We finally got some rain yesterday. For much of the weekend, we’d hear rumbles of thunder in the distance but the storms always managed to avoid us until last night when we got a few good showers, and more this morning. They’ve been a long time coming and are welcome indeed.
I think it’s amusing that when we heard a lot of birds making a racket outside our house the other morning, my wife immediately thought of my father, who enjoyed feeding and watching birds, and I thought of Alfred Hitchcock.
I have to say that I don’t care much for the new chapter of the original Angry Birds. The game play is completely different. I guess it’s the same as their companion game, Bad Piggies. That doesn’t mean I’m not determined to 3-star the level, but it’s not nearly as much fun as the classic playing mode.
Did my first bit of serious furniture repair this weekend. My daughter has a favorite chair that had the bottom let go so the springs were dangling from it and it had lost all support. I don’t really understand out that little piece of canvas held the springs in place. I bought a 2′ x 3′ sheet of 1/8″ plywood, traced out the shape of the bottom of the chair, resuscitated my old jigsaw and made a new bottom that should hold the whole thing together. Quite pleased with myself. Only one blister from putting in the screws. Those springs are strong.
Still working to clear my desk of obligations and not quite seeing the end of the tunnel yet. This weekend I posted three new book reviews: The Year of the Ladybird by Graham Joyce, Let Me Go by Chelsea Cain and Light of the World by James Lee Burke. I started reading The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling) and am quite enjoying it. I like it more than her previous book, The Casual Vacancy.
We watched a feel-good film called 33 Postcards on the weekend. It’s a Chinese/Australian collaboration starring Guy Pearce. It’s about this guy who’s been sponsoring an orphan in China for over a decade, spinning tales about what his life is like. By the hugest of coincidences, the orphanage choir is invited to go to Sydney where the girl, now 16, wanders off by herself and manages not to get hopelessly lost or in big trouble, only to find out that the guy has been in prison all these years, serving time for manslaughter. By the most preposterous of coincidences, he’s due for parole right about now, too. OK, so it lacks credibility, but it was a cute movie dotted by scenes of prison shankings.
