Dreamed of going with a group on a tour of New Zealand that turned out to have a sinister conspiracy behind it; getting into a shower with my bathrobe still on; actor Burt Reynolds.
Went shopping.
Dinner was scalloped potatoes and ham.
Giuseppe missed opera rehearsal and Adolfo our pianist presided instead. The first part was rehearsing the all-female chorus parts in Madama Butterfly, so us males helped move set parts onto the stage instead.
"There's nothing deader than a dead bird. Movement is most of what a bird is. When they're dead, they're only feathers and air"--Birdy
Dreamed of a non-existent episode of Oz, where Beecher tried to negotiate a non-aggression pact between all the different prison factions and his reward was their contempt.
Voted for Pantalone for mayor in the afternoon. (Maybe I should have voted for Smitherman to defeat Rob Ford, but I don't expect my one vote to make the difference.)
Dinner was curried shrimp.
At choir practice most of the soloists were rehearsing Lucia di Lamermoor with us.
Dreamed of wearing shoes without socks; a London statue of Churchill that showed him entering a men's room; an index that spelled cafeteria as "cafeteriy."
Went to a Sensitivity Meetup. We met at the Englinton West station and walked along the Beltline Trail.
Dinner was scalloped potatoes and ham.
Went to a Games Meetup at the Fox and Fiddle near St. Clair station. We played Ticket to Ride (I won, but the two others were new at it), Archaeology (a new card game that K.C. bought, which we liked enough to play twice), and another card game called Coloretto (once was enough).
"The doctor-major keeps trying to pump me about Birdy.... So far, he's been talking like a doctor but I'm waiting for the old military manner to strike again. All doctors in the army ought to be privates"--Birdy
Dinner was lasagna.
Finished the documentary series A History of Scotland. I would have liked more about the overseas Scots, but it's a superb, well-structured show.
I'll be glad when Halloween is over at the Frontierville game. When you clobber or scare a critter, you now have to scare its ghost too!
Dinner was ham.
Started reading William Wharton's Birdy, one of the books I bought on amazon.com . (I got it because I liked Wharton's Dad.) I read the first page and had a hard time putting it down.
On the Scottish Covenanters: "Once upon a time this was God's country. It isn't any more. Thank God for that!"--Neil Oliver
Last night I went to a Dining Meetup at Little India Restaurant. (I had the meat combo.) I was conversing with Rebecca, a daughter of missionaires who grew up in New Guinea.
Dreamed of piano examinations; swimming in the ocean in the winter.
We bought a ten-pound bag of carrots the other week but they've gone moldy!
Baked multigrain bread.
John came over and got his wheelbarrow back.
Dinner was salmon.
Saw the first part of the DVD of How the Celts Saved Britain, about Irish civilization at the start of the Middle Ages.
Dreamed of seeing an Upstairs, Downstairs episode I hadn't seen before (I've seen all of them); hearing of the death of Upstairs, Downstairs actress Lesley Anne Down (she's still alive).
Dinner was chicken.
At opera rehearsal we were doing Madama Butterfly. (The first hour was stuff for the female voices only.) I got a big headache and had to leave midway, which I don't usually do.
"My reason was not made for bending and bowing, my knees were"--Michel de Montaigne
Dreamed of being on the second floor of our old home in Sackville, N.B. (a ranch house with no second floor).
Went shopping.
I've been figuring how to make best use of the energy limits in Frontierville. For example, the first thing to do is harvest crops before they wither. And some actions give you a food reward that's ultimately worth half an energy point. (In an hour and a half your full energy gets restored.)
Dinner was spaghetti.
At choir practice we went through all the Lucia di Lamermoor chorus parts in order.
Dreamed of Gilda Radner; Robinson Crusoe.
Dinner was sausages and mashed potatoes.
Saw the first episode of Neil Oliver's A History of Scotland. (Moira went out and rented it.) I learned a lot about the Scottish kingdom's origins.
Started a new game from the Farmville people called Frontierville. I eventually ran out of energy.
Dreamed of travelling east on a low cart I lay on top of, pushing the ground with my hands; pushing it in my sleep till around when I reached Quebec City; meeting people I knew further on in Riviere du Loup.
Dinner was turkey pie.
Dragged myself away from Farmville long enough to spread compost on our real garden. (Our new wheelbarrow helped a lot.)
Went to a Dancing Meetup at Dovercourt House. We had a salsa lesson.
"If we had sound nostrils our shit ought to stink all the more for being our own"--Michel de Montaigne
Dreamed of feeling a heavy wind; trying to think of a subject for writing a second Ph.D. thesis. (For all the grief with the first one, I wish I could do it again.)
Baked rye bread.
Dinner was the rest of the fettucine alfredo.
