Wednesday blathering

Now that I've made a big ass of myself with all the hamster stuff, I'll write about something serious. No, just kidding, I won't. If you want something serious, go to Dignity: A Journal of Human Rights. I've just posted an article on the Million Dollar Baby controversy.
Quite a busy day: Les Belles Soeurs program to the printer (the show opens in one week), meeting my friend Angel for tea so we can discuss the book Women Who Love too Much and the reasons why Angel and her boyfriend break up and get back together again approximately every three minutes, and grocery shopping. I do the shopping alone as often as possible now. Don't get me wrong, I like shopping with Richard, but I drive him nuts by constantly backtracking in the aisles, and he has a tendency to sneak fatty goodies into the cart whenever my back is turned. He's like, "Shucks, I don't know how those Double-Stuf Oreos and that gigantic honey ham got into our cart..."
Richard is going to be painting sets for both The Pirates of Penzance and The Cripple of Inishmaan next month, which should keep him busy & happy. I'll post pics of his work. Two years ago he painted about a dozen two-sided flats for The Taming of the Shrew - wow. Hours upon hours of detail work. He also painted a window scene of the Chrysler building for Happy Birthday, Wanda June last year, which was rather confusing because the theatre left it up during the one-acts that are mostly set in Edmonton. "Cool, when did Edmonton get the Chrysler building?" Anyway, Richard will be teaming up with his set-builder friend Leland again for Pirates.
Tomorrow I might take in a play, David Hare's Blue Room. I'm a David Hare fanatic. I saw a killer English production of Slag at the 2000 Winnipeg Fringe and I've been hooked ever since. Plus I haven't seen a play for a really long time. I actually skipped the Edmonton Fringe this year (with the exception of the Taste of India booth), even though we're right in the neighborhood. I just couldn't find anything that appealed to me. Shows like Tranny of Green Gables and The Regina Monologues just don't cut it. I considered going to an alien-contactee comedy called Baraboo, but the boyfriend of one of the actresses talked me out of it. He always supports Amy's work, and he couldn't find anything good to say about Baraboo: bad sign. Incidentally, Amy is the actress in Blue Room, too. It's the role originally played by Nicole Kidman. She was briefly nude in it so it was a big hit.
Speaking of nudity, my good buddy Amy just had her first(?) baby, Emily. She's pretty darn cute. Some people say they are no ugly babies. Mmm-hmmm. So what about that baby on the Pizza 73 commercials? And the lizard baby I once saw at church?
My li'l brother Zach started his home-schooling this week, and he's happy as a clam. My folks have a very cool curriculum lined up for him, as I knew they would. For instance, he's going to help my dad rebuild a computer, then do an illustrated paper on it for English. Must be weird being home-schooled. Imagine your grade 7 teacher smoking, and a big yellow dog named Hairry hanging around your desk...