us up at 7:50 a.m. Today we are going to a place called Altos de Chavon, a replica Tuscan village, built into a hillside by a rich industrialist as a birthday present for his daughter. Then we'll be touring some caves to see 5,000 year old pictoglyphs left by the Taino, the original people of this island.
We make it to the lobby by 7:45, still bleary eyed. We wait. And we wait. We begin to wonder if we missed the bus. Then we remember 'island time'. Even for island time though, the bus is late. We finally as one of the other tour operators if he knows anything. He tells us that the excursion is cancelled because if the rain which makes the caves unsafe. While we are mildly disappointed by this, we immediately decide to sit and drink coffee for a few hours and read while we decide what time we should go to the beach. Though the early part of the day is cloudy, it ends up being a glorious day for the beach, which is where we spend most of the day.

Republica Dominicana - Day 4

Last night, during our dinner in the "Japanese" restaurant (they did try, and the decor was nice) it rained like one expects is should in the tropics. Walls of water crashing down from the sky in opaque sheets. Legions of maids and groundsmen manning battle stations to mop floors, and clear standing water into drains. Because there are no real walls anywhere, all the tile floors become skating rinks.
We wake to a dark grey sky that seems to be trying to punch a hole in it's own cloud cover and let the sun through, but cannot. Though it is cloudy, it is still quite warm and very humid.
We spend the morning sitting in El Capitan bar, sipping cappucino and reading.
At 1:30 we are picked up for our excursion to the Marinarium where we will be snorkeling with nurse sharks and sting rays.
When we arrive at the launch point, our crew leader gives his opening speech and rules in English, Spanish, French & German. He has a devilish sparkle in his eye and a wickedly dry sense of humor.
We snorkel the reef for 30 minutes or so, our guide swimming ahead of us slightly, releasing bread down near the bottom to attract fish. We are caressed by needle fish as they swim past our masks, curious about our presence. We are surrounded by schools of jackfish, tetras in huge clouds, sergeant majors and all manner of wildly coloured fish. We see huge brain corrals, fan coral and finger coral of all size and colour. There are sea urchins, tiny to gigantic, red, black and lavender. There are also anemonies of all colours hidden in every reef pocket.
We are led to the fenced off area where the sharks and rays live. True, it is a cage, but it is a large natural habitat in the actual ocean, not a cement pool in Kentucky. I am in awe as a ray with a wing span of 12 or 15 feet swims past me. As I am paddling along, a large, very large shadow begins to swim below me. It is a nurse shark, docile, but powerful and still un-nerving.
After snorkeling we are taken to a beautiful little cove to hang out and party in the water. There is a floating bar....... a guy with a tray of drinks on a life preserver making the rounds.Though it is still grey and rainy, and we are wet and cold, we are happy and still stunned at the natural beauty of the place.
After dinner, we are asleep by 10.

Republica Dominican - tercer dia

It has rained heavily through the night.
It is still raining when I thow open our balcony, a wall of windows in our 3rd floor room which, when fully open, makes the entire wall virtually disappear.
The clouds look as though they may stay around, but we could care less.
We drink bad coffee and amazing smoothies.
We wander over to the little bar we have discoverd where they make the good coffee and indulge in cafe au lait.
At9:30 or 10 we decide to head for the beach.
The wind is high and there is much cloud off and on, but the day is warm.
We spend the day reading, snoozing, drinking, swimming and watching eye candy.
We are thrilled that this is not primarily an American resort. It´s so nice to rarely hear English. Mostly, we hear Spanish, French, German and Italian.
Tomorrow we are going snorkeling with nurse sharks and sting rays.
Just before we leave the beach, I am returning to my beach chair and a French woman asks me how the water is.
I reply, ¨Perfection¨¨
She says, ¨Does perfection exist in this world¨
I say, "It´s a state of mind"....I am unemployed, in love, on my honeymoon (for lack of a better word), in one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen and meeting some of the most charming people the world has to offer.....perfection?

