Life Interrupted

As if I needed any more reminders of the fragility of life, I was in a fairly serious bicycle accident on Thurs. evening.  I was leaving Earl Grey where I had met my daughter's teacher at Curriculum Night.  I recall turning around so I could go down Blake, which has less traffic than Pape.  This was a fateful decision, and who knows if any of this would have happened had I stuck to my original route.  (Actually had I left work earlier and dropped off my bike and walked to Earl Grey then this definitely would not have happened.  C'est dommage...)

It is one of those disconcerting things, but I have absolutely no memory of turning around and going down Blake.  It is one of those gaps that will probably haunt me for some time.  Anyway, witnesses basically just said I fell off my bike (and wasn't hit by a car), so the doctors did a number of checks to see if I had a stroke or seizure (but I am getting a bit ahead of myself).  This seems implausible, but I can't completely rule it out.  What I do recall is being surrounded by doctors and nurses and wondering if this was just a terrible dream.  Sadly not.

As I came around to this conclusion, I learned that my bike had been put into storage at a community centre near the school, and that it didn't appear to have been run over.  I went through a bunch of tests at the hospital.  The main concern was whether my neck had been broken or very badly sprained, so they put me in an immobilization collar for a while.  That was extremely frustrating, not least because I wasn't allowed to stand up.  The only way to go to the bathroom (and I had to go 3 times) was to get a portable urinal that was basically pressed cardboard.  Not so nice, but better than the alternatives.  I was pretty happy after my neck checked out, and after that, they let me go to the bathroom on my own.

The next thing was to wait for x-rays of my leg (which had a bad contusion, which is actually still causing me some pain) and my chest.  But nothing broken there either.  I do have some small broken bones on the right side of my face (and the right side is slightly collapsed from where I landed on it), but I suppose in the grand scheme of things, not really all much to complain about.  I underwent two CT scans, since there was some bleeding in the brain, but they thought that was clearing up fairly well.  I should report back if I still have bad headaches or if my vision doesn't improve.  While the helmet didn't prevent all these injuries, I can only imagine it would have been so much worse without it.  So wear your helmet, folks!

I did get five stitches near my right eye, and those will have to come out next week, but I can go to almost any clinic for that.  While most of my stuff was stashed under my bed, I did have access to my work phone and home phone.  I told them at work I wasn't coming in, and I notified my wife (who was certainly worried about why I hadn't beat her home from the school).  By the end of the stay, my home phone battery had completely run down, but the work phone was still going strong.

I got out in the early afternoon and took a cab home.  I made just a couple of calls, then crashed.  Friday evening was kind of vague, though Sat. I was more myself.  My swollen right eye has gotten better.  It still feels slightly out of sync with the left eye, but I'm fairly sure with a bit more time, I'll be more or less back to normal.  I have quite a few painful scabs on my face, and it is very hard to leave them alone, but I'll try to be good and let the body heal itself on its own timeline.

In a way it is too bad that Halloween is so far away, as I would make a pretty good evil clown.  See for yourself...

I'll try to remember to post a picture next week.  Already the right eye (left in the photo) looks much, much better.

After sleeping in a bit on Sat., I went to retrieve my bike.  It did not appear to have been hit, but there was definitely something wrong with the front wheel.  It just didn't turn properly at all, and the front fender had been completely detached.  The guy at the bike shop said that if anything had gotten wedged in there, it would have been just like slamming on the front brakes, and I would have gone right over.  While I didn't see any smoking guns on Blake (where I would have landed and just bled for a while), I did see a dead squirrel in the road.  I wonder if some kamikaze squirrel had gotten tangled in the front wheel.  It's about as plausible as any other explanation.

I don't really know when I will be going back to work (most likely next Wed.) and when I will be willing to bike further than around the neighbourhood (maybe another week after that?).  For that matter, my hands are in a bit of pain (probably from trying to break my fall), and if I do go to the gym next week, it would only be for cardio and no weight-lifting.  But I am thankful that things weren't any worse, and that my body is working so hard to heal itself.  In fact, I really ought to go back to bed and see how I feel in the morning.

