Nov. book news

I guess I am jumping the gun just slightly, but I am already looking ahead.

One of the annoying things about getting busy (and now having to deal with kittens and their needs on a daily basis) is that I do let some things get away from me.  I never did make it over to the Trinity book sale, though honestly I just don't need more books at the moment!  I guess Art Toronto was last weekend, and I didn't do that either.  Maybe I would have if I hadn't been off in Stratford on Saturday.

I finally managed to make it through Woolf's Orlando.  It was fine, but I don't think it is as strong a novel as Mrs. Dalloway or To the Lighthouse.  I don't really expect to read it for a third time, so I did put it out front.  (No takers so far...)  I decided to try to get through Henry James's The Turn of the Screw by Halloween.  It will be a close thing, but I think I'll make it.  Now whether I will make it through Mrs. Dalloway by Nov. 5 (when I am attending this TPL celebration of Mrs. Dalloway) is definitely in question.  It certainly means that Empire Falls keeps getting pushed off.

Also for Nov., I should try to get to Miéville's The City and the City ✓, as this is being read in a book club at work.  It turns out that all the TPL copies are on hold already, so I may need to get it through Robarts.  But since I can only keep it for two weeks, I might as well wait until I am actually ready to read the book straight through, so probably the second week of Nov.  After this, I need to try to wrap up Empire Falls and Canetti's Auto da Fe and then I'll see about reading Austen's Persuasion before the Austen anniversary celebrations in Dec.  If I get through this, then really the only Austen left to read will be Emma, and I might see about putting that on the list for 2027.  (Interestingly, Prunella Scales narrated an abridged and unabridged version of Emma that was very well received, though you have to buy the unabridged version on cassette(!) or CD.  I am toying with the idea of ordering a copy and putting it aside until I have actually read Emma first.)  

I decided just to buy Shteyngart's Vera ✓ and have him sign it (at his Dec. TPL event) rather than trying to read it in advance, particularly as this is a case where one really ought to read Nabokov's Ada, or Ardor ✓ first!  That was never going to happen.  I had thought I owned a copy of Ada, but it turns out that I don't, so I started hunting a copy down.  I went to the BWV near the Eaton Centre, but they didn't have it.  On my last outing to Tafelmusik, I had time to duck into Seekers Books.  They didn't have it either, unfortunately.  The BWV on Bloor did have one copy, so I snatched that up, then went off to hear a terrific concert, mostly of Vivaldi and some of his contemporaries.  I don't have a specific time-line, but I would like to try to get to Ada in early 2026 (and maybe my next trip up to Ottawa on Jan. 20 is a good opportunity to at least start the novel), and then read Vera at some point after that.  If I am successful in following through with this, maybe I should put Atwood's MaddAdam trilogy in the 2nd half of 2026, and slot War and Peace and Lessing's Children of Violence cycle (and Emma) into 2027.

One very long novel (700 pages) that I think I will just skip is Kiran Desai's The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny.  I just saw her at a TIFA event, and they were talking about her novel and the long, long journey to get it finished (20 years in the writing!).  I think partly I was stressed over my tight schedule, and the fact they had a meltdown and couldn't actually sell any copies of her new book, and they started late (with a somewhat insulting explanation that they were having sardines on toast and lost track of time), but there really isn't anything that she said that makes me want to read this novel.  I mean never say never, but I have literally 500+ books I want to read ahead of this, including rereading The Inheritance of Loss, which is a terrific novel.  I had pretty much given up on getting any books signed (since I had a concert to go to that started at 7), but even though they started late, they ended at 6:31, and I somehow managed to get in line towards the front (probably in the first 10 people).  She signed my copy of Inheritance, and I scampered off and made it to the concert after all.*  (I suspect that had I paid the hefty sum for Loneliness and thus had more skin in the game, I would have been halfway back in the (very long) line and would have bailed in the end.)

