I’m thrilled to see that The Merry Wives of Windsor AND As You Like It will be part of the Great Lakes Theater Festival this year. I’ve yet to see the former performed on the stage, so I’m thinking this is a must see for me.

Just thinking about going, however, brings me back to the GLTF years ago when I went to see Twelfth Night with Sammy. It was early in our relationship, when he was still smitten enough to actually go to a play with me. Talk about a fish out of water, I’d yet to see the man out of his element before, and boy was he out of it. He teased me for hours before the play that he would be wearing torn jeans and a paint-flecked t-shirt. I was terrified.

I was dressed to the nines that night as I was still eager to impress him. I was super skinny then and I bought a dress at one of those snotty stores that, under normal circumstances, I would never think to walk into (remember, I’m not a dress girl). The dress was gorgeous. It was black and strapless, fitted down to the knee and slit on both sides to the upper thigh. My strappy shoes (since eaten by beagles) made me about six feet tall. Sam looked gorgeous as well. It was the first time I’d seen him in a shirt and tie. He cleaned up incredibly well.

He was nervous, I plied him with gin and tonic to make him relax, I was aware that he felt tremendously out of place. This was before he was on the fire department, so he still had his goatee, his shaved head, and his piercings. You could see the outlines of his tattoos under his white dress shirt. It was about fifteen minutes before the intermission when he nudged me with his elbow to get my attention.

“Watch this!” he said.

With a sidelong glance at the elegant couple to his right, Sam stretched his legs and leaned back in his seat, repositioning his arms for comfort. That’s when I saw what was going on and spent the next ten minutes giggling uncontrollably. Every time Sam so much as shifted in his chair, the woman on his right clutched her purse for dear life. She really thought he was going to rob her. After the intermission, the couple did not return to their seats.

Needless to say, Sam never went to see Shakespeare with me again. Not sure if it had more to do with the fact that people looked him up and down and figured he was a purse snatcher or if it was simply a case of the she’s-mine-now-so-I-no-longer-have-to-sit-through-this-crap situation.

Ah, well. Not too much going on other than that. The new Ash CD is out today, so a trip to the record store will be necessary (if it ever stops frigging snowing, that is). I might have to brave the weather regardless, as the disc got a great review in AP and I’m not sure if I can wait until tomorrow.

I had to sit through a hellish evening of darts last night. My married teammates fought the entire night, I ended up yelling at someone from the other team for getting out of line, and the service was so bad that I ended up leaving an angry note for the server. It was five star.

Off to work, I guess. Piles of editing beckon impatiently…