The Year in Review

2020 has been quite a year, hasn't it?

Of course there was (and remains) the pandemic.  There was racial unrest.  Lebanon blew up and a plane crashed in Iran.  There were murder hornets and Biblical swarms of locusts and killer whales attacking boaters.  Raging wildfires burned up much of Australia and the western United States.  And we haven't even touched on politics yet.  Trump was impeached, kept his office, was voted out of his office, and for some time refused to leave.  On the other side of the pond, there was Brexit, Megxit, and probably something else that ends with -xit.  

But there were good things too.  Sure, they were, for the most part, smaller and more personal stories and victories, but that is to be expected -- especially since at the behest of our public health officials we were supposed to be staying home as much as possible.  I got to spend a lot of time with S (and we still like each other!), we made some improvements to our house (and identified many more which are still in progress or not yet begun), we got to spend several weeks visiting family (which required some long drives, but that became part of the fun), we cooked a lot, and I read more than I have in a long time.  My high school reunion was cancelled (not that I would have gone anyway).

We are lucky enough to be a pretty self-contained unit -- no kids, both working from home with people who are more or less also independent, and both pretty okay with isolation.  But I did very much enjoy hearing the stories of all the people who really went above and beyond.  I especially enjoyed the stories of teachers visiting their students to make sure they were okay, delivery drivers being appreciated for the extra work load, and most of all medical professionals who kept on going to work even when they didn't know what kind of a virus they were fighting or how to best protect themselves while caring for their patients.  That last group -- they are the real heroes.

I wonder -- what lessons will we take from this year?  Will we correct racial injustices?  Will we take better care of our environment?  Will people be kinder to each other?  Will people appreciate what they have when things are good, and help others when things are hard?  Or will we move on to other things and forget all about it?

Yes, it has been quite a year.  What we will say about it in 20 years' time?

Flux -- Take 2

I wasn't sure what I was going to have to say about Flux: Women on Sex, Work, Love, Kids, & Life in a Half-Changed World.  Even now having read it, my thoughts are still mixed.

I am, as I suspected I might be, past the point in my life where much of this advice is meaningful.  I have already fought with society about the expectation that I would have children, questioned whether I was being stubborn rather than thoughtful and reflective, but ultimately decided that I knew what was fest for me and everybody else could screw right off.

So, had I read this book 10 or 12 years ago, some of its insights may have made that journey easier.  Alas, I did not.

What I did appreciate about the book (really, about the author) is that she is able to examine different perspectives, different choices, different goals, and discuss them thoughtfully and without judgment.  Ultimately, her conclusion -- that the very nature of the state of flux combined with individual choices means that we each must navigate our own path -- is not terribly helpful.  But she gets there in a way that reminded me that everyone's road is different.  We can all be better if we approach other people's choices and struggles with a goal to understand or at least respect them rather than to compare or judge them.

Happy Birthday to Me!

 

Quarantine Christmas -- Part III

I was trying to find something good on Netflix while I was spinning one day, and I stumbled across Klaus.  I had never heard of it, which was hugely surprising -- it's a Christmas movie, it's a movie about the postal service, and it definitely seems like something that might have been a film festival flick.  Despite all of that, I had never heard of it.  But rest assured, it is 100% adorable and worth every minute.

K and J came up to St. Louis for the holiday, so we headed up -- for the third time this year! -- to the Shackteau to have a little cold-weather celebration.  While there, we made sugar cookies, Santa snacks, hot chocolate, eggnog cocktails, winter spice cocktails, and froze our tails off by the fire.

We also watched Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, the beginning of A Very Murray Christmas, and that old Christmas classic, My Cousin Vinny.  Plus we opened some presents and ate lots of food.

Back at home on Christmas Day, S and I opened the rest of our presents, had lots of phone calls, and watched one of my all time Christmas faves, Little Women.  There was also a new treat for me this year -- OTSL has a bunch of digital content coming out due to the pandemic, including a holiday concert!

I have one last Christmas celebration I'd like to have prior to the conclusion of this Christmas weekend.  It's the SLSO holiday concert, which is also available online.  Oh, and let's not forget that I still have ingredients for a few more types of cookies which I have not gotten around to making yet!

Merry Christmas!

 

Quote of the Day

Here's a cheery, pre-Christmas thought for everyone: 

"I don't think we can rely on humans to do the right thing.  It just has not been a very effective strategy."