The last thing I wanted to touch on before I run off, is that I just wasn't paying enough attention, and a bunch of holds I had at TPL simply expired, as I usually put them on inactive status for long periods of time.  I guess this means I should just use the save function rather than trying to put them on suspended hold.  This is pretty annoying, and I am trying to recall just what was on there.  Over the past few months, I had whittled the list down a fair bit.  I DNR Ghosted after I found out what a morally bankrupt book it was.  I ditched holds for Vera and Pick a Colour, as I will end up buying those books.  I ended up getting a copy of Do You Remember Being Born? ✓ which is about a older poet (based on Marianne Moore) interfacing with an AI agent that needs to be trained in understanding language.  So this is one I need to try to finish up between Mrs. Dalloway ✓ and The City and the City ✓, but at least I have it in hand and won't just forget about it.  There were a few still on hold where the expiration date was far enough away.  This includes Aliens on the Moon by Thomas King and You've Changed by Ian Williams** and Murakami's latest.  I remember I had one book about architecture on hold, but I am not as interested in that at the moment.  I was able to reconstruct most of the list that evaporated:
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Chakraborty
The Pleasures of Exile by George Lamming
What We See in the Smoke by Ben Ghan
The Tale of the Missing Man by Manzoor Ahtesham ✓ (not as good/interesting as I hoped)

(The last one was particularly hard to find as it is a south Asian novel, not an Arabic one!  And I kept thinking it was called Lost Man or something like that.  I wasn't terribly far off, but it took a while to turn it up again.)

I think in general, I will try to get through this list in 2026, as most of the books are not all that long, and not risk this happening again.  I am sure there are a few books that I am not remembering, but these were the ones that came to mind right away and thus am apparently the most interested in actually reading (one day).

Edit (8/31): I did finish The Turn of the Screw and thought the ending was poor. 😞    I'm not a huge fan of unreliable narrators in general, though these sorts of books can be amusing, depending on how the author tips off the reader.  What I don't care for, and The Turn of the Screw has in spades, is stories that are full of radical ambiguity.  James apparently wants the reader to vacillate between thinking there is a realistic and a supernatural ending to the story.  I just don't like that at all.  Period.

 

* It certainly helped that the TIFA event was at Victoria College and the ARC Ensemble concert was practically around the corner at Mazolleni Hall, but it was still pretty stressful, worrying if I would be late.  The ARC Ensemble concert was very good, though of the 3 composers they featured, Frederick Block's pieces were clearly the strongest of the bunch.

** I keep getting blocked from seeing Ian Williams.  Last year when he was giving the Massey Lecture in Toronto, I had a ticket but had to travel for work so sent a friend in my place (and did get a couple of books signed at least).  Right after Kiran Desai (and at the same time as the ARC Ensemble!), Ian Williams was at TIFA talking about his new novel, so I missed that.  There was another recent event in Toronto where he was featuring his new novel, but I was off to see Bremen Town that evening and just didn't feel up to trying to switch the ticket.  

Late Stratford Trip

Before I get too deep into this post, I will first mention that the Jays have outperformed expectations, and clearly there is a decent chance they will win it all.  That would be pretty exciting, and, while I don't really care in my heart of hearts, I would prefer that they win (and give the Orange One something else to sulk over).

There have been a lot of celebrity deaths lately, and certainly quite a few major losses among jazz musicians, including John DeJohnette.  I saw him play at least three times (including once with Herbie Hancock!) and possibly another time or two.  And a few months back, Hermeto Pascoal passed away, though I am less familiar with his work and never saw him play.  I was saddened that Prunella Scales also just passed away, though she had been suffering from dementia for some time.  I had seriously planned on doing a mini-marathon of Fawlty Towers, but I forgot how wound-up and high-strung they make me, and I just couldn't do it.  Maybe if I have a longer break over the weekend I'll try to watch a few.

Anyway, there are a number of other things I can discuss, but I would like to briefly write up the Stratford trip last Sat.  I biked down to the office and parked my bike, then changed my t-shirt (at the office actually) and walked over to the bus stop.  I wanted to travel as light as possible, so I basically only had my tickets, a book (Auto da Fe), my phone, glasses, an apple and some chips.  The bus was pretty well packed, and I ended up next to an older man who had a long phone conversation before finally hanging up and then texting the rest of the trip!  I made some progress on the book, though not as much as I would have if there hadn't been so much chatter on the bus.

The truth is I don't really like this novel very much, and I probably should just drop it.  I wasn't all that interested in the main plot about an eccentric book collector and his housekeeper, who after marrying him, takes an outsize interest in his bank account and whether she is in his will, and ultimately drives him from his flat.  This was unpleasant enough, but then he ends up in the hands of petty criminals, and the point of view shifts over to these shiftless crooks.  It just really drags in this section for some reason.  I'm sure it's just my mind making weird connections, but somehow this portion of the book reminds me of The Seven Madmen by Roberto Arlt, though not handled quite as well.  I'll try to finish it up, but this is just not really my cup of tea...

