Blind Date - a must see

A unique and delightful theatrical experience last night - I urge those of you within reach of Harbourfront in Toronto to see Blind Date next week, its last week. Blind Date features a lovely young woman in a clown nose - Rebecca Northan, an actress and expert improviser from Calgary. The show opens with her as Mimi, desolate, sitting in a Paris cafe in a stunning red dress with her red clown nose and a pretty good French accent. Her blind date has stood her up, she tells the audience, and then gets an idea ... maybe she'll find a substitute in the crowd. So she picks a young man out of the audience. Northan has done a bit of trolling before the show started so it's not 100% random, but still, it's a huge risk. She brings a complete stranger on stage, and the date begins.

Last night, Jordan was at first impossibly stiff, awkward, self-centered - hopelessly inept. You realise that Northan has two jobs - one is to teach a non-actor how to improvise - how to commit to the theatrical fantasy both are weaving, rather than bailing out with laughter or inappropriate behaviour. Last night, she taught a self-conscious man how to pay attention, listen, be in the moment; how to act. But she also gave him lessons in how to be a good boyfriend - how to pay attention and listen specifically to a woman for whom he cares or is learning to care. As their interaction advanced and Northan gently issued her lessons, couples around me were nodding; a couple in front, after vigourous nodding in agreement, started to smooch.

By the end of the date, the scene has shifted to Mimi's bedroom, and we are all waiting to see how far this theatrical adventure will go. And yet, it's always warm and safe, never smutty or sensational. There's only so much you can do with a woman in a clown nose. And at the end, when Mimi tells Jordan why she loves him, it's so surprisingly moving that many, including of course your correspondent, were in tears. Blind date Jordan was relaxed, funny and open, a hundred times more attractive than when he started. You realise that this silly improvised clown show is about the deepest matters: what men and women need and want, what love is, how to trust.

Good improvisation is about saying yes - taking what is offered and finding a way to make it work. Northan manages always to say yes to her dates, to take even their most inappropriate stumbles and turn them into something positive for the show, while maintaining a wicked sense of humour - making us laugh yet keeping to her own truth. A very difficult tightrope to walk, which she navigates with ease. She pushes her men into daring to be themselves, taking that risk in front of hundreds of strangers, and it works because she is obviously a tender, humourous, risk-taking person herself.

My favourite kind of theatre - you laugh, you cry, you walk out a wiser person. Don't miss it.

waist not, want not

A full house here last night - someone in every bedroom and on the sofa too. A new tenant, Mary Fay, a young actress from Halifax, just moved into my spare room, usually called the Vancouver room. Charles still inhabits the top floor, Maggie and her boyfriend live in the basement flat, and last night, my son came for supper, stayed for Jon Stewart and crashed on the couch. It reminded me of the days (and nights) when my kids' friends seemed to live here, and there were bodies everywhere. Live, hungry, noisy bodies. My current guests are quiet, thankfully, and feeding them is not my job. A whole new world.

The weather is unbelievable - so warm and sunny, you'd think you were in some civilised climate and not Canada at all. The heat is scarily inappropriate - ten degrees tomorrow! - but it's hard to stay disapproving for long. I walked to Yonge Street in the sun today, to buy some new jeans. (Everything I wear is from second-hand stores except underwear, shoes, jeans, and fashionable but cheap stuff from Monoprix, in France. And yes, I know it's strange to declare myself a frugalista who flies to France to shop at the equivalent of Woolworth's. Ah well. My right-wing friend Paul has called me a champagne socialist for years. Actually, I'm a Prosecco socialist.)

Anyway, some months ago, still under the influence of sensible French eating, I went jeans-shopping at Gap with my daughter and came home with a pair of size 4 jeans. Even as I paraded about in them, I knew this was absurd - size 4? Who are we kidding? I'm not eating THAT sensibly. Must be a special new kind of sizing to flatter the middle-aged. And though not as low-rise as hers, they were still low enough that I always had to tuck in my stomach when wearing them. Tiresome.

Anyway, I am in full carb-loading-to-survive-winter mode, and the little jeans hurt. As my mother-in-law used to quip, "My shoe size is an 8, but a 10 feels sooo good." So I went to the Levi's store on Yonge Street and poured myself into a bigger pair. And what a pair - designed, obviously, for bulging old farts, they're a deliciously stretchy design called Figure Enhancers. "Perfectly slimming," says the tag. "Flattens your tummy and slims your shape. Sits at waist." That's the important part - SITS AT WAIST. Despite the usual teeny tiny zipper, they rise up to the waist like real pants, not like the silly, shrunken, stick figure suck-in-your-gut muffin-top pants. They hold the belly IN, not force it to dangle over the waist band. All that spandex molds the folds. What a marvel, eh? We boomers now get geriatric Levis.

I think Stephen Harper brought in a budget today. Luckily, I was too busy trying to do up the teeny tiny zipper of my new magic high-rise pants to pay the slightest attention.

P.D. James is flying home

Just heard the mystery writer, Baroness P.D. James, talking to Jian Gomeshi on CBC. She was a marvel of warmth and graciousness. "It's construction," she said about successful novels of any kind. "That's why I admire Jane Austen. Emma is the best constructed novel in the English language, I think."