What's on at MOCA

So I made it over to MOCA last weekend.  I will say that they had done a good job of spreading the word, since it was pretty packed (I'm sure the fact that it was free helped!).

I was amused that they rated their own street sign.

The building is basically just a large multi-story site, and the museum takes up the first 5 or so floors.  I believe it used to be primarily industrial, and they have tried to open up the floor space as much as possible.

Because the crowds were so heavy, the wait times for the elevators were pretty intense.  I ended up joining the crowds who just took the stairs between the various floors.

I will say that this layout is going to favour big installations in the middle of each floor, as there really isn't all that much wall space for paintings.  That doesn't exactly thrill me, but it doesn't surprise me either.

Here was one of the main installations (I can't recall the name or the artist right now).

There was an interesting effect on the third? floor where all the windows were tinted, giving the outdoors a clinical yellow look.

There were some interesting video displays, though I didn't really have time to sit through them all (nor was there sufficient seating).  I thought the most droll was this pieced together video piece on the physics of cartoon animals.

I haven't entirely decided if I will go back and try to watch through the video installations from start to finish, but I might in a month or two when the fuss has died down a bit.  Regardless of whether I go as much as when it was on Queen St. W, I'm glad MOCA is back.

MOCA reopens

Being a bit under the weather, I haven't been tracking events quite as closely as I normally do.  As it happens, this weekend MOCA reopens (formerly MOCCA).  And it is free.  I recall that I managed to get out to the MCA in Chicago when it had a big bash to celebrate opening in its new location (and while I don't like the MCA building at all, I do try to show my support from time to time).  So I'd like to try to make it out there today (it's open until 5 pm).  It will be a bit tight, but if I leave right after lunch, I should make it, even with a quick stop at Victoria College.  (Well, I should probably do it in the reverse order, since it involves less backtracking on the TTC, and it's not like I actually need any more books...)  I'm less clear if I am going to see my friend's show at 7.  I'll have to play that by ear.

I didn't go to MOCCA a lot, though probably 3 or 4 times, starting around 2015.  However, I did manage to catch the last three major exhibits: Vera Frenkel (quite atmospheric, but more of an installation with the gallery hosting a working bar), Douglas Coupland* and Dean Baldwin's Q.W.Y.C. (Queen West Yacht Club) which featured a boat inside the gallery.

I was trying to dig up some photos I took of the old MOCCA, but the only ones I could find (for now) are of the very apt installation Demolition Site by Jihyun Jung.

 

I'm not quite sure how often I'll go to the new MOCA.  It's a bit off the beaten path, though not quite as far from transit as I thought at first.  Anyway, I'll report back soon, assuming I make it there this afternoon.


* Or rather half of this exhibit that originated at VAG, since half went to the ROM, but the better came to MOCCA. 

Returning to Normal

I'm slowly returning to some semblance of normality.  I actually worked a bit harder than I should have on Friday (albeit while lying in bed), since I really wanted to finish with some files that others needed next week.  I found that I was able to be far more productive with fewer distractions from office mates.  This is hardly a new finding (people that have to dig deep into data are uniquely disadvantaged by open office schemes), but I am responsible for keeping the intern busy, so it is actually a challenge for me to telecommute.  (There are definitely some downsides to taking on some management responsibilities!)

I took a fairly long nap today.  I probably wouldn't have gone anyway, but that meant I couldn't go to the Word on the Street festival at Harbourfront.  The main point of interest was hearing Kerri Sakamoto read from Floating City (she actually had two slots).  I kind of go back and forth whether I will read this (it seems slightly in the vein of Doctorow's World's Fair (blending fiction and real people) though here the historical figure is Buckminster Fuller); my guess is I will read it some day, though probably not for years and years (perhaps going to the reading would have tipped me one way or the other).  I'm slightly more likely to read Dionne Brand's Theory before that, even though I didn't really care for What We All Long For.  Interestingly, Brand gave a reading a week or two ago, but wasn't at the festival today.  Another interesting reading today (which I also obviously missed) was Adjacentland by Rabindranath Maharaj (the author of The Amazing Absorbing Boy).  This is quite different from most of his novels (as he himself notes in this interview), as it has a SF angle, so I think I'll try to check it out.

