After one successful order from Shipt I haven't been able to schedule a second so I am going to have to see I can get someone to shop for me for pay if it doesn't happen soon. I would be delighted to do this if I can find the right person. The chart says this will peak in Michigan this week, so hoping that is true. Along with NY, Michigan is an epicenter, especially in my county and in Detroit. GM is busy making respirators now. If only this had started two months ago.
Finished THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT, which was involving but I never cared much for the characters. Okay, I defend characters that are not likable but the protagonist just wasn't that interesting to me. Still enjoying The Movie Musical book. Don't know what I will read next on the fiction front but I have downloaded lots.
Watched THE STRANGER (Harlan Coban) on Netflix. Boy, was it a mess (to me). A hundred characters that were all supposed to fit together at the end and so many of them underdeveloped and unnecessary to the plot. I am not even sure how large parts of it worked. And the explanation for the reason was lame.
Really liked UNORTHODOX, just wish it were longer. Also like MY BEAUTIFUL FRIEND based on the Ferrante novels set in Italy. Ozark is great as is Better Call Saul. (Sorry to keep changing from capitalization to italics for titles). And Better Things is always amazing for their insight into mothers and daughters. Nice tribute to NOLA this week. CURB had a good year.
Watched the super-charming THE MORE THE MERRIER on Criterion. Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea were delicious together.
Been trying to walk for at least a half-hour every day. Lots of ducking and weaving around twosomes who seem to think they own the sidewalk. But I feel better for it. Spending about ninety minutes on the phone most days which I have never done before. But again I feel better for it and it makes the day pass. Funny how every day is the same now. The same but a little bit worse, right?
How about you?
9 comments:
I really think you're wise to make sure you're walking, Patti. It's easy to forget that exercise thing in these times. I'm hoping you're right that we're past the peak of this thing soon, and that we'll slowly start to get past it.
I have my fingers crossed that I will be done with this tomorrow morning when I go to the doctor. Then I will be able to take over the shopping as well as start walking. It is quiet out here so we should not have a problem with crowds. Jackie went shopping herself again on Friday and we should be stocked up enough for a couple of weeks. (She walked with the shopping cart.) She had a mask and gloves. Also, we have ordered from the pizza place and Greek restaurant a couple of times each (over the past two weeks), and there are plenty of other local places that deliver for when we get tired of our own cooking. The refrigerator and freezer are full.
Neither of us is sick, otherwise, and I think the occasional sore throat could be seasonal allergies or a mild cold.
We haven't started watching real comedies yet, but we did watch ABC's annual Passover showing of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS ("Yeah, where's your Deliverer now") as well as POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL, a favorite Shirley Temple movie we recorded last Fall. We are catching up on stuff we missed while we were away - HOMELAND, THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA, MY BRILLIANT FRIEND, OCCUPIED (Norwegian, on Netflix), THE BROKENWOOD MYSTERIES (New Zealand; sort of like Midsomer with nicer scenery), MIDSOMER MURDERS (these two bht on Amazon Prime), THE SINNER (Amazon), ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO (catching up with season one on Netflix; we liked the original version with Katherine Heigl pre-GREY'S ANATOMY), several others.
Best thing we've seen by far was UNORTHODOX. I hope they do another series.
We watched the first episode of the Harlan Coben show in a hotel on the road. Will give it another try.
Still not getting a lot of reading done, but I did race through a pandemic book that was not at all what I expected, SEVERANCE by Ling Ma. Candace Chen is a young Chinese American woman who hooks up with what seems to be one of the only groups of survivors after a virus devastates the population. But most of the book is flashbacks as she relives her life and tells how she reached the point in the present day. Patti, you might like it.
Watched Ozark in two days. Am now watching Berlin Babylon. Odd watching Bill Maher and John Oliver doing their shows without an audience. Rewatched all the Daniel Craig Bond movies. Watched Truffaut's 400 Blows for about the tenth time. One of my all time favorite stories. Spend about an hour a day on the phone. Visited my closest friend. We sat out in his backyard keeping a good distance between us. Tired of having it drummed into me to wear a face mask and use hand sanitizers when they are nowhere to be found.
We're hunkered down waiting for the coronavirus pandemic to end. Diane is watching HALLMARK movies to keep her spirits up. I'm watch WATCHMEN on HBO. WATCHMEN got mixed reviews and now that I'm watching it I can see why. Purists hate the changes in this version. I'm only three episodes in (of nine) so we'll have to see what happens next. There's are a lot of flashbacks.
The weather continues to improve. Diane spent an hour picking up sticks and raking leaves in our back yard. I helped to connect the water hoses. Last summer was rainy so we rarely had to water our lawn. But, now we're prepared.
I plan to read all the Library books I have this week and return them (by just dumping them in the RETURN slot). I spent last week moving all my books and music CDs out of the garage and into the basement. It was a blast sorting through the boxes and finding stuff I had completely forgotten I bought! Christmas in April!
Good for you walking!
I have to say, as a retired person who loves to stay at home, this - for many - horrible home isolation is no big thing. I don’t ” or any of that.
