Sturmfrei

    My sister went to Kingston, so I'm on my own for a week or two.  Germans call that feeling of freedom when you're alone in the house sturmfrei.  I learned that from a YouTube video about German words without exact English translations. (Another is hoenigkuchepferd, which means "smiling like a gingerbread horse," referring to its wide icing smile, a bit like "grinning like the Cheshire Cat.")

    We used to have a 241 Pizza around the corner, but it closed during the Covid slump.  The neighbourhood now has a Little Caesar's, but they don't have as much variety.  There's also a Pizza Pizza, but I can't eat that:  it literally makes me sick!  Now I've found a new 241 over on Dufferin Street, and I walked there and back on Saturday to buy myself a small pizza that lasted two days. (I could have taken the streetcar, but I wanted the exercise.)

    Last month I saw John Carpenter's paranoia movie They Live for the first time.  Two weeks ago John and I saw Martin Scorsese's Killers of the August Moon, which I found rather long and depressing, not unlike his earlier The Irishman. Last week we also saw a documentary about Napoleon's artistic legacy. (On the way to the documentary, I saw a pro-Palestinian rally at Bloor & Yonge.)

    Last week I had lunch with Debbie and Maria at the nearby WhataBagel.  Afterward Maria and I walked through the neighbourhood, and I showed her Wychwood Park.  She enjoyed the sights greatly.

    For next month's History Meetup, I want to read Jonathan Spence's short biography of Mao Zedong.  Unfortunately, the Toronto library website has been taken down because of a ransomware attack!

    My DVD player has gone bust, or the connection to it or something.  I've tried to set up the downstairs player in my room but it didn't work so (surprise, surprise) I had to ask Donald to come over and figure it out!  For last week's movie, Fritz Lang's noirish western Rancho Notorious, it was on YouTube and I shared it from there.  For this week's movie Boogie Nights, I'll use Google Play like I used to.

    The newspaper this morning (we subscribe to The Globe and Mail) was soaked through in the pouring rain.  They usually have a plastic covering for it, but today they must have run out of them!