Went to a Karaoke Meetup at BarPlus. (It was a farewell party for someone leaving for England.) Among other songs, I sang the "Summer Nights" duet with Anna.
I love me some Farmville! I need a soybeans mastery to plant chickpeas, so now I'm planting that crop everywhere. I miscalculated on my first cranberry crop, so I couldn't harvest it till after getting home from karaoke, three hours after it ripened. But I got to it before it withered so all's well that ends well.
"I like a strong, intimate, manly fellowship, the kind of friendship which rejoices in sharp vigorous exchanges just as love rejoices in bites and scratches which draw blood"--Michel de Montaigne
Hitchhiker (getting off a truck full of sheep): "Bye, girls!"--An American Wolf in London
Dreamed of the song "Amazing Grace"; old Flash Gordon Sunday comics.
Went to see my shrink Dr. Hassan. I had a lot to say for a change.
Dinner was fettucine alfredo (which I cooked).
Saw John Landis' An American Wolf in London at the Underground. It's quite weak: a bit scary and a bit funny, but not scary or funny enough. (Landis did it better with his video for Michael Jackson's "Thriller.") Jenny Agutter's appealing.
At the movie they showed a trailer for the original Star Wars release: "A billion years in the making, and coming to a galaxy near you this summer!"
On a pre-Columbian society: "It is no lie to say that these men are indeed savages--by our standards; for either they must be or we must be: there is an amazing gulf between their souls and ours"--Michel de Montaigne
I was so thrilled about my virtual crops that I lay awake for hours and got up early to harvest them. (Did I mention that Farmville is addictive?)
Dinner was turkey pie.
Went to another opera acting class. (We got kicked out of the cafeteria and did it in the lobby.) We were given random motivations to create characters from. My first was "You love anything larger than life, so I imagined myself (for Die Fledermaus) as a Tyrol hick called Heinrich, who's been in Vienna for just a couple of years and is still wide-eyed about the place. My second was "You want to see your anti-foreign prejudices confirmed," so this time I became (for Madama Butterfly) Akira-san, an old geezer who misses the samurai era.
The amazon.com books I ordered the other week arrived today.
John and his daughters brought dinner over, but I couldn't wait because of opera rehearsal, so I ate at KFC instead.
Started reading some of Michel de Montaigne's essays in a Penguin 60s publication.
At opera rehearsal we got the Madama Butterfly score. We also got the corrected "Du und Du" score and worked on that part of Die Fledermaus. (But it turned out we need annother correction!)
Farmville is an addictive game! I'm already up to Level 7, with half a dozen crops and three trees. (My virtual neighbour Nan gave me a goo start with gifts like fertilizer.)
Barbara did the measurements for my opera costume. My waistline is two inches shorter than last year!
"Here was Fanny... resolved always to want comfort, resolved not to be comforted, resolved to be deeply wronged, and resolved that nobody should have the audacity to think her so"--Little Dorrit
Went to lunch at the Hot House Cafe with the Dance Meetup. (The Theatre Meetup was also there.) I had spaghetti with meatballs. Among other people, I was talking to a Korean girl who's learning baking at George Brown College.
Finished Little Dorrit. Now I really want to see Christine Edzard's eight-hour 1988 movie a second time. I think it improved on the book, which was good in the early part but got diffuse in the second half.
Dinner was turkey.
I'm now playing Farmville on Facebook. Nan is my virtual neighbour.
"Affery, like greater people, had always been right in her facts, and always wrong in the theories she deduced from them"--Little Dorrit
Dreamed of the hymn "Amazing Grace"; windsurfing along the road from Aulac to my hometown Sackville, N.B.; being about to vote in a byelection; looking for a new direction; explosions of diarrhea.
Went to a Walking Meetup in the Rouge Valley. (I met Gulshan at the Sheppard Station, and Arif picked us up in his car next to Sherbourne.) We were part of a guided tour with over 50 people! Afterward we stopped at a Tim Horton's doughnut shop, so I was late getting back.
Relatives came for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner of roast pork. (I'd got double-subscribed to Games magazine, so I gave away a couple of extra issues I had. The kids seemed to like it.)
"It's the start of a great love affair."
"Yeah. Truman in love with Truman.
--Capote
One of the killers featured in In Cold Blood: "There must have been something wrong with us, to do what we did"--ibid.
Dreamed of being so weak I needed a nurse to take my shoes off; the actress Evangeline Lilly (whom I know nothing about); a story in the comic strip Rip Kirby where bank robbers kidnapped a little girl.
Baked white bread.
Saw the Met production of Wagner's Das Rheingold at the Sheppard Grande. (I mistakenly went to the Yonge & Eglinton first, but I had time to kill anyway.) It was a triumph, brilliantly staged by Robert Lepage. I met a few Classical Music Meetup members there. My bladder was full, but I didn't care! For a snow with no intermission, it moved really well.
