May 15, 2006

Down on the farm

We are awfully good at weekends. That’s the one good thing about working full time. We get to exercise our talent again. And so this morning we took the streetcar out to Cabbagetown, where we walked about and then we went to the Riverdale Farm (which is no longer a zoo). The gardens were so gorgeous, the animals were wonderful and we had a great time (best of all, it’s free!). Highlights included the pond where I felt like Annie Dillard, multitudinous tulips, a cow that has made me second-guess my carnivourous habits, and the sheep!! (And goats). We walked home, however, so we’re tired. Tonight my mom came for Mother’s Day Dinner and we had a very nice time.

In reading news, I finished Democracy by Joan Didion, which I like best of her novels that I’ve read. It was wonderful. And I am now reading something particularly interesting, Lovingly, Myra; Hinman Family Letters 1920-1926, which was edited and self-published by my Auntie a few years ago. “Myra” was my great-grandmother, and these are letters she wrote to her sisters, particularly her sister Susannah, who was a missionary in India. My great-grandmother died in 1926, at the age of 36, and so of course I never knew her. I appreciate these letters very much, especially the glimpse they give me of my grandmother as a child. And they are quite amusing.