  -- Joe Gerald, Associate Professor of Public Health, The University of Arizona

Quarantine Christmas - Part II

How many years has it been since you last saw A Charlie Brown Christmas?  For me, probably 25 - at least.  We watched it again this year.  It's shorter than I remember, but otherwise exactly as sweet and silly as it always was.

I also made my first round of cookies.  S love my recipe for Molasses Crinkles, which normally are rolled into a ball, rolled in sugar, and baked.  They bake out into perfectly round disks, but this year I wanted to try doing a rolled version of them.  I did this without modifying the dough recipe at all, just shortened the cooking time to about 2/3 of the normal amount.  They worked out and tasted delicious, but if doing it again I might try a little less butter/sugar, or a little more flour, to help them hold their shape and not spread quite so much while baking.

S was kind enough to set up my Frosty the Snowman out front again, and even surprised me with a handcrafted outdoor Christmas tree!  Unfortunately our outdoor Christmas lights have all gone kaput, so we needed to get some more so the tree could be in its full glory.

Have you ever listened to the SLSO rebroadcasts on St. Louis Public Radio?  They happen on Saturdays at 8:00, and it is a wonderful way to experience the symphony.  It's free, you can do whatever you want to while you're listening -- read a book, cook, just sit and listen.  The most recent show was Handel's Messiah.  Despite actually being written for Easter, Messiah has come to be associated with Christmas.  I used the opportunity to do some necessary cleaning and organization around the house.  Great music and productivity in one!

S does not like It's a Wonderful Life.  He says he feels like Jimmy Stewart is just yelling at him the whole time.  I can see that perspective, but that doesn't change the fact that -- after many years of not seeing it, and a few more years of struggling with how dark it is -- I have very much come to like it.  It is now an annual standby.  So while S sat in the other room in a rare day lost to video games, I lost myself in Bedford Falls (okay, and the work I was doing at the same time).

Is it Christmastime Already? (Quarantine Christmas -- Part I)

Can you believe it?  I sure can't!  But major props go out to S who, despite his general dislike for this particular holiday, knows that I love it.  He got out my Christmas decorations, encouraged me to decorate, and picked out some Christmas movies for us to watch already.  Here's what we've got so far:

Holidate was a Netflix find.  It's not exactly a Christmas movie, although it starts and ends there.  It is intended as a rom-com, and there are some cute and funny moments.  But it is utterly predictable and only moderately good.  If you want something to put on in the background while you make cookies, this could be it, because you won't miss anything if you miss a few scenes.

A Christmas Story, to quote S, "isn't just a classic Christmas movie, it's a classic movie."  I could hardly believe my ears!  Though it is a classic (either Christmas or otherwise), I don't think I had seen it since I was in high school?  You remember how your teachers would just put on a movie on the last day of the semester rather than teach a class?  That's when I watched this last.  A worthwhile film to return to periodically!

Have you ever seen Fred Clause?  I hadn't.  And in a lot of ways, it's every bit as terrible and predictable as most modern Christmas movies.  But in its own way it is reasonably witty and amusing.  Fred is the older brother of Nicholas Clause, and resents (but also takes advantage of) his brother's endlessly positive nature.  When Fred gets into legal trouble one too many times, the only person left to bail him out is his little brother, St. Nick.

I am not, generally speaking, a Will Farrell fan.  He seems to be one of those people you either think is hilarious or you really don't get.  I'm in the "really don't get" category -- aside from Stranger than Fiction (which K encouraged me to watch), but that's not typical of his oeuvre.  I had seen Elf once before, several years ago.  S doesn't like It's A Wonderful Life because, as he says, it's just 90 minutes of Jimmy Stewart yelling at you.  That's a bit how I feel about Elf.  There were some chuckles, but my eardrums feel somewhat assaulted by Will Farrell shouting at me through the duration of the movie.

What I'm Reading Now -- Flux

After finishing Love and Ruin, I struggled to get back into a book.  I read a lot of magazines, watched some TV, did basically anything else I could think of besides starting another book.  Finally, I decided maybe a book of essays was the secret.  However, not finding one in my collection that tickled my fancy, I decided on a book of interviews instead.

Flux isn't just interview transcripts (which under all but the most unusual circumstances would be incredibly tedious), but rather a compilation of interviews into a book about the social, economic, and political situation that women find themselves in today.  Okay, actually the situation they found themselves in 20 years ago, when this book came out.  And since I bought it 10 years ago, I'm pretty much right on schedule in terms of how quickly I read things!