Dinner was McDonald's.
Saw the DVD of Capote (for the second time). The underappreciated performance is Catherine Keener's Harper Lee.
Dreamed of being in a ship during a snowstorm; the St. Lawrence River valley; a non-existent book about a girl growing up in an impoverished black family in New York City.
Got some potatoes from the garden. This year the nasturtium seeds got mixed in with the vegetables, and they rather took over the place.
Dinner was some of the corn we got yesterday.
Went to Mary's games night. I played Ticket to Ride, Alhambra (which I won) and The Amazeing Labyrinth.
To a farmer: "I have more friends than you have cows!"--I'm Alan Partridge
Dreamed of the Cherry Burton Road in New Brunswick, near my hometown Sackville; the lameness of Atlantic magazine; sitting in the Northwest Territories legislature; my career being threatened by a scandal involving improper relations with a girl!
We went out to Orchard Home Farm and got some October apples. We also bought corn at Gillespie's place.
When we got home I had a headache so I went back to bed.
Dinner was shrimp primavera.
9/11 World Trade Center survivor: "I'm gonna be a good boy tonight!"--Seven Days in September
Dreamed of a general in the Philippines giving a public speech on the eve of the climactic battle in a civil war; going to a tiny cinema in the area northwest of Rosedale; seeing two featurettes about the crooked election of a sheriff and dangerous turtles; meeting a little kid in a library who wouldn't let go of me.
Saw the DVD of Seven Days in September, a documentary about New York City in the week after 9/11, from the perspective of independent filmmakers.
Dinner was roast chicken.
Saw the DVD of the first episodes of I'm Alan Partridge, with Steve Coogan as the human train wreck from Knowing Me, Knowing You.
Then I saw the DVD of the first episode of The Other Hollywood , Kevin Brownlow's documentary series about European silent movies (for the second time). [The first time I saw it was on my tiny TV set during my eight months in London in 1995.]
Moira's already starting on a new season of The Wire!
"Regard our place from the point of view that we only ask you to leave us alone, and we are as capital a Department as you'll find anywhere"--Little Dorrit
Dreamed of the Nat King Cole song "When I Fall in Love"; carrying a load of fertile soil up a hill; looking out of our old house in Sackville, N.B., and seeing a snowstorm.
Went shopping.
Dinner was the rest of the felafels.
At opera rehearsal we went over most of Die Fledermaus, except that when we got to the "Du und Du" waltz number it turned out the chorus had been given the wrong words to sing! We'll be getting yet another score to correct that mistake.
Lawyer: "I have seen people get rid of a good deal of other people's money, and bear it very well: very well indeed"--Little Dorrit
Dreamed of reflecting how much I miss the back-yard garden from our old home in Sackville, N.B.; stopping on the road between Sackville and Moncton, seeing snow on the ground and wondering what time of year it was; the lines from Tennyson's "In Memoriam"
So runs my dream, but what am I?
An infant crying in the night.
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry.
Dinner was sausage and mashed potatoes.
At choir practice we started on the first act of Lucia di Lamermoor. (Carmen said hi to me. Maybe she likes me!) [The power of wishful thinking...]
Ordered several new o'ekaki puzzle books on Amazon, along with the Lexicon of Musical Invective.
Went to a Games Meetup at the Yellow Griffin. I played Smallworld (my races were flying tritons and hill humans) and Kingsburg (I was only three points behind the winner).
Dinner was felafels and pita bread.
Dreamed of seeing Ronald Merrick (the villain in The Jewel in the Crown) and another soldier lurking on the campus of my alma mater Mt. Allison University; considering the saying "The unexamined life is not worth living" and wondering whether Merrick examined his; considering the moment near the end when Merrick was murdered by a catamite and imagining Merrick asking a question about India's future and the catamite saying "You'll never know," and killing him.
Went to an Aspergers Meetup at Wynford Heights. Nan was impressed when she heard I'd scored over 60,000 in the Train video game shed introduced me to. (Her word was "insane!") We've merged with another group, so there were almost a dozen people there. [In that Train game I also learned to put the train on a closed loop and get an infinite score!]
Dinner was pork chops.
"It's just you and me now, you piece of shit!"--Cliffhanger
Dreamed of being unable to find my shoes in a large group of them; passing through Milan.
Finished watching The Jewel in the Crown. I'll have to read Paul Scott's books someday.
Dinner was roast pork.
Saw the Sylvester Stallone actioner Cliffhanger at the Underground. Cheesy fun, hilariously written but solidly directed by Renny Harlin, it's worth seeing on a nice big screen.
"Do you ride?"
