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Sara's uncle Bruce died yesterday. We got to see him and his wife several times when I was near San Francisco for work. He'd often show us something--last time it was an unfinished documentary and a Buck Rogers episode--then pick up some tasty burritos and aguas frescas for us from a restaurant place down the street, and maybe go for a walk through the Golden Gate Park botanical garden. It's some sort of requirement with Sara's family that whenever they go someplace they always visit any local botanical gardens.

He'd been sick for many years. An afternoon nap seemed to be an absolute requirement, and he didn't travel (in part just because it would probably be incompatible with the afternoon nap). He seemed irritable sometimes. We'd heard vague things over the last year about his being in worse than usual health, but the call from Sara's dad yesterday wasn't expected.

Anyway, it was always fun to see him, and it's sad we won't have another chance.

The public library recently opened a new branch near us. Well, actually, they moved it. It used to be in a strip mall. Which sounds really tacky, but it was actually great--you could visit the library, the hardware store, the drug store, and a grocery all on the same trip. Oh, and get some ice cream for the walk back if you wanted. So Sara and I were a little annoyed about the move.

Anyway, we figured it was worth a look, so we walked over Sunday afternoon. The building is lovely. It's got a pleasant cafe area with convenient network and power.

I still don't like the location--it's not on my way anywhere--but I can see it being a pleasant place to hang out and work, so I'll probably be back.

Plus, they had a volume of Trondheim's "Little Nothings". Score! It's a collection of one-page, typically 4-6 panel cartoons done in watercolor about little events from his daily life. It would have been more fun to find it in the original French, but whatever.

We walked from there back to North Campus, took a bus back downtown, then sat on the lawn at Top of the Park for a while. We moved up partway through George Bedard's set, then for the end sat down on the steps of the Rackham building, behind the stage, for the rock-star-eye view of the crowd. Fun! But also the last night. So from now on we go home, make dinner, and fall asleep at a reasonable hour.

I got a slow start Saturday, did a little work in the afternoon, then met Sara again for Top of the Park.

The second band was a 12-piece latin band. Fun music! And fun to watch all the dancers, too. (Me, I just stay seated and wiggle a bit when the spirit moves me. It's safe for everyone concerned.)

The latin jazz band before was great too.

The Ann Arbor 4th of July parade isn't the most thrilling; the bulk of it seems to be businesses with their vehicles decorated, and politicians throwing candy. But that also means that if you take 5 minutes to fill out a form, they'll let you march. The juggling club hadn't done it in a few years, so I figured maybe we should give it another try.

And it was reasonably fun. There were seven of us. We were in the back, though, so the front was already finishing before we started, and we didn't really get to see the rest.

I worked most of the rest of the day, then met Sara for Top of the Park later.

Somebody in the Top of the Park sound booth really likes bass that makes your chest vibrate. Which is fine sometimes, but it sometimes seems to come at the expense of the other instruments. And at the NOMO show Friday night it grated at first--the songs were built on these repetitive 8-beat units, with the bass part not necessarily the most interesting part (though their bass player did seem really good).

But, for whatever reason, I got over that eventually. I really enjoyed the last few songs, and for the very last song the came down into the crowd and played in a circle with everybody crowded around them, which was magical.

Hey, look, I got an invitation to the annual linux kernel summit, which is in one of my favorite cities, Portland, this September.

Curious what makes Trondheim's "Mr. O" click, I've been killing some time trying to figure out how to draw little O guys that look like they have different expressions, or are doing different things. It's suprisingly subtle--a line a little astray and it changes the character of the whole thing.

Top of the Park continues, so we've been spending more time than usual outside. Tonight a pretty good rain came through, though, so after my French thing at Sweetwaters I made a dash for the bus and came home.

Continuing the French movie spree:

• A Bout de Souffle: The library had a new edition with a bunch of extra interviews and stuff. I get the impression Godard was a bit of a jerk. And probably not as smart as everyone claims (who is?). I still like the movie, though I'm nto sure whether it's because of the stuff they did or the stuff they didn't bother to do.
• Pierrot Le Fou: Ditto.
• Poupées Rousses: Not worth a second watch, it turns out. There's some good bits, but it didn't add up to much. The explanation of the title at the end is a bit of an anticlimax. (Looking for the perfect woman is like opening russian dolls, you see, with each new one you wonder if it's the last. Huh.)
• Ridicule: Regular guy goes to Versailles looking for a grant for a swamp-clearing project. I liked the fact that he wasn't just an innocent rube: he actually finds he's *good* at the court games. Sara and I both enjoyed it.
• Le Vieil Homme et L'Enfant: A jewish boy's parents send him to the country to hide him from the occupiers. The grandfatherly host is a wonderful, warm character, but completely in thrall to antisemetic propaganda. The actor who plays him (Michel Simon, also star of Boudu Sauvé des Eaux) is fascinating.
• Rêves de Poussière: Mining for gold in Essakane was a dirty, dangerous business, I guess. Really beautiful to watch. Reviews all warn that it's very slow, and I'm normally a pretty impatient movie watcher, but I felt like it flew by.

Wednesday night we the Sun Messengers, and then stayed for the movie, the 2007 version of Hairspray. The ratio of minutes spent in song-and-dance routines to mundane minutes was high. I liked it.

Thursday I went to my book group. There were only three of us, not quite enough to keep a conversation going, but it was OK. Still, I was jealous of Sara, who got to see Laith Al-Saadi.

Next time that group meets it's for something I recommended, "Mr. O", which is thirty 1-page 60-panel stories (layed out in a tiny 6x10 grid) about a little stick-figure O attempting to cross a chasm and repeatedly failing.

I think they may kill me.

Then it was the top of the park again tonight. The first band ("Money Mark") was good. The second ("The Mason Jennings Band") bored us both, so we went home.

Monday night and again tonight, Sara and I met at Top of the Park and watched the first band, but didn't manage to stay much longer. I'd wanted to stay for tonight's movie ("Some Like it Hot"), but forgot to bring warm clothes, and wasn't really enjoying the second band ("Stewart Francke & The Regular Boys"). The first band ("Yoshi") I actually liked better.

I wasn't too interested in the Terraplanes on Monday night either. I can only hear so many straight-ahead 12-bar blues in a row.

It was nice out today, so I juggled on the diag again. I've also been taking regular 3-ball breaks during the day. It doesn't actually help my juggling much--my back crosses, what I've mostly been working on, aren't getting better very fast--but it actually helps with work. I concentrate better when I'm juggling on breaks (anyway, at least it's better than checking Slashdot).

I came home after juggling yesterday and haven't set foot outside the apartment since.

In fact, I haven't done much at all. Mostly, I'm alternately napping and trying to relearn what little I used to know about reading Japanese.

I'm meeting some people to discuss the delightful manga Yotsuba&! on Thursday night. I figured it might be fun if I could take a look at the original, and figured with a little work I might be able to make it through at least one of the stories. They're written with kids in mind, so have some helpers ("furigana", which annotate all the kanji). But that's only a small help. And there's also the problem that the little bit of Japanese I learned in college was extremely formal, quite different from the language kids in a comic book are likely to use.

Last night we finished season 4 of Buffy over dinner. The last episode wasn't that interesting. I think I'll forget about Buffy for a while and try to catch up on this stack of French movies that I have checked out from the library.

Maybe I could set a goal to learn a name every day. Yesterday and today I learned six, so I figure I can retreat to a cave for the rest of the week:

• Laurie (if that's the spelling): I'd met her several times before, but since I had to be corrected after introducing her to Sara as "Carol", I figure this counts.
• Daniel: A UM psych prof sitting with Laurie at Top of the Park. We sat next to them a while. He talked about brain imaging a little.
• Tanner: The husband of someone Sara had a class with, who works on Linux and OpenBSD at the Linux Box.
• Liz, Melissa, and Kyle: three friends (from the co-ops, I think) who showed up for juggling today. Most of the jugglers went off to Madison for World Juggling Day. I did the regular diag juggling time, expecting to just be on my own. HD also showed up and we passed clubs for a while.

Sara's mom visited us for a little over a week--she arrived on Amtrak from Arizona late on a Thursday night (the 22nd) and spent a couple days in Ann Arbor, then she and Sara rented a car and drove north Sunday to visit Sara's uncle. They got back Thursday, and Sara's mom caught the train back Saturday morning.

While they were away I watched "Boudu sauvé des eaux", and rewatched "Baisers Volés" and "À Bout de Souffle".

Over the last week or so my dad's been riding his new bike--just picked up from Bruce Gordon--from Portland to San Francisco, a good 80 miles or so a day with what sound like some pretty good ups and downs, too. Yipes.