Twelve things on returning from Ashland

1. I just became a member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
2. You should totally come next year.
3. There was a corgi cameo in The Taming of the Shrew.
4. I already have some favorite actors.
5. I’d forgotten that one characteristic of an effective stage actor is oversized hands; their gestures are more easily read from the back row.
6. On the backstage tour, I didn’t ask the question I most wanted to ask: “So, what’s the story on the dusty rubber ducky in the green room?”
7. There’s always somebody on the backstage tour whose questions make you cringe.
8. On the other hand, without the cringe-worthy questions we would never have learned that one particular actor’s nightmare is to perform in soccer uniform.
9. I will only change two things for next year; stay somewhere downtown, and buy a real city map.
10. Ashland to Portland is a four-hour drive if you’re sufficiently lead-footed. I’m not saying, I’m just saying.
11. Of course, in the hotel we ended up watching Animal Planet again, this time one about a leopard being reunited with her cub. He greeted her with many affectionate nips. I said, “See? Snag loves us. He does the exact same thing.”
12. And he is.