Category — manners

I learned today that I have limits regarding PDAs – and now I must share it with the Intarwebs and give you something to giggle about:

I went to my local DeSerres store today for some blank cards and clear bags for the fabulous stick people creations that are going to make me tens of dollars.

Anyway, I got the cards and the bags and was waiting for the #10 bus when I saw them – the couple that helped me find the outer limits of what I can just shrug off when it comes to PDA.

He was an older guy, probably early 50′s and she was mid to late 30′s – she’s wearing black high heels, black capris with a shiny belt and a black sweater. I watched him put his hand on the small of her back. Fine – that’s sort of sweet, but then! oh, then – he slipped his hand down the back of her pants and started visibly brushing his fingers across the crack of her bum! IN PUBLIC!!

She kept walking and he kept wiggling his hand down her pants and I couldn’t stop staring – which caused a few people to look at what I was looking at and then quickly avert their eyes.  I finally lost sight of them behind a Brinks truck and that broke the spell.

If Joe ever did that to me I’d tear his arm off and beat him with it. Arm around the waist? Fine. Holding hands? Sweet. Putting your hand down the back of my pants and grabbing my ass – NOT COOL.

Have I missed something? Is exploring your honey’s bum crack the latest way to say I love you?

What do you think? Am I a shriveled up old prude? What are your limits on PDA for yourself and other people?

Before I even begin the post I need to state this plainly: I did not write this to garner pity or condolences. I’m writing because I’m curious about my own thoughts and about yours.

To be blunt, my Grandad is dying. He knows this, the DNR is signed and he’s in a good frame of mind all things considered.

When I first found out, my immediate and emotional response was to get myself on a plane to Ontario and go see him and the rest of the family. I can’t change the inevitable, but I hoped I could maybe do something useful (pretty nebulous thought really) and more selfishly there is a part of me that thought, “If I don’t see him now, I’ll feel horribly guilty later.”

Apparently some relatives of my Grandad’s in the U.K. had the same idea and wanted to fly here to see him. My Grandad was not at all happy about this and said no.

For my grandparents (and probably most people),  visitors create an obligation to entertain – to be civil, polite, cheerful and, well, entertaining. When these same visitors are there because you’re ill (and especially if you’re terminally ill) it creates the additional obligation of being kind, reassuring and soothing to alleviate any possible guilt your guests might feel about your illness or death.

And that last part is what bothers me now: how did something as personal as death become more about the people left behind and less about the person facing their own death?

How is my need to feel OK after he’s gone more important than his need now to spend whatever time remains to him with his wife of 60 years?

I’ve decided it isn’t.

Visitors are trying when you’re sick. They see you at your worst – weak, tired, loopy on pain medication, or just in pain and cranky. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be dying, but I can imagine the annoyance of having people seeking comfort and some kind of absolution from me when all I want to do is sleep or maybe just daydream a bit.

I have no aversion to his being ill or even seeing him sick – he’s always going to be Grandad to me. My love, respect and regard for him will never change. However, whether or not I have an aversion to seeing him now, he has asked for space and quiet; denying him that and forcing him to endure a visit that will tire him so I can feel better would be extremely disrespectful.

So, I’m staying in Vancouver until I get that final phone call. I saw him last November when he was still reasonably well and we got to hang out, talk, poke fun at stuff and share a nice meal together.

I get updates from Mum about them and she’ll let me know the days they might be up for a brief phone call just to say hello and share a little news – otherwise that’s all.

It still makes me feel utterly useless, but all I can offer is whatever they ask for.

What are your thoughts?

This summer was my first experience with Bard on the Beach in Vancouver.

For my first ever performance, I watched Meg Roe make her directing debut with The Tempest. It was marvelous. The set, the costumes, the music, the actors - especially Jennifer Lines who played the best Ariel I’ve seen yet – were fantastic. The play flowed beautifully from beginning to end.

King Lear did not.

King Lear is my favourite Shakespeare play. I like most of his plays, but I’ve always really liked this one particularly. What can I say – I like tragedies. This production was indeed a tragedy that made Friday night a waste of time.

It starts off with a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday by a bunch of people in fussy office attire singing to a wheelchair ridden Lear. A chocolate cake is placed in Lear’s lap which he then uses as a sort of map to divest himself of “Rule, Interest of Territory, Cares of State” and frees himself of his duties by “conferring them on yonger strengths” – namely, his three daughters Gonerill, Regan and Cordelia.

At first, I liked the costumes. They looked like they just came from an office in the 1980′s and that seemed like a pretty interesting way to do it. I’m not a snob, I think it’s OK to make Shakespeare look a little modern – after all, his words ring true no matter how you dress the characters.

The only costume that seemed out of place was the Nurse’s. She was wearing some ancient looking VON getup and stuck out like a sore thumb.  And the scene with Lear wearing Wellington’s and a tweed coat with elbow patches looked a little strange too. To be honest, most of the time Lear looked like Indiana Jones’s dad from The Last Crusade – in a wheelchair.

I figured the singing would stop with Happy Birthday – I was wrong. They sang A LOT in this play. It seemed very out of place. This may be just a personal preference, but that much singing in a tragedy seems to be in poor taste somehow.

I also wasn’t impressed with the casting of Cordelia: Melissa Poll simply did not ring true as Lear’s youngest and most beloved daughter. The costume she wore - tight little black skirt and fussy white satin blouse – made her look much, much taller than everyone else, gaunt to the point of sickness, slightly jaundiced and unfriendly.

According to the booklet I got from the volunteers at the festival grounds, Cordelia’s “simplicity and directness is indicated in warmer tones and less contrained in silhouette.” Black and white are “warmer tones”? I’ll give you the silhouette, she was puffy while Gonerill and Regan were dressed in more figure-hugging clothes – but there were no “warmer tones” where Cordelia was concerned.

I suppose Melissa Poll was chosen for her blondness – perhaps the director, James Fagan Tait, was going for good v.s. evil by having a light haired Cordelia and making Gonerill and Regan dark haired. If that’s the case, there is no need for that: their words and actions will tell us all about them without such gimmicky nonsense. In terms of looks, I would have cast Melissa Poll as Regan and Tiffany Lyndall-Knight (who played Regan) as Cordelia.

Cordelia –  in my head and in most productions – is young looking, innocent, kind and thoughtful. Not a blonde and gaunt Amazon woman in a shiny blouse.  That blouse was really visually distracting too – it made Cordelia’s head and hands look disembodied, washed the colour from her face and made her look a little bit zombified.

The first half of the play dragged along pretty painfully – too much singing, seemingly inconsistent costuming, a ridiculous scene involving guns that sounded like toy cap guns, poor voice projection from two of the actors – Gerry Mackay (Kent) and Andrew Wheeler (Cornwall) - the bizarre and confusing presence of the entire cast on the balcony swaying and making “storm” noises, Lear was so whiny and insufferable I felt sympathetic to Gonerill and Regan and that stupid rain stick was distracting and annoying.

Then there were the audience members:

The guy across from Joe ate popcorn with his mouth open for nearly all of the first half, a guy a few seats down and the next row back put his dirty bare feet on the chair in front of him (most of the people around him were pretty disgusted by this) two people wore large hats – and left them on during the performance – and far too many people talked during the performance.

I know Bard on the Beach is pretty informal compared to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, but it’s still a theatre setting! Good manners and basic courtesy still apply! Eat with your mouth closed, keep your dirty feet off the seats, take your bloody hat off and turn off your cell phones you cretins.

In short, it was an awful experience and we left at the half way point. It’s the first time I have ever walked out on a performance – I hope it will be the last.