Wednesday, July 27

Would You Rather Be In Guelph, In Your Underwear?

During the summer in Charlottetown, I enjoy sitting for a portion of my lunchtimes on the benches by the fountain at Province House.
Today, as I was sitting there, I saw a man and a boy (maybe 10 years old) walking my way.  They stopped, suddenly, and from the body language, I could tell the man was upset. Tired. Fed up. That piqued my interest.
He grabbed the boy's arm, in a stern "I'm your father and you are going to listen to what I have to say" kind of way. I overheard the man say something to the effect of "come over here. we are going to sit down and have a talk.  Enough of this."  They sat at the bench next to mine, and I could only hear some of the man's portion of the conversation.
I quickly gathered that the man was the father or guardian of the boy. And he was fed up with what he saw as the petulant, selfish, whiny nature of the boy. They were tourists to our fair Isle.

Here are some snippets that I overheard, all from the man:

"Would you rather be home in Guelph, sweating in your living room all day in your underwear?"

"I should call you Captain Crabby.  Do you like being called Captain Crabby? No I didn't think so."

"Go ahead and call her.  Do you think your mother will be on your side?"

"Everything I suggest you just go 'no' 'nuh' 'no' 'don't wanna'. Do you think it's fun trying to come up with things for us to do?"

"You don't have to be Mr. Grumpy. You have a choice, you know."

"Would you rather not spend time with me ever again? Is that what you mean?"

"I CAN speak to you like that. I'm the grownup here."

I felt equally bad for both parties.




Sunday, July 24

1 Thing I Didn't Know About Annekenstein

Last night, before our 4th performance of Annekenstein & Friends, I was told that a lady wanted to meet me and talk after the show, and that she had a book that mentioned Annekenstein in it. I was intrigued but assumed it might be someone who was a bit, I don't know... Kooky. Who mentions Annekenstein in a book, after all. 
Turns out, Don Harron does. The lady in question was Claudette Gareau, who was married to Don Harron for the few years before he passed away. After our show, I met her and she showed me this book, written by Don Harron:
Anne of Green Gables, the musical - 101 Things you didn't know 

I hadn't heard of it.  I started to piece things together and assumed that he must have briefly mentioned Annekenstein in passing in the book. Don Harron had seen one of the original seasons of Annekenstein and was very kind in his endorsement of it. 
Anyway, Claudette told me to turn to page 98, and it further turns out that he had devoted one of his 101 Things to Annekenstein:

I was beyond thrilled, and touched. She was very effusive in her appreciation of the show she just saw, and wanted me to know how much Don Harron enjoyed the show he saw, and how he often would mention it to others. 
I'm really glad he saw it and enjoyed it. Really thrilled that Claudette came to the show and gave me the book, which she signed with a very nice note.