Somewhat Restrained Weekend

Given that the weather was supposed to hold Friday evening (and it was supposed to rain most of Saturday), I decided to try to get over to High Park and watch Midsummer's Night's Dream.  I called up Canadian Stage, which I needed to do anyway to swap my ticket for Top Dog/Underdog in late Sept. (as I will be in Ottawa on the date I originally picked) and then ordered a ticket for that evening.

I then ran home to deal with something.  I set out around 6:30.  I have to say the signs were not at all clear on the closest bus stop, but in fact the 72 bus was rerouted all the way over to Jones (because of Taste of the Danforth).  So incredibly frustrating.  I will say my patience for rerouting transit and generally making life miserable for transit riders is at an all time low, and I don't think Taste of Danforth and certainly not TIFF can justify screwing up these routes.  Anyway, I had to walk all the way up to Pape Station, where it seemed as if Line 2 was recovering from some mechanical problems.  I definitely was pretty stressed all the way out to High Park.  Once I got there it was quite a long walk, though that is nothing new.  I guess I finally arrived around 7:45, and all the best seats were taken.  I did manage to find a spot on top of one of the boulders on the side and it wasn't too bad, since I had brought a seat cushion with me!  I did have a somewhat obstructed view of the stage.  I do think I probably would have had better seats if the 72 had been running like normal, so that was a drag...

It was generally a fun production, though it felt like they compressed the action with the lovers a bit and really stretched out the performance of the (marginally competent) play within a play.  They may have cut a few of Bottom's lines, though he definitely had his chances to ham things up.  Perhaps the best moment for me was Titiana's speech chiding Oberon.  I think this may be the only straight Shakespeare on offer this summer, since Driftwood is doing this weird "best of" bits mixed in with personal recollections of what Shakespeare meant to the  Driftwood AD (perhaps not completely dissimilar to Brian Bedford's spoken word CD).  And Shakespeare in the Ruff is doing Richard III meets an alternative universe Richard III.  I'm not entirely sure why, but it will be playing at Withrow Park, and I expect I'll go.

I got back to my neighbourhood and there was just the tiniest sprinkle of rain, so I timed it pretty well, though I certainly had to walk a lot more than I had expected.

I thought it was going to rain much more than it actually did on Sat.  I definitely could have and probably should have biked.  Anyway, I did make it to the gym in the morning (though I skipped Thurs., when I probably should have pushed myself a bit more).  I swung by Robarts Library and dropped off some books and downloaded a handful of papers.  Then I went over to 401 Richmond.  I saw a few interesting things, though the pop-up exhibit on Ontario Place wasn't open, and I may have to go back next weekend.  We'll see.

I decided to skip the AGO, but I did peek into Bau-Xi Gallery.  Then I went over to the Textile Museum.  I think my timing was pretty good.  They were having a fabric sale, and I picked up a few ends for what be a third quilt (if I finally force myself to finish the second one, which is languishing at about 55% done).  They had quite an interesting exhibit on masks created by First Nations' artists, most of which were quite decorative but likely not actually that helpful against COVID.

Towanna Miller, Corona Covid, 2020

Don Kwan, Chinese Take Out Menu Mask, 2020

My transit pass had expired by this point, so I cut through City Hall and stumbled across Taste of Vietnam.  That was unexpected.

I spent some time at work but was a bit run-down by this point.  There was definitely something wrong with the subway, as there were people 5 or 6 deep on the platform at Union Station, but I managed to squeeze on and then jumped off at College, since the Gerrard streetcar was not as messed up as the 72 bus!  I went outside a few times to see if I could see the Perseids, but it was mostly overcast, and then when there was a break in the clouds I still couldn't see any meteors.  Disappointing to say the least...

Sunday I did a very short grocery run.  I had thought I could squeeze in some swimming at Jimmy Simpson, but the timing just didn't quite work out.  I then took my daughter over to the mall and got the first round of school supplies for the fall.  In between times, I wasted more than a little time deciding on what the next quilt might look like (almost certainly hexagons this time) and then whether I needed to order a cutting guide (yes!), and then what project I might tackle after that, given that I will have tons of fabric left over.  Maybe something like this:

I came reasonably close to heading over to the Paradise to see Eric Rohmer's first color film, La Collectionneuse, but the timing was a bit off (it was showing way too early) and I also wasn't thrilled about having to deal with the 72 yet again.  I do think I'll likely go tomorrow evening to see Hirozaku Kore-eda's Still Walking.  Sadly that means I will miss the swimming slot at Jimmy Simpson on Monday, though I should be able to make it on Wed.  (I guess I have to wait until the fall for Matty Eckler to return to a remotely reasonable schedule for lane swimming.  So frustrating!)

I did a bit of reading the rest of the day, though I do feel I probably ought to have gotten a bit more accomplished.  Maybe that is the wrong way of looking at things, however.