In the Skin of a Lion

By Michael Ondaatje
(book review)
In his trademark fragmented prose Ondaatje connects unlikely characters into a story with no beginning, no end and no questions answered. A construction daredevil turned baker saves a nun who falls from unfinished Bloor Street viaduct in Toronto, she turns into an actress and meets a dynamiter who's in love with her best friend, who runs away with a millionaire... Like in all his novels, Ondaatje waves beautiful prose, but completely disregards the storyline. Result is a confused mosaic of events which never fit into a complete picture - an equivalent of a beautiful puzzle with several center pieces missing. (2.5 out of 5)

Backyard Shuffle

On Saturday evening we go from house to house - 4 houses in total - sampling our neighbors' food and wine. It's a "backyard shuffle": the four families whose backyards meet in the alley shuffle from dinette to dinette. The children run around - for them it's a change of the playground every time the group moves to the next house.
At midnight, we shuffle carefully across the alley back home, tipsy with wine and content.

North Korea

Kim Jong Il, the leader, is dying from cancer.
Finally the nukes with which the madman threatened the world could be put to use - for the radiation treatment for the leader.

Fall and Break

Maggie's mom suffered a fall half the world away and we felt the tremor. Brittle bones in her leg in Hong Kong shattered the peace and quiet in Toronto. It's a spiral fracture, bound for long recovery. Maggie's on the phone, wishing her into health.

Scugog

Hanging the sheer curtains. Busy with measuring, drilling, screwing the hooks, we have no time to make lunch. Tim Horton's will have to do.
After meal, on impulse, Maggie says "let's go for a ride" and we are off through the deep green of farmlands to the shimmering blue of the Scugog lake. It's an almost perfect day: drinks at a pub at the beach with live jazz, and return on country roads by grazing horses and cows, through corn and wheat fields back home where the curtain waits unhanged.

Cell

By Stephen King
(book review)

A pulse spread by cell phones erases brains of all who answered the phone. They turn extremely aggressive and murderous against each other and the "normies" - normal people who didn't pick up the call. Clay, a comic book artist, with a small group of "normies" travels through cataclysmically changed world in search for his son and wife, and eventually a dead zone without the cell phone signal.
A very bloody story full of gory details, not for the reader with a sensitive stomach. There's King's trademark suspense, although the book seems like an idea which gave way to lot of blood, but failed to fully develop into a story. A cross-breed between "The dawn of the dead" and "Happening", neither a movie I'd watch, nor recommend. (2.5 out of 5)

A Haiku

Maggie asks if the "Kissing" entry is a poem.
It's a haiku, I say.
What's haiku, she asks?
It's a bonsai poem, I tell her.

Hurt

Aging hurts.
I pulled something in my groin by getting out of bed! No running on Wednesday, and a gingerly 8 km today in +28 C. A very hot experience.

Departure

Ken - a colleague and a friend - has left the company. The dead silence at the crowded department meeting when his resignation was announced showed how much we all are going to miss him. In this busy times when everybody pulls only for himself, Ken was a person who still remembered the forgotten art of listening and could stir you in the right direction without imposing his will. The competition has crippled us by taking him.

Kissing

I love kissing your nose.
Small kisses.
It's a small nose.

Eruptions

Frustration builds up in the pit of the stomach. Frustration with work, with people, with little things I can't change. It festers deep inside 'till it get putrid, then explodes like a volcano and my mouth can't stop the eruption. Words fly out like projectiles and I'm unable to hold them, to mute them, to close my mouth and swallow them back. They burn like lava and hurt the closest one, the dearest one, the only one who dares standing by in times like this.
Maggie is that silent force which endures all my eruptions, absorbs them and turns them into regret.
I'm so sorry, Love.

Pompeii

by Robert Harris
(book review)

The year is 79 A.D. A young aquarius - aquatic engineer - from Rome is sent to Misenum to replace a disappeared predecessor. The aqueduct is blocked and the aquarius must fix it. The blockage is in the town of Pompeii, underneath Mount Vesuvius. There the aquarius encounters corrupt politicians, thugs, slaves, murderers, dangerous wealthy crooks and a beautiful young woman. All that in the countdown to the historic volcanic eruption from Vesuvius which erased Pompeii from the face of earth. A fine measure of history and suspense. (3.5 out of 5)

(Photo: Some of the dead at Pompeii. Ash covered their bodies and made a mold or negative which archaeologists filled in with plaster many centuries later.)

Creepy Tree

Ah, iPhone is such a neat gadget to have. I browse the internet in the car, check directions when I get lost, (or pretend to be lost, just so I can play). And, when we see a creepy tree in the field, I take a picture and email it to myself. Oh, yes, it can also make phone calls.

Outlander

by Diana Gabaldon
(book review)

A nurse from 20th century drops through time into 18th century Scottish Highlands. She gets in troubles, gets rescued, falls in love, makes love, heals people and is healed. It's utterly unbelievable, but cute story. The villain, however, is always the same, and no matter how much she moves around, he is always present without actually following her. I swallowed time-travel, but can't digest the lousy villain. (3.5 out of 5)

Wimbledon

Watching the tennis ball crossing the TV screen from east to west and back, for over 4 hours.
In epic match Federer conquers Roddick and makes history.

Canada Day

It's the birthday of the country where no one seems to speak the same language, yet people understand each other. The country the strangers call home.
Happy Canada Day!