I'm about 40 pages in, and so far most of the interviews are with people in the 25-35 age range.  I'm not sure if that's going to broaden as the book goes on, of if we're stuck in that stage of life for the duration.  If we're stuck there, I am wondering what, if anything, this book will have to say 10 years after I thought it sounded relevant.  If it still has something to say, more power to it, and less power to society for failing to make necessary changes.  If not, more power to me, for getting past it!

Love and Ruin -- Take 2

I struggled a bit with Love and Ruin, but having had some time to reflect on it, I think I like it.  But man, was it hard to read.

***Note: this review contains something akin to spoilers if you don't already know the general outlines of the history of Martha and Ernest's relationship.  If you do, I'm not likely to spoil anything.***

I had a couple of intertwined issues.  One was with the relationship as profiled in the book.  It was suffocating to read about, which I suppose means it was well-drawn on the pages.  I wouldn't necessarily have told you at the time that I thought the book was beautifully written, but it clearly had the desired effect -- or at least an effect; whether or not it was the desired one, I'm not sure.  Here's what it cam down to though: the tension in the relationship between the pure joy, deep love, and functional partnership on the one hand with the constricting jail walls that that very same relationship imposed on Martha were untenable.

And that's the second thread in this intertwined struggle I had.  I was at the part of the book where the relationship begins to sour while S and I were out camping.  I woke up in the middle of one of our nights out with a start, thinking about this book and how trapped Martha was.  She was desperately in love with Ernest, and had also taken on a role in his boys' lives that was important to both them and her.  At the same time, she was struggling with her writing and her career because she couldn't spread her wings.  She was -- I already said suffocating, but I'm saying it again -- suffocating.  And so was I, when I woke up in the middle of the night.  For the second time in my life, I had a reasonably serious attack of claustrophobia.  I flew out of bed, opened the door, and breathed in the cold night air in order to clear my head.  Was the oppressiveness of the relationship in the book that led to my feeling of panic?  I have no idea.  But I do find it quite curious that that's what I woke up thinking about.

So far, it sounds like I didn't like this book, but that's not a complete assessment.  It did take me some time to get into it, but once I did, I made much quicker progress and I couldn't escape (even in sleep) the emotional depth of their relationship.  It's hard to say that such a book is not well-crafted.  So maybe I didn't exactly like it, but it got under my skin in a slightly troubling way.

Happy Turkey Day!

 

What I'm Reading Now -- Love and Ruin

In addition to sending me Educated, K also sent Love and Ruin.

In my time, I have read a bit of Hemingway, though probably not as much as I should have.  What really made me want to read this, though, is that it is a (albeit fictionalized) version of the relationship between him and Martha Gellhorn.  I know a bit about Ms. Gellhorn, though probably not as much as I should (are we seeing a theme here?), but someone whose intellect I admire has a lot of good things to say about the intrepid journalist.  So this seemed like as good an opportunity as any to dive in and see what her fictionalized self is all about.

Maybe it will even inspire me to seek out some non-fiction on the subject!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

 

Movies -- A Recap -- Part X

I was surprised when S wanted to watch Mr. Deeds.  He is not a fan of Adam Sandler, generally.  I am only a fan of Adam Sandler intermittently.  Mr. Deeds was what I would consider one of his usual films.  It was funny, and he plays a guy who's pretty sweet and not super annoying.  Plus, it has a good soundtrack!

One of the best movies we have seen in a while was The Peanut Butter Falcon.  S had heard about it, and it was a pleasant surprise for me.  It's the story of an autistic kid who escapes from the group home in which he lives.  He befriends -- if that's the right word -- a loner and drifter, and they meet up with the caregiver who comes looking for him. It was a real gem, and also has a great soundtrack (though a little more Indie-inspired than Mr. Deeds).

Avengement is for you if you're in the mood for something extremely dark.  The main character, as you learn through flashbacks, has suffered years of abuse in prison.  When he is released, he sets out to take revenge on the folks who put him there.

 

In a complete change of pace from Avengement, and on a much lighter note, we watched Bahubali: The Beginning.  I think it may have been the first Bollywood movie that S had seen.  I explained that in those movies people would periodically burst into song and dance -- but then the movie made me a liar but not really having that.  It did have lots of really intense music, terrible graphics, terrible action sequences, and a lot of confusion, so didn't disappoint in that department.  Against all odds (or maybe because of them) it was entertaining, and there is another one when we are in the mood for it!

