Perhaps it’ll get my writing mojo back …  you know, change of scenery, getting away from the neighbour’s death threats, etc.

Yeah, if you’d managed to log in a couple of days ago, you may have noticed a brief flash of a post where I wrote, in a huff, about my interaction with our neighbour. I also took the opportunity to slag the cops for their assistance in helping the same potentially homicidal neighbour to definitely identify who called the police on him.

Safe to say I was pissed, and rightly so, but I decided that that was no mood to get back into TCLing shape. And neither is the environment, including the drug-dealing, pimping, life-threatening neighbour.

To be honest, I’ve been living in this Allan Gardens neighborhood for a bit too long now. It’s nice enough, if you can get past the crack dealers, hookers, and the down-and-out folks clutching to whatever precarious sanity they have, but I’m getting a bit bored with it all. The gunshots and sirens are becoming pedestrian, dahling.

Plus, Sarah’s in a wheelchair and that makes walking up and downstairs a tad challenging. Actually, I do the walking, she does the terrified clinging as I try to power us both on a single set of legs. Good workout though.

Nevertheless, we’re looking to change the scenery up a bit. Maybe the west end, around High Park. Maybe.

Communicating with the landlord there has been kinda spotty and getting an appointment kinda like waiting for the second coming of Christ. I finally broke down after two weeks of email silence and rummaged through the internet for his number. I got a lot of “um” and “aw”, but we finally secured a looksee in a few days. Hopefully it won’t be rented out from under us, like a unit we were going to see on Wellesley Street (the rental agreement was signed while we waiting in the lobby for our turn to see the place).

We’ve also looked around on Broadview Avenue…lovely stretch of road looking over the Don Valley and the skyline, and within spitting distance of downtown. The nice places have a waiting list that would require us to murder someone in order to get a chance, and the not so nice places are, well, not so nice.

One had a main lobby that was leaking profusely as we walked in. The superintendent who was showing us the apartment shrugged it off by saying, “yeah, it’s been like that for a while.” The ceiling in front of the apartment door had caved in and exposed cables were hanging down. The walls were beaten up not unlike, I imagine, a maximum security penitentiary (complete with streaks of what I’m sure was human blood).

The second unit we saw, one building over, was surprisingly worse. The elevator, a wonderful throwback to the 70s (actually from that era, I believe, and not serviced since then either), was dank and stank with dog urine. The apartment overlooked a fenced-in yard which, once again, was very penitentiary-like.

So these were, unfortunately, a no-go. And ridiculously pricey for the living horrors that they were. We’re hoping that the west end will be better, but for now we’re just trying to keep from getting stabbed on our own landing.

So, let’s have a look at what we have here, shall we?

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First of all, ignore the percentages shown above. The -41% thing would suggest that, perhaps, they’re not entirely accurate.

So, out of 42 votes cast the highest percentage (21%), believed that Mondays should be illegal. A further 14% cast a disparaging glance at the rest of the week too — something about shooting the weekdays while we’re at it? Crazy gun-nutty Americans :) Most shocking, however, are the serious allegations of impropriety on the part of Mondays, with a whopping 17% of you (that’s nearly 1 in 5), reporting that Mondays have made unwanted sexual advances toward you. Only one vote was cast for the whole poll not making any sense, and I cast that one, so we can safely assume everyone understood the question. Except me.

But who cares? Isn’t that shocking?! I sure do hope the local media pick up this story.

My own experience with Monday is one of pain. I woke up today in some discomfort, having finally attended Dream in the Park.

The discomfort portion of the story, I’m ashamed to report, is one-hundred percent me.

They do recommend bringing a blanket, jacket, and bug repellant. I did not. To complicate matters further, I had biked to High Park, pushing it up that final bitch of a road like a real man:

Then walking the remaining half of the hill like a real tired man.

By the time I got to the top I had worked up a good, healthy sweat. As I may have mentioned before, the seating for Dream is literally on the ground. The stage is simply a wooden platform and the audience sits in an amphitheatre cut out of the hillside in front of it. Luckily, I did have something between me and the moist earth, but I hadn’t planned on the chill wind that swept down into the valley that night. If the play hadn’t been so engrossing, I would’ve picked up and left. But those assholes were so damn good that I ended up with a sore back!

Okay, so it’s Shakespeare. Yeah, it put me to sleep in high school too. English; borringest subject ever. The Tempest; *sticking finger down throat*. But people actually brought their kids to this!

I don’t want to sound like someone’s paying me to say this because, alas, I remain sponsorless, but this is really a show to see. With the Pay-What-You-Can pricing, it’s always affordable. You’re encouraged to bring snacks and anything you want to make yourself comfortable. And I can assure you that whatever your equivalent of the suggested $20  donation is, the feature-length show will be well worth it.

The beauty of this production is that it’s been taken back to its roots. No, not rag-adorned, unwashed, Elizabethan showmen; I’m talking about the people for whom Shakespeare wrote his works for. Unfortunately, the language isn’t quite as up-to-date as it once may have been, but the actors make up for this through their modern intonation, great acting, and physical improvisation. They really bring out the comedic, entertaining nature of the play. And even though they’re all speaking at a fair clip, the whole story is completely intelligible. It’s almost like you’re a filth-covered Shakespearean commoner out for a night on the mud.

I had never actually read The Tempest. I knew the gist of it; banished wizard-Duke Prospero, big storm, deserted island, yadda yadda; but never the nitty gritty. I’m fairly certain that the glaring Gilligan’s Island overtones present throughout the Dream version are not part of the original story, but it did help to set the context.

Prospero was replaced with Prospera (Karen Robinson), and Ariel (Audrey Dwyer) did a couple of Lion-King-inspired musical sequences, presumably to give the show a softer touch. Nothing over the top, mind you; old Willy’s work is still kept pretty much intact. Just enough to break up the slow parts. Worked for me.

The music and sound effects worked with the trees, bees, and birds around them rather than trying to fight it out. The crickets started to sound like cicadas after a while. You kind of got the feeling you were actually on Prospera’s island:

Yeah, I really liked it. A modernized classic that was genuinely entertaining. Can’t say any of that about any movie I’ve paid to see lately.

Okay, time for me to get back to the heating pad. Mondays …