We made pretty decent time to Stratford, unlike the last time I went late in the season and was completely snarled up by the marathon or some other race that closed down a bunch of streets.  I debated between the Thai place I usually go to or a burrito place, which was a lot faster (and cheaper).  I decided to get the burrito (a sweet potato and black bean burrito) and eat it while wandering around town.  The leaves had really started turning red and orange in this part of town.

I starting thinking whether I would ever write up my script for "Stratford" where I would focus on the issues of being a bedroom community for Toronto artists (with still substantial numbers of American tourists) and being a small Ontario town.  Not quite town and gown conflict but along the same lines, with some of the high school students really falling in love with all aspects of the theatre but most others thinking it is lame and not that thrilled about living in such a tourist trap.  (One of them could have to dress up all in ruffles, almost as ridiculous as Judge Reinhold in that pirate get-up in Fast Times, and this would naturally cause lots of resentment, and endless mockery from his peers.)  I think it is somewhat unlikely I will do much with it.  Anyway, I did wonder if it might be better off as a comedy set in a Stratford bed and breakfast (the Bard's B & B), though that would be limiting in some ways and would set up inevitable comparisons with Fawlty Towers (where I would fail miserably).  This actually was a couple of days before the news hit about Ms. Scales's passing.  I think probably the first idea is better (though itself would suffer when compared to Slings and Arrows), though maybe there is just one episode where one of the main actors has to spend a couple of nights in a bed and breakfast -- and hears all about how much the company was hamming it up.

Unfortunately the "mall" where I bought the burrito didn't have any public restrooms, so I decided to walk over to Tom Patterson Theatre, as there is a place nearby with public washrooms.  Those were locked for the season(!), but I was able to go into the arena and finally found a washroom that was open.  If I ever do work more on this series, I would probably swap the hockey arena for a curling rink, as I remember from the exurban fringes of Saskatoon.

I found out that Art in the Park was no longer running due to it being so late in the season, so I just started walking back to the Studio Theatre.  It was sprinkling a bit but it wasn't too bad, so I didn't sprint back.  I had thought I might drop in at the other bookstore right next to the Studio Theatre, but apparently that has been shuttered for many years (before 2019 at least).  I think I did go in once or twice but never bought anything there.

It wasn't too long before the Goblins arrived.

This time around they were recruiting people to serve as the chorus.  These people got quite the workout. I'm really not that big into audience participation, so it is just as well they didn't ask me to do it.  

 

I enjoyed this a lot, though it wasn't such a radically new thing as Goblins Macbeth was.  One of the most amusing running gags was that one of the Goblins wanted to put on some version of the Christmas story and he often managed to include Christmas carols or sneak in lines from A Christmas Carol or even The Grinch!

There are four more chances to see it between now and Friday, but you clearly don't have a lot of time.  I still have some hopes that this will land at Tarragon, and I would go see it again.

Since the whole show, including a post-play dance party takes just about 90 minutes, I had a lot of time to kill before the bus back to Toronto.  I wandered back over to Shoppers but they didn't have any single-serve ice cream!  So I went to another place and just got over-priced ice cream, then hit the dollar store, and then went over to the Avon to wait for the bus.  It was much, much less crowded on the way back, and I had a seat to myself.  Unfortunately, the traffic was pretty bad, and the bus driver ended up taking the 401 (rather than the 427 to the Gardiner) and dropped most of us off at the Lawrence West station where we could just get on the subway.  So all in all a good outing, even if I (yet again) didn't get as much reading in as I had hoped.

Kittens Pulling Their Weight

The kittens continue to get more comfortable in the house.  I'm more often able to pet Rho, the skittish, silver kitten, though it still really doesn't like to be picked up.

Toby is definitely the mellow, friendly kitten who eventually follows me to various rooms of the house, and he really loves being petted and tolerates being picked up.  Here is my son bonding a bit with Toby.

However, the second mouse was also making itself at home, driving my wife a bit crazy.  She gave me an ultimatum that the cats would have to spend the entire night in the master bedroom, meaning that I had to move a litter box in and camp out all night, as she went somewhere else to get some undisturbed sleep.  I was worried that they wouldn't be able to perform on command and, indeed, that the mouse would not venture out after getting wind of the cats.