Drunk Parents is exactly as dumb as it sounds.  Occasionally a little bit funny.

Movies -- A Recap -- Part IX

Handia (aka, The Giant) is a character study.  It's a bit slow and a bit odd, but sweet.  It's based on a true story, the tale of two brothers separated by a long-forgotten European war.  When the older brother returns home, he discovers that his little brother suffers from gigantism.  The elder brother hatches a plan to tour Europe, hoping to make money to support their family on the curiosity that is his little brother.  Note: subtitled, so not good for multi-tasking.

I forget why we watched Back to the Future.  It might have been because S hadn't seen it.  It might have been because neither of us had seen it in a while.  Either way, it is a classic.  Perhaps most especially, I love that scene near the beginning where Michael J. Fox is listening to The Power of Love on his Walkman and hitchhiking (in a manner of speaking) his way to school.  And of course, Johnny B. Goode!

I have liked Carey Mulligan for a long time.  When Suffragette came up on our list of movies, I was on board.  Overall, the movie was decent.  There were some very touching scenes between the women. The scenes between women and others (mainly men) were especially horrifying, just to see how women were treated.  Despite my love of Carey Mulligan, though, I am not entirely sure why she was the central character in the movie.  She adds some emotional weight, but when you get to the end (which I don't want to spoil), you may also wonder why the movie was about her and not someone else.

Attacking the Devil: The Last Nazi War Crime was picked out by S because he knew I would like it.  History, and a British guy.  What's not to like?  Other than the Nazis, of course.  The movie profiled an interesting little nugget that I didn't know much about.  At its heart, it is the story of an intrepid journalist who will not be put off his story by censure laws or social constraints or anything else.  I thought the call-out to the Nazis, actually, was a little bit of click-bait.  The movie is about the thalidomide babies -- why not give them the credit in the title?  Nevertheless, worth seeing, but difficult.

I don't usually see a movie before I read a book, but I did that with The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.  I think I even have the book, but just haven't gotten around to it yet.  The movie is cute, but entirely predictable.  Should I now bother with the book?

What I Read -- Educated

K sent me a copy of Educated after she had finished up with it.  I saw the reviews when it came out and thought at the time that it looked like something I might enjoy -- as much as a sociological study as anything else -- but then it fell off my radar.  What a treat to have it show up in the mail!

I have not really gotten into the genre of horror/autobiography written by people (usually young women) who have escaped from plural-marriage Mormon families.  Thankfully, though this is a bit of horror/autobiography stemming from a childhood in a Mormon family, it is not plural-marriage focused.  Though themes of emotional, psychological, and even physical abuse surely overlap between the two subject areas, this book comes at extreme Mormonism from the angle of (not surprisingly) education -- and particularly how a lack of education both allows a person to be isolated by others and also itself serves to isolate that person from others.

I was surprised by how suspenseful I found the second half of the memoir.  By that section of the chronology, she has escaped daily life at her family's Idaho compound, but for various reasons she periodically returns.  Each time, a new and looming cloud of dread hangs over whatever is to come.  Like watching a train wreck, I couldn't look away.

Our Souls at Night -- Take 2

Our Souls at Night was classic Kent Haruf.  He uses simple, spare writing to gracefully introduce us to Addie and Louis, two folks living alone, two houses apart, in the latter years of their lives.  Addie knocks at Louis's door with a proposition -- that he come over to spend the night so they can talk, and not be alone.

Nothing is quite that simple.  Haruf explores the reactions of the people in their small town, as well as Addie's and Louis's own family members.  Addie's grandson comes to live with her for a period of time; Louis gets him a dog.  Their cobbled-together little pieces of a family become something solid for each of them.  They grow together and become something important to each other.

Eventually that dedication -- one piece of the family to another -- is what causes the little family to break apart.  True to form, Haruf doesn't oversell the sadness, as he also didn't oversell the happiness.  His two lead characters, through his restrained pen, simply exist in both conditions.  They demonstrate the wisdom and steadiness that comes with years of life, appreciating that neither the best nor the worst time lasts forever.

Very much enjoyed this!

Happy Halloween!

 

Goals 2020 -- October Recap

Well, I did okay for the first half of the month.  Then things went sideways -- with work, as usual.  Should I just give up on goals for the rest of the year?  If ever there was a year that it would be appropriate to do that, this is probably the one!

