Finishing things

"Do you always have to open graves to find girls you're interested in?"--The Mummy

"I never want to receive a present without giving something in return.  Here's a penny"--The Wolfman

I've been busy the past few days.  Today I finally finished digging up the potatoes, despite the drizzle which made the soil stick to the spuds. (It was like that scene in the Tess of the D'Urbervilles movie where they were digging potatoes in really miserable weather!) We had a pretty good haul, though only a few were really big.  I've also been digging through the roots in the planter soil, which is good enough to expand the garden next year.

Today I also finished Henry James' The Europeans.  I fear I didn't pay enough attention at times as I was reading it.  It was brave of James Ivory to make it into a movie:  it's hardly the most cinematic of books.

Wednesday I went to a double bill of The Mummy and The Wolfman.  The latter movie had a lot of film nourish effects.

Thursday night I had to Meetup events overlapping.  I went to the Art Meetup early, and fortunately I worked pretty quick, producing a picture with three trees (a peach tree, a fir and a poplar), with grass on the bottom and the sun, clouds and a mountain in the background.  I left early enough that I was practically on time for the non-fiction book club, where we discussed Paris 1919.  There were some digressions involving the Cold War and Israel.

Election day

Yesterday I went to the Hellenic Home and voted in the morning. (It gave me a reason to get up earlier.) Personally, I think that urging people to vote, without telling them whom to vote for, is lame.  If people don't care, they don't care.

At choir practice that night, we did "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year," which came out in 1963 along with "Do You Hear What I Hear?":  the last two classic Christmas songs. (No, I'm not counting "Do They Know It's Christmas?" or "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.") I have to admit it's a pretty good song.  At one point the sopranos and basses strike a note of dissonance, which makes me uncomfortable.  Even if I'm singing it right, it doesn't feel right to me.

During a break in the middle of choir practice I went out into the hall and saw a TV set that told me John Tory had been elected mayor.  Someone said that Olivia Chow was a poor debater, but I think it's more that people just wouldn't listen to her.  I have a feeling that people had their minds made up before the first debate. That Toronto Sun cartoon showing her trying to ride on her late husband's coattails was as unfair as it was witless.

After choir practice, I tried to make a belated appearance at  Chow's post-election gathering, but I couldn't find the place.  It turns out that I thought it was on Dundas St. East, when it was actually on Dundas St. West!

Today I made a start on harvesting the potatoes in the garden.  I've already found a couple of nice big ones.  And I began a new computer game called Forge of Empires. (I'm a sucker for games where you start with a primitive village and gradually turn it into a modern city.)

Scrabble Meetup

Last night I went to a new Scrabble Meetup at Grace's house.  I picked up a "Z" tile near the end of my first game--uh-oh Spaghetti O's!--but I managed to place it on a double score and won!  For my second game we didn't keep score, and I'm just as happy doing things that way.

We also had a potluck dinner. (I brought a cinnamon ring.) Someone brought fettuccine with pesto sauce, and that was my favourite.  I hope we have more of these events!

Yesterday I also had a good day at the acting class.  I figured out how to avoid repetition in the singing exercise, by moving my arms around in a lot of different ways.  We did a lot of improvisation, and I came up with some very original stuff. (I was telling my girlfriend that I planned to blow up the Washington Monument and leave a big insurance policy in her name.)

At the Chinese art class today we did plum blossoms and grapes.  With the grape leaves I took on the new challenge of filling the outline with a green color that was pale enough not to dominate.

On Friday I went to Scotiabank and made an appointment for next week to discuss putting my money in a Henson trust. (Father will come too.) I also went to Target and bought another shirt, this time red on white.

THE EUROPEANS

"It's the darkest day of my life--and you know what that means." "Wait until tomorrow"--The Europeans

Last night I finally finished Paris 1919.  I've always thought the Treaty of Versailles got a worse rap than it deserved, and Margaret MacMillan seems to agree.  The book increased my sympathy for Woodrow Wilson, rigid and inept as he could be at important moments.  At least he had a vision for world peace that might have worked.

Today I went to the Northern District branch and borrowed Henry James' The Europeans.  I have just under three weeks to read it before the Classic Book Club meets, but fortunately it's fairly short.  The title character are a brother and sister born in Europe to an American mother and a father with American parents, who've now moved to Massachusetts.  It reminds me of A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries. (Both books were filmed by James Ivory.)

At choir practice the other night we did two new pieces: "Christmas Chopsticks" and the Basque Christmas carol "The Angel Gabriel From Heaven Came." Beatrice really liked my gingerbread.

Today I went to see Nancy V. at her apartment.  She organized the Crossword Meetup--unlike Nancy M. my acting teacher--but had to quit because the fees were too high. (I suggested she start a Facebook group.) Today she was hosting a Celebration of Mind Event, one of several worldwide events honouring the mathematician Martin Gardner.  She was giving away quite a few puzzle books and stuff once again, and I'd brought the latest Games magazine in hope of giving her something in exchange, but alas, she already had a copy.  In the end she gave me so much stuff that I needed a couple of tote bags!  She also gave me a Pierre Berton memoir and the book Why I Hate Canadians.  We already had a copy, but coincidentally Father sold it off today!

I sometimes get work done

Yesterday I helped Father move some heavy slabs from the back yard to the front. (We've taken down the fence and the slabs will be part of a terrace next to the sidewalk.) I also used the pickaxe to finally shift the beams in our back yard's diamond-shaped planter, which we're going to level.  But I still have the potatoes to harvest.