Around 6 in the morning, Rho got very intense, staring at the closet, as it heard the mouse was moving around (finally).  Anyway, in the end the mouse was stuck to a glue trap but Toby's paw was as well.  It certainly possible that the cat drove the mouse onto the trap, which it had been avoiding up until then... Anyway, the mouse was still alive, making the removal process that much harder.  I actually got bit (by the mouse I assume).  I went to get some vegetable oil to try to get Toby free.  By the time I got back, Toby had pulled his paw off the trap.  I tossed the glue trap outside to deal with later and rubbed a bit of vegetable oil into his paw to help loosen any glue still on his fur.  I really hope this is the last of the mice, and the house will just be a no-go zone for future mice.

Where things get a little weird is in the morning, I looked at the glue trap in the front yard -- and the mouse wasn't there.  It's almost like the end of one of those Friday the 13th movies where Jason is supposed to be in a trap or buried in a grave or what have you, but it is empty.  Dun dun duuun!  The most likely outcome is that a squirrel or neighbourhood cat came by and took care of the mouse.  But I suppose it is at least possible the mouse pulled a Houdini and got free from the trap.  I don't really care unless it tries to get back in.  If so, it is the most hard-headed mouse in the world.  I like to think it will be one of those grizzled mice from a Gary Larson cartoon, warning all other mice away from the house.

If for some unfathomable reason, we end up with mice back in the house right away, particularly a mouse missing half its fur, I am going to make absolutely sure it is dead when disposing of it.  No more Mr. Nice Guy!

After this, the kittens played around a bit on the stairs before taking a well-earned nap.  Sadly, I still had to go off to work and put a full day of work in...

So all in all, my wife has come around to the idea that the cats are a necessary evil and have definitely been a net positive pick-up for the household.

 

Sports Interlude

That's odd.  I had started a short post but it didn't get saved as a draft.  Fortunately, I hadn't written very much.

I'm definitely not much of a sports fan, though I usually know the outcomes of major events, though I don't retain that information much longer than a few months, as it just doesn't fundamentally interest me very much.  What I mostly object to is the outsized role sports plays in the media and in urban politics where millions of dollars in public spending goes towards sweetheart stadium deals, which actually have a quite poor return on investment (for the public, not the team franchises!).  And don't get me started on the abominations that FIFA and IOC have become...

That said, I was impressed by the Jays' come-from-behind victory to head to the World Series.  Wow!  They certainly did it the hard way, and they probably should have won the first game with only a bit more run support.  And better managerial decisions about relief pitching would likely have led to a victory in Game 5.  I'm pulling for them in a very low-key way, though the Dodgers are certainly the favoured team.  My wife has split allegiance, since her father was a big Dodgers fan.  I'm not going to be devastated if they don't win, but it would be nice to be here and soak in the celebrations if they do win.  

I've been fortunate enough to be around when the local team pulled it off.  In fact, I was very preoccupied with my courses, but I was in Toronto in 1993 when they won it all the last time around.  I was also here when the Raptors won, and I got a bit swept up in that, following the games a little bit while at the gym for example.  The parade went past Union Station where I was working, and we had a pretty good view from our windows and didn't need to go down to street level where the crowds were massive.

Thinking back, I was in Chicago for the Bulls second three-peat, and I certainly watched bits and pieces of some of the key games.  I happened to be back in Chicago when they won one of the World Series games at Wrigley.  I even was passing through the area (or rather up on the El) on my way to a play in Edgewater, though I don't believe this was the game where they won the series but the penultimate victory.

I'm pretty sure I was in Chicago when the Blackhawks started winning the Stanley Cup.  I remember the Red Wings got close a few times while I was in Ann Arbor, but I had moved away (to Chicago in fact) when Yzerman finally starting getting his name etched on the Cup.  I still was very glad that he had that success.  I suppose I still pull a bit for the Red Wings, but I'm not a massive fan, and indeed I warmed up slightly to their arch-rivals, the Blackhawks, but really only during the Toews years.

I definitely don't have the bandwidth to follow college sports, though I was glad Michigan were national (football) champs a few years back.  I believe they went to the Rose Bowl twice while I was in Ann Arbor, winning once (though I don't have major memories of this, which is odd).  What I clearly remember is the Wolverines winning the basketball national championship in 1989, as we watched most of the final games in the dorm (South Quad), but the TV went out and we all ran over to West Quad for the final minutes!  What is strange is that I had thought that due to Steve Fisher's recruiting violations, they had vacated this championship and his subsequent NCAA successes, but it appears that the 1989 title is safe after all.*  Whew!