Republica Dominican - segundo dia

We wake early again and drink the world´s worst coffee.
To make up for the coffee, however, there is a smoothie bar at the breakfast buffet, where you can have your choice of 4 different drinks, all made with fresh tropical fruits, some of which are unrecognizable, all of which send your mouth into a happy dance.
After breakfast, we lounge beside one of the many pools, deciding which excursions might interest us.
Once we decide, Michael goes to make the bookings, flirting with our tour rep. the whole time.
We are picked up at 1:30 for the horse back riding that we booked on a whim in the morning.
We drive far out into the country side, away from all the big resorts, past real farms populated with cows, horses, burros and real people living their lives.
We are introduced to our caballeros. By a fluke, it will be just Michael and I and our two guides on this trip.
In the high heat of a Dominican afternoon, we saunter past farm houses (which are really just 2 room shacks since everyone lives outside most of the time), we wind through the country side, down narrow trails that take us through many bananna and papaya plantations.
Eventually, we come to Macao Beach, one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. A looong curving expanse of white sand. Framed on one side by spectacular sand cliffs, and on the other by a sand point covered with marching coconut palms that dissapear into the horizon, a perfect artist´s study in perspective.
We leave the horses and thow ourselves in the water which is, somehow, even clearer than before and possibly even warmer.
We are surrounded by Dominican families. We do not hear a word of English. The sun is relentless.
Neither of us can stop sighing.....almost weeping at the sheer, unspeakable beauty of it all.
There is nothing more to say about this day. Anything else that we did after returning to the hotel pales in comparison to Macao beach.

Republica Dominican - First full day

We wake at 7 a.m. because of the back-up beeper on the grader working not far from our room. I am hung over but don´t care.
One of the several buffet options where we can eat (all inclusive) is right in front of the block of rooms we are in. We stumble in, looking for coffee. It is some of the worst coffee I have ever tasted in my life. And they even grow it here.
The food is exactly what you expect from a buffet, some ok, some actually good, mostly it all just tastes bland....kind of like eating every meal at Stage West.
We park by the pool, waiting to talk to our tour rep. and ask questions because we had NO intention of attending the 9 a.m. orientation meeting.
We meet our rep., Martin, a very cute little French Canadian boy. We get the info we need. By this time it is near lunch. We have had several drinks. We decide to eat and head to the beach.
The water in D.R. is the colour of emeralds. It is so crystal clear that it looks fake. It seems unreasonable that when you are in 6 or 7 feet of water that you can still see the bottom perfectly.
The rest of the day passes in a blur.

AND I'M LEAVING THE COUNTRY TOO !

I find it quite funny, and strangely synchronistic, that my decision regarding my job and our final decision on a vacation (togetherness break) destination almost coincided. In both cases, there is a noticable difference in the weight carried on my well-sculpted shoulders.

Alas, we had to give up on our plans for Venice. Because we're working with the money that people gave us for our wedding, our budget is set in stone, and we simply do not have enough to make Venice worth it. We could probably get there, and stay there, but we'd have nothing left to "DO" anything with, and where's the fun in that? And believe me, we tried every possible angle. At one point, we were even considering (thanks to Traudie's suggestion) flying to Frankfurt, renting a car and making the 12 hour drive to Venice through the mountains.

So, true to our word, we called the Flight Centre ans asked them to send us anywhere we could afford. They seemed a little freaked out by our total lack of requests or issues. We told them that we really didn't care what country it was or where we'd be staying as long as it fit our dates and budget. We'll be leaving April 8 for a week in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.

I QUIT !

Well, I've done it. I've committed the unthinkable. The original, theatrical, self-employed sin. I've turned down work. Yes indeed. And not one, not two, but three, yes THREE contracts that would have employed me from mid-June to labor Day, and for the month of October. At a time when virtually no one is working in Canadian theatre, I turned up my perfect, aristocratic little nose at three gigs. Has it finally happened? Have I finally lost my booze-soaked-ego-drenched little mind? One might think so. But hear my logic before you pass sentence.

