Those balloons are a major part of YIYI. You forget how much fun a kid can have with a simple thing. This was a terrific film about a year in the life of a Taiwanese family. An awful lot of screaming and angst. Not much fun. I also saw SEND HELP, which was good. It is streaming on HULU. ALSO POWER BALLAD at the theater, which was likable if not compelling.
I am binging LANDSCAPE ARTIST OF THE YEAR (On Prime). Love seeing the amazing British countrysides.
Reading THE GRIFTERS by Jim Thompson. Excellent writing, not sure if it will get too violent for me but the signs are there. So many writers I have never read-David Goodis among them.
Weather is up and down, sunny and then not.
What about you?
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Yeah, Jim Thompson can be kind of gritty, but he was an excellent writer for that kind of thing. His character, Lou Ford (from THE KILLER INSIDE ME) may well approach Wilkie Collins' Count Fosco for the nastiest villain outside of the current Administration.
It's been a beautiful week here, raining only in the very early morning hours, with warm (sometimes overly warm) weather during the days. We took advantage of the weather to hit the beach on Saturday morning. Christina and Jessie had hoped to go in the water but there was a lot of seagrass close to shore, which would have made it uncomfortable. There was a group of kids there from some sort of tae kwon do or judo class there in full uniform, complete with belts; some of the less intelligent ones went in the water in their uniforms, which are not meant for full immersion. The cotton uniforms hold a lot of water, are hard to clean, and will begin to smell after a day or two; I'm betting this will make their parents happy.
Christina, Jack, one of his friends, and I went to the free movie Tuesday. Jack is now getting to the age where these films -- most of which are animated features long past their first run -- will be too young for him. I'm at the age where I can claim dotage and enjoy the flicks. Both Jack and are are still at the age where we can throw popcorn at each other when Christina isn't looking. The film was THE WILD ROBOT, which I thought was pretty good because Bill Nighy, Catherine O'Hara, and Mark Hamill voiced some of the characters; the lead roles were voiced by Lupita Nyong'o and Pedro Pascal.
Everyone is doing well at their jobs. Christina is beginning to get more comfortable and assured at her police dispatching job and the department is work toward getting her her certification. One part is an eight-week online course with sixteen modules; working it part-time over the past two days, she had already completed six of the modules, so certification seems to be in her near future.
Sunday morning, Christina, Jessie, Erin, and Ellen went blueberry picking in Alabama. They each were given a one-gallon bucket, but no realized how many gazillion blueberries it takes to fill one gallon; they ended up combining buckets to get two almost filled buckets, but probably are as many blueberries as they put in the buckets. They celebrated at a Mexican restaurant on the way home. Everyone had a great time, even Ellen, whose dementia and paranoia are getting worse (she forgot where they were going several times on the ride there); but Christina, Jessie, and Erin all made the effort to actively include her and make her feel comfortable and safe. The one thing the Kitty insisted on for our children and grandkids was that they have a kind heart; I am very proud that that is something they all have.
Sunday was also marked the birthday of Kitty's father. who as a kid thought that all the flags were for his birthday. Harold and Eileen owned a small cottage on Cape Cod with a blueberry bush in the back yard. when Jessie and Christina were young, Harold would send them out in the morning to pick blueberries for blueberry pancakes, which. according to their memories, were the best pancakes EVER! So the blueberry picking yesterday had a special meaning for them.
More to come.
Back again.
Every year since his death, the family would go out and gorge on ice cream on Harold's birthday; one of his great joys was going to Kimball's Ice Cream stand in Massachusetts for a banana split large enough to make a full meal. (My father would also take may brother, sister, and myself to Kimball's for the very same thing -- it may have been a tacit New England tradition.) For the past several years we have gone to Fannie Lou's in Pensacola, which we have found to have the best ice cream in the area. Nine of us made it this year and there was a lot of laughter and memories, along with the ice cream. I had a banana split, which was very good, although they put cherry sauce on the strawberry ice cream rather than strawberry sauce. the only ones who could not make it were Mark, who works weekends, and Walt and Jack.
