The largest and longest running Fringe festival in North America celebrates it’s 28th year in Edmonton this week.

With Drew away on exercise I’m spending a lot of my Fringe time alone this year. A large part of me misses his company. Most especially when there are many hours to burn between plays & I’ve already spent the bulk of 3 days watching street performers and other artisans. The other part – the ticket buying one – is glad he’s not here. His absence means I can go to twice the number of shows on the budget I set. I don’t even want to contemplate how expensive this past weekend would have been if Drew & his bottomless pit of a stomach were here.

I have to work during the week so I can’t spend every night closing out the Fringe and attending Die-Nasty. I have to make due with catching only four episodes on opening & closing weekends of the Fringe. On the bright side I have been able to introduce some Die-Nasty virgins to the show this year. I brought my neighbour J with me on Friday and met Loxley for the show on Saturday.

I know. I was shocked as you are. Who knew Loxley was a Die-Nasty virgin?

Saturday afternoon I caught Lysistrata and enjoyed it immensely. I wasn’t expecting the show to be quite as raunchy in dialog but it worked well and the actors were excellent.

Today I’m taking in three shows. My afternoon began with The Oculist’s Holiday which was well written and acted. The surprisingly touching ending tugged at the heart-strings. Perhaps my recent Psychology studies made me a bit more succeptable but Jeff Haslam’s last few minutes on stage were haunting and unforgettable.

Sadly one of the plays I knew the least about but was very much looking forward to seeing, Space, really didn’t appeal too much in the telling. As always, Mark Meer stole the scenes he was in. I am continually impressed with his flexibility and talent.

In a few hours I’ll be ending off my evening with Sherlock Holmes: the Musical. I don’t know much about it but do know someone who performed the role of Watson in the show (different theatre company) who’s pretty certain I’ll enjoy it. It’s Sherlock Holmes with singing. What’s not to love?

With work beconing the rest of the week is pretty light on shows. Loxley & I are going to see Rocky Horror performed on Tuesday evening. Then I won’t return to the Fringe grounds until Closing weekend. Too soon it ends.

Someday I’ll talk to Drew about going to the Edinburg Fringe festival. Crowds can’t possibly be as bad there as they were at Comic Con. Can they?

Note: Written on iPhone while roaming Fringe grounds between shows.

We’re off to the first half of the #twilightYEG fundraiser this evening. The actual ticketed event is taking place next Wednesday evening but today we’re having a special pre-event at LUX Steakhouse during our normal #yegSafetyMtg. Tips made by guest bartenders for a few hours this evening are being donated to the fundraiser.

Yeah. I know. If you don’t tweet the above sentences make little sense. Course, you don’t need to tweet to help raise funds for a great cause. #twilightYEG’s goal is to raise $3000 for the Royal LePage Shelter Foundation. Proceeds from the events go to local women’s shelter(s).

This has been a pretty productive week for #yeg charities. @SirThinks responded to the the @yegfoodbank‘s pressing need for lunch items and donated 200 drinking boxes to the cause. He then challenged everyone in the #yeg community to match his donation for other items that could be included in children’s lunches. This morning Drew dropped off 200 peanut-free granola bars to the food bank and we’re keeping the challenge going. Here’s hoping someone else picks up the gauntlet soon.

I’m off to meet Drew, @SirThinks and the gang for #twilightYEG (part the first). Hope to see you there – or at #twilightYEG (part the second) on Wednesday.

We’re off causing trouble at blogger’s breakfast.

– Debbie was late so poor Dawn was too.
– Dawn brought eggs.
– I’m hung over and expecting bacon.
– Joy’s admiring Debbie’s new camera.
– We miss Drew and everyone says “hi”.

Late entry to the blog tonight.

Went to my first Edmonton #tweetup with @RobinHoodlum tonight and had a fabulous time. I’d never been to Original Joe‘s before and it was a nice way to spend the evening.

Talk ran off in many directions as many people were from different backgrounds. Geeks all. Loxley was the music geek. We has small business owners. Programmers. Game designers. PR professionals. Journalists. Etc.

Great to finally put some faces to the names. It seems most wore geeky shirts although @Out_Inc‘s had to be one of the best. I wore my “nobody reads my blog” T and babbled about the blogger’s breakfast. People seemed interested in joining in. Get ready Joy – you may meet some blogging tweeps yet.

Had a fabulous time. Just need to get Loxley into Twitter so she’s not the perennial newbie.

Tonight is the time where we go out and stuff ourselves on Latin American food. I’ve written about visiting El Rancho before. It’s a small local restaurant that, I’m told, serves authentic El Salvadorean dishes. Having never been further south than Mexico I’ll have to take other’s word for the authenticity of the food. All I know is that it’s pretty good and always very busy.

Drew is not a fan of one of the spices they put in all their dishes so I only go there when he’s out of town. Tonight I’ll be joined by J & A. A will also be inviting R & R. Let’s hope they can make it on such short notice. It’ll be like a mini-reunion of the gang that I went to the restaurant when Drew was in Montreal.

Apparently I can talk about food on my blog as long as I limit it to food Drew doesn’t like 🙂 So now would be a good time to also mention the “goodbye” lunch I had with Big Momma R on Friday. For ages we’d been collecting recyclables to pay for a meal. WD40 returned the bottles last week and on Friday we headed to Mikado for fabulous sushi and sashimi. Ummm.

They do serve cooked food as well so perhaps Drew would be interested in visiting the restaurant some day. He’s usually willing to snack on a Bento box or order up some warm teriyaki dishes. Me, just keep loading the sashimi on my plate and I’ll be happy.

In non-food related news:

I’m very excited about some upcoming concerts coming to the city. Leonard Cohen is coming to town on April 25th! I’ve been a huge fan of his for decades now and am hoping the tickets for hisshow won’t be too expensive. Ticketmaster doesn’t have tickets for sale yet so we have no idea what the cost will to go see him. It turns out R & R may come with me if we can ever figure out when and where to buy tickets to the show. The timing is great for musical reminiscing. He’ll be in town a few weeks after the Gordon Lightfoot show.

Speaking of Lightfoot, Drew won’t be home to go to the show with me. Guess that’s what I get for buying the tickets before we knew Drew would be leaving. I’m bringing L with me instead. He’s a fan and has always been an awesome to neighbour to us. Taking him song with me to the show seems like the least I can do.

I’m working on my application package for a few positions that will be open next week. And I definitely need to call EI to find out if I will still qualify if I return to school full-time next year. I keep reminding myself that I have only one year left to finish my degree if I go full-time. The answer will make a difference in what I chose to do when the layoff becomes effective.

Now, back to a bit of reading for classes. Homework never seems to end.