Last week was generally a pretty good one, and of course I didn't have time to write. I actually biked in to work every day, and even biked downtown on Sat. However, the forecasts of late have been getting fairly useless. There was no indication that it would rain, and rather hard at that, Thurs. evening. I got completely soaked. In fact, Friday morning also got off to a very bad start, as I couldn't find my keys for a long time (and was late to work) because I had left them in my coat, which was still drying in the mud room. Not great. But on the whole, last week was pretty good.
This week has been a lot colder, and there were even some snap flurries today (again not in the forecast!), though it doesn't look like the snow has stuck around. I did bike in Monday and Tuesday, neither of which was at all enjoyable, and just in general the return to winter conditions has put me in a bad mood.
I'm also very upset that I had so much trouble with insurance paying for a prescription, though I think this may actually be my fault for trying to use the wrong card. Still it just added to an extremely frustrating day/evening. I had tried twice to go to the library to get free "eclipse glasses" and I just missed out by a pair by a few minutes at the City Hall Library. I also just missed out on ordering a couple of CDs from Dusty Groove, since I really can't conduct non-work transactions at work. (I mean it's a reasonable rule, but it does make me wonder if I should work from home more so that I could jump on these sorts of opportunities on my break(s).)
But fundamentally I am cold and sick of it being cold when last week it seemed winter was over. It just makes it that much harder to carry on.
There are some things to look forward to fortunately. I am planning a few trips that are work related. I'll be going to Vancouver and then Seattle in April. Then to California the following week, and I should be able to take one day vacation in San Francisco. I should be able to connect with a few former colleagues and friends, and I am looking forward to that. And also trying to carve out a bit of time to see the museums in each city. (Now I do wish the California trip was moved to late May in part because I have to miss out on an interesting "secret gig" by Skye Wallace but more importantly I'll be missing many of the days that my son is in town, visiting from Ottawa. Given that he'll be in Ottawa all summer, the time starts feeling that much more precious.)
I haven't actually seen a lot of theatre lately, though that changes fairly soon. I have tickets for Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are Dead next week. I had to do a lot of juggling, but will manage to see a Hnath play (on the Death of Walt Disney) at Soulpepper and then some other concerts all fitted around these trips. I'm just starting to see if I can fit in a few screenings at TIFF. While in general, I find TIFF does not do nearly enough screenings of the classics, compared to its pre-pandemic line-up, I've managed to see a few things lately. I'll just have to write about that separately. While they don't have quite enough films either, I would say that in terms of the overall experience, I prefer going to Paradise on Bloor. I caught Kurosawa's Dreams there and then High and Low a couple of weeks after that. In terms of new releases, I saw Drive-Away Dolls and thought that was amusing, though it never was trying to be more than a B-Movie.
I just finished Carol Shields' Swann. There were parts I liked a fair bit, though I didn't like the portrait of the academic who also happened to be a petty thief, and then the plot of the last chapter descended into pure ludicrousness and frankly ruined the book for me. It won't show up on my best of list after all. But I'm enjoying Rushdie's Fury quite a bit, even if I do find the main character's separation from his wife to be largely inexplicable.* It will likely make the list, and probably I.B. Singer's Scum, which reads almost like a Joseph Roth novel (which is in my view a good thing). I imagine I will be able to get through some longer books on these West Coast flights. I'm currently imagining taking Dupont's The American Fiancée and Dickens' Oliver Twist on the April trips, along with a few shorter books I could dispense with along the way. Then I would tackle Dombey and Son on the next train ride to Ottawa or Montreal, though I am not sure when that might be.
Anyway, I really need it to warm up again before I recover my good nature, which is generally is pretty fragile, even in the best of times. Hopefully the warmer weather returns next week...
* I had sort of assumed that this was about his short marriage to Padma Lakshmi, but it is much more likely to be about the breakdown of his relationship with wife #3, Elizabeth West, where apparently the split arose because he wanted to move to the U.S. (which is indeed what the narrator of Fury does, abandoning his wife and child). I guess we can benefit from his messed-up life, as it ultimately results in some fine novels...
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