Beautiful Cynicism III

Triste anniversaire: toute une année sans ma petite Daisy…

Actress Estelle Getty died this morning, three days before her 85th birthday. Above, a clip of one of my favourite shows, The Golden Girls, featuring Estelle as the aged Sophia, telling one of her famous (and often wildly embellished) stories.

Ton Souvenir est comme un livre bien aimé,
Qu’on lit sans cesse, et qui jamais n’est refermé,
Un livre où l’on vit mieux sa vie, et qui vous hante
D’un rêve nostalgique, où l’âme se tourmente.

Albert Samain, Ton souvenir est comme un livre (extrait)

Alors je méditai; car mon esprit fidèle,
Hélas! n’avait jamais déployé plus grande aile;
Dans mon ombre jamais n’avait lui tant de jour;
Et je rêvai longtemps, contemplant tour à tour,
Après l’abîme obscur que me cachait la lame,
L’autre abîme sans fond qui s’ouvrait dans mon âme.
Et je me demandai pourquoi l’on est ici,
Quel peut être après tout le but de tout ceci,
Que fait l’âme, lequel vaut mieux d’être ou de vivre,
Et pourquoi le Seigneur, qui seul lit à son livre,
Mêle éternellement dans un fatal hymen
Le chant de la nature au cri du genre humain?

Victor Hugo, Ce qu’on entend sur la montagne (extrait)

I’m back on the prairies, the rain is pouring down in buckets, and the dark sky is sparsely lit by zigzagging lightning. It’s 11:30 on a Friday morning, and, inspired by the paperwork inferno in which I have been trapped, I chose to procrastinate by taking this little time-wasting quiz.

You want to watch out for those heretics; they’re a scary bunch.

The Dante’s Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell – The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Take the Dante Inferno Hell Test

Photo: cs.nga.gov.au

Ten years ago this week, I graduated from high school, along with approximately 400 of my classmates. Last night, about 200 of us were reunited – some of us for the first time in a decade. In many ways, we’ve all changed so much – careers, education, travel, families, births, deaths, accidents, achievements… And yet in so many ways, last night was 1998 all over again. Plus ça change…

The clock on the desk stopped yesterday afternoon, at 2:37. It’s a wind-up, glow-in-the-dark clock that used to belong to my grandmother, who passed away three days before my birthday in 1994. The reassuring tick-tick-tick of its clockwork gently tapped out the rhythm of my first few nights here.

There is a dog here, not unlike my own Daisy who passed away almost a year ago. They share many of the same mannerisms and behaviours, though this little one (“Becky”) is much more docile than Daisy ever was. But it is nice to have a canine companion once again, even if only for a week…

Happy Canada Day.