Columbus Day

Did you know that today is Columbus Day?  I didn't either, until it popped up on my calendar.  Who celebrates Columbus Day anyway?  I don't think I've ever had a job that I get this day off work.

What Columbus Day seems more like to me than anything is the first real day of autumn.  I know technically this happens in late September at the fall equinox, but usually there are a sufficient number of lovely days which occur subsequent to the equinox that it doesn't feel like autumn yet.  By the middle of October, the weather has cooled down, the leaves are changing color if not already drifting groundward, and a piping hot mug of apple cider seems just the thing on a chilly evening.

Our leaves in this particular corner of the state went from green to brown with very little in between, which is always a bit of a disappointment.  But we did have a couple of weeks of perfect weather -- those sunny days, warm but not too hot, with cool evenings that we usually get about three of each year -- so I can't be too upset about the colors.

Movies -- A Recap -- Part VIII

Straight Up is a sweet, funny film about a young man trying to understand his own sexuality.  It sounds heavy, and there certainly are some big and current themes, but it really doesn't feel that way when you watch it.  It's impressive as a debut work, and if you want to spend some time hoping for the best for a lead character -- which is so often hard to do in this era of crime dramas (which I admittedly am digging) -- this is a great and quirky guy to cheer for.

Sea Change was maddening to watch.  We picked it out when we were on a kick of watching adventure documentaries.  Sea Change follows a boyfriend and girlfriend as they navigate their watercraft across the Atlantic from Morocco to Manhattan.  They filmed it themselves.  And it's an amazing journey, but holy cow, it was difficult to watch.  For starters, their boatsmanship is terrible.  What makes you think it's a good idea to take a small rowboat across the ocean when you know basically nothing about boats?  Even beyond just the boat, they demonstrated an astounding lack of preparedness for such a trip.  Also, they kind of seem like horrible people.  I hated them both (but especially him) by about 1/3 of the way through.  Not a fan.

BookendS is another one I didn't like.  Two couples end up trapped in a small apartment during a hurricane.  When one couple reveals that they are swingers, the other woman decides she wants to join the party, so to speak, with her new husband.   Predictably, things don't go as planned.

 

 

 

 

I had seen The Help before, but S had not. I think it was promoted on our Netflix as part of their Black Lives Matter emphasis over the summer, but we found it to be a failure in that context.  The long and short of it is that it fits pretty squarely into the "white savior" narrative.  There is lots you can read about this online, so I'll spare you most of it, but just know that if you're looking for a racial reckoning, you won't find it despite the fact that the strongest (though not the most considered) characters in the movie are the black women.  Please note: none of this is meant to diminish my love of Emma Stone, whom I adore in basically everything I've seen her do and I want her to be my best friend.

Vivarium is weird.  And I didn't really like it.  But I didn't hate it either.  Mostly it creeped me out.  Here's what happens: a young couple goes house hunting.  They find themselves in a weird Stepford-like neighborhood where all the houses are identical (except that they have no neighbors, all the houses are vacant except theirs).  They can't escape, no matter what they try.  Before they know it, a child is delivered to their door in a box.  They struggle through their horrible life with a horrible kid trapped in a horrible purgatory.  Like I said: weird and creepy.

 

Another movie in the adventure documentary series we built for ourselves was Once is Enough. Jeff lost his mom due to complications from obesity, and decided to change his life by running an ultramarathon in Colorado.  It starts a little slow, but ends up being not-too-sickly-sweet, inspiring, and totally worth watching.

S and I are both growing out our hair right now, to varying degrees of success.  S went through a phase where, in my opinion, he looked very much like a mid-1980s Tom Selleck.  Of course the only appropriate thing to do was watch Three Men and a Baby, followed by Three Men and a Little Lady.  Both movies are very much of their time, but remain entertaining in the way that childhood favorites always are.

What I'm Reading Now -- Our Souls at Night

My newest postal book club read was selected by E.  Our Souls at Night is Kent Haruf's final novel; he passed away in 2014.  You may know him from his Plainsong series.  Although this is also set in the small town of Holt, Colorado, and covers some of the same themes, it is a standalone read.

Many moons ago, I either read or listened to Plainsong and its successor, Eventide.  I frankly don't recall much about either of them from a plot perspective, but I do recall liking his tone and pace.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing what he has in store here!

What I Read -- The Answer Is...

Who doesn't love Alex Trebek?  He's an American treasure! (Except that he's actually Canadian.)

After the recent announcement of his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, he decided he would write a book about himself.  Apparently he had been asked to do this several times in the past, but until his diagnosis he had always refused.

