Oh thank god!!! That was the most gut-wrenching hockey game I have ever witnessed. Now granted, that might have been the fifth game I watched start to finish in my life, but still, I think it was unusual in its stress level. Anyway, YAY YAY YAY!!!! God love Sidney Crosby. I've decided I should get two cats (hypoallergenic of course) and call them Sidney and Crosby. Those are actually excellent cat names...

To show that I am benevolent in victory, I made maple fudge tonight between the end of the hockey and the beginning of the Closing Ceremonies to take in to work tomorrow. I think it's turned out okay. We'll see, I seem to have lost any baking ability I ever possessed living here. I also managed to break a bowl. Now knowing my roommate she won't even notice, but I feel especially bad since I got upset about the whole eating all my vegetables thing last weekend. Anyway, I'll get to Target and replace it sometime this week.

Last night's concert was terrific. I mean it was very low key and likely would have been more enjoyable in a pub with a pint instead of in a 1000 seat theatre, but still highly enjoyable. It was Natalie MacMaster with Donnell Leahy (of the Leahy family) who are married (who knew?) as well as two pianists - one of whom was one of the Leahy sisters (family of 11 kids who all played and step danced etc etc) Everyone took turns playing and fiddling and step dancing - ridiculously talented.

It took me outside the Beltway to get to the concert hall - which is a scary suburban place!! The Beltway is that ring road that loops the city and is iconic around here as a symbol of where the true city limit is. As my friend put it, "this is real America" - the ends of the metro lines (I saw two yesterday) have massive parking garages for all the commuters and the rest is really mall after mall after mall.

I'm happy to return to the slightly grungy and mainly liberal city.

Okay, the Closing Ceremony is beginning and can I just say how awesome we are to acknowledge the technical difficulties of the torch lighting of the Opening Ceremonies. I'm sorry, that was brilliant, funny and just very....Canadian. We have been criticized for the "Own the Podium" campaign (um, and we did...) which I saw as just a way to motivate people and generate donations, and yet, we are still the same country who can poke fun at ourselves when that's appropriate.

With that I leave you and know I'll be wearing my mittens proudly again tomorrow.

I'm watching the men's gold medal hockey game (GOAL!!!!!!!) and is it wrong that I want us to crush them? Probably not very hospitable of me...

So this is my last full weekend off in a while. I am refusing to work 7 days a week, because frankly it's not necessary and I'm not paid over time, but I will be doing some hours on Saturday for the next little while. Today so far I was very lazy for the morning and am now gearing up to end out to Virginia where a friend is taking me to a Natalie MacMaster concert. People seem to want to take me to Canadian things (in addition to the Canadian things that I take myself to) and while I've never particularly felt the need to see her in concert, I'm sure she's quite good.

In celebration of the women's hockey team victory over the Americans, I wore my Olympic mittens to marketing class. I adore our VP of Marketing, as most of us fellows do, however, I am the only fellow with a nickname - he calls me Canada. You might think this unoriginal except that he tested many others before deciding that Canada was the right one. It is beginning to catch on around the KC too. He usually greets me with "Oh, Canada" to which I will alternately reply "Oh Marketing" or "Oh Michigan" where he is from. Anyway, he gave me a particularly hard time about our men's defeat to the US last weekend and we have a bet on for the Gold medal game. The mittens were much coveted (as they are awesome! thank you to my second home in Oakville for giving them to me)

I'm not quite sure what to do to watch the game tomorrow. I'm sure many bars will be showing it, but where to find sympathetic supporters is another question.

This week we also had our role-playing development class. This is where we have to act out asking people for money. It was in interesting exercise, but since it was mostly improv (we didn't have background on the people/corporation/foundation that we were hitting up - so no time to plan an approach etc) I'm not sure entirely of practical it was. We were paired up and I was with Damion - we both have theatre backgrounds and have no issue with speaking in public or making stuff up on our feet, so we did really well. It was helpful to discuss after where people could have improved or areas that they should have focused on - I was a little surprised at how bad some people were, but I think this may have had more to do with their general lack of comfort with the public speaking element. I hope so at least or they haven't been paying attention these last six months!

And in general I'm happy to have made it through week one of our McNally celebration. This week coming the second show starts rehearsals so it's just going to get busier. So far (touchwood) I seem to have found my groove with the actors and director. I'm not feeling the stage management love at this point and I'm trying to think that they are all anti-social and anal retentive but frankly that's where I'm leaning. Everyone keeps saying how great they are - and maybe they are...for DC. Where I'm from, we don't need 3 stage managers to put up a straight play with four actors in a 450 seat house ( TWO weeks of prep as well). Where we then have to find someone else to run lines with the understudies because all 3 are needed in the rehearsal hall at every moment. We also wouldn't hire 4 designers, all of whom need assistants because of their scheduling issues. Again for a 450 seat house.

But maybe that's just me.

Tonight instead of watching the women's gold medal hockey game, I went to see what turned out to be probably one of the worst productions of Sweeney Todd ever produced. It was at Signature Theatre in Arlington - well the Shirlington neighbourhood of Arlington which is completely unreachable by public transit. It is also a bit like Pleasantville. Seriously, it was a completely planned community. So it feels very much like everything is where it should be and is very neat and tidy and not having public transit keeps the poor people away. I went with the other members of the theatre department which was actually kinda fun. Also, at the show, I was sitting next to the theatre critic for the Washington Post and we had a lovely conversation. He is very charming and thought I was funny and insightful (how clever he was!!! and so unlike a certain Toronto theatre critic...). At intermission my co-workers and I were discussing the going for dessert option instead of staying for the second act and I suggested it might be inappropriate since we were next to the reviewer, at which point he leaned over and said "go for it. I would if I could". I tell you, it was not a good show! However, we behaved ourselves and stayed. If we'd left, we would have missed the meat carcass bags falling from the ceiling at the curtain call. I wish I was kidding.