The last memorable occurrence (and more or less the last time I paid college sports a lot of attention) was when Northwestern ran the table in the Big 10 and went to the Rose Bowl.  It was the most incredible underdog story, even though they lost the Rose Bowl.  (This was my first year at Northwestern, and no one could believe they pulled it off!)  I believe it was only a few years before this that Penn joined the Big 10.  I wasn't thrilled about this but could live with it.  However, then they added Nebraska, and I felt it was just a slap in the face.  And now, Rutgers and a couple of California teams (UCLA and USC) are in the Big 10, which is just an abomination.  I won't even deign to call it the Big 10 anymore, as it doesn't have any real Midwest roots.  And when they delinked the Rose Bowl from the Big 10 and Pac-12 conference champions, I just completely lost interest.  But I was there when it still made sense, and my college teams had decent success back when the traditions still mattered.

 

* I really didn't follow the sign-stealing controversy over on the football side of things, but it appears that UM and perhaps the coaching staff will pay massive fines, but the team will not have any wins stricken from the record or have the national championship taken away.  I'm not really sure what would have happened had they attempted that, but probably the alumni would have just ignored the NCAA.

Odd Weekend

I have been able to stick to my basic workout routine on the weekend, but not much more (aside from biking to work most days, which is still a fairly significant undertaking).  Friday I had been planning on going to swim at Jimmie Simpson, but I had already gotten rained on and decided it just wasn't worth going out again.  

So I went swimming in Regent Park on Sat.  It was pretty crowded per usual, but I did get in 22 or 23 laps and also soaked in the spa pool area.  When I went back to change, I found out my lock had been cut off, which is obviously extremely upsetting.  However, everything was still there.  I figured that someone had asked the staff to cut off the wrong lock and was going to ball them out.  When I got to the front desk some other family had their lock cut off and their phones and pretty much everything apart from their clothes had been stolen.  I really can't explain why my stuff was left alone, other than I have an extremely ratty backpack that is on its last legs and the thief decided it wasn't worth risking poking around in it.  So this was extremely upsetting, and it means I need to really rethink my plans to go to and from Regent Park and work.  Now it is possible to leave most of your stuff poolside (and a couple of other pools have started recommended this), but I really don't want to have a laptop in a bag on the pool deck.  Clearly, things could have been much, much worse for me, but it's still upsetting, and I needed to go get another lock and memorize a new combination.

I had to bike quickly over to Hot Docs and saw this animated feature called Endless Cookie.  It was basically about two half-brothers, one white, one Native (though in fact half-white) and very random observations about the way of life up north (the white brother actually lives in Toronto but kept flying back north).  It really did feel endless to me, and I probably should have snuck out.  Though in fact it only was 1 hour 40 minutes.

Then I wandered over to Dollarama and bought a new lock and some snacks.  I then hit up BMV.  I ended up getting a few poetry books, including a Galway Kinnell anthology and Lynn Crosbie's Queen Rat.  I thought the Kinnell book was only $4.99, but there was another price of $14.99!  But then I showed the clerk the other page, and she gave me $10 back.  I do kind of regret not grabbing Howl's Moving Castle on Blu-ray when I had the chance.  It's pretty unlikely that will ever turn up again.

I biked down to work, though I tried to stop by this Indian place I where I used to get samosas at the tail end of the pandemic.  I was worried that because it is in the middle of the street on Adelaide, some jerk would be going too fast in the bike lane and run into me, so I stopped a bit suddenly and hopped onto the sidewalk.  My momentum was just too much, and I couldn't keep my balance, and I ended up falling on my ass on the sidewalk.  So dignified.  I just have to be more careful, as I could have really hurt myself.  Indeed, I was incredibly sore all the rest of the day and night with some lower back spasms, though they gradually went away throughout the day on Sunday and I should be more or less back to normal by Monday.  It turns out they changed their menu a bit, and also their debit charger wasn't working (and they wanted cash only), so I gave up, even though I likely had enough cash on me.  I don't think I'll go back, as I had another bad experience there the week before.

