Weekly (ha!) Round-Up

This has been a good week to be working from home.

Calgary Arts Development is moving, so this week, everyone’s working elsewhere, since we have no office for a few days. It just so happens that I’ve been fighting a cold and sinus infection of some sort all week, so it’s been nice to be able to take it a little easier without actually taking time off work — and, more importantly for my co-workers, to not be sneezing and spreading germs all over them!

It’s also been a good week, weather-wise, to be working from home, finding excuses to take my computer outside and work from a park bench somewhere. Seriously, some absolutely gorgeous weather here.

And this is really a “Monthly Round-Up,” not weekly (as usual. When do I ever get this out every week?), but here’s the list of what I’ve been watching, listening to, reading, and doing over the past few weeks.

Watching:

• Bones, seasons 2 and 3. We finished season 2 last week, and we’re on to season 3, thanks to the public library. (I never think of signing DVDs out of the library!)
• Inglorious Basterds. Date night with my sister and brother-in-law, and pretty much what I’d expect from a Quentin Tarantino movie. Fun, a little bit squeamish at moments, and not something I’d recommend to my mom. Even though we did recommend (and loan) Bones to her.
• (500) Days of Summer. Oh, such fun. Cute, Deschanel-y, indy fun.
• Julie & Julia. Twice, actually. We saw it once with my parents and once with some friends of ours, and it was great both times. Meryl Streep is brilliant as Julia Child, and I’m a sucker for any movie that portrays marriage in such a good light. A friend commented that it’s the kind of movie that makes you walk away thinking that husbands are good things to have, and that’s always a good thing in my books. And when there are two love stories like that in one movie? Even better.
• Friends, season 1. Colin’s never seen all 10 seasons in order — he’s probably seen every episode in reruns, of course, but it was time to watch it all again. Plus, a sitcom is pretty easy to watch an episode here and there. 22 minutes is hardly any time at all!

Experiencing:

• After the last time I posted this, we saw two more shows at the Fringe Festival: Chemo Burlesque, a show telling the story of breast cancer through a burlesque performance. It was incredibly raw and intimate — yes, all Fringe shows are intimate, but putting that subject matter with that medium in such a small space makes it even more so. It was gorgeous. The script was a little unpolished, but I almost didn’t care. I would, however, be interested to see how it develops beyond a Fringe performance.
• The other Fringe show we saw was Lapse. Beautiful show, but I’m still not sure how to describe it, or even what I thought of it. It was an intriguing exploration of faith and doubt, and Colin and I spent a good amount of time discussing it afterward, but I still don’t know what to say about it.
• Man of La Mancha. Mom and Dad took the family out to Rosebud for Dad’s birthday, and we saw this, which I’d actually never seen before. I actually wasn’t familiar with it, except for “The Impossible Dream,” of course, so it was good to expand my familiarity with shows that I should have known years ago.
• The Lion King. The tour was in Calgary this summer, so we got a group of friends together and went to see it. Lots of fun, definitely worth it, and, again, one of those shows that should be something I’m familiar with, both its history and its impact. Definitely the most spectacular thing we’ve seen all summer, and a nice balance to the grassroots Fringe stuff.
• GlobalFest fireworks. Calgary’s GlobalFest includes an international fireworks competition, and we went to the finale. Big fireworks set to music? Always a good time.

Working On:

• Oh, it’s September. Time to kick things off, right? Or, in the case of my internship, wind things up. I’m working on the Mayor’s Evening for Business and the Arts and Culture Month, and they’re coming up really, really fast. Well, technically, Culture Month has already started, but the MEBA is in just over two weeks, and there’s still lots to do.
• I’m helping out as the Consulting Producer for the church’s production of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I’m very excited for the show, even though I won’t be here for it, and I’m making sure I have my say, to help establish a precedent for the rest of the year’s shows, which I’ll be very involved in.
• We’re getting geared up for the kickoff of the Coffeehouse Theater, which I’m resident producer for at school. I won’t be there until the first couple of weeks have passed, but there’s a lot to do to get ready for it. School starts next week, and everything I’ve been putting off all summer is creeping up on me — or, not so much “creeping” as “chasing me down the highway and trying to run me off the road.”

That’s what I’ve been doing lately; how about you?