a nice day

Just spent an hour listening to the podcast of Wayson's CBC lecture on multiculturalism, "Are we there yet?" I laughed; I cried. It's a wonderful talk, the essence of Mr. Choy. Highly recommended.

http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/podcast.html

It was the perfect thing to do this evening, because I can hardly move ... spent hours today in the garden. There are bugs and viruses everywhere. The roses have black spot, the bush next to them is lacy with holes, some of the raspberries are blotchy. Blotchy raspberries, imagine. Hours of cutting, staking, spraying, raking. The hibiscus and geranium are not blooming; time for Ultrabloom. Hooray - a new way to avoid writing! Forget memoir. Must spray roses.

My handyman and friend John came over with his family, and we all went - a family outing - to Home Depot, to buy interesting things like solar lights and mulch and river rocks. New Martha Stewart secateurs in pretty two-tone blue. To think, once my joy was toy stores and then clothing and jewellery stores, and now it's hardware and kitchen supply stores. Must be gettin' old.

Except that my perky new Audrey Hepburn haircut makes me feel younger than ever.

Watched "Howard's End" on PBS last night. I'd seen it years ago, but all I remembered of that viewing was my sudden realization that this English story was also my heritage. At the time, I'd been buried in the Jewish Shakespeare for years, learning all about my Jewish side, and here was this very British film featuring a glorious country house, not unlike the one my mother was born in. All that Britishness, properness of behaviour and language, all that repression and tea, this too is mine. One side all Russian-Jewish melodrama; the other, a people who express absolutely nothing except thirst. No wonder I'm confused.

It's a lovely film - Vanessa Redgrave is sublime, and Emma Thompson too, as always.

Oh, and the weather was heavenly today. So there you have it, as the kids say now: nice. Sweeet, they say. And it was.