The only thing I am going to do today (and I wouldn't if there was a Sunday matinee) is to catch Caryl Churchill's A Number at Solar Stage.  If you happen to be in Toronto and leave in about 30 minutes (as I plan to do), then you can still catch this.  (While Lynn Sotkin thinks they should not have added an intermission, otherwise it is a solid production of a rarely produced play.)  If you can't make this, the Canadian premiere of Churchill's Escaped Alone will be at Soulpepper in November.  I'll definitely be going to this, though I just don't see enough of interest at Soulpepper this season, so I'll just try to do rush tickets for a couple of shows.  I'll write a bit more on the season later.

I have a bit more work I'd like to do tomorrow, plus grocery shopping.  I may stop by the library in the afternoon.  I haven't entirely decided if I will make the trek downtown, though I am tempted by the Victoria Library book sale, and just possibly seeing an actor in his show.  But more rest is probably really what I need.  I think I'll hold off one more day from going to the gym, so I don't spread any more germs around than I absolutely have to.

Bye for now.
 

Another Sucky Day

There aren't that many days where I truly think I should have just stayed in bed, but yesterday definitely qualified.  My daughter was throwing up constantly, but there didn't seem to be anything else wrong with her (no fever, chills, aches).  We were wondering if it was just anxiety related to going to a new school.  Nonetheless, in the end, my wife kept her out of school and took her to the clinic, while I headed off to work.

I couldn't keep my runny nose under control, though I thought it was just allergies, exacerbated by the heavy clouds pushing pollen down.  Then my wife called and said my daughter had the flu after all.  I felt worse and worse through the day, finally leaving at 3 (only a bit early).

On the way home, some jerk of a taxi driver refused to close his door, so I had to swerve around that, then I was pinched by a bus running too close to the curb, and I ended up with my tire rubbing right up against the curb, and I fell over on the bike.*  I went straight down, not into traffic, so it could have been far, far worse.  Neither I nor the bike was run over by a car.  I didn't even bruise myself too badly.  However, the brake handle was completely bent and almost impossible to use.

That meant instead of going straight home, I had to stop off at the bike shop.  They think it will be about $100 to replace everything, since the one part that is bent is part of a set (naturellement).  So yes, I would have been a lot better off just staying home and resting yesterday.  Needless to say, I am staying home from work today...



* There are actually many things I won't miss about work, but probably #1 is not having to bike to Union Station.  Biking anywhere downtown is a total nightmare (and anyone who says biking in Toronto is safe but it just seems unsafe is a total liar), but being able to avoid Union Station would be a great start.

Book (Sale) News

I probably should have mentioned this the other day, but there is one day left at the clearance book sale at the Toronto Reference Library (today from 9 to 4).  Paperbacks are mostly $0.25, and trade paperbacks and most hard cover books are $0.50 (or 3 for a dollar).  Pretty hard to beat those prices.

You have to go in with the right frame of mind, i.e. that you won't find a specific book (though the odds are slightly better if you are looking for a Canadian author) but there are lots of treasures amidst the piles and piles of books on the tables.  I wasn't able to get there until 6 pm on Thurs.  I didn't see a lot, but I did pick up a book of Robertson Davies's ghost stories and a book in the Vintage Contemporaries imprint (Crumley's Dancing Bear).  I saw Choy's The Jade Peony, and that was tempting for less than $0.50, but it was very marked up and I decided to pass.

On Friday I went by on my way home from work and found a few other interesting books, including J.G. Farrell's Troubles (though not the NYRB edition) and Graham Swift (though now I am wondering if I own this already in a different edition).  Actually, the most interesting is probably The Last Song of Manuel Sendero by Ariel Dorfman.  (Whenever I do get to this one, I'll probably pair it with my rereading of Fuentes's Christopher Unborn, as there seem to be strong links between the two.)  At any rate, I'll go through these books at the first opportunity, and then either donate most of them or perhaps put them in a Little Free Library.  (I'm thinking of building one of these in the next couple of weeks, while I still have a power saw on loan.)