I stopped by work to drop something off, and then I biked home.  I actually needed to turn back around after only an hour to go see GoGo Penguin at Koerner Hall.  I had basically assumed I would bike over there, but I was still sore and ended up taking the TTC.  It was ok, though every time I've tried to take it over the past week, I've had to wait extra long for the 72 bus, which is so annoying.  The concert was good, though I think I would have preferred it if they had some kind of horn in the group.  And honestly, my back was still giving me a lot of issues.  I was extremely hungry by this point.  After the concert, I actually took the train west to Spadina.  I thought there was another Thai place right around BMV, but I didn't see anything and kept going until I hit BKK Thai.  I had a particularly bad experience there on New Year's last year, but I was pretty desperate.  I got pad thai, which is hard to mess up, though the noodles were a bit "gluey."  I think I probably should not go back there either, and just stick to the one on Queen, which is quite good.  Perhaps I should have taken the train all the way to Ossington where at least the restaurants are reliably good.

I stayed up pretty late trying to take care of a few things and then had some trouble actually leaving for the gym on time.  Still, I was out the door by about 10:00, which is way better than I usually manage these days.  I was able to do some stretches, even back stretches, and put together a decent workout, which was a little surprising.  I grabbed a few groceries, though I didn't have the space to pick up another box of cat litter.  I left the house for Walter Hall at 12:15.  I made it in 30 minutes and got my name on the wait list to see Jeff Wall giving a lecture.  I was actually 3rd on the list and was pretty sure I would get in.  In fact, I think pretty much everyone on the wait list was eventually able to get in.  I flipped through the new catalogue for the Wall show at MOCA.  (I'm going to go soon, though I will likely wait until the next Free Friday.  I also will take my son on his next visit over winter break.)  They wanted $70 for the catalog, and it looks like the best photos are from 2007 or before (and one of his better new photos isn't even in the show!).  I may end up buying it, but I think I would rather hold off until TPL orders a copy or two and put it on hold.

While I was waiting I managed to get through Matthew Walsh's Terrarium.  He was one of the poets I met at Word on the Street.  I am making decent progress through Orlando, limited progress through Russo's Empire Falls and no progress at all on Auto-da-Fe (though I expect I will bring this along with me next Sat. when I bus it over to Stratford to see Goblins Oedipus).

I did make it into Walter Hall.  The lecture was pretty good.  I learned a fair bit about what Wall thinks about photography.  One interesting comment was that when possible he likes photos that are scaled to life, though of course mostly that is impossible with his detailed tableau.  He said that the pictures needed to be big enough so that people could see the important details, such as facial expressions, but no bigger.  What he didn't discuss, and maybe it would have been worth asking, is how he feels about reproductions in catalogues where this detail is almost always lost.

This is one of my favourite photos of his.



He said in this case, he had started from the man selling roses, and that the point of this photo was to keep adding detail until the man was more or less lost in the crowd.  That was certainly an interesting way to think about coming up with this image and its composition.

He also talked about this relatively new photo (not in the show unfortunately) where it started off as a bit of a documentary but then he moved it to a new location that functioned better and was more photogenic.  He had done that with other photos as well, and indeed he has certainly admitted that most of his work is "staged."  He also said that since he wanted the same energy levels from all the men (looking to be hired for work), he thought black and while would work much better than colour where some clothing, particularly red shirts/jackets, would make some men stand out from the others.

Anyway, it was a pretty good talk overall.  The questions from the audience were generally pretty good as well.  He wasn't signing anything, which I thought was a missed opportunity, as I would have gotten the new catalogue if it was signed. 

I was not too happy to realize it had started raining while I was at the talk.  I had just enough time to bike down to Carlton Cinema.  I watched Clue, which I haven't seen since it first hit the theatres in 1985!  I asked, and they said that this version did show all three endings, which was good.  It certainly isn't a great movie, but it has lots of amusing moments.  I don't think she ever really became a break-out star, but Leslie Ann Warren, who played Miss Scarlett, sort of seems like a cross between Sigourney Weaver and Susan Sarandon.  I honestly cannot remember which ending I saw back in 1985, though I'm pretty sure it wasn't the one where almost everyone in the cast killed off someone!  One good thing about dropping in at Carlton is I was able to ask about Annie Hall, which was on their website but has vanished.  They said they were having trouble getting a print in, but that they should have one in hand by Monday or Tues. and then it would go back up on the website.  I hope so, as I am planning on taking my son to see Annie Hall on Wed.!

I didn't get a whole lot done the rest of Sunday, though I did manage to do a load of laundry.  Mostly I keep finding that this computer is in an endless loop of trying to reinstall Windows 11, getting stuck and then asking me to free up more memory and yet nothing gets fixed.  Maybe I shouldn't get too worked up over it, as I can still use the computer, but it is a total drag that I keep getting nagged over this.

