Tuesday, June 20, 2006

LIFE: 'The more thou dammest it up,
the more it burns...'


...Egad, two days of not going to bed until after 1 a.m. aren't as easy as they used to be. Thank God I'm off work today. Had to work the Saturday night shift, then last night, made the trek down to Ashland for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and their opening weekend media nights. (One of the few perks of the job, free tickets and I get to pretend I'm a bona-fide theater critic.)

Photobucket - Video and Image HostingThey always invite folks from my paper (and, um, slightly bigger ones like the SF Chronicle, Seattle Times and New York Times) down for several nights of performances to review. So last night my buddy Patrick, his partner Karen and I saw "The Two Gentlemen Of Verona," which I'd never seen performed before. Always a blast visiting Ashland, browsing bookstores and eating at good restaurants, not to mention the festival... It was a bummer to realize it's probably the last time I'll be at the festival. (And next summer they're doing "The Tempest," dammit.) Bought myself a souvenir T-shirt as solace.

"Verona" was good fun -- it's one of Shakespeare's earliest plays so it lacks a little polish, but you can see him trying out a lot of his comedic themes (cross-dressing, people falling in love at the drop of a hat, etc). Best of all, it's got a dog in it, and the trained pooch they had onstage Sunday was amazing. It was a lively production that had lots of flash that helped skim over some of the play's inherent faults.

Yesterday was Father's Day too, my third one since I became a dad. After working the night before and going to Ashland in the evening, didn't plan too much activity, although I did have an awful craving for IHOP so we went out to breakfast there and witnessed the menace Peter can create in a crowded restaurant (two words: thrown toys). Ah well. It was a nice day anyway as (cue sappy music) pretty much any day with P in it is. Being a dad is a lot of work, but it's a hell of a lot of fun too.

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