On Sunday, i did some shopping during the day - the beginning of a miserable cool wet period which has lasted nearly a week (isn't this the summer?). In the evening, Miah and i saw Up - hard to believe i kinda had to drag him to it, but he was blown away (and he's the trained animator).

Monday morning i did an all-day trip into TO, parking at Mo's.

First off, i went to the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the ROM. It's actually part one (part two coming in the fall). Most of them were written in Hebrew (even though it wasn't the spoken language in the area at the time - 250 BCE to 68 CE), a few in Aramaic (which was), and a few in Greek (the common second language). It included parts of the Bible, such as Genesis, Psalms and Daniel, some psalms that aren't part of the current Bible, and other religious writings from the Qumran community. Included, but not actually a Dead Sea Scroll was a lease agreement. There is a lot of information about the period, showing vases, lamps and such of the area, historical-political background, video footage of the area and so on.

Very interesting. The scrolls themselves are hard to read - not that i can read Hebrew or Aramaic (i can read Greek letters, but only occasional words - 'kai' means 'and', ha ha ha). It was interesting to find out they actually scored the scrolls, creating horizontal lines to guide writing (much like 3 ring binder paper).

Big line-ups at the ROM after seeing the Dead Sea Scrolls.

I wandered along Bloor, and made my way to the nicest French restaurant, called Le Matignon. Instead of a main course i had a bunch of sides, including the soup of the day (mixed veggie, very nice). This is the toasted French bread with goat cheese, tomato and onion - i remembered halfway through i had my camera with me, lol.

I also got the romaine salad (more or less a Caesar), and what they call the best frites in TO (they are pretty darn good). You can also see the fresh warmed bread in the background, but only my glass of water, not the glass of chardonnay, lol.

And for dessert, fruit sorbets.

I walked down towards Yonge & Dundas. This is clubwear?

But it was humid and feeling like it might rain, so i jumped into the subway.

And it did rain - the sky opened right up while i was underground. I did a bit of shopping at the Eaton Centre before i went to see the first movie.

The movie i saw was Victoria Day, set in Toronto in 1988. 16 year old Ben is a good hockey player, in the play offs, with teammate, former friend and current nemesis Jordan. Ben has a crush on Jordan's sister Cayla (and pursued by easier Melanie), but spends most of his time with his buddies Sammy and Noah. His life is thrown for a loop when Jordan disappears at a rock concert at Ontario Place, after Jordan begged some money off Ben to buy drugs (though Jordan hias disappeared for days before). It was very good, often funny, and felt very real - not melodramatic. Apparently, the disappearance is based on a kod who died at a Pink Floyd concert at the time, but eerily, a boy disappeared under similar circumstances around the same time this movie was released.

Field party.

Helping Cayla post signs for her missing brother.

I'm not sure how this helping...

After the movie, i subwayed back up to Mo's where i parked. I ended with going with Mo and Lindsey to Mountain Equipment Co-op before my next movie.

The second movie i saw (at the Royal) was Tôkyô Sonata. It's about a family and their disintegration after the father loses his job (outsourced to China). Thing is, he doesn't tell anyone, and behaves as if he still does have one, though he beings to lash out at his family. The father is eventually forced to go to free food lines, gets humiliated in interviews, and ends up as a shopping mall janitor (he is told there is no hope of finding a decent paying office job). The older son rebels by deciding to join the US militar, and ends up being sent to Ira), the younger son wants to learn piano, secretly using his monthly lunch money to pay for lessons (and it turns out he's very good at it). The wife/mother tries to keep things together. Eventually, it everything comes to a head, and it explodes, the characters all wanting to run away from themselves. It sounds awful, but it's very good - the 'explosion' is more emotional than violent, and the movie is quite funny in places. The ending blew me away - a scene of calm and beauty.

Dinner consisted of popcorn at the movie (real butter), and then a hot dog while i waited for a streetcar back up to Bloor.

This is about 9:30 pm, at College and Bathurst.

Tuesday i just spent typing and cleaning stuff up - removed about 15 different tops from my closet for Goodwill, polished my boots and shoes.