"A little after noon I found the sea very calm, and the tyde ebb'd so far out, that I could come within a quarter of a mile of the ship; and here I found a fresh renewing of my grief, for I saw evidently, that if we had kept on board, we had been all safe, that is to say, we had all got safe on shore, and I had not been so miserable as to be left entirely destitute of all comfort and company, as I now was; this forced tears from my eyes again, but as there was little relief in that, I resolv'd, if possible, to get to the ship, so I pull'd off my clothes, for the weather was hot to extremity, and took the water, but when I came to the ship, my difficulty was still greater to know how to get on board, for as she lay a ground, and high out of the water, there was nothing within my reach to lay hold of, I swam round her twice, and the second time I spy'd a small piece of a rope, which I wonder'd I did not see at first, hang down by the fore-chains so low, as that with great difficulty I got hold of it, and by the help of that rope, got up into the fore-castle of the ship, here I found that the ship was bulg'd, and had a great deal of water in her hold, but that she lay so on the side of a bank of hard sand, or rather earth, that her stern lay lifted up upon the bank, and her head low almost to the water; by this means all her quarter was free, and all that was in that part was dry; for you may be sure my first work was to search and to see what was spoil'd and what was free; and first I found that all the ship's provisions were dry and untouch'd by the water, and being very well dispos'd to eat, I went to the bread-room and fill'd my pockets with bisket, and eat it as I went about other things, for I had no time to lose; I also found some rum in the great cabin, of which I took a large dram, and which I had indeed need enough of to spirit me for what was before me: Now I wanted nothing but a boat to furnish my self with many things which I foresaw would be very necessary to me"--Robinson Crusoe (notice the continuity error?)
John got another dumpster and we've been filling it with wood, drywall and cement from the house renovation, as well as some junk we've had lying around for ages. It's almost full!
Thursday night I was going to see Little Women with the History Meetup, but when I got there--45 minutes before the start time--it was already sold out! (It must be a big hit.) I met Aru and suggested we see Cats or A Hidden Life instead, but she'd seen both of them already! So we went to Tim Hortons and gabbed for a while. (If we'd waited a few minutes more, a third person could have joined us...)
My father gave me $500 for Christmas. Friday I went to Indigo Books at Eaton Centre and bought a stuffed toy: Julia the autistic Muppet! (She'll make a good talking stone for my History Meetup.) Yesterday I went to The Beguiling and bought some comics. I got Nonnonba, Shigeru Mizuki's graphic memoir of how yokai spirit legends influenced his childhood and the rest of his life; a book about the works of manga and anime master Hayao Miyazaki; and some Classics Illustrated comics.
I finished moving to the lists all the Tweeters with over 20,000 followers who haven't followed me back. (My lists now have about 1500 Tweeters between them!) Now I'm removing from my follow list those with the lowest re-following rates. I'm now following less than 4600, while almost 3000 are following me.
I've started translating that new children's book about Jang Yongshil. (I'm tempted to buy the old book online!) And we've started watching Mad Men again on Netflix. Sterling & Cooper reminds me of Never-Neverland...
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