What he came up with when he finally agreed to set down his thoughts is a collection of short stories.  They are chronological, so it reads like a classic memoir in that sense, but the stories are often disconnected from what came before and what follows.  This is not intended to be a criticism.  The short story format makes for a very quick and easy read, which was incidentally exactly what I was looking for when I picked this up.

It does get a little heavier towards the end, when he talks about the possible end of his run on Jeopardy! and, of course, his illness.  But he does all this with an overwhelming sense of happiness and satisfaction with the trajectory of his life that keeps it from being depressing.

In short, this book confirmed every wonderful thing I have ever thought about Alex Trebek.

The Great Gatsby -- Take 2

After much prodding by K, I finally read The Great Gatsby. Twice.

Let me explain.

Upon K's urging, I decided to dive in for some true-classic summer reading.  On my first reading, I started out appreciating the writing, but not being propelled through the narrative.  Frankly, not much happens.  But when things start to go sideways in that NYC hotel room, I couldn't put it down.  That was the turning point for me.

I got to see K back in late June, and we were both their with our copies of Gatsby.  K had a heavily-annotated copy, which she agreed to let me borrow for a second read-through (to make up for my prior educational delinquency).  I thought it would be interesting to see what a real Gatsby expert thought was important.  

I started my second read and got about 25 pages in before discussing my second reading with K.  I said that it was enlightening to see what she thought was important, and how it was different from what I might have marked.  (She also had a lot of comments about the over-arching motifs, so I could tell it was organized in such a way as to identify topics for student papers!)  Anyway, she told me she wouldn't mind if I also annotated it, so I took my red pen ("Red means love!") and went to work.  About 4 weeks later.

For some reason, restarting the book the third time seemed daunting, but eventually I got it done, and it has been returned -- red markings and all -- to its rightful owner.

So, what did I think?

I really liked it!  The writing is excellent.  That should come as a surprise to no one -- that is one of three ways that books typically get "classic" status.  The overarching tale of lost love is timeless.  As the introduction says, it's a good novel and can just be read as a good story, rather than getting caught in the academic aspects of it, if you're not in the mood for that.

One of the things that K told me she loves so much about this book is that every time she reads it, she notices different things and it speaks to her in different ways.  I can definitely see how that is the case, even reading it twice in three months.  That doesn't mean I'm about to go read it again right now (I'm not K, after all), but I could see reading it again in a handful of years and finding different themes.

Goals 2020 -- October Edition

I'm going to take a break from the serious goals and just try to blog a little bit this month.

I have a big backlog of things to blog and it is weighing on my mind.  I'm sure you are stressed out about not having blog posts to read!

Goals 2020 -- September Recap

 This month has been a complete fail, from a goals perspective (again).

Goals 2020 -- September Goals

I'm taking a do over from last month!

Goals 2020 -- August Recap

It probably goes without saying -- since I haven't blogged much this month and blogging was one of my goals -- that August was a total bust in terms of goals.

The biggest issue, in my opinion, is work.  I have been super busy and stressed out about it, and it basically ruined my month.

The other factor, in my opinion, is that I need to reconfigure my schedule.  When I first started working from home, I was pretty good about shutting myself in the office during working hours, and focusing my out-of-office hours on the projects that I wanted to accomplish.  Over time, the boundary has been blurred, leading to (in my opinion) less productivity in both arenas.

So, if it's okay with everyone, I will just take a mulligan for August and carry on with my same goals in September.

St. Louis Railway Routes

Can you believe St. Louis used to look like this?

Movies -- A Recap -- Part VII

S and I have continued our quarantine movie viewing, watching far more than we probably should:

The Night Clerk is an odd little movie, about a young autistic man who works as an overnight clerk at a hotel.  In an effort to improve his interpersonal skills, he sets up cameras in some of the hotel rooms so he can study people's behavior.  When he witnesses a murder, things go awry.

Baby Mama is probably exactly what you might expect from a Tina Fey and Amy Poehler movie.  It's cute, and a little bit funny, at least enough to keep me entertained for 90 minutes or so.

Da 5 Bloods had potential, and some great scenes, but in my opinion it was just way too overdone.  Sometimes I just don't appreciate being beaten over the head with the point.  It was just a bit too much.

