Amphigouri: varnished nonsense

I first read Hamlet when I was in high school during the year Dad was my English teacher. I loved it. Studied it again my first year at Colby for a Freshman Seminar course on “The Fate of Being Human”, and have seen three movie versions of the play (hate Gibson; love Branagh; alas, can’t remember Olivier). I’ve only once seen it performed live, however; something I’d like to experience again.

This blurb from The Stage about the Royal Shakespeare Company’s upcoming season makes me wanna put on my travelin’ shoes:

Gregory Doran will revive his production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and direct Tennant in both Hamlet and Love’s Labour’s Lost, in which he will play Hamlet and Berowne respectively. Patrick Stewart will also feature as Claudius in Hamlet, while an ensemble of actors will be cross-cast across all three plays. It is expected that Hamlet will later transfer to London.

Sigh. How FREAKIN’ AWESOME would it be to see Doctor Who and Jean-Luc Picard in one of my favoritest plays evah?

biltmore_goat1,
originally uploaded by brhine.

A test using the “blog this photo” feature in Flickr. This is one of the goats we saw at the Biltmore farm last weekend while on vacation. Alas, I still haven’t learned how to properly use my dSLR, so the light balance is all off.

Hubby, who grew up with an assortment of animals (chickens, goats, geese, ducks, horses, dogs, cats, cow, rabbit), rediscovered his urge to have a goat (and/or chickens) at our new home after seeing the ones in NC. Our barn and land are fortunately well-suited for such a thing, but I’m not sure I am. Yet, at any rate.

Last week I was in Ohio for a training class. As is often the case, the hours of waiting in the airport, hanging out in a new hotel, & driving around the local area lent themselves well to general observations and musings. A few from the week:

• Beltways are funny things. I stayed just outside Cincinnati’s I275, and if I were much more directionally challenged than I already am, driving around would have been significantly more interesting. The hotel was about a 35 minute drive on 275 Eastbound from the Northern Kentucky airport (which was nice - relatively little traffic the times I was going to-from the airport, with none of the stress I’ve had trying to get to/from Logan in the past!). It was also situated roughly at the 2:00 point of the beltway, which meant odd things: the Dunkin Donuts in the area was one exit back toward the airport; logic would dictate heading west, but from the hotel this was actually east. Getting back to the hotel from Dunkin Donuts was stranger still - I had to head northbound on the same highway. Aiyeee. And to think that when I first moved to Northern Virginia I did a little bit of head-scratching at the “inner loop” and “outer loop” designations.
• So, when I stay in hotels I’m generally happy to follow the management’s suggestions for conserving water by reusing my towels instead of receiving fresh ones every day. “Just hang your towels on the rack to reuse; leave them on the floor to get fresh ones.” That’s simple enough, and heck, I certainly don’t get fresh towels every day when I’m at home - it’s a “luxury” I don’t mind doing without. However, this was the second hotel I’ve visited in recent months where there seems to be a disconnect between management’s policy about towel use and the actual actions of the housekeeping staff, as despite my diligent efforts of hanging every towel & washcloth that were used, fresh ones appeared in their place each of the 4 days I was there. Weird.
• Flight Etiquette. I found myself wondering how irritating or depressing it is for flight attendants to go through their spiel at the start of each flight — even though so much is automated now — when at least half of the passengers are still talking, have their noses buried in books, or are already dozing (i.e., not paying attention, or even pretending). I suppose many (most?) travelers these days know the routine practically by heart, but I can’t help but think it’s gotta dig just a little to see the lack of courtesy so regularly.
• Not much is a more welcome surprise than waking up to 15 degree temps and ice cold leather in the rental car and discovering the ride has heated seats. Yay, warm tushee!