Today I finished my Olivia Chow leafleting along Millwood and Davisville avenues.  I skipped lunch--a bad habit of mine these days--to make sure I had time to finish.  And I had to tell Tsering that I had no more time for volunteering.

Late in the evening I baked gingerbread to bring to choir practice Monday. (I could have waited till Sunday night and it would have been fresher, but leaving things to the last minute is asking for trouble.) I was going to bring it the previous week, but completely forgot about it, as happened last spring too.

I've made another breakthrough in the Facebook game Tribez.  I wanted to build a polonarium factory in Piedmont Lands, but I needed to build a special part in this building that I can't yet open, presumably because the mission of finishing the props is taking forever.  Then I realize I could spend a few gems--bought with real money--and buy the part directly.

Indian summer

The weather was so mild today that I actually walked to choir rehearsal!  We've started bringing up the sets from the basement, and Beatrice was amused when I told her I'd written a piece for my memoir group predicting that the end of the world would resemble the basement of the Bickford Centre, when we've produced so much junk that it'll overwhelm us.

Sunday was the latest ROLT.  This event was "Spine Tinglers," about scary writing.  Eight people had said they were coming so I made a reservation for five, and three people showed up.  But Jane was there, reading the last chapter of Patricia Highsmith's Ripley Under Water.

I read one of Hilaire Belloc's Cautionary Tales, "Matilda who Told Lies and Was Burned to Death." (The book was illustrated by Edward Gorey.) I read H.P. Lovecraft's "The Cats of Ulthar," from the magic issue of Lapham's Quarterly.  I read Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death," which inevitably reminded me of the Ebola epidemic.  

And I read Jack London's story "In a Far Country," about two guys stuck in a cabin in a Yukon winter descending into madness.  Jane said it needed editing down.  The night before I went online to trace the journey they'd been on, which took an almost circular course!  There's a mention of the Rat River, which later produced Albert Johnson the "Mad Trapper."

Donald came over for Thanksgiving dinner and fixed our modem so now we can watch Netflix on the big TV again.

In translating Fukurou Castle I came across one of those Japanese words that are very hard to translate into English:  "rinsetsu" means an expression so stern that people respond with awe.

Fukurou Castle

Having completed a couple more chapters of that Chinese novel, I've returned to translating that Japanese novel Fukurow Castle. (It's about ninjas in the warlord era.) Translation is fun for me, like doing a puzzle.  My current chapter is especially challenging because it's about historical background.  There's talk about Yoshitsune, except he goes by a different name here, and it took Wikipedia to clue me in.  Sort of like the Emperor they used to call Hirohito is now called Shouwa posthumously.

Wednesday afternoon I finally got back to leafleting for Olivia Chow.  I was doing it along Belsize Avenue, but got lost.  The east-west streets were where I expected, but the north-south streets were all different from the map.  Where was Mount Pleasant street?  I expected it to be at the right end of the map, but I finally figured out it was on the west end. (Was my face red!)

The other day I couldn't get my email for over a day.  I eventually figured out it was the same modem trouble that's got in the way of our watching Netflix on the big TV.  Last night I finally opened my email on the downstairs computer, and today my computer's connection came back. (But we still have the Netflix trouble.)

We've just been watching the David Starkey documentary series, which Moira got from the library, about the historical relationship between English kings and English music.  I can't wait for the next episode, when they get to Handel!

In that book Paris 1919, I've just got to the part about Japan and China.  I should be especially interested in that part.

The weather is cooler.  I'm now wearing sweaters, and just brought my autumn coat downstairs.  It's time to dig up the potatoes, but I have laziness to overcome.

BORGEN

There's a technical problem that prevents us from watching Netflix on the big TV. (We keep getting a message about "network interference.") It looks like this time we will need Donald to figure it out.  In the meantime we're renting DVDs from 2Q to make up for our lost entertainment, so we've started watching the third season of Borgen.  This time Birgitte is starting a new political party!

At yesterday's acting class Martha came and did her Marion Bridge monologue in preparation for an audition next week, where she's out for a role as Lizzie Borden's sister. And we did the scene from My Best Friend's Wedding where Julia Roberts got her gay friend Rupert Everett to pose as her boyfriend to make her true heartthrob jealous and win him back from his fiancee. (These Julia Roberts romantic comedy vehicles tend to have plots that require her to act childishly!) I had Dermot Mulroney's heartthrob role.  When I told Moira about it, she wanted to rent the movie again, which I've never seen.  I've seen very few Julia Roberts movies, and mostly with her in supporting roles.

This afternoon was the latest Classic Book Club event at the Victory Cafe.  We talked about Balzac's Pere Goriot.  Twelve people said they were coming, so I made the reservation for six, and three people showed up. (John Snow would have been there, but he took sick.) Bernard was impressed when I guessed that he was from Mauritius:  his surname looked so exotic that I'd Googled it!

Our next event will be on November 16th, and we'll be discussing Henry James' The Europeans.  I decided that the following event should be ten weeks later, on January 25, and that we should read a moderately long book. (For a thousand-page book like some of Dickens' novels, we'll have two consecutive events.) We considered stuff like Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Dreiser's Sister Carrie, but I've decided I prefer Melville's Moby-Dick, because the other ones are too much like Pere Goriot.

This evening I got sick.  It must have been a combination of the home fries I had with lunch at the Victory Cafe--I always order lunch there in appreciation of our reservation--and the pizza we had for dinner.  I actually had to leave the room toward the end of the Borgen episode we were watching, though of course I was able to return and look at that part again.  And I burnt my mouth on the pizza:  the gum just over my upper front teeth, as usual.