Pretty much the opposite of Da 5 Bloods was Nobody Knows I'm Here.  It's slow and quiet.  Remember Hurley from Lost?  Yeah, I forgot about him too.  But he's the nearly-silent star of Nobody Knows I'm Here, a film about a reclusive child star who was scarred by his early life experiences.  It's sweet, but not quite as sweet as the Netflix synopsis makes it sound.

I was surprised by how moving Beautiful Boy was.  I didn't expect Steve Carell to be able to carry the emotional weight of such of heavy story, but I was pleasantly surprised (once I got over the trauma from the film) by how well he pulled it off.  And I love Maura Tierney in just about anything.  It was an all-around winner, if movies about upper-middle-class addiction are your thing.  (I didn't read either book -- if anyone did, I'd be interested in comments!)

One weekend, we dedicated ourselves to watching the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy -- yes, the extended version.  It actually took us until Monday night to get through the end of the Return of the King, but if you can spare the time, watching them back to back is a wonderfully immersive experience.

Goals 2020 -- August Edition

I am carrying over two goals from last month: the budget and the cell phone.

In addition to those, I will:

1. Begin following said budget.
2. Address two areas of my garden which need addressing -- sowing wildflower seeds, and replanting my pumpkin vine, which I started in a pot but needs a bigger home now.
3. Blog.
4. Finish my second reading of The Great Gatsby.

How do these fit in with my goal of Clearing My Mind, Simplifying My Life? Same as last month (and I guess, at heart, almost every month so far this year).  These are just things that I want to get done, and they weigh on my mind if I don't do them.

Goals 2020 -- July Recap

I had three goals for July; updates are below.

1. Polish silver jewelry.  Met and exceeded!  Not only did I polish my jewelry, but I also polished all my other silver as well.
2. Back up and clear out my phone.  Miserable fail.  S and I share a computer, and he has been busy using it for many of his own projects.  I will commandeer it at some point in August.
3. Make a budget. Mixed bag.  I have gotten as far as I can get based on the information that I have, and am awaiting some info from outside sources before continuing.

July was, overall, a fairly slow month for me.  I struggled to be productive at work, as you all can see I blogged basically not at all, and I have many projects around the house that are partially finished, movies half watched, and so on.  I'm unsure if this is due to the oppressive heat that we dealt with, or that I'm growing tired of quarantine, or a mental block that has developed for some other reason.

S, on the other hand, has been quite productive.  He has been working on the van, making phone calls and taking care of business, painted and reorganized the whole garage, and did some cleanup in the basement as well.

Happy 4th!

One of my favorite things to hear every year around this time is the reading of the Declaration of Independence by NPR's reporting staff.  Have a listen.

Goals 2020 -- July Edition

Well, we've started bringing some folks back to my office.  It's an alternating schedule, and I'm still in the group that gets to work from home if I want to. 

There is still so much that I had on my quarantine list which I haven't done yet!  Most of it is little stuff, but I think being able to cross them off will make me feel better.  So, here are the very judgable goals:
1. Polish silver jewelry.
2. Back up and clear out my phone.
3. Make a budget.

How do these fit in with my goal of Clearing My Mind, Simplifying My Life?  As long as I can get them done, then I just won't have to think about them anymore.  But that's a big "as long as...."

Goals 2020 -- June Recap

I can't say June was a total bust, because I at least got a start on the estate planning process.  But to be fair, it's an itsy bitsy teensy weensy start.  Nevertheless, a start!

Quote of the Day

"Courage doesn't always roar.  Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.'"
  -- Mary Anne Rademacher

Happy Birthday K!

It's a big one!!

A Rugby Celebration

S and I have taken time this quarantine, and even in the months before, to appreciate rugby.

It all started last year, when we attended Ruggerfest in Forest Park, just for the fun of it.  It was a beautiful day, we took camp chairs and drinks, ate at the food trucks, took in some sport, and generally enjoyed the day out in the world in a way that we haven't been able to in a while.  It was all capped off by an invitation to join the teams for a post-tourney party at the Sunday Morning Rugby Club's clubhouse.  (And a dead alternator at 11 p.m., but that's a story for another day.)

That was followed by a trip to Lindenwood to see the St. Louis Sabres crush the Lindenwood Lions.  It was chilly, but nevertheless fun.  And holy cow do they get to play in a nice stadium!  Lights, announcer, the whole bit.

S then stumbled upon the movie Invictus, when searching for movies for me to watch starting Matt Damon.  That led him to Murderball, which I had seen many years ago -- perhaps even before I started this here blog (the only reference I can find to it is here, not coincidentally referenced in my post about Invictus).