At the end, he commented that she was now 90; would that affect her output? She said that yes, perhaps she might have finished with her time-consuming detective novels. "Writers have go on writing," she said. "That's what they do. I might write something shorter, in the hopes that I'd have time to finish it. Before it's time to fold up my tray table and fasten my seat belt and ... hope for a soft landing." And she laughed.

It's been a very good flight for this Baroness, chair of the Booker committee with honourary degrees from 6 universities. Not bad for a mere mystery novel writer. And more, she hopes, to come.

Suddenly, the fact that I am turning 60 this year seems like nothing. 60 - piffle! P.D. James at 90, full of youth and energy and humour. As was my friend Muriel Duckworth, at 100. Such role models.

So I'm going to take my perky self outside today - it's 4 degrees and sunny with a bright blue sky. Time to stride vigourously about, feeling very, very young.

hockey report from Vancouver

Chris wrote from Vancouver about his Sunday, the day of the Canada- U.S. hockey game, which, by the way, broke the viewing records - at some point, 80% of this country tuned in to the game, and more than 16 million Canadians and 27 million Americans watched it all. In Toronto, crowds flooded downtown and paralysed Yonge Street for hours. And in Vancouver, Chris, who had breakfast with one friend and then walked across the bridge to have dinner with another, wrote,

On the way to breakfast, AT EVERY BAR AND RESTAURANT WE PASSED, there was a line up of people dressed in red waiting to get in. When, after eating, I went to the washroom, I was shocked to see the pub and lobby of where we were PACKED with people watching TVs. There were TVs throughout the restaurant so everyone could watch the game. The streets were empty. Flags hung from every balcony. Clearly, virtually everyone in Canada was watching the game.

In my house for a quick change before leaving, I heard this DEAFENING roar coming from the city and I knew we had scored a goal. I headed off to walk to my friends in North Van. When I reached Denman and Davie, I heard another deafening roar and I knew we had scored again. The whole city was shaking.Then I headed into Stanley Park.

When I got to Prospect Point in the park, there was not a soul there. That is something I have never seen. The staff told me the score was 2-to-1 for Canada and I headed over the bridge. At Park Royal on the other side, I heard it was still 2-to-1 and that there were only 2 minutes left in the game. I walked thinking, I will know in a few minutes because cars will be coming by honking their horns when we win. But that did not happen. At 14th and Marine, I went into a 711 store and heard we were going into overtime, that the US had scored in the final seconds.

As I reached John and Bunny's place, literally as I was crossing the street to their driveway, I heard the ships' horns in the harbour sounding and I knew we had won. John came running out and hurried me in to see the replay of Sidney Crosby's winning goal, and I saw what I like most—the celebration.

After dinner, when my bus home hit Georgia Street, I knew I was in trouble; you could see the flashing lights up ahead. The cacophony was deafening. I walked dodging the BILLIONS of people on the street. Traffic could not move. There was citizen anarchy on the roads—people were in control. Cars were idle. Horns were honking and it was about 9:15.

I made my way home and the noise from the streets was deafening and it lasted until 3:00 am when I finally took an Atavan so I could sleep. Vancouver partied like never before last night.

Now we have a break until March 12th when the Paralympics begin.

retirement? no way.

Just sat listening to the CBC morning radio program with tears pouring down my cheeks. Andy Barrie is leaving after 15 years as host of the early morning program; today's show honoured him and greeted his successor, a cheery young local man called Matt Galloway. Moxy Fruvous were there to sing a wonderful song about Andy to the tune of the 50's hit "Venus." "Would you get really mad/if we were to call you Dad?"

Jill Dempsey spoke to Andy's 93-year old mother in New York, and his daughter, a doctor in Albuquerque; both told us what we already know, that he's a great man, a loving son and father. We all know that Andy's beloved wife died some time ago, and that he himself has been diagnosed with Parkinson's. He is warm, humourous, highly intelligent - a great companion. I regret that I so rarely listened to the radio in the morning. This morning, it was like being part of a big friendly club, which is how the CBC used to feel all the time.

I auditioned, once, for a job there, and spent an entire day moving from one studio to the next, reading news and weather copy for the then producer of the morning program. He spoke about hiring me, and suddenly I realised what that meant. Jill Dempsey spends every weekday morning at a small central desk in the middle of hundreds of busy people, waiting for her moments to read at the mike; she watches the clock constantly because at odd times - 6.42, 7.15, 8.33 - she is required in Studio A or B with this or that copy. It is the least private and most fractured of lives, and I realised that I would go mad.

But to those who do the work, many thanks; you do us a great service. I wrote once in an article about Gzowski that when listening to him, I felt like a kindergarten kid following the teacher on a walk, hanging onto a piece of string with all the others so we wouldn't get lost. Here too, in the city of Toronto, we followed a great teacher, hanging onto the ribbon of his voice. He'll be much missed. I wish him joy in his retirement.

Speaking of joy in retirement, my dear friend Denis, from Provence, retired from his practice as a psychologist in December, and next week will leave for a month in Haiti, to work as a psychologist with Handicap International. What an extraordinary adventure. This is exactly why he took retirement, not to sit still, for once in his life, but to have ever greater adventures.

I wish the same for Andy.