Thank you!

Dear Dustin Milligan,

Thank you for the other night.  You were fantastic!

Carly

***

I've done improv comedy for about 14 years now.  Our troupe, The Saskatoon Soaps, has been an institution here since 1984.  We perform monthly at the Broadway Theatre in town.  Every Christmas, we join forces with the Tree of Plenty campaign to raise food and funds for the food bank.

This year, we had celebrity guests.  Kim Coates (Sons of Anarchy)and Michael Eklund (Intelligence) grew up here.  They're homegrown and were back in town filming Ferocious.  Kim knows the original cast of the Soaps from back in the day (some of whom still do our show) and a few of the "new" ones.  They'd been back and forth for a couple years trying to find a way to get him onstage with us.  Since he was in town, he happily lent his talents to our show.  AND he brought with him Michael.  Then they roped in most of Ferocious, too.  So we had Amanda Crew (Charlie St. Cloud), Katie Boland (Terminal City), and Dustin Milligan, who made me laugh so hard in Extract, my sides hurt. Apparently, he did 90210, too, but to me he'll always be Dead Corbett.  These folks have appeared in so many things I've enjoyed, it was a treat to work with them.

Backstage, getting ready for the show.

Michael came straight from set and used the fake blood as a character trait.

I cannot thank them enough for lending their time and talents to a sold-out show and helping us raise a ton of money for the food bank.  Not only were they great to goof off with onstage, they were also genuinely great human beings backstage and after the show.  Kim was literally the last person out of the theatre that night staying to sign autographs and pose for pictures with the audience.

Good luck with the film, gang!

Sunsets and timelines

Remember when you were wee and getting to the next day, the next month, the next vacation was the goal? Not being able to wait until you were grown-up, older, could do what you wanted?

Remember the several moments today where you lamented that the days are going to quickly and there is just not enough time in a single one to do all the things you have to do, let alone the ones you want to do?

Let's all sigh together, shall we?

[Sigh.]

I took this photo on Sunday, driving back from Regina (if you're not Canadian, I should tell you it's not pronounced rih-JEAN-ah. That's most definitely rij-EYE-nah. Yep.) I had an audition for a commercial. It's been a while since I auditioned for anything and it was a nice change of pace. (Competition was very talented so it was mostly for the drive..) It had been awhile since I'd been able to really enjoy a sunset and driving along one was a beautiful respite. I mused over how quickly time passes..I meant to post the sunset on the ol' weblog when I got home.

And then came the distractions. Family, phone calls, the Globes (which I barely paid attention to) and many wonderful little interruptions. And before I knew it, it was Wednesday and I had been absent from my mental respite (the ol' weblog) for a week.

I look forward to the arrival of visionaries that invent the 14-day week and teleportation devices so we can all help the Haitians and bring them to a warm, safe place to sleep and a hot meal. In a strange way, I once again wish time would speed up so that it can slow right down.

[Sigh.]

*****************

If you're in town, Friday at 9:30pm, the Saskatoon Soaps have their regular Improv Comedy show with the added bonus of all profits going to the Red Cross for Haiti. Laughs and love in the same place.

Too cold to be clever with a title. :-)

That's a glance at the weather here for you. I snapped it on Tuesday just before sunset. As much as the cold can be bitter, there is something sublime about frost that lingers thickly whether the sun shines or no'.

I love the cold and frost and simple beauty of winter so I'm not really lamenting about it. I'd much rather have -30 than +30. Thirty above makes me cranky. Thirty below makes me crafty. (If the temperatures seem weird, you are suffering from Fahrenheit syndrome - think in Celsius...)

Despite the chill, we had a very large crowd for our Soaps Christmas improv show last night. Thank you to anyone who braved the weather and the humour.

Happy Hanukkah, if you celebrate it! Happy Saturday, if you don't.

I have finished a few projects this week and regretfully cannot share them. Gifts are gifts and should remain surprises. Sister only pops by every few weeks, but with my luck, if I showed off what I've made her for Christmas, she'll read it today. :-)

Thank you to AmberLee of Giver's Log for mentioning me and the shop yesterday and for the lovely compliments! You have no idea how much simple joy your blog brings to me. A giver's list of ideas is a gift in itself! (Trouble is, you find all this cool stuff that I want for me... :-) Everyone else - go check it out.

