A wedding

"Those people who were previously in the habit of complaining about the ever-increasing traffic problems, pedestrians who, at first sight, appeared not to know where they were going because the cars, stationary or moving, were constantly impeding their progress, drivers who having gone around the block countless times before finally finding a place to park their car, became pedestrians and started protesting for the same reasons, after having first voiced their own complaints, all of them must now be content, except for the obvious fact that, since there was no one left who dared to drive a vehicle, not even to get from A to B, the cars, trucks, motorbikes, even the bicycles, were scattered chaotically throughout the entire city, abandoned wherever fear had gained the upper hand over any sense of property, as evidenced by the grotesque sight of a tow-away vehicle with a car suspended from the front axle, probably the first man to turn blind had been the truck driver"--Jose Saramago, Blindness

 

I'm in a good mood just now.  I've been getting several things done the past few days. (I'm in a good mood whenever I have much to write about here.)

On Thursday I visited Dr. Hassan and in the evening went on Betty-Anne's art walk.  We were at the premiere of an exhibition of Joseph Connelly paintings of abstracts and flowers. (I liked the flowers painting with trees and clouds in the background.) We even got to talk to Connelly himself!

Friday I got a filling at the dentist.  I was scheduled for the afternoon, but there were a couple of morning cancellations and Dr. Hrabalova wanted to end early, so I agreed to do it in the morning.  The sooner started, the sooner finished!

Saturday afternoon I went to the Play Read-Through Meetup and we did Arthur Miller's great play The Crucible.  I had to leave early because of the next event, but I'm going to find the text in the library and read the last act I missed, along with some prologue stuff we had to skip over.

Then I went to John Snow's wedding at City Hall to his longtime companion Rene. (I've hardly ever been to straight weddings even!) I  gave them the coffee table book 100 Years of American Comics as a wedding present, as I happened to have two copies of it!  Mother once told me she didn't care for weddings.

 

Afterward we had dinner at the Hot House, where I ordered the salmon fillet.  I was sitting next to Gaby, whom I hadn't seen for months, and we got to talk a lot (by my standards anyway).  I might have ordered tiramisu for dessert, but I had a bit of a headache and wanted to finish up.

Someone else I hadn't seen for months was Bev, and last week I finally got around to emailing her.  I mentioned my next Reading Out Loud Meetup event, and she was interested enough to come! (She brought a Halloween lamp.)

That event was today, and titled "Skin Crawlers":  scary stories for Halloween.  Twelve people showed up, one of our best turnouts ever!  A lot of people said they enjoyed it.  I read the Scottish ballads "The Twa Corbies" and "The Cruel Sister," originally collected by Walter Scott, and C.S. Forester's "The Turn of the Tide." (The latter was from Murder, Short and Sweet, an anthology of murder stories that I found in the library.) I also gave Malcolm and Bev two more items to read:  Roald Dahl's "Lamb to the Slaughter," from the same collection, and Robert Southey's poem "Bishop Hatto." Bev says she'll be coming again.

In addition, I finally finished the disaster issue of Lapham's Quarterly, where I read the Saramago quote.  And I finally passed Level 254 of Candy Crush Saga, which was a real bearcat! (My friend Blanche has been stuck there.)

In Duolingo today I was learning Portuguese medical words!