WAY UP NORTH

I'm going to be out of the country for the next couple of days, so don't be concerned when there's no new Worzala's Wednesday Word tomorrow. I'll be in lovely, scenic, freezing Canada for a wedding. At least I hope to be. Apparently in some sort of "stay away" gesture, the highway we're taking from Minnesota up into Canada (motto: We play more Hockey by 8 a.m. Then You Do All Day) runs right along Lake Superior in a spot lovingly known as "The Ridge". Nothing like driving along the largest of the Great Lakes in the middle of winter. Looking on the plus side, if anything DOES go wrong, the Walruses will probably eat us before we drown/die of exposure. (Just kidding of course, everyone knows it's Walri)

So I'll be in Thunder Bay from Wednesday through Friday. Then it's a weekend filled with my girlfriend's birthday, New Years celebrations and the Wisconsin Badgers absolutely manhandling the Arkansas Razorbacks.

I just want to say to all of you thank you very much for reading this compilation of columns and rants over the last 11 months and for *ahem* clicking on the ads. Coming up on my writing docket I've got two pieces prepared for our theatre's One Act Festival (formally known as The One Act Scrapheap... which apparently didn't appeal to people. Junkyards must hold more of a negative connotation than we originally thought) and chances appear good that I'll also have something in the '07/'08 theater season. Now I just have to figure out what. Right now I've got... well we'll keep the musicals out of the figuring, and we'll limit myself to just one western, so I have five different ideas. And they're all genius, at least in my head. At the same time, they're all complete crap that pack the exciting one-two punch of being boring and difficult to stage. How the heck do you do a Western on stage? Can Horses be trained to hit entrance cues?

On the third hand, who would have thought we could pull off an earthquake? So there's nothing that can't be done. (maybe peanut butter would work)

It's 10 hours to Thunder Bay and 10 hours back, plenty of time to start hacking out a first scene or two. Time to grab the old shovel and start flinging things against the wall until they stick. Unless my girlfriend wants to do something crazy like, I don't know, carry on a conversation or something.

Happy New Year to all of you, the loyal readers, who help make this worthwhile. Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate and for those of you who don't, I hope you had very enjoyable time swapping Solstice logs and potato pancakes. Mmmm... potato pancakes. I wonder if Canada has those...