Well, after a week of getting up in the dark at a quarter after "why the hell am I awake" and then coming home in the dark, I was looking forward to a good, solid, teen-style sleep-in until the sun was shining gloriously but my eyes popped open at 8am. So I'll try to be useful and productive instead.

It's a good way to keep warm.

More Martha, More Carving...

We had a Soaps show on Friday night and as part of the theme, I was asked to resurrect my decade-old impersonation of Martha Stewart. (For the record, I don't think it's very good. But it was necessary. And it comes with a terrible [abominable? ridiculous? polyester?] wig. )

My friend J (Soapster and local newsperson) asked me that night to come carve pumpkins on the news as Martha..... (For some reason, he thinks it's funny...) Sigh. Sure, J. Whatever you need.

So tomorrow on the news, I will be massacring more members of the squash family. If you live in Saskatoon and watch CTV News at Noon, I'm sorry. :-)

I was supposed to use my werewolf as the "after" pumpkin but after ten days, it's not looking "show-worthy." It may even be growing legs, or things that will quickly evolve into other things having legs. So I carved another one. I've been eating sweet'n'spicy roasted seeds since...

Odd. For a person who's not-so-hallowe'eny, I've not only carved a pumpkin, I'll have carved three this year. Which is more than I've carved since I first did the Martha. That year... I carved an acorn squash.

Finger Mustache - always a good time

So the Saskatoon Soaps have our upcoming improv comedy season opener on Friday. As is customary for us, we pose for a newspaper picture. It involved mustaches. And as mine was still on my finger when I got back from said photo op, I decided to fool around with the ol' web cam. (Picture made more authentically masculine by a complete lack of makeup and the accidental position of my scarf mimicking an ascot....) ( and being A Scot is evidenced by my complete lack of tan and or pigmentation... oh, the word play...... but seriously, could I be a paler person???)

Apparently, according to Sister, there are three or four gentlemen in town here who've taken the finger mustache to a whole new level. They've gotten them tattooed. What started as a joke, a way to say 'hi' to your best bud from across a crowded party, became a life-long commitment to the bit. And, I guess, to each other. Long live the friendship!! Vive le mustache!

Sister and Sister's Friend were out one night, having drinks, and at some point in the evening decided finger mustaches were very necessary. No sooner had they applied them and started modeling than their server told them of the Mustachioed Caballeros mentioned above. A little later, they found themselves outside keeping a smoker company, when someone else they knew pointed to a random man in another cluster of smokers. Sister caught his eye from across the way and without a word, raised her finger mustache in miniature salute. Random Man, in kind, raised his eyebrow and a tattooed index finger to his lip. Each of them nodded solemnly before returning to their respective friends.

One of the band of brothers is rumoured to have committed both of his index fingers to the cause. Each one forms half of the infamous fumanchu!!

Sometimes something silly is just what we need to connect us to something bigger than ourselves. Or to each other.

And sometimes something silly is just something to do on Friday night. (Broadway Theatre, Saskatoon, Fri Sep18 9:30pm, $10) Very very silly.

La la la la - la llama!

Sometimes, acting like an idiot leads to wonderful things...

I've been a member of an improv comedy troupe (The Saskatoon Soaps) for about eleven years now. As part of a gig we were doing for a season sponsor, a large bunch of people from various different places were split into groups and sent on a scavenger hunt through a few businesses in downtown Saskatoon. We acted as the location judges in charge of clues and signing each team's guess forms. In character. Good times.

It took awhile for the first group to get to my post and, naturally, I took advantage to thoroughly browse the shop's inventory, which includes a number of fair-trade items and organic clothing. (YAY! I will be going back when I'm on my own time.) HOWEVER, as I was in goof-mode, I was very attracted to these wonderful little knit finger puppets made by Ecuadorian children. There were tigers, elephants, alligators and llamas! These gems kept me marvellously entertained between scavengers.

When my goof-time had come to an end and I returned to plain clothes, the lovely shopkeepers gave me a llama as a thank you for being their store's oddball.

So THANK YOU to Kim and Tammy at Amos&Andes Imports. You made my day! And inspired many rounds of singing "LaBamba" as LaLlama" - great fun!

And so I leave you today with the reassuring fact that finger puppets are entertaining no matter how old you are...

AND a poem...

A one-l lama, that's a priest.

A two-l llama, that's a beast.

But I will bet a silk pyjama,

that there is no three-l lllama!

--Ogden Nash

Have a great one!