I’m on this mailing list for theatres on Vancouver Island. It posts openings, concerts, audition announcements, openings for musicians, calls for props, that sort of thing. Well, this week I got an announcement of an open audition for a play. What caught my eye was the title: “Let's Murder Marsha”. OK that was a little surprising. They even got the name spelled right. But then I read the synopsis: “Marsha, who is hopelessly addicted to reading murder mysteries, overhears her loving husband discussing her upcoming birthday surprise with an interior decorator. To her ears, though, it sounds like they are planning to murder her! Comedy ensues…”. Now the parallels are just spooky. Marsha IS addicted to murder mysteries and I do like to do special things for birthdays and other special days. I would so like to try out for this one. The trouble is it’s in Port Alberni, a solid hour away so I can’t, but it would be fun.

Though perhaps a little creepy for Marsha.
(Yes it would have been-mga)

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Speaking of arranging special celebrations, this week was our 26th wedding anniversary. Unfortunately I had a rehearsal on the 13th so we couldn’t do anything on the actual day. Then on Friday serendipity struck I was able to arrange something very special for just the two of us. I called Marsha to tell her the good news:
“Hi Marsha, guess what?”
“What.”
“To make it up for being busy on our anniversary I’ve made a reservation for us for Saturday morning.”
“Oh, that’s great, where are we going?”
“It’ll be a quiet morning for just the two of us…”
Cautiously, “Where?”
“Um...the dentist.”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, you see, the thing is, I already had an appointment for 8:00. When they called to remind me they mentioned that they had another 8:00 opening, and that you were due for a cleaning.  It was meant to be. It was serendipity.”
Let's just say that Marsha was unimpressed with my efforts to arrange a special celebration.

Even when I offered to take her out for ice cream afterwards.
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I’ve been working on a one act play probably for Fringe Festival or something like that. In the middle of the night I woke up with this great idea for the plot. I grabbed my iPod Touch and noted it down. This morning I looked at my note and what it said was  “Examine leech stew mans girth”. Now, understand, that’s not what I wrote.  It has no resemblance to what I wrote. I can’t even figure out from that what I was trying to write. It’s what Autocorrect thought I wrote. Every word has been replaced so the line makes no sense at all.

Damn you autocorrect.
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Summer is here. OK it doesn’t officially arrive for another week or two but it feels like summer. It’s been warm and sunny. Motorcycles are cruising up and down the highway. It just feels like it's already here. You know that feeling. It’s that feeling you get when you are cruising along the highway and come up behind someone plodding along really slowly. The road is wide open so you shift down a gear to two, flip the signal to change lanes and punch it. It’s the feeling you get when you hear sound of the motor winding out. It’s the feeling you get when the turbo kicks in and pushes you deeper into the seat. It’s the feeling you get when you go by them doing at least 40 better than they are and then just as you fly past you shift up another gear. It’s the feeling you get when the sun is shining and the wind is streaming, and the road is smooth as velvet as you ease back into your lane. It’s the feeling you get when you don’t slow down immediately because the day is too perfect, the machine is running too well. You feel like an F1 driver sailing through the curves at Silverston.

It’s the feeling you get many miles later when you glance down and realize your turn signal is still on.
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Friday at work I was walking down the hallway and noticed that the knob on one of the doors to the Engineering Department was broken. The door wouldn’t latch, the lever was hanging straight down, it was a mess. I asked one of the Engineers about it and he said that a couple of them had looked at it, but couldn’t get it to work. That’s when I got my tools. After about 15 minutes I had disassembled it, figured out that the mechanism was broken, manually set it into a locked position so the office would be secure for the weekend, reassembled it, closed and latched the door, removed the inside knob so no one would try to use that door, put up a sign telling people to use a different exit, and notified Management so they would get the knob replaced on Monday.

THAT’S the difference between an Engineer and a Mechanic.
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The other day we heard a story on the BBC about this little town in Ireland that decided to commemorate their history. Rather than putting it in a big dusty book that nobody would ever read they are creating a tapestry. Tapestries actually. Fifteen four foot by six foot hand embroidered panels covered with the history of the town and an exhibition hall to display them. They started in 1998 and are almost done. http://www.rostapestry.com/the_panels.htm It looks to be really quite stunning so if you are ever in that part of the world be sure to stop by and see it.

It did get me thinking though, if someone over here were to decide to do this sort of a project. I think it would be easier on this side of the Atlantic. If they did one like that about Porter, Minnesota (Marsha's hometown)it would be just four panels. The first would have the bottom half green, and top half blue, the second yellow below and blue above, the third white below and blue above, and the fourth would be a scene filled with clouds, hail and tornados. But then, if they did one about Eugene Oregon, where I grew up, they would just need one panel.

It would be covered in mould.
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Thought for the day: From Lynn Johnston who did the For Better or For Worse comic strip:  “it's a fine instrument, but...never play an accordion in the nude!”
I’m not sure I WANT to know how she came up with that.

Doug & Marsha

PIX: A late spring early summer day at the beach: Rocks, Sailboats, and "look we have oysters here".