"Good morning, Royal Ontario Museum. Bonjour."
Uh hi. I was wondering if you could put me through to the entymology department."
"I can, but I have to warn you that, because it's a Saturday, there is probably no one in the office. Is this an emergency?"
"Well, let me explain. Okay, so I caught this spider and I've got it in a cup. It's over two inches long - I measured it. And I never seen such a big spider inside a house before. You know, usually they're those small black ones that run really fast. So I was wondering if this spider is unusual."

And so began my day at the ROM today. I am isolated in the phone dungeon and I know it's highly unlikely that I'll get a call more interesting or enjoyable than that one. I talked to the guy for about five minutes and suggested to him that if he wanted to feed it, he should probably go catch some ants. "Like the little garden ants in my back yard?" I also suggested that since he hasn't got Internet access, he should go to his nearest library and look it up. Chances are, he's just got himself one of those cream-coloured house spiders that hang out in the corners between walls and ceilings and it's probably a male, because they're bigger thanks to longer legs. But, I wasn't about to ruin his enthusiasm by telling him we don't care about his little critter. I wish him and the spider the best of luck.

A few nights ago, I went with a friend to see the Driftwood Theatre's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream in Trinity Bellwoods Park. I have seen them perform in Peterborough and they're pretty good. They travel around to various communities in South/Central Ontario with the intention of providing accessible theatre for all. Normally, I go to Dream in High Park, but in recent years, I haven't been entirely impressed with their shows - they've been interesting and alternative, but not really solid productions. Anyway, Driftwood's version of "Dream" was excellent and easily one of the best performances of it I've seen, and I've seen it at least eight times. While acted in modern dress, they kept very close to the original text and performed it with minimal distraction. Puck was outstanding as was Oberon, but what stands out as a first for me is that the entire cast was very balanced and meshed perfectly with each other. NOrmally, someone's performance irritates me either because it's weaker than the others or because the actor's voice grates, but not this time. It was super.

Tomorrow, Rick and I are heading to the wedding of my highschool friend, Liviya. She's marrying her boyfriend of five years and it should be an interesting event. His family is Italian Catholic, hers Ashkenasi(sp?) Jewish, but the wedding is actually being held at a wedding 'factory' owned and run by... Italian Jews. Wacky. The groom has taken the step of converting, which is pretty impressive, so it will be a full Jewish ceremony. I haven't been to a Jewish wedding in something like 15 years and I'm looking forward to it. Rick asked, "It's a casual wedding, right?" and I burst out laughing. "Noooooo, definitely not. It's suit and tie at the least, babe." I've never heard of a casual wedding either among Jews or Italians. They must exist, but this is not going to be one of them. Unfortunately, it is all going on up north of the city in Richmond Hill or something so our TTC ride is going to be very long. We'll leave from Rick's place and I'll spend the night following there as well because it's a nearly direct bus route from his house to the wedding.

And, finally, I'm heading to the cottage on Tuesday, but travelling from Peterborough. My intention is to take a huge pile of my clothes and whatnot to Peterborough on the bus and leave them there in order to get them out of the way. At the rate my packing is going, I'm not sure it's going to work out, but at the very least, I'll get to take a long, hot bath. From talking to my mother, I understand she's going quite mad thanks to the terrible weather. Stir-crazy, she said. Hopefully I will bring the good weather back for the final eight days up there. Anyway, I've tried to get things packed up, but I've had a box deficit. The only boxes I have are the ones I've gotten from the ROM. I have packed up all of my books, though, and half of my CDs. I'm going to take down my art tonight and sort out a couple to loan to Rick. The rest I'll stack against the wall until I get my hands on some newspaper.