Favourite Things

Early mornings are one of my favourite things in life, and though I could enjoy them often, I don't. I did this morning, though.

Here is the view from 6am:

The Last Five Books I've Read

The last five books I've read, in order:

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson (2010); We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver (2006), though I have yet to see the movie; The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement by David Brooks (2012); The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (2010); and Just Kids by Patti Smith (2010).

After blowing through the first two books in Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy, I couldn't wait to read the third. It took a week of streetcar rides and late nights during the last month of my contract at work. It was far from the strongest of the three, but it helped me to love reading again.

I read We Need to Talk About Kevin on a long weekend at the cottage. It was a very troubling book. I'm not certain I can suggest anything that redeems it.

At the first opportunity, once back in the city, I bought The Social Animal and Just Kids, two books as different from the last two as I could find.

The Social Animal was so interesting I read passages out loud on a road trip Greg and I took to the coast in early May.

Everyone who read The Hunger Games told me that they read it in one sitting, staying up late, avoiding family and friends to finish it. I was no different.

And then I read Just Kids. Patti Smith, I had no idea I would love the story of your friendship with Robert Maplethorpe as much as I did. I loved it so much that I broke down crying at the end, in a public place, in front of strangers. I drank a glass of wine, and then read the ending a second time. The setting, the 1970's and 1980's music and art scene in New York City, suited my end of work mood and properly started my summer of being a flâneur in the city.

Victoria Day

Kate had the brilliant idea to rent bikes on Centre Island this past Victoria Day. We took the ferry across the harbour and rode around from one side to the other:

Then we went for dinner and gelato, stopping at Kate's for sweaters and chairs, and then watched the fireworks at the beach with Charles and Camilla:

balance of the tulips, two months on

They then looked like this:

And this:

Finally this:

Tulips in Bloom Day 1

It was a shame I kept my tulips in my bedroom; without my contact lenses in, I couldn't really see them from my bed, and I spend so little time in my bedroom in any case. I should have brought them to work, but I've had bad luck transporting plants around and didn't want to risk the streetcar trip, as I would have inevitably had to balance the flower pot with my coffee, a book, my gym bag and my purse. All the same, on their first day in bloom, they were a pleasure to look at first thing in the morning:

The Last Five Books I've Read

The last five books I read, in order:

Nadja by Andre Breton (1928); Last Nights in Paris by Phillipe Soupault (1929); White Teeth by Zadie Smith (2000); The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides (2011); McSweeney's Issue 39 [This took me from after New Years until last night, when I finished the story about Carlos the Impossible (bullfighting! And the bull won!)] (2011).

Of the first two, surrealism... I suppose. They're both French, though I read them in English. Maybe something is missing from the translation. White Teeth was a book club book, but I was the only one who actually read the book and so the book club failed. The Marriage Plot I loved so much that I recommended it to other people. McSweeney's Issue 39 was 95% excellent. That last five percent is missing because I couldn't get behind a poem called "Fifty Ways to Eat Your Lover". I tried, but "When he says he needs some time off, jam his hand into a toaster oven" and "When he shows up with flowers, nibble the hair from his arms" were two of the most benign of Amelia Gray's poetic offerings and I have a weak stomach for tortured love.

A Month of Tulips

A couple of months ago I decided I was going to try to become a vegetarian. I like hand-packed burgers, Sunday roasts, and meat platters as much as the next girl, but for a variety of reasons, the time seemed ripe to make a change. My friend Claire is a vegan, and for the most part, it's difficult to figure out what to cook for her, but I'd bought a new cookbook to help me with the new diet and was inspired to try my hand making Claire dinner. I tested out the ratatouille recipe three times before inviting her over and I spent so much time making the main, I ran out of time to make us dessert. Claire brought me a tulip plant as a hostess gift, which was incredibly thoughtful and totally unnecessary. The first day it looked like this:

It bloomed for four days before it looked tired and I had to trim it. However, it seems to have at least one more flower in it. More photos to follow on Mondays to come.