Walt and Jack watched the UFC cage fight held at the White House, not because Walt wanted to celebrate Uncle Cankles on his 80th, but because Walt is into the Muay Thai martial art (he went to Thailand two years ago as an official ;photographer for the Muay Thai championships) and his gym was holding a watch party. I think I've made my opinion of using a UFC cage fight s a performative spectacle to celebrate the country's 250th anniversary ; I sincerely doubt that this is what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they laid out their dreams and aspirations for a new country. (A few weeks after the Knicks had won the championship last time, the president of the country resigned; would that that be repeated this year.)
Not much television this week -- DEATH IN PARADISE and MURDERIN PARADISE only. Books read included Preston & Chjilds' RELIQUARY, the second in the Agent Pendergast series, and J. D. Robb's GLORY IN DEATH, the second in the Eve Dallas series. i also read WHEN THE WEIND BLIOWS, an early supernatural "children in danger" novel by John Saul, and -- courtesy of George --CLOVIS, an odd and funny satire about an intelligent and philosophical parrot by Michael Fessier. For graphic novels, I read two from the DC Comics stable: SUPERGIRL: UNIVERSE END (meh) by Mariko Tamaki, and DC PRIDE: TO THE FARTHEST REACHES, a compilation which supposedly honors the LGBTQ+ community and (to my mind) falls far, far short of the mark. **sigh**
Because we want to make you happy, Patti, today is National Juggling Day; try not to drop anything. (Today is also National Prune Day, but we won't talk about that.) Have a great week, and stay safe.
Yeah, THE GRIFTERS (which, amazingly, is NOT the Trump family biography, is a good one. It was filmed by Stephen Frears with a screenplay by Donald Westlake, and starred John Cusack, Angelica Huston and Annette Bening. It's no THE KILLER INSIDE ME or POP. 1280 or A HELL OF A WOMAN, but what is?
It was a warm week, and we stayed in a couple of the hottest days. This Saturday is Dion in concert, and we'll be taking one of Jackie's overnight mini-vacations at a Marriott, the first of the summer.
Added this week:
Now that we finished SLOW HORSES, we're watching Mick Herron's DOWN CEMETERY ROAD (Apple). These were his first books, four about PI Zoe Boehm, played in a sort of Jackson Lamb-like, annoyed and sarcastic way by Emma Thompson. It involves (of course) government corruption and is somewhat confusing. Ruth Wilson is the other star.
Until I started seeing promos for the recent second series, I was unaware of SUGAR (Apple), with Colin Farrell channeling a Chandler-like PI in modern day L.A., working for movie mogul James Cromwell. There are occasional short black & white clips of Bogart in old movies. Apparently, there is a BIG secret yet to be revealed, but I accidentally read it while reading about series two. This one's for Jerry.
We're really enjoying the space exploration series, FOR ALL MANKIND, a sort of re-imagining of what the space race might have looked like if Russia landed on the Moon first. Some events are as they were, others have changed things drastically. For example, in 1972, Nixon loses his re- election race to Ted Kennedy, who in turn loses to Reagan in 1976. His two terms are followed by two for Gary Hart, and we're now in 1992 in series three (if five, to date). Good show.
Western NY was in the 80s all last week but yesterday we were hit with an inch of rain and we woke up this morning to 50 degrees. We'll be in the low 70s the rest of this week.
I envy the Meyersons seeing Dion in concert. "Teenager in Love" is my favorite Dion song! I'm not an NBA fan, but it was great to see the NY Knicks win the Championship for the first time in 53 years!
Diane and I spent most of last week test driving compact SUVs. Diane rejected the Nissan Kicks ("too tinny") and liked the Toyota Corolla Cross. But Diane chose the Subaru Crosstrek because of the look and feel. Also, Toyota wanted $40,000 for the Corolla Cross while we were able to buy the Subaru Crosstrek for $32,000--both vehicles are essentially the same. Stay safe!
Wiw, $40,000 seems like a lot. Does Toyota at least give you AWD for that?
I'm still around.
Started reading Joshua Moehrke's lates novel. He does rural police procedurals in MN