I believe that next weekend is a book sale at Victoria College, and I may drop by for that.  Trinity's book sale isn't until mid Oct.  It's been a while since I've made it to that one, and I might try to stop in.

In terms of actual book news, I keep going back to the NYRB site to see when Rezzori's Kain will be announced.  At this point, it will have to be late 2019 or even 2020.  (As it happens, this weekend I am tackling Rezzori's The Death of My Brother Abel.)  However, I was very interested to find that Grossman's monumental Life and Fate is actually a sequel to a book (just as long) called Stalingrad, which has never been translated.  Until now.  NYRB will be publishing this next May.  So I will pre-order that and then have the opportunity to read the series in the correct order (though probably not until 2020 or even 2021!).  Anyway, this is one of the more exciting book announcements in recent memory.  Hopefully it will make a bit of a splash.

Ok, I've got to run now (on the road to Stratford very shortly).

Disgusting, horrible day

So many things went wrong today, not least of which was getting soaked on the way to work.  I had to transfer three times and then walk a couple of blocks and finally I ducked into a building to find my way to the Path.  I was so wet and uncomfortable.  That lasted pretty much all day.  Then I thought the rain had stopped, but it started up again on my way home from work!

In the morning, I learned that the government lawyers had done such a poor job of defending Doug Ford's policies that the judge took the surprising step of voiding his plan to cut Toronto's city council in half.  This was already going to lead to turmoil, when Doug announced in the early afternoon that he was going to use the notwithstanding clause (a truly terrible part of the Constitution that never should have been allowed), which is essentially the equivalent of the nuclear option.  His advisors should advise him to use far more restraint, but there seem to be no competent adults at all in this government (sound familiar?).  What's worse is that Doug has made it clear that he will use the notwithstanding clause quite often, when he loses court cases, which is frankly leading his party down the path of amoral lawlessness.  I've decided that I will need to take a stand, however quixotic, but I'll write more about that at the appropriate time.  Quite frankly, if it weren't for the disruption that it would cause my family yet again, I would consider leaving Ontario, though it is unbelievably sad how few places seem to have any stability at all anymore.  I suppose, taking the really long view, what the GTA does have going for it is it will be far less impacted than most other parts of the world due to climate change, but it is not going to be a pleasant ride in the short term (or the medium term if we have to face the full impact of climate refugees or the US trying to drain the Great Lakes).  To be honest, I just see a very bleak future at every turn, so maybe it is best if I just turn in for the night.  Maybe I will be in a slightly better mood in the morning, though somehow I doubt that.

Fighting Entropy

No question one of the hardest things for me is to put in work on something before it is completely busted.  I think this is mostly because there are so many things around the house that could use a bit of an upgrade -- the gutters, the roof, the dish washer, etc.  I did repair a substantial part of the upper deck, and then I built the garbage bin pen from the wood, but that was the main thing I managed this summer.  (Though in the late spring I repaired the main gate, and then made a repair on a second gate that wasn't quite as successful.) 

I really ought to stain the fence again, but I just don't think I can face that, esp. as we seem to have lost the nice weather.  Maybe next summer...  I will try to dig out the contact info for the roofers and see if I can get them to come out in the next few weeks.  I still need to decide about repairing (or more likely replacing) the air conditioning unit, but I am pretty loathe to do so.

Fall Arrives with a Vengeance

It was surprisingly chilly this weekend.  It felt like late Oct.!  Granted, some of this is due to how unseasonably warm it had been the previous week, but it was still a surprise.  It didn't help that I had a cold.  I'm not quite sure where this came from, though probably just running myself ragged and finally relaxing just a bit (I didn't have anything specific planned for the weekend).

I mostly slept and did some computer work, though I did run up to the bike store to drop off my bike for a belated tune-up and to have lights put on my son's bike (the ones I bought never turned up).  It's definitely just as well I asked the owner to install them, since the rear light wouldn't work.  He went through 3 sets!  Finally, he installed a different brand for the rear light.  Either they are shipping them with completely dead batteries, or he got a very bad batch of lights.

I told my son to ride back on his own, and I walked over to the library to drop off a book and then over the farmer's market at Withrow Park.  Then I took a nap and later bought groceries.

