Went to a lovely Japanese Patisserie this week. Delightful sandwiches as well as pastry but what are all the millennial doing: playing with the laptops and drinking dull coffee. Remember when coffee shops used to be for talking.
Saw PARASITE twice and although I thought it funny, clever and scary, I don't quite get why it is getting so much adulation. Also saw THE LIGHTHOUSE, which was beautiful to look at and well acted but too over the top bonkers for me in the end. How long would it take you to go crazy from cabin fever if there were two of you? More than five weeks, I think.
Well, I did it. I gave my car to my daughter-in-law. I am now the proud owner of an empty garage.
What about you guys?
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We still have our battered and beaten eight-year-old KIA despite the fact that it rolled down a mountain one Christmas day and also lost (but survived) a battle with a stag on a dark country road. It only has about 125,000 miles on it so we feel it's good to go for another five years or so. Therefore, Patti, if you ever need a ride anywhere and don't mind waiting the time it takes to go from Florida to Michigan, just give us a call.
We're caught in the cold snap that covered the country, although Florida has not been hit too badly. For the past few days we haven't had to put on the air conditioner at night. Amazing!
Jessie, Christina and the kids (plus Erin's boyfriend) went camping this weekend and are having a great (but chilly) time. We were going to join them roughing it but then we found out there was no room service and no piece of chocolate on our pillow every day.
While they are gone, we've inherited Jessie's two pugs, Beefy and Anvil. We got the dogs shortly after Michael died so they are now fourteen years old and it shows. Both are now blind and deaf and senile. They walk into walls and fall off steps. But they remain very happy and pain-free dogs. So we've been feeding and watering them and taking them out and giving them loves all weekend. We had told Jessie that we were glad to take the dogs as long as they didn't die on our watch. Well, this morning Beefy threw up all over his crate. To make matters worse, he appears to have suffered some kind of stroke and cannot move or stand up. I cleaned up the crate and the dog and tried to make him comfortable. While I was typing this, he threw up again -- this time with blood. Poor Anvil is confused and doesn't know what's going on; he has never been away from his brother for fourteen years. As I said, Beefy is comfortable but my layman's prognosis is not good. I hope he lasts until Jessie returns later today. If not, I hope I'm making his passage as easy as possible. Pets are one of God's miracles but along with the joy comes responsibility, a tough but vital part of the job.
A lot of good things happened this week, but I can't go into them right now.
Have a super fantastic, no car week!
I filled Big Orange with gas and started it up. With 10 inches of snow in the forecast for tonight, my snowblower is ready to go!
The Buffalo Bills lost a game to the Cleveland Browns that they could have won. Two missed field goals tipped the balance.
We're going out to dinner with my brother and his wife this evening...just before the snow hits!
I have to agree with you on both Parasite and The Lighthouse. Both worth seeing. I feel Parasite was way overhyped which makes it hard to live up to your expectations. Also saw Dr. Sleep which I enjoyed. One of the better Stephen King adaptations. On cable I finally got to see The Nightingale, the new film from the director of The Babadook. Impressive but pretty rough to watch. Am binging the third season of The Handmaid's Tale. Also enjoying Watchman and His Dark Materials on HBO.
Tried reading Blood Sugar by Daniel Krause but found the slang narration irritating. Read a first novel by Phillip Elliott called Nobody Move. I liked this. For fans of Elmore Leonard. Now reading the lengthy Book of Bones by John Connelly. Of course as soon as I started it a bunch of books all came in from the library at once.
Looking out at our first snowfall today.
Good for you on the car. Jackie says you can turn it into a mini AirBnB.
Got home from Dallas on Monday. Bouchercon was notable most for time spent with friends.
Wednesday went to Town Hall for The Lantern Tour II, for refugees, this time on the Southern border. Stars are Emmylou Harris, Jackson Browne, Patty Griffin, Steve Earle, several others. They sit in a row on the stage and rotate songs. We had great seats again. We'll be back in mid-December for Earle's annual benefit for his autistic son's school. I hope the weather isn't too bad.
Last night we saw Boz Scaggs at Tillis Center on the LIU campus in Brookville on the North Shore of Long Island, a really nice 2,200 seat venue, and we stayed over at the Long Island Marriott for the sixth time this year. Enjoying the buffet breakfast.
Got some good reading done this week and the new Michael Connelly is on the way to the library.
Now that they are showing it from the beginning, we are catching up on Slings & Arrows. Always liked Paul Gross and Rachel McAdams.
Can't get over what a mistake it turned out to be to finish Madame Secretary by making her President this final season. It's not working at all.
Tilles, not Tillis.
I am waiting for Season 3 especially, which I have never seen.
You sure get great music, Jeff. Maybe I need to move to NY, where no one will question my being carless.
Won't even talk about the Lions.
I really felt THE LIGHTHOUSE needed more story and I had trouble with the audio again.
MY good friend, Mary, had to put her dog down recently. Just too many issues even though the dog didn't seem to be in pain.
