I Have Lunch With Jace

At work I was busily shelving product, Thursday being freight day, when Jace came in and gave me a hug. "I wanted to congratulate you again on your wonderful monologue last night. It was perfect in every way!" Well, gosh. Indeed, I was inclined to make arabesques on the floor with my shoe, such was my modesty.

A while later I was told to go to lunch and descended the stairs to find Jace finishing off her decaf latte and about to begin an incredibly rich looking dessert. I joined her and within moments Barret had whisked a Stewart's root beer in front of me. That's service. I decided on the beef ravioli with marinara sauce which turned out to be most excellent.

Jace and I went over the previous night's performances. She said that my first Henry Higgins monolgue was "Spot-on. You had everything down from your delivery, your gestures, you're nuances. You were in character from the moment you began and you stayed in character. Now you need to raise your other monologues to that level." Jace said that I need only do the first Higgins monologue every other week. "I want to keep it at that level and I don't want it to get stale."

We discussed monologues from Richard III and perhaps something comic from Shakespeare such as the fool in King Lear or Jacques from ... whatever play Jacques is in, I forget. There's also the constable from Much Ado About Nothing who confuses everyone with his malaprops. Now that would be fun!

The conversation ranged wide and far as conversations always do with Jace. I like that about her. We discussed graphology, Victorian etiquette manuals, The Godfather films, Bill Murray and photography. I think of Jace as a favourite cousin or a younger aunt. Older than myself, but still quite fun and easy to be around.

Speaking of lunch, the other day I was once again downstairs, Mary having placed the Stewart's root beer at my usual table moments before I was seated, and found the Downtown Conspirators at a larger booth: the Shoe Woman, the Mouthpiece and the Trinket Seller. These are the Big Three who got our Farmer's Market relocated from central downtown to the courthouse parking lot through some legal manuevering which, to my mind, was nothing more than claiming that someone with the Farmer's Market didn't cross the T or dot the I when they filled out an application months before. They are once again embroiled in some Downtown Imbroglio. I couldn't follow what they were plotting this time except that someone, a local merchant whom I gathered they were at odds with, would want "full disclosure." Well, whatever. I gather the Trinket Seller is now complaining that her business is down because the pro-farmer's market people are boycotting her business. A few months ago her business was down because of the farmer's market: people were buying vegetables, not over priced trinkets. Perhaps her business is down because ... she sells over priced trinkets. Or perhaps she, as the instegator of the Farmer's Market bum's rush, is reaping what she's sown. One never knows, do one?