Sunday wasn't too different.  My daughter and I went over to the mall when it opened at 11 and got a few remaining school supplies.  Interestingly, Staples was much better stocked than Walmart, which looked like it had been hit by locusts.  After having lunch, I took another long nap.  I think I am basically over the cold, though now my wife seems to have caught it, even though I tried to isolate myself from everyone.

I basically have to pull myself together for Monday, partly due to work and partly because I have a piece on the SFYS slate.  (This was an idea that sort of came to me in a dream about an ill-tempered writing instructor leading a writers' retreat.  I could see how this might conceivably be extended to a longer piece, though it may just not be worth the effort.  I have a TV pilot that I'd rather work on, though I certainly didn't have the energy this weekend.)  Anyway, if you are interested, SFYS will start at 8 pm at Tarragon Monday evening.  I think I should probably call it quits for the evening if I am going to make it to work in the morning.

Lightning Trip - the Special Exhibits

I believe I hinted that the weekend before the long weekend, I made a special trip.  I flew to Ottawa on Friday, saw the National Gallery, then caught the train to Montreal and wandered around for the day, then caught the train to Quebec City, which was my first time there.  I'll have a bit more to say about the different cities, but I want to focus on the special exhibits at each museum, since they will be closing shortly.

Running through this weekend only (Sept. 9) at the National Gallery is Impressionist Treasures.  This is a special collection of Impressionist works from the Ordrupgaard Museum in Copenhagen.  In a way, this sort of closed the loop for me, as I visited Copenhagen once and visited the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, which is an art museum a bit closer to the center of Copenhagen.  While that was a nice visit, it was disappointing that their Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings were all off view, and I had to settle for a small catalogue.  But the two collections are almost identical in their focus on Renoir and Gauguin with a Cezanne masterwork or two.  Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek has a slightly stronger emphasis on Van Gogh, but otherwise the two collections are quite similar.

In addition to these paintings, the Ordrupgaard Museum sent along quite a few Danish paintings, including a number of slightly eerie interiors by Vilhelm Hammershøi.
 

I'll have to circle back in a later post on what else I saw at the National Gallery, but on to Montreal.  Montreal had a Picasso exhibit, which drew mostly from the Picasso Museum in Paris, as well as the ethnographic museum, Musée du quai Branly.  The focus was primarily on how Picasso drew inspiration from African art.  This exhibit runs through Sept. 16, and I imagine it will be fairly crowded these last two weekends.  It's not the best Picasso exhibit I've seen, but it is focused and does what it sets out to do well.  Again, I'll write more about it later, but here are my two favorite paintings in the exhibit.  One which is a still life (which also contains a portrait of his mistress at the time) and one seems to be a tribute to Matisse, who had died shortly before.

Finally, I ended my trip to Quebec City at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec.  The special exhibit there is Bethe Morisot, an under-appreciated Impressionist painter.  This exhibit runs through Sept. 23, so there is a bit more time if you are thinking of making the trip.  This was my favourite painting in that exhibit, but there were quite a number of nice images.

Berthe Morisot, At the Ball

I'll try to round out the description of the trip within the next day or two.

Not-so-restful weekend

How is it that I always have so much on the go that I end up even more tired after the weekend, particularly a long weekend?  Anyway, I'll give a quick run down of what I got up to this weekend, and you can judge if it was worth it.

Sat. I got up relatively early and start sketching out the garbage bin pen that I had envisioned.  I actually had cut a few boards on Friday (after being shut out of Julius Caesar), but there was a fair bit to go.  I was worried that I would actually run short, since several of the boards were totally rotted through (why I had replaced them in the first place).  It got quite close, but I actually had just enough for all the cuts.  There was one unused board in a storage area, and I decided to use that one for the front piece, since it is the one we have to handle the most.

I thought this was interesting -- a spider web full of sawdust after all the cutting was finished.

I ran off to get groceries, taking my daughter along, since she can be kind of picky about school lunch, so I wanted to make sure there was something she would actually eat.