I've been fighting a certain amount of disillusionment about the business lately. I'm tired of trying to do my best for paying customers that treat me as though I were just expensive television; tired of producers who only know how to be cheap as opposed to actually knowing how to manage a budget; tired of Artistic Directors who know very little about art and even less about directing. So I sat myself down and had a talk with myself...actually several talks....over many weeks. I realized that part of this disillusionment has a lot to do with being really, REALLY tired of fretting over money and not having or doing the things I want. For a lark, I sat down one day and did the math to figure out just how much money I make when I work out of town. The results horrified me. I discovered that after the various mandatory deductions, paying my agent, paying for my out of town accommodation, putting money away for taxes and paying for gas to go home once a week, I was actually only making between five or six hundred dollars per week, depending on the contract. How many people do you know that have been doing the same job for 22 years, are making less than $600 a week? And remember, that 600 still has to pay all the bills at home. And God forbid you should afford to go out for a drink once or twice a week, or maybe even put a little money away for when you don't have work.....like, say, in a month! Or what about, say, a trip?? Which brings up another point...... I'm a financial genius to be able to live the lifestyle I do on the money I make !!!!!!!!

So I thought to myself, "That's shit! And I am simply not willing to accept it any longer !!!!"

[As a side note, it occurs to me at this point that the title of my blog seems somewhat prophetic.]

Now, it's one thing to wave your moral outrage around, and another thing entirely to actually decide how you're going to proceed. It became clear very quickly that, if I were going to take a step back from the business for a bit, take a break from my job until it starts liking me again, I was going to need some source of income. Thankfully, I happen to live in a region that has perfected the art of separating tourists from their money and, having worked at The Chamber of Commerce, I am more than just a little connected to the local business community.

Long story short, I pumped some connections, made some inquires, turned on my special brand of charm and will now be spending the summer waiting tables at one of Niagara's busiest restaurants. Now, I don't want Revenue Canada coming down on anyone who has worked there before, so I won't mention the name of the place, nor will I mention exact dollar amounts. However.....THIS is the kind of money daddy needs to be makin' !!!!

Not only that, but I will get to sleep in my own bed for more than 3 weeks at a time. It will be worth it to actually plant something in the garden because I'll actually be around to see it grow. I can spend time in my fabulous new darkroom, cook, have dinner parties, B-B-Q's, see my friends in Toronto now and then. All this while making a shit-load of money.

Crazy? .....like a fox.

I AM MY OWN GRANNY, GOING TO VENICE

I have several girl friends who are actually just gay men trapped in women's bodies. You may have a friend or two like that yourself. I have a feeling that I'm almost the opposite, except that I'm actually my own Lithuanian grandmother trapped in a gay man's body. The reason I think this is that I just cleaned the house, and I mean CLEANED the house. I didn't clean it so much as I waged war on the dust and accumulating cat hair. I mean I vacuumed the baseboards, the door sills AND the picture frames for Christsakes ! And here's the really scary part....I enjoyed every minute of it. In fact, I LOVED it, and am now sitting here with a smug smirk on my face, indulging in the satisfaction that every surface sparkles. I'm considering therapy.

On an entirely different bent...
It looks like we are actually going to be able to take our "togetherness break" (thank you Mom for finding a suitable replacement for 'honeymoon') in April. We have a week off at the same time !!! Well, I have several weeks off. A whole bunch of them really. I'm not starting in Grand Bend until the middle of June. So, we're really, really trying to go to Venice with the trip money that people gave us for our wedding. It's one more of the great conundrums of my life that I can be unemployed, penniless, bills piling up to the ceiling....and I'm planning a trip to Venice. Ain't life strange and wonderful.

PORN IS GOOD, PEOPLE ARE BAD

I suppose that's much like saying "Guns don't kill people, people kill people", though I still have some trouble with that one. Who made the guns?? But that's not my mini-rant today, it starts with porn. Now let's be frank (or earnest), I like my porn. I'm happy that it's available to me and I'm not shy about talking about it or embarrased to have it seen in our home. I sometimes check my favorite porn websites for updates on a daily basis, just like I might read the newspaper in the morning (which I don't). Porn can be, and IS, a healthy part of a healthy adult's sexual life.

