It's a fiddley day today, but someone has to cope with it. Booking tickets is bad enough but adding other people into the mix, then it's like herding cats. This is when it would be lovely to have a clone, or a secretary, personal assistant or wife to look after the details.

Well, I had a friend whose husband encouraged her to look after the details, even though he had a secretary. He thought it would be good for her to get used to doing it before he died. Guess what? She died first.

I can remember a terrible selfish pang of pain or jealousy a few months after my husband died when I was visiting friends and we were going to a party together and when we were ready to leave the house, my friend slipped her lipstick into her husband's pocket. That's all she needed. No keys, no driver's license, no money, nothing. Just her husband's strong arm and generous pocket. I had always taken them for granted until I started coping entirely by myself, 24/7, as they say.

I'm planning a number of different events and trips and if they don't work out, I have only myself to blame. When I do goof I make a note not to do that again. But there's always something else and that's annoying, too, something you overlooked or forgot or thought maybe it would work out. but it doesn't. It never does. I hate those movies where things go wrong. They're billed as comedies but they're not, they're reality shows. I hate reality shows.

I hate fiddleys.

I met someone today who has not read (or seen) King Lear. I know, I know. Lots of people haven't. It's just I don't know them. I wish I did. I remember when my oldest daughter was about seven, I took her to the dress rehearsal of Romeo and Juliet at the Manitoba Theatre Centre. As the story unfolded and the letter from the Friar to Romeo went awry and the audience realizes that he won't know that Juliet is alive and that all sorts of terrible things will happen, Liz clutched my arm and said in anguish: "You mean....?" I was thrilled, too, so fortunate to share her discovery.

Years later, we (the Stratford company) took a production of Hamlet to Chicago and opened the dress rehearsal to university students. In the fencing scene near the end, when Queen Gertrude lifts the goblet with the poisoned wine to toast Prince Hamlet, the young audience gasped in collective apprehension. The Queen is going to die! I was thrilled to share their discovery.

Yeah, Shakespeare. You know the story of the businessman who took his young secretary to see a production of Hamlet (what was he thinking?). After it was over, he asked how she liked it. "Okay, " she said, "but it was full of cliches."

Yay, Shakespeare.

Here's to fresh audiences and fresh discoveries.