After this, we practiced the route to her new school, since she'll be walking there on her own most of the time.  (Over the summer, I practiced the route to the high school with my son, since he'll be biking it much of the time.  I finally got around to installing the lock holder on his bike, but I seem to have lost the bike lights.  So frustrating.  I wish we hadn't run out of time at the bike store, since I would have had them install them.  If they don't turn up in the next day or two, I'll just have to stop in at the shop next weekend.)

While my daughter was pretty weary at this point, I convinced her to come over to the mall to do back-to-school shopping.  My son came along as well.  They went back home together, and I went to Home Depot for a few more things I needed to finish the pen, then I went to the gym.

I got back at about 6:30.  I was in a slightly better mood (than Friday) and decided to reserve a chair for Julius Caesar after all.  It was an odd concept, where the doings of Brutus and Caesar were largely pushed into the background and Portia (Brutus's wife), Calpurnia (Caesar's wife) and Servilla (Brutus's mother) took center stage.  On the whole, I think Shakespeare would approve of the idea of remixing, though he probably wouldn't have appreciated being listed after Kaitlyn Riordan (as he was in the program).  They probably did go overboard in moving all the action off-stage.  I'll write a bit more on this piece later.

I found that the screwdriver extension wouldn't fit the drill, so Sunday morning, my son and I ran over to Home Depot and returned it.  Then we caught the streetcar downtown, since we had to catch the bus to Stratford.  We made pretty decent time (on the TTC), and had a few minutes while waiting for the bus to watch the folks headed to FanExpo.  I didn't take any photos, but there were a few interesting costumes.  The ride out was fairly uneventful, and I got a fair bit of reading done (Russell Smith's How Insensitive).  I was a bit disappointed that the Thai place I often go to was closed, but the other one was open.  (I think in a couple of weeks on my next and final visit this season, I'll see about Fellini's for lunch and then one of the Thai places for dinner.)

I showed my son a bit of the downtown, and then we walked down to the Festival Theatre.  I was absolutely amazed to see that they had completely leveled the old Tom Patterson stage.  I knew that there was some reno going on (so there were no shows there this season), but I didn't envision a complete tear down and rebuild.  I wonder if it will actually be completed by next season and ready for a brand new opening. (I must say I'm a bit skeptical.) 

I did have a chance to show him the swans, though they were across the river.  There were a handful of artists out, but not too many (presumably taking advantage of the long weekend to rest and/or produce more work).  We got to the theatre in plenty of time.

We were there to see The Tempest.  It was another gender-bent version with Martha Henry as Prospero (apparently her debut at Stratford was as Miranda many moons ago).  I thought it was a good performance -- definitely some good spectacle throughout (esp. the opening shipwreck scene and then a huge bird later on).  In some ways, I actually thought the version I saw at Bard on the Beach in 2014 was more beautiful, but this was solid.  Stephen Ouimette and Tom McCamus were quite good as Trinculo and Stephano.  I didn't happen to think it, but someone said that Henry was very much in Hillary Clinton mode, totally weary with the ungrateful world, and after I heard that, I couldn't unhear it...  The weakest link was Miranda.  Granted this is a totally insipid part, but she seemed to be more or less a child of 12 (not that 15 is much better) and her falling for Sebastian felt pretty fake (and icky even).  Another thing that was disappointing is that I didn't feel there was any remorse or meaningful conversion on the part of Sebastian (the king's brother) or Antonio (Prospero's brother). Though to be honest, I pretty much go to The Tempest for spectacle only, since the stakes are just so unbelievably low (nothing escapes the attention of Prospero (or Ariel) and Prospero's reign is never in any danger).  Dramatically-speaking, it's actually pretty bad, more of a puppet show than a play.

What was unbelievably annoying is that we were supposed to be on the road by 5, but they brought us round to the Studio stage, where a show was going until 3:30 (presumably this was Long Day's Journey into Night).  However, our bus was essentially full and it should have just left directly from the Festival Theatre (as promised).  I know there were a lot of very unhappy people on the bus, and they may have to rethink this approach (or just give up on plays that break the 3 hour mark!).  We didn't actually leave until 5:45, and thus of course we got stuck in even worse traffic than we would have otherwise.  About the only positive was that the extra time on the bus gave me the time to wrap up How Insensitive (I'll be reviewing it shortly).