So overall, it was an ok weekend with a few things that went well, but then some unpleasantness that could have been a lot worse.

 

Kittens Redux

I promise this won't just be a blog about kittens, though I assume that traffic would likely increase if I did that...

Anyway, they have gradually started getting more comfortable in the house.  They occasionally go up to the 2nd floor on their own, though more often I have to bring the orange one (Toby) up and leave him there.  However, they both came up and camped under the bed for a while.  As the mouse seems to be there some of the time, this is promising.

They often nap a lot in the kitchen, though they are starting to spend more time with me (again primarily Toby) in the living room.  I bought a scratching pad, but they are ignoring that in favour of the couch(!) so I have ordered a scratching post, which hopefully will help with that.

While the silver cat is still not particularly approachable, once in a while when it is in a mellow mood, it will let me pet it.  This gives me some hope that with time, it will grow to have some attachment to us (or to me at least).

I'm still getting used to the new types of litter and how often it needs to be cleaned up, esp. with 2 kittens.  But generally things are going pretty well with them.

Last night was particularly amusing as they kept looking at what was on the tv, trying to decide whether to try to catch the moving hands.  While I don't really want to spray them that close to the tv, I also have to train them to just ignore it.  Fortunately, I don't actually watch tv that much downstairs, though there are a lot of movies I still plan on watching.  Last night I was watching Edward Yang's Mahjong, which was entertaining, though I liked A Confucian Confusion more.

The breaking news is that only 4 days in, they caught the mouse!  I let Toby play with it for a while, though then he tried to eat it, so I had to take it away.  (It was already dead, but still not easy.)  Unfortunately, within a night we realized there is still one more mouse.  Between the kittens and some glue traps and poison traps, we will eventually get it, but it is still frustrating.  Really hoping it is the last one for now, and we don't have a family of mice!  The overarching hope is that the presence of cats (and their smells, etc.) will keep other mice from setting up shop in the house.  

Fingers crossed!

Breaking News -- Kittens!

I may have mentioned that we have a minor infestation of mice, displaced by Ontario Line construction nearby.  We did bring in an exterminator, but it hasn't solved the issue so far.  My wife somewhat reluctantly said we could get a kitten.  Then she had several sleepless nights.  (While the mice were briefly in the kitchen, they seem to have moved into her room on the 2nd floor!  So odd because there are definitely other and better places for them to go.)  Anyway, she then turned to me and asked how quickly could I get a cat!  I had only just started looking, assuming this was going to be a several week process, but I accelerated the search.  (I also pressed my luck and said two kittens would be better than one, and she gave in on that.)

There were a few likely postings on Kajiji, and I reached out to a few, not sure of what to expect as it was Thanksgiving weekend.  Anyway, one guy got back to me, and we agreed I would drop by on Sunday afternoon.  This meant that Sat. and Sun. morning were spent running around, picking up pet supplies.  (We haven't had any pets for 20 years.  Since we moved to England in fact -- when we had to give up two cats.)  He had three very attractive kittens, and though they were males (and I have a slight preference for females as they generally are calmer and suffer from fewer urinary infections), I decided that males might be better mousers.  He said the orange and the silver one were available, and I said that sounds terrific.

I took the bus over to Dufferin and Dupont, near where the guy lived.  I was bummed that Bau-Xi was closed.  Normally they are open on Sundays, but I guess they decided the holiday was worth celebrating.  I may or may not get back later in the month.  When I got to the house, the guy said that someone else had put a hold on the orange kitten.  I was more than a little put out by this, since he had said the orange one was available.  Now it turns out that the black one was available (I thought it had already been taken).  I fussed a little bit and said that I was picking up two of them.  He agreed that adopting two from the same litter was better, and he gave me the orange and silver kittens after all.  Apparently, the other guy did take the black kitten, so I guess it worked out ok.

They are still adjusting to the new place, and I am not sure quite how social the silver cat will be, but the orange one is quite a sweetheart, and already likes being brushed and petted and tolerates being held.  They mostly camp out underneath my desk, but they have started exploring a bit.  I have been able to get the orange one upstairs into the master bedroom.  (And the silver one had considerably less separation anxiety last night, which is promising.)  They haven't caught any mice yet, but it's early days.  The ultimate goal is to try to get any mice in the house and then just generally having the presence of cats around should keep other mice from getting in.  Fingers crossed. 

So that's what I got up to this Thanksgiving.