a hot November day

Listening right now to the Right Hon. Joe Clark talking to Jian - never did I think I'd long for ol' Joe Who. He's a red Tory who disapproves of his Conservative colleagues in Ottawa, and he sounds like the wisest, most clear-eyed and sensible person in the country.

I know that something else appalling happened at City Hall, but I am shutting it out. It's excruciating. No one can believe it's actually happening in our city. But it is.

Last night, my French neighbour Monique and I watched the film "Hannah Arendt" on the French channel. It was a bit difficult - it's deeply philosophical and wordy, mostly in German, with French subtitles. But an extraordinary portrait of a brave and singular woman, an exploration of her concept of "the banality of evil," which she came to while watching the trial of Adolf Eichmann. It was horrifying, she concluded, not that he was a monster, but that he was not. He was an ordinary man following orders, who did not allow himself to think or feel, and so turned off all humanity. A thought-provoking film.

Heavenly today, a gift, warm and sunny, and all Toronto rushed out to make the best of it, because there may not be another like it this year. I went across town to visit Booboo; we walked to High Park and spent a happy hour kicking piles of leaves and climbing on the magic castle playground. We did a lot of swinging. A LOT of swinging and climbing and leaf kicking.

Then we went home and did some sweeping. Nothing more attractive than a guy with a broom in his hand.