It began sunny and cool and ended rainy and cool. So no visible sunset, though we marked it yesterday. We were never able to see the summer solstice sunset from our house before, but we can now thanks to a new home being built across the street. We knew it would rain, so we watched it set on the 20th. And we can also see the winter solstice sunset and sunrise from home, too. Trees block our summer sunrise. Not that we'd be up for it at that time anyway.
We took a summer day trip to Leamington, a nearby community swimming in Mexicans and Mexican culture. This is due to the many migrant workers who live and work in that area. We smacked into a downtown Mexican festival today, too. It was loud and very busy. We began at Seacliff Park, a sprawling park that slopes down to Lake Erie, our ocean substitute around here. We had a picnic lunch under a large maple tree. We also went wandering down to the beach for a stroll.
Our summer has been cool so far with daytime highs only in the 70s. I think we have switched climates with London, UK, which is beginning to swelter. Our AC hardly comes on and we've had windows open a lot. No complaints here, but Europe is baking during the onslaught of tourist season. Good luck with that.
After lunch we went downtown where the Mexican Festival was in full swing, right outside the pub/brewery where we wanted to spend an hour. Despite a very loud Mexican band playing right outside we managed to find a somewhat quiet table indoors. We have re-instituted Sunday board game day. Last Sunday I had won a decisive victory in Tokaido Road. Today Deb scored a victory with our game of Trails. We ordered a pint each of local beer and got down to business. Afterwards we strolled past the wailing band and made our way to a favourite cafe downtown.
Jessica R. is a former student of ours from APS, and was and is one of the sweetest of sweethearts. When her dad died she received an inheritance and decided to open a cafe/bakery/restaurant downtown Leamington. This was only our second visit. She makes world class baklavas and is a first rate barista. We had a wonderful visit with her and came home with some tasty pastries.
The all-day celebration continued when we got home, with a bit more ale, some gummies and even some Pernod. We watched Eno, a 2024 documentary about Brian Eno, one of our favourite musicians. It began showing on Criterion this week and is directed by Gary Hustwit. To fans the film isn't that revelatory, and it only briefly explores a small portion of his output. While it was fun to watch, I would rather listen to 80 minutes of his music than watch it again.
We finished up by listening to Max Richter's brilliant and captivating recomposition of Vivaldi's Summer Concerto. Somewhere in there we also pulled out the new Tarot cards for this cross-quarter season, which will last us until August 2nd when the next one begins. We choose our cards for the year on Samhain, then take them out at the appropriate time. We had interesting results today. We hadn't seen the cards since last October and didn't know which ones were coming out today. I have a perfect summer card to think about now, whilst Deb pulled a winter solstice one. Quite fascinating in their opposite attraction. This is the time of year when northern hemisphere winter begins to approach once again. But in the meantime let's enjoy a bit of summer.
Our card choices are not meant to be predictions of what may happen. Rather they are used as something to focus on and think about during the six weeks they are out and showing. Lots of Freudian stuff here, too. Great fun! We use the Arthurian Tarot deck, which we really love, but I also relate our choices to the Rider deck, which we also own.
Earlier in the week we watched another film, as well as completing Season One of Professor T. The Belgian TV series ended with a bang (literally) as one of the main characters was shot and will be paralyzed from the waist down, while the Prof himself checked into a mental hospital. Each and every episode (13) of the season ends with an emotional volcano, something to consider if you get upset easily during tough situations. It has proved to be a fascinating series and we look forward to two more seasons.
The film was Remote Control, a SF film directed by Jeff Lieberman from 1988. It spoofs 1950s b & w SF films, taking one of them (created by the director to look like such) as a means for aliens to get inside our heads and make us kill each other. It is more action/adventure film than SF, but it is well done and quite funny in places. I would definitely recommend it to fans of classic SF movies.
That is all for now. Happy Summer!
Mapman Mike
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