However, you get a bunch of guys arrested in a major kiddie-porn ring and suddenly ANYONE who even speaks the word porn is seen as a trench-coat-wearing-degenerate assumed to be luring children into the car. Pleeeeease don't get me wrong. The kiddie-porn is sick and sad and I'm outraged that everyone is celebrating a 3 year sentance for the distributor. BUT...NOT ALL PORN IS BAD!!! SEX, BETWEEN CONSENTING ADULTS, IS NOT BAD. And if those consenting adults should choose to video tape their sex and post it on the internet for the world to see, that's ok too. Ya don't hafta watch it if ya don't want ta!

There is a disturbing trend toward wild over-reacting in modern society, and the blame lays firmly at the feet of the media. Instead of sound, balanced stories about same-sex marriage, the flames are fanned and suddenly it's all about polygamy and marrying your animals. Instead of constant, common sense education about alcohol it's place in our lives, suddenly a glass of wine with dinner every night makes you a hopeless alcoholic.

You know, this is one of those topics that I could go on about for hours, but really, what's the use. As Kathi says, "We all end up paying for what a few bad people do." So, instead of preaching, pontificating, moralizing or any other kind of ing, I'm just gonna go relax. Yup, polish off a bottle of gin while my many spouses and I take turns buggering the under-age goat.

AM I BLUE? YOU'D BE TOO...

Yes, I'm singin' the unemployment blues. Not a song I like to sing, but I'm certainly familiar with the tune, at least I've become familiar with it over the past few years. It occurred to me, only today, that this is something that I've never really had to deal with. Through the 20 years that I've been doing this, I've never, really, been unemployed, or not for long enough that it mattered. If I didn't have a job, there was always one close enough on the horizon that I could actually say I was "between engagements". And there have certainly been times when there was a longer space between gigs and money was tight, but it was there. But usually, there has always been some income, some day job, some contract, some form of income, however tiny.

Recently, the span of time between jobs has been longer and whatever those little money-makers that used to keep me afloat may have been seem to have dried up.

THIS is why I've been so grumpy about this particular stretch of 'at home time' as I've decided to call it.

But, what does any good driven, self-motivated, been-around-the-block self-employed person do in times like these?
A) Continue to live normally, which is already on a lower budget than the rest of the world.
B) Formulate a plan.

FARTING IS FUNNY

Robert, who plays Pish-Tush, has a fart machine. This is no dime store whoopee cushion, but a very realistic sounding collection of farts, 7 or 8 in all, that comes with a remote so that you don't even have to be in the room to release a fart from the carefully placed speaker. He's had this thing since early on in rehearsals and it has NEVER stopped being funny. You'd think that once you knew it was machine you'd stop laughing, but no. Every night in the dressing room, we all turn in to a bunch of giggling 10 year olds.

The only person who didn't know it was a fart machine was the on-stage sound tech., a sweet but too innocent kid who's doing this gig for high-school credit. He was simply convinced that Robert had one of the worst cases of gastrointestinal distress ever known to man. Which, of course, we all found HILARIOUS !

It just proves the point that everything you need to know, you really did learn in kindergarten:

-Cookies & milk and a nap makes you feel better
-Anything is more fun naked
-Farting is funny.

Go ahead, .... you know you want to.

THE CHI INSPECTORS ARRIVE

We've been asked to take care of some friend's cats while their house is on the market. The cats arrived yesterday afternoon and by late evening they were pretty much running the house. Maggie (left) is the more shy, delicate of the pair and she takes her lead from Lewis (right) most of the time. Lewis is one of the most eccentric cats I've ever seen. He stomps! And I mean loudly! You can hear him coming from anywhere in the house. And he is the nosiest cat EVER. Doesn't matter where you are or what you're doing, he will need to supervise it. A few minutes ago he got up from a sound sleep on the sofa just to come into the office because he heard the printer. Once he'd jumped up on the desk and checked it out, he was happy to return to the sofa.

While we appreciate the fact that they're going to move around the chi in the house for a few weeks, we're going to have to talk about the sleeping arrangements. We both woke up pinned to the bed this morning as both cats had decided that there was room for all 4 of us.