Jeez, sounds like Jerry is having a tough day. Best of luck. I know the experience of having a ill or dying dog with nothing much you can do for the animal.
I had the first weekend free of sports or Scouts in quite a while. I didn't do much but got some cleaning done.
I started watching TOO OLD TO DIE YOUNG Nicolas Winding Refn on Amazon this weekend. Refn always takes his time telling his stories and relies on a lot of nonverbal work by his actors. His movies are also so damn pretty and this is as well. I only just now - within the past two minutes - found out the series is co-written with comic book guy Ed Brubaker.
I started reading WYATT on ebook. A Australian crime novel with a main character similar to Stark's Parker. Fun so far.
Will look for TOTDY. Always looking for new stuff.
Too bad about your decision to give up the car. It seems so final. I always felt you could drive if you put your mind to it. My mother drove into her mid-Eighties, and of course Barbara and I both drive (we have 2 cars). How will you get around now? Uber or Lyft, or friends, I guess. I was in an accident about 25 years ago and couldn't drive. I HATED asking other people to drive me, it seemed like such an imposition.
@ George: it snows there every year, so no big deal, right?
@ Jeff: So how do the refugees get the money from the concert?
@ Jerry: you need to get rid of that old rattle-trap and get something newer and safer.
It will be in the low 60s here again today, sunny and nice. The problem is we need rain, we're already in drought numbers.
Picked up three books at the library yesterday, all came in a bunch. Now I have reading pressure.
I rarely ask people to take me places. I use Lyft. There is also a bus that will take me anywhere within 7 miles. And luckily I have a lot of friends who invite me out. Almost every day this week, in fact. And last week. That saves me from going crazy. I am so very lucky despite not being lucky at all. And I can walk if it isn't snowing. I put in 2 miles most days.
Rick, there is a Women's Refugee Commission who puts on the concerts and gets the money. Last year's concerts were for refugees in Europe. Also performing were The Mastersons (who are in Steve Earle's group The Dukes, as well as performing on their own) - very talented musicians; and Thao Nguyen, the daughter of Vietnamese refugees, whose "indie rock" songs weren't to our taste, but who was an amazing musician on several instruments. Every time she finished a song, Steve Earle, who went next, would say, "F#ck. I'm supposed to follow that?"
The first Lantern Tour, with Harris, Earle and Griffin at least, played in the Collingswood Theater about two miles from the house...which I discovered the day after. Rarely have I been so flattened by missed easy opportunity...the only worse one that comes to mind was missing Jorge Luis Borges speak about a mile from my parents' house in 1984 at George Mason U (I wasn't attending there yet), and discovering that had happened the next day as well. If Nguyen had been in that array, I might've slapped myself (her singing style is a bit influenced, I think, by the more keening sort of bluegrass performers and similar stylists in alt-folk and rock, but I like it; she is in every other way very easy to be an audience for).
All sympathies on the tough times for the pugs, and particularly Beefy, Jerry. The poor dears are so weirdly bred to begin with, that they usually have to be careful on stairs at the best of times. Condolences to all the human and canine members of your family.
Glad you found a good use for your car, Patti...and thanks for the heads up on PARASITE, particularly...when people start acting as if they've joined a cult when refusing to describe a film, my antennae go up, and not receptively. McAdams certainly caught my eye in the first season or so of SLINGS back when, and it was a fine series.
Ah, yes, Mary Chapin Carpenter, too, last year. Not that I discount Nash or Browne or Covin.
http://scottishriteauditorium.com/performer/the-lantern-tour/
As part of its ongoing work to end family separation policies and attempts to detain families seeking safety at the U.S. border, the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) will bring together music legends for a five-city tour. The Lantern Tour: Concerts for Migrant and Refugee Families, will take place from October 23–28, 2018 across five U.S. cities. The GRAMMY® nominated and award-winning lineup includes: Emmylou Harris; Jackson Browne; Mary Chapin Carpenter; Shawn Colvin; Lila Downs; Steve Earle; and Graham Nash. Tour cities include: Nashville, TN; Washington, D.C.; Collingswood, NJ; Boston, MA; and New York, NY. Note that not all artists will appear on all dates. Celebrated singer-songwriter and Lantern Tour lead musician Emmylou Harris, a supporter of WRC states “it is my honor to partner with this incredible organization and to bring my friends along for what I know will be a powerful tour.”
Colvin. Need to check out Downs's music still.
Glad you're enjoying Joe Pera and Slings and Arrows. Always nice to find some enjoyable and/or soothing things to watch...
Thanks, Margot,
I am so out of it with music. Oh, I recognize the names (although not Downs) but cannot name a single song that is theirs. Too interested in talk and not enough in music.
I'm feeling rather similarly, considering how I was a butterfly, at least, in nearly all the DC music scenes, and have been pretty out of it since moving to the Philadelphia area. The overdue Monthly Underappreciated Music coming soonish, as it's one of my few means to Keep Up at all...
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