I’m not reading much, and that’s been lightweight stuff. I’ll do a post today. I’m not watching the news, but do read NPR, so there is that. We watched Barnwood Builders last night, an episode of Morse a few days ago, that’s about it. It hit 65 here yesterday, may be 70 tomorrow.
last week I spaced out on leaving comments. Glad to say all is well with my immediate and extended family. That includes people in WI, IL, KS, TX, and WA. My wife has a 1st cousin in Manhattan but I do not know if they communicate much or at all.
We did a family movie night on Sunday and the children refused to pick any movies so I made a decision to watch MUPPET TREASURE ISLAND since I never saw it. Fozzie the Bear plays Squire Trelawney. Trelawney talks to Mr. Bimble, "Mr. Bimble lives in my finger. He's very smart. He's been to the moon. Twice."
I motivated myself during yesterday's good weather to take the dog on a long walk that lasted 2.5 hours. With that walk and another walk to put the garbage out at work I did 11 miles for the day. I was kinda proud of myself but my 14-year-old gave me a sarcastic "Congratulations".
As far as TV goes I finished the second season of JACK RYAN which was pretty bland. I also finished the latest season of BOSCH which was better but never really grabbed me. The final season of FUTUREMAN premiered Friday on HULU but I have not started it yet.
I'm about 10 books behind on my recording my reading notes but I just started a $2.00 paperback of Doctorow's THE MARCH and finished a David Morrell novel.
Eleven miles gets a pat on the back for me. I did five one day but only because I lost my keys and had to retrace my steps.
My back issues preclude walking but I cheer anyone who does walk. My exercise regime consists of being a couch potato.
We've been having socially distant family get-togethers at Christina's house. Beaches (and just about everything else) are closed and we miss that a lot.
Also closed is the state park where we normally rent a pavilion on Easter Sunday so this Sunday we'll socially distant again -- this time with lots of food. The girls were planning a trip to Scotland later this year but those plans are now up in the air -- no biggie; we think Scotland will still be around on the other side of this pandemic.
Mark's college has closed down for the school year so all three of Christina's kids are taking their classes on-line. Jessie and Ceili are doing the same. Mark is also back to running, something he didn't do while at school. Jessie's work now has a two-day work from home/three-day work at the office policy but she's opting to go into work full time; distractions at home and the rigid requirements put in place for the work-at-homers preclude anything else. Until this past week, Walt had to go to work but now he's spending most of his time working from home with at least half a dozen conference calls a day.
Jessie hired a local tree service to remove six large trees and a mess of bamboo from her back yard. It's run by a 68-year-old man who is blind in one eye. He clambers up the tree as high as he can go and saws off one branch at a time, cheering loudly as each branch is removed. A typical Florida small business, I guess.
Erin won a scholarship from Chic-fil-A where she is working part-time. The sit-down restaurant is closed but she mans (womans? girls?) the drive through window. The restaurant is making as much money with the drive through business now as they had with both drive through and sit-in before the pandemic. People just gotta have their chicken.
Jack had a haircut and felt it wasn't short enough. He wanted to look like Leonard Snart from LEGENDS OF TOMORROW. When he got home he tried to shorten it. It'll grow back.
Lots of TV. Lots of reading (mostly old science fiction books, my comfort food). Lots of naps because this self-isolating can be pretty exhausting, you know. We're all healthy, happy, and sane. Remaining horrified at Trump's incompetence, stupidity, and vanity (and Jared and Mitch are joyfully doing their share in destroying America).
So it goes.
Have a great week, Patti. (And keep up the walking because someone has to do it, just not me.)
Glad you're getting your walking in, as well. My exercise has been as usual too sporadic, but has included yard work (mowing the lawn and such, for the first time this year), treadmill (Alice has signed onto Hulu, for several series, so I'm going through ST. ELSEWHERE again among some other things while on the device), shopping trips through my painter's fume mask the last two times (better than a bandana if less esthetically pleasing). Also letting my broken finger heal and get back to more or less full usefulness in typing, while things keep piling on.
Received my copy of another book where I have an acknowledgement...along with the several others that have an anthologized piece or quotations from me or a citation. Still have yet to fill a book Would like it to be nearly as goos as this new one, BEYOND THE OUTPOSTS: ESSAYS ON SF AND FANTASY 1955-1996, edited by David Langford, rather an expanded version of a very small-press assemblage, OUTPOSTS: LITERATURE OF MILIEUX from 1996, and the slender original version rather more overpriced and ugly at that time. Budrys's "Paradise Charted", from TRIQUARTERLY in 1980, was the dominant piece in the first book, and its in even better company in the new one. https://ae.ansible.uk/?t=budrys4
Listening to all the grousing from various sorts of Democrat now that the candidate with the worst entourage has conceded to the candidate with the worst stated agenda doesn't raise the spirits, but these dispatches and the replies do help. Like the shelf-reading a lot...after many attempts of trying to hop back up into the saddle, think I'm finally Well Enough along.
Glad you're all here and getting by, at least. Let's all continue to do so...
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