The slowly unfolding year
Thursday, May 2nd, 2019 10:48 pmStill unseasonably cold, still winter jacket weather at 9C with no sun. A few diffident plum or cherry blossoms appear on streets that get whatever sun there is, but the horticultural landscape is behind the (new) seasonal. Temperatures might get into the teens this weekend, but if it rains, it still won't feel warm.
Yesterday I had an eye appointment and bicycled down in the rain and scarily gusty wind, which as ever came from whatever direction I was trying to go in and nearly knocked me sideways as I passed Robarts, not usually a wind tunnel area. Meanwhile hordes of high school students passed me on foot, bound possibly for the general strike/ demonstration at the Legislature a long block away. Our cocaine dealing Premier has been teacher-baiting. Gone alas are the days when the province's teachers could bring down a government. Now they're fair game.
Rehearsing for retirement, I stayed away from work on my two days off. This might have worked better if I hadn't ached abominably both days, with hip flexors and low back spasming into inexplicable rigidity, and if I hadn't been power-reading The Bone People. I was enchanted at first by a Booker Prize winner that was quirky and language-loving and utterly unlike the 'misunderstood white man by a lake' school of writing. (Though really that's an American trope, and the Booker IME just tends towards Misunderstood Men.) But read without the corrective presence of other human beings, it gave me the fantods, and now I have a bad taste in my mouth over it, which I'm trying to erase with the second last Hyakki Yakki. 25 had some interesting discoveries on reread, but 26 so far is both frustrating and obscure. So is Phantom Moon 5, but I might be better off with that new territory rather than the indifferent vol 26.
However, my s-i-l, genki as ever, heard me saying that I wanted to buy a power saw to cut up the ancient pine branches that have been sitting for at least a year on my porch, and cut down the rest of the scraggly pine bushes, and maybe lower the hedge as well; and so I came home today to a porch swept and bare of branches, which were sawed up and tied in bundles for the garbage. Two of the pines were gone, but she thought the corner one should stay. Best of all, the various trash that had accumulated on the table until I could think of a way of disposing of it (tiles, concrete pieces, wooden frames that didn't work for concrete repairs) was all bundled into garbage bags waiting for the next pickup. Oh happy day!
Of course I still want a power saw because even my genki s-i-l said she had to take two tylenols after all that sawing.
Yesterday I had an eye appointment and bicycled down in the rain and scarily gusty wind, which as ever came from whatever direction I was trying to go in and nearly knocked me sideways as I passed Robarts, not usually a wind tunnel area. Meanwhile hordes of high school students passed me on foot, bound possibly for the general strike/ demonstration at the Legislature a long block away. Our cocaine dealing Premier has been teacher-baiting. Gone alas are the days when the province's teachers could bring down a government. Now they're fair game.
Rehearsing for retirement, I stayed away from work on my two days off. This might have worked better if I hadn't ached abominably both days, with hip flexors and low back spasming into inexplicable rigidity, and if I hadn't been power-reading The Bone People. I was enchanted at first by a Booker Prize winner that was quirky and language-loving and utterly unlike the 'misunderstood white man by a lake' school of writing. (Though really that's an American trope, and the Booker IME just tends towards Misunderstood Men.) But read without the corrective presence of other human beings, it gave me the fantods, and now I have a bad taste in my mouth over it, which I'm trying to erase with the second last Hyakki Yakki. 25 had some interesting discoveries on reread, but 26 so far is both frustrating and obscure. So is Phantom Moon 5, but I might be better off with that new territory rather than the indifferent vol 26.
However, my s-i-l, genki as ever, heard me saying that I wanted to buy a power saw to cut up the ancient pine branches that have been sitting for at least a year on my porch, and cut down the rest of the scraggly pine bushes, and maybe lower the hedge as well; and so I came home today to a porch swept and bare of branches, which were sawed up and tied in bundles for the garbage. Two of the pines were gone, but she thought the corner one should stay. Best of all, the various trash that had accumulated on the table until I could think of a way of disposing of it (tiles, concrete pieces, wooden frames that didn't work for concrete repairs) was all bundled into garbage bags waiting for the next pickup. Oh happy day!
Of course I still want a power saw because even my genki s-i-l said she had to take two tylenols after all that sawing.