We decided there just wasn't much to eat downtown on a Sunday evening (mostly Chipotle), so we held off until the A & W at Pape.  But then they didn't have any of these new veggie burgers that are supposed to be so good.  So it was a thoroughly discouraging end to the day.

Monday morning wasn't much better.  I discovered that the screwdriver part would have fit the drill after all, but I had already returned it (darn my efficiency) and the store was not open.  In the end, I just drilled guide holes where necessary and used a regular screwdriver.  The pen came together somewhat slowly over the day (and I ended up flipping one part over, which then meant another part had to be reversed).  It didn't end up being quite as precise as I had hoped, but it seems pretty solid, and I just don't think the raccoons will be able to knock down the cans anymore, which was the real motivation.  (I'm just trying to convince them that there must be nicer and more welcoming backyards than mine, and it is time to move on...)

Here is the progression over the day:

As one might imagine, I was thoroughly hot and filthy by the end of the day.  I ended up throwing away the t-shirt I worked in and then soaked in the tub for a bit.

The weather threatened to rain, but in the end it didn't, so I did a bit of grilling.  A couple of neighbours dropped by and we hung out a bit.  That was nice.  I haven't decided if I am going to try next weekend to have folks from work come by or not.  It actually is a fair bit of work to do all the grilling, and I am not sure I am up for it again.  I debated going to the gym but decided it had been a busy day, and I can always go Tuesday after work.  (Yes, it's already time to start thinking about getting back to work.  Sigh.)

Frustrations boiling over

There have been so many frustrating events in the news lately, most of which can be traced back to the general public's desire for simple answers (and an unquenchable desire for strong men on the part of right-wing voters).  I guess I'll leave it at that, aside from noting that the Trudeau government has seemed incredibly ineffective lately, and I don't think this recent split on the right (Maxime Bernier) is really going to cause enough damage.  I'm not sure I can take it if I have to live under Ford and Scheer.

At a more local level, I've been having to work too long on a number of projects that don't actually interest me that much.  Last week, I was all set to go check out Julius Caesar in Withrow Park and then had to bail at the last minute.  Indeed, that evening I worked until 4 am, caught a few hours of sleep, then biked back downtown to set off on a short mini-vacation.  At any rate, Thurs. I also had to work on a project, so the clock was really ticking in the sense that Julius Caesar wraps this weekend.  I finally got over there last night at about 7.  While it appeared there were quite a few chairs, all had actually been reserved.  The grass was still fairly wet, though they were renting cushions and blankets.  The issue is that this is exactly what happened to me last year at Othello (technically put on by Driftwood rather than Theatre in the Ruff but in the exact same location), and it was frankly a miserable experience.  Both companies have done a lousy job in setting aside space for people without chairs.  The people on the cushions end up sitting right behind people in chairs and can't see anything.  If this is your model (not actually having enough chairs for everyone), then you need to reserve space for the proles on the cushions and put the chairs behind them.  It just speaks to a basic inconsideration for the audience, and it pisses me off to no end.

I have to admit, I was less and less interested in the performance in the first place.  I am getting a bit weary of gender-bent Shakespeare.  In this case, it is technically not gender-bent, but a complete rethinking of the play, with about half of it being new text that focuses on the Roman wives rather than Caesar and Brutus.  They have been relatively upfront about this (that this isn't technically Shakespeare's Julius Caesar), and it does sound like an interesting experiment, though not one I am completely behind.  In addition, I wasn't able to convince any actor friends to come out, so that also dampened my enthusiasm.  I could probably make one more attempt to see this Saturday, but I'm not really in the right frame of mind to appreciate it.  It's probably better to just make this the summer I didn't do any outdoor Shakespeare, and just hope that next year is a better one (across all kinds of dimensions).

Anyway, I came back home and took out some of my aggression on starting to cut the lumber for this pen for the garbage cans.  I am trying to make sure that the raccoons cannot knock them over, at least while they are under the deck.  I'm not 100% sure this will work, but it is worth a shot.