I was home in time to watch the end of the women's figure skating, though I couldn't bare to, so I skyped my friend Katherine instead to have her tell me what was happening. Joannie's short program was so moving, I knew I couldn't watch the long program live unless I knew the results. She did so well! I don't know how she managed it, but what a brave girl. I'm just so happy that she won the bronze. Never has a medal been more deserved and harder to achieve. I just want to give her a hug.

I feel a bit like I'm missing the Olympics. Facebook will tell me that a Canadian has won another medal but I won't have seen the event live and can't find it on the NBC website (go figure, tonight when I looked it was like women's ski cross didn't exist...interesting). I'm going to try and find somewhere to watch the women's hockey final on Thursday.

Today went pretty well overall. First days are always a bit weird but I tried to make some inroads with the cast and get them to warm up to me a bit. The stage management/company management dynamic here is odd - I think it's a KC thing not an American thing but it certainly isn't what I'm used to. They are very big on hierarchy here which is a bit annoying- except that I've never really had any respect for authority so I'm just trying to do my thing, get stuff done and not make a fuss. People are also very big on making a show that they are doing things. A trait that I hate a lot. I'm also discovering again and again how big companies and institutions don't necessarily have the best people working for them. Often they have very mediocre people who can drift simply because the place is so big. I seem to be working with a number of people currently who really aren't so good at their jobs (this is not the first time of course...) and it's a little disappointing (not to mention frustrating). An example. Someone (NOT me) was supposed to invite our CEO to today's first read thru Someone "didn't get around to it". Seriously? how is it possible that you are still employed...

Today I was happy for - a) the new rubber boots I bought yesterday at Target (good things come to all those who shop at Target). Yes, I have rubber boots in a closet at Laurie's house but the cost of shipping them to me here would have likely been about 4x the cost of a new pair. And it's pouring with rain out and we still have 8ft of snow which is quickly turning into flood water. So I bought a new pair (black with multi-coloured polka dots. Would not have been my first choice, but Gail-like enough to do under the circumstances - and only $20).

b) absolutely no line up at Trader Joe's. I didn't think it was possible - it was like a little rain miracle.

That's about it. I'm trying to look on the bright side but it's been an exhausting week what with one thing and another (I didn't tell you about the whole roommate using every single vegetable that I'd bought thinking that her boyfriend had picked them up. She's sweet and stupid and god, I cannot, cannot wait until I have my own place again. Please let me find fruitful work quickly that allows me to live on my own!!) (I also didn't tell you about one of the fellows pouring red wine on the head of another fellow at a party Saturday night for no apparent reason and how I seem to end up being den mother in these situations which is really just very tiring). So yeah.

Tomorrow is the first day of rehearsal for the first of 3 plays that I'm working on. I'm a bit anxious but I think it will all be fine ultimately. I just have to keep doing what I do and I'm sure that will be enough...

Our Embassy is Lame

Which really shouldn't be too surprising. Okay, so there were people checking off names as we walked in and looking at ID, though my one friend forgot his photo ID (though I'd reminded them all about 12 times) and the woman at the door looked at me (as the Canadian in my group) and said if I vouched for him, he could just go in!! And while we did have metal detectors they were set up in such a way that there was about 10 feet on the one side where you could just walk around them and get in. In fact, the way we entered we had to go back through this gap to get to the main party room. No wonder Americans think all their terrorists come across our borders.

The main party room looked like a high school gym. It felt like a high school gym and pretty much smelled like a senior prom. Bob Rae was there though! Fun. I announced to my friends "Bob Rae's here!" and of course they looked at me blankly. A couple of other people looked vaguely familiar but I couldn't place them. There were 3 rooms where you could watch the game - what seemed to be the staff cafeteria where most of the families were, the gym area which was the biggest room and certainly the youngest crowd, and then the theatre in the basement. We rotated between them for most of the night. And I was told off twice for using my cell phone (I was just reading a text message!) and I thought, it's a hockey game, not a prime ministerial address of some sort! And maybe they should actually pay attention to whose coming in the front doors instead harassing me for looking at my phone...

I'm almost too embarrassed to talk about the food. At first it was okay - mini-hamburgers and your basic veggie platter, boring but fine. Then there were some little quiches (yummy). Then it got weird - deep fried salmon cubes. Yes, cubes. Obviously I didn't have these - apparently they were pretty revolting. But the best was at the end of the night when they brought out platters of pizza buns. Yup, the leftover hamburger buns with tomato sauce and shredded cheese! Not even baked or toasted or anything. I should have taken a picture, but I was too horrified. Like did someone's mom from Saskatchewan cater this thing?

Of course we also lost the hockey game which sucked. I was stunned by the numbers cheering for the US. I suppose everyone had brought Americans with them, but I had instructed mine that they had to cheer for Canada! And they tried to at least. I thought it was a bit arrogant to yell and scream and jump up and down in someone else's Embassy...

Anyway, I'm glad to have seen the place but wow, I can't imagine how bad our other embassies are if this one is anything to go by. As I'm assuming our best people are in DC...

Meanwhile, I let my friend Joel model my Olympic mitts as you will see below...