Dog days

I've been feeling a bit lazy lately. Even writing to women on the Our Time dating site feels like a chore.

Well, Trudeau Jr. went ahead and did it!  He called a snap election when we still aren't finished with this pandemic.  The other week I went on an NDP canvassing run and even got to meet the local candidate Sidney Coles.  I'm doing another run tonight.

I finished Ghost Empire and my next history book will be Justinian's Flea, about how Justinian tried to restore the Roman Empire in the 6th Century AD but got thwarted by a devastating plague. (It was a consequence of increased international trade, like COVID-19.)

Our Short Story Meetup was just discussing Virginia Woolf and our next author will be Katherine Mansfield. (I should do To the Lighthouse in my Book Club.  I'm also thinking of Stephen Leacock.)

I recently saw a particularly good story on that anime One Piece.  It's a prequel about when Luffy and his blood brother Ace were young and getting started in mischief, along with a boy called Sabo, who resembled the Artful Dodger.

For the next two weeks my Friday History Meetup watch party will be showing Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima, Clint Eastwood's two movies about the Battle of Iwo Jima, from the American and Japanese perspectives respectively.

In Saturday night's thunderstorm a couple of lightning bolts seemed really close!

Corn on the cob!

This time of year the supermarkets are selling really fresh corn at low prices!  Moira doesn't like corn on the cob herself, but she gets it for me unilaterally, blessings on her.

I've started reading Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome for my Book Club Meetup.  I'm also reading Ghost Empire, about Cavalier de la Salle, who claimed the Mississippi basin for France but whose attempt at colonizing Texas ended with his own men shooting him!  That's for next month's History Meetup, whose subject is New France.

Last week my historical movie watch party showed Ed Zwick's Legends of the Fall, which I hadn't seen before.  Didn't care for it:  the Brad Pitt character just seemed like a jerk to me.  The Italians seem to do this sort of family saga better than Americans:  see Padre, Padrone or Rocco and His Brothers.

This week we showed The Painted Veil, based on W. Somerset Maugham's novel about an unhappy medical missionary couple in China.  The story's a bit conventional, but the lead actors Edward Norton and Naomi Watts brought something convincing to their roles.

I've now written several haikus:

March, the year's best time!

From cold to cool, then to warm:

Ice and snow melting.

September passes,

Grey morning frost on green grass.

Winter will yet wait.

Old man plants a tree,

Its shade and fruit for others.

Greatest act of faith!

March Fundy spring tides,

Big brown chunks of dirty ice,

Highest in the world!

Wet snow, almost rain,

Big flakes good for snowballs but

Soon to be icy!