October 11, 2009

    Went to a Games Meetup at Foxes Den.  I played Ticket to Ride and Alhambra.  The first game I lost by two points (I think--I wasn't motivated enough to ask for a recount.) In the second game I managed to finish second.

    John, Donald, Kathrine and Rae came over for a Thanksgiving dinner.  We had turkey and the vegans had something different.

    Saw The Man From Beyond, a silent with Harry Houdini as an 1820 man who survives being frozen for a whole century(!), then meets a woman he's convinced is the reincarnation of his late sweetheart.  It's a curious casting choice, considering that Houdini was famous for debunking spiritualists... [There was a 1960s sitcom The Second Hundred Years with a similar premise.]

October 10, 2009

    Dreamed of a fireplace with a wind blowing down the chimney; having a huge pile of little tiles to glue to a wall.

    Baked cheese bread.

    Went on a Walking Meetup. (Nice day for it.) We started at Victoria Park station and went northwest along Taylor Creek, than southwest along the Don River.  I quit near Broadview station, but some were going as far south as Queen Street!  I was talking to Jane, an acting teacher with glasses like movie director Lina Wertmuller.

    Dinner was McDonald's.

October 9, 2009

"It's unfinished."

"Our marriage?"

"The translation."

--The Browning Version

Dreamed of a European woman arriving in America and going off to join an Indian nation; her watch having mystical symbols instead of numbers.

Dinner was frozen Thai food.

The parents and I were going to see Bright Star, but it was pouring rain so we decided to wait till next week.  Then I was going to see the Fame remake, but when I got to the Yorkdale it turned out it had started 20 minutes earlier than I thought, so I went home.

Got a package of Ebay comic strips from Barry King.

Saw the DVD of Anthony Asquith's 1951 movie of the Terence Rattigan play The Browning Version.  Superb. (I should see the 1994 Mike Figgis version again.) [This movie got me interested in learning classical Greek!]

October 8, 2009

Michael Moore: "I refuse to live in a country like this, and I'm not leaving"--Capitalism:  A Love Story (That's a true patriot!)

Dreamed of planning to read the novel Ben-Hur; seeing a shot from the movie where the film crew was visible.

Dinner was ham.

Saw Michael Moore's latest agitprop documentary Capitalism:  A Love Story at the Cumberland with a Movie Meetup group. (There were only three of us.) After a vague start, it got better and better.  Food for thought.

October 7, 2009

Went shopping.

Finally got a start on putting the garden in order. (We got one pumpkin and I brought it indoors.)

Dinner was roast chicken.

Went to a Games Meetup at 401 Games.  I played two new games:  Big City, involving laying buildings and streetcars on an urban grid; and Bang!, a card game where we played gunfighters. (I was the sheriff's deputy.)

October 6, 2009

    Dreamed of hoping for a remake of The Good Earth.

    Yesterday I placed a hold at the Reference Library on a book the parents are interested in, about New Brunswick shipbuilding in Kent County.  But when I went there it wasn't returned.

    Dinner was roast beef.

    At opera rehearsal we did "Regina Coeli" from Cavalleria Rusticana, but we didn't have time to finish it.

October 5, 2009

    At today's singing lesson I forgot to give Giuseppe his payment! (I gave it to him at choir practice in the evening.)

    Dinner was ham.

    At choir practice we went through all our La Traviata parts for the first time.