That was followed by Pacific Warriors, a documentary about the teams from Tonga, Fiji, and Samoa, and the rivalry between them.  It wasn't stunningly good, but I did get some interesting insights into these teams from the tiny islands, who are so often outplayed and overshadowed by their Maori companions, the All Blacks.


Speaking of the All Blacks, we did watch a lot of rugby on YouTube, including the All Blacks' women's side, called the Black Ferns.  Some great stuff there.

Many, many moons ago, Dad gave me a book called Muddied Oafs: The Last Days of Rugger, which S picked up.  The editing is admittedly terrible, so he didn't make it far, but there's some good background there.  Fun fact: the first rugby World Cup wasn't until 1987.

The book led to the viewing of The Story of Rugby, a six-part look-back at the history of the sport, released in anticipation of the 2019 World Cup tournament.  It's a look at how rugby has grown over time, what it means to the countries which field teams, and generally is a tribute to the sport and some of its best players.  This, of course, includes my favorite English vet, Jonny Wilkinson -- although I have to say he looks terrible in the film.  For some of his playing highlights, check out this (some great kicking, great passing, and a fantastic dump tackle at 9:30) and try this for a retirement tribute from his teammates and coaches, as well as selected clips as they are talking.  And just for good measure, here is the second-extra-time kick that gave England the 2003 World Cup win.


[It's not about rugby, but since we're talking sports history, I have to give a shout-out to the Netflix show The English Game, which is a retelling of the rivalry between the the teams at the heart of football's (or soccer's, if you prefer) shift from a purely amateur (read: aristocratic) leisure activity to a professional sport.  Very well made and fun to watch.]

Movies -- A Recap -- Part VI

Krystal is a strange film about a strange family.  The plot is twisted and unbelievable, and makes me think that this is what it is like to be inside William H. Macy's mind all the time.  Nevertheless, there is lots of witty family banter and there is something sweet about the story overall.  I'm not sure why I liked it, but I did.






Paddleton is about as simple as movies can get.  Aside from a few store and hotel clerks, there are two characters in this movie.  They are an oddball pair of friends whose relationship takes a touching turn when one of them is diagnosed with cancer.  It's uncomplicated, and lovely.  Viewer's tip: keep an eye out for the great t-shirts seen throughout.

 




We stumbled onto the Spanish film 1898: Our Last Men in the Philippines on Netflix one night.  It's the tale of the last outpost of the Spanish empire in its last colony.  The men there do not know, then do not believe, that Spain has ceded the Philippines to the U.S., and continue the fight despite all the tragedies that befall them.  It's a bit gory to the point of cringeworthy in a few spots, but a pretty good tale about a forgotten piece of history.  It was also kind of nice to see a movie with a bunch of unknown faces filling the main roles.

 

S was in the mood for something good in the old-fashioned story-telling sense, and I had never seen The Last Samurai, so we settled in one night to watch.  It definitely met his criteria -- it's not a reimagining of a movie that came out 5 years prior, and it's not trying to make some metaphysical point (at least I don't think it is).  It's just a story about a guy.  And that guy was Tom Cruise a couple of years before he lost his mind on Oprah's couch, so it was back when he was still doing decent stuff.
 



Enemy was weird.  Jake Gyllenhaal plays both lead characters, Adam and his doppelganger Anthony, who seems to have been sprung, literally but unbeknownst to either of them, from Adam's rib.  When Adam sees Anthony in a movie, he becomes obsessed with him.  Through the stalking portion, I'm with this movie.  But then there's this whole weird thing with spiders, which was beyond me.  This Vulture article tries to explain it, but even having read it, that's just not what I want in a movie.


 
When we began On My Skin: The Last Seven Days of Stefano Cucchi, I didn't realize that it is a true story.  That makes it all the more awful.  The title character is taken into Italian police custody, where he is beaten badly.  He refuses medical treatment as a protest against not having access to his attorney, and (I don't think it's a spoiler to say), dies as a consequence.





I expected to like Howard's End.  It has Emma Thompson, who is simply wonderful in everything (including this).  Add Anthony Hopkins, Vanessa Redgrave, a very British setting, and a musty old work of classic literature, and it doesn't get much more Merchant-Ivory.  Having said all that, I don't have much background in the musty works, or in Merchant-Ivory films.  I loved the setting, scenery, costumes, actors, but I hated the last 1/3 of the film.  Will they all be like that?