Weekend Roundup

... "Weekend Roundup"? Really? That's what I choose to call this? What am I, a cowboy?

Well... sure. Why not? It is the Stampede after all and I choose to embrace it for what it is. And those of you who don't? You're boring and lame. Any event that gets Starbucks to change its dress code for over a week is a-okay with me.

That said, though I enjoyed some delicious free pancakes this morning, there was no Stampeding for me this weekend. Perhaps next weekend I'll enjoy some delicious unnecessarily deep-fried foodstuffs, buy some sort of hat and check out a sensationally overwhelming grandstand show. And, besides, what I did this weekend was equally awesome.

Friday night was my dear friend Jessica's birthday, which manifested in spending some time with friends I see often, friends I haven't seen in a long time, and people I didn't know while enjoying some delicious Indian-for-white-people at Mango Shiva on Stephen Ave. It's probably one of the closest things to a hole in the wall the very trendy Stephen Ave has (me, Claire and her boyfriend, and Jamie all got lost trying to find it) but the inside is very lovely. We sat at the back at an amazingly Medieval Times-esque giant table and I consumed some delicious, if spicy, prawns with coconut lime curry and various sides. For the record, there is no efficient way to remove the tail from prawns without splashing yourself in the face with curry. Sigh. After dinner and drinks finally wound down around 11:20 (just before the fireworks) most people journeyed off somewhere else for drinks but I was pretty wiped from teaching all week... so I did the only logical thing and called my mom to come pick me up. Mmmm, grown-up!

And also indicative of things to come. My mama's birthday is July 15th (which, unfortunately, is our first performance day at camp this year, so I will be out all night) and as a pre-celebration she and I headed up to Edmonton overnight. We did a little shopping at West Ed - she wanted brown flipflops and I wanted a new bra and so, of course, I ended up buying a perfume diffuser, a braid headband, a giant hat, the Rock of Ages OBCR and A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum on DVD while she bought Into the Woods on DVD. It's good to have a plan.

After being shopped out, we dropped our things off at our hotel, took a power nap, swung by Sunterra for cheese and salad, and headed out to check out Freewill Player's Production of Macbeth. To be completely honest, I didn't have high expectations. We had seens a thoroughly awful musical version of Two Gentlemen of Verona written by the people who wrote Hair two years back. Performances were, mostly, good but other than that absolutely nothing was good about the production. Maybe the script was just horrible? It was hard to say.

Either way, they rocked Macbeth. Very impressive. The show was set in Eastern Europe during the Cold War so there was a lot of very haunting violin music, beautiful costumes for Lady M and a starkly transformative set. The set was actually the same one as was used for Two Gents back in the day, give or take a few basic elements, as is typical for outdoor theatre but it worked much better for this production. The Scotsman and Lady M were both very strong and well-matched and the supporting cast did not let them down - though I am still partial to Haysam Kadri's portrayal of MacDuff. I'm always intruiged by alternate depictions of the Witches because after playing the Ghost in Hamlet, I think I could play a great Witch in the right production one day, and these ones were young and twisty (they were all double-cast in Much Ado About Nothing) and very involved in the entire story, watching over much of the action and bringing Banquo back to half-life in order to be an apparition. My only complaints were that the Witches swung too sexy for my taste at times... and I hate that the actors were all miked. Speaking through a microphone always sounds mechanical and I can't help but cringe.

Even so, I would highly recommend the show. It only runs until July 25, but ya'll should definitely try to truck it up to Edmonton before it closes.

Oh yeah. I also bought a Coach bag. Decently sized and I only spent $120. No big.