picnic

Summer summer summer - just had a lunch of my homegrown lettuce, tomatoes, and basil, with goat cheese, walnuts, and avocado. Now I need some cows and goats for cheese and chickens for eggs... NOT. The roses are almost done, sadly, but there are buds on everything else. Garden joy.

Had a list of things to do this weekend - films, documentaries, the Videocabaret plays at Soulpepper - and didn't do any of them. Yesterday, I rode my bike to Ashbridge's Bay - on bike trails all the way there - for a picnic with my dear friend Annie. She brought chilled white wine and trout sandwiches, I brought my cherry tomatoes and dessert, and we sat on isolated rocks by the lake, eating and getting caught up. She is the director of the local Jesuit Forum which works nationally and internationally on social justice issues; their goal is to save the world, and if Annie has anything to do with it, they will. She told me about her friend and colleague, Father Bill Ryan, a brilliant Jesuit priest who is in his mid-nineties and very ill in hospital - he has requested an iPad so he can return emails. Bill was in a seminar recently, discussing God with a fervent young Catholic, who said he found God in the liturgy of the church. And Bill said, "I find God ... in trees."

My kind of religion.

The picnic was glorious. We rode our bikes around this lovely lakeview park with its many god-filled trees, and then I rode on trails all the way back.

Spent the evening reading a wonderful book, at least for Beatle geeks like me: Dreaming the Beatles: the love story of one band and the whole world, by Rob Sheffield. Now this guy has LISTENED incredibly closely to their music, along with every other band's, and writes beautifully, with humour and warmth, about why the Beatles are by far the best and will last forever. Music to my ears, literally as well as figuratively, as I Googled various songs I hardly knew to listen more closely. He singles out Ringo's drumming on "In my life," the finger snaps at the end of "Here, there and everywhere" - geeky stuff like that. Heaven.

So- it's hot. Hard to believe I have two more weeks of teaching - it feels like holiday time already. And then - what holidays mean to the freelancer - time to really get down to work.
PS
Just got this darling note from Bell - whose services were disconnected from here months ago. I didn't know Ma Bell loved me quite so much.

Hello Dear,

This is a reminder that your bill due date has passed and we have not

yet received a payment from you. 

Amount due:          $ 17.53