1917

"When he crossed the river by the ferry boat and afterwards, mounting the hill, looked at his village and towards the west where the cold purple sunset lay a narrow streak of light, he thought that truth and beauty which had guided human life there in the garden and in the yard of the high priest had continued without interruption to this day, and had evidently always been the chief thing in human life and in all earthly life, indeed; and the feeling of youth, health, vigour--he was only twenty-two--and the inexpressible sweet expectation of happiness, of unknown mysterious happiness, took possession of him little by little, and life seemed to him enchanting, marvellous, and full of lofty meaning"--Anton Chekhov, "The Student"

Wednesday I got my health card renewed at the depot in the basement of the Canadian Tire near Rosedale station, with just a week to spare. (I was surprised how quickly it went.) But I was careless and stopped for lunch at Tim Horton's because I wanted to try their strawberry confetti doughnut.  So I was late getting home, which made things inconvenient for Moira because she had somewhere to go and John was late arriving and we can't leave Father alone in the house while he's unwell. Next time I'll be more careful!

Thursday night I saw Sam Mendes' 1917 at the Market Square with the History Meetup. (They've installed posh new seats there.) It was gripping and believable, and the one-shot gimmick didn't distract.  I didn't recognize Colin Firth as the general--he isn't the sort of actor who always plays himself!  Nice photography by Roger Deakins.

Yesterday I had lunch with Elizabeth from my memoir group at Les Moulins Lafayette. (I had a ham and cheese croissant and a briochette with jam.) Elizabeth is very interesting:  she's over 80 and survived the Polish Occupation!  To this day she won't wear black leather coats (part of the SS uniform) and the smell of burnt wood bothers her. Compared to people like her, Canadians like me don't know much about life.

I finished translating that Korean book about the engineer Jang Yongshil.  We have a book of short stories in their original French somewhere around, so maybe I'll try translating them.

Moira just finished reading The Peanuts Papers, a book of essays about the comic strip Peanuts, and now I'm going to look at it.

I hope I'm through the slow part of the Thailand history book.  I'm getting close to the part about King Mongkut, later played by Yul Brynner.