MIKADO & DIAL M PHOTOS

The usual suspects...The "Dial M..." cast: Doug Hughes, James Kall, Deborah Drakeford & Edward Belanger.

The set for "Dial M..."


Keith as Ko-Ko, The Lord High Executioner in "The Mikado". We think he looks alot like Edith Head.

Me as Pooh-Bah. He actually says, 'I was born sneering'. Fitting, don't you think?

Costume shot.

TO BE HOME

It occurs to me that many, many people don't experience the longing to sleep in their own bed, or the intense joy of being once again being surrounded by their own 4 walls as often as I do.

It was only during my drive home after the matinee yesterday that I started to realize how exhausting these past 3 weeks have been, and my body decided it was going to collapse whether I was ready or not. Michael, true to his word, had martinis and home made pea soup waiting. My exhaustion exhibited itself in several ways. I had option paralysis and couldn't decide if I wanted to eat, drink, unpack, take a hot bath, sleep, watch a movie or all or none of those things. I became very emotional, on the verge of tears, mostly from joy of being home. And I couldn't get warm. I started to shiver at one point and decided to take a hot bath to warm up. Then we watched a movie on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, with Michael feeding me soup and martinis. In spite of going through sweat and cold cycles, I actually slept well and feel great today. So great, in fact, that I didn't even mind driving to Burlington to begin my active dental therapy (deep cleaning below the gum line !!!)

I am so grateful to Dr. Dave for his generosity because there is now way I could afford the kind of intensive therapy my poor, diseased gums need right now. Thanks to him, I'll be able to keep my teeth for a few more years. And it was all pretty easy really, even though my mouth is still frozen to the point where I managed to chew open my bottom lip without noticing. None of that is stopping me from drinking my martini however.

Look around your house and love where you are.

AD LIBBING FREELY...PRICELESS

One can certainly tell that we're all feeling a little more relaxed about the show because the shenanigans have begun. Keith was feeling particularly impish last night and doing his best to crack up the chorus boys. I thought it was time he had a taste of his own medicine, knowing full well that he looooves playing ball with someone who is as shame-free as he is.

In the second act of 'The Mikado', he is part of a trio called "Here's a How-Dee-Doo". They do the song 4 times, each time getting faster and each time with Keith doing something goofier and schtickier. At one point, he rides a tricycle across the stage tooting the horn incessantly. Shortly after that, I have a scene with him where he tries to bribe me to commit perjury on his behalf, saying, "You'll be grossly insulted as usual". To which I am supposed to reply, "Will the insult be cash down or at a date." In an effort to keep the script slightly updated and understandable, I have been given license to say something like, "Will the insult be cash up-front or American Express?" The other night I replied, "Will the insult be cash down or MasterCard", then, turning to the audience, "Ad libbing freely and getting away with it, priceless."

However, my coup de grace last night was this reply, "Will the insult be cash up front, or will I have to chase you on a tricycle like a cheap comedian?" For a moment, Keith's eyebrows started to crawl over his head, then he turned to the audience with a 'can you believe him' face, and I followed suit with my own 'can you believe me' face. He then gave me a faux slap across the face and we carried on with the scene.

Offstage, he congratulated me on not only crossing the line, but obliterating it completely.

Oh, and in an earlier scene, he lost his mind completely and called my by HIS character name..... TWICE !!!!

I THINK I'M TURNING JAPANESE

"The Mikado" is finally up and running. Well, I shouldn't say finally because it only had two weeks of rehearsal....not nearly enough. I have never felt so under-rehearsed or unprepared to put a show on stage in my life. And I wasn't alone. For the first three public performances, if you should happen to have the presence of mind to look into a fellow actor's eyes, all you would have seen was sheer terror. All of us felt as though we'd been shot out of a cannon with no net to catch us. As of last night though, we actually started to have some fun. It was great to look into Keith's eyes during one of our scenes and see that old devilish sparkle back.

Two shows today and then a matinee tomorrow and then....I can go home and sleep in my own bed for the first time in 3 weeks !!!!! Yay !!!!!