October 4, 2010

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.

October 3, 2010

    Dreamed of a K-Tel record with a group called Japanese Attractiveness doing the Shirley & Company song "Shame, Shame, Shame."

    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.

October 2, 2010

 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.

October 1, 2010

"In truth, no men on earth can cheer like Englishmen, who do so rally one another's blood and spirit when they cheer in earnest, that the stir is like the rush of their whole history, with all its standards waving at once, from Saxon Alfred's downward"--Little Dorrit

"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.

September 30, 2010

"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!)

September 29, 2010

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.

September 28, 2010

    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.

September 27, 2010

"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.

September 25, 2010

    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.)

September 24, 2010

"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.")

September 23, 2010

"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.

September 22, 2010

"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.