"On and off--more on than off, but that's just luck."
--The Jewel in the Crown
"He says if you run into a snake, the thing to do is bow your head politely and ask it to leave"--ibid.
Dreamed about the TV show The Beverley Hillbillies and Wayne and Shuster specials in 1968; getting onto a ferry at the last minute with some homeless people.
Baked multigrain bread.
Dinner was sausage and mashed potatoes (very spicy!).
Went to bed at 21:30. (Headache!)
On inns squeezing travellers: "The whole business of the human race, between London and Dover, being spoliation, Mr. Dorrit was waylaid at Dartford, fleeced at Sittingbourne, and sacked at Canterbury"--Little Dorrit
"Would you object?"
"Is it open to me?"
--The Jewel in the Crown
Dreamed of the 1961 Michael Curtiz movie of Huckleberry Finn; reflecting that the book had a geographical flaw. (Jim could have crossed the Mississippi into free territory back in the beginning...)
My Metropass got lost in the mail so I went to the Davisville station office and they gave me a replacement.
Dinner was McDonald's.
Went to an Out of Your Shell Meetup at Snakes and Lattes, where they have board games for people to play. (It's nice not to have to tote my games.) I played Apples to Apples, Balderdash--which I won!--and a fun new game called Boxers or Briefs. [It's like Apples to Apples, but you can choose to give a serious answer or a silly one.] Sara is working there now. Rob and Jody from the Tucker's Marketplace event were there, and Jody revealed she had a reading disability. The place looks very busy.
Dreamed of being in a space station; going for a space walk and not knowing which way was up.
Went shopping.
Moira rented the second season of The Wire, but I don't have time to see it just now.
Dinner was goulash.
At opera rehearsal we did "Bruederlein und Schwesterlein" from Die Fledermaus for the first time. (That romantic German-language stuff is basically untranslatable.) We got a full score of our Fledermaus parts this week.
"People must continue to be married and given in marriage, or Chief Butlers would not be wanted. As nations are made to be taxed, so families are made to be butlered"--Little Dorrit
The other night I dreamed of looking out a window and seeing a yard with giant playing cards scattered about and a pile of movie posters.
Dinner was macaroni.
At choir practice we did the last act of Lucia di Lamermoor.
Dreamed of a man causing controversy in World War II by writing a pamphlet teaching men how to do their own sewing; a group of protesters about to burn a Malawi flag.
Is Mother losing her memory? The other day I mentioned Norman Lear and she had to be reminded who he was.
Went on a Yorkville art walk with the Art Meetup group. We saw a brilliant Christopher Pratt exhibit and met the artists Jane-Ash Poitras, Catherine Perehudoff and Jon Clayton (who comes from my hometown Sackville, N.B.!). The actress Arsinee Khanjian was in our group. Our host decided I was a big Pratt expert because I knew he'd designed the Newfoundland provincial flag.
Dinner was stew.
Saw the DVD of "Kidnap," the episode of Mission: Impossible where Jim got snatched and his team was made to steal an incriminating letter as ransom. (I remember seeing it at the time.)
"You should keep your feet on the ground so you can leap higher into the air"--Joan Miro
"When I pick up a stone, it's a stone. When Miro picks up a stone, it's art"--a friend
Dreamed of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address; crossing a swamp on floating wood steps; following a long line of people who were volunteering to help put on an event, through a long basement tunnel route; losing the others; a subway station for the Donlands area that was near the lakeshore (the real Donlands Station being near Danforth Avenue).
Dinner was KFC.
Saw the DVD of Miro: Theatre of Dreams, a documentary about the famous Catalan surrealist. When they made Joan Miro, they broke the mold.
Eric Porter in The Jewel in the Crown is exactly like the villain who took on James Bond in Thunderball, with even the same eyepatch! ("The unkind say he lost his eye peeping through keyholes.")
"You'd rather live in shit than let the world see you working a shovel!"--The Wire
Dreamed of writing a college essay about a legal text written by Burt Reynolds and admiring its sophistication; the Disney movies with Kurt Russell as campus whiz kid Dexter Riley.
Baked raisin bread.
Mowed the lawn for the last time this year.
Dinner was spaghetti.
Saw the last episodes of the first season of The Wire. Classic procedural.
"Don't psychoanalyze me, doctor!"
"Then don't come begging for it."
--Peyton Place
Facetious judge: "McNulty, I hold you in contempt."
"Who doesn't?"
--The Wire
Father and I sawed a thick but mostly dead limb off the cherry tree in the back yard. (We'll have to saw it into smaller pieces tomorrow.)
Went to a Dining Meetup at the Vanipha Lanna just around the corner. (There were about a dozen people.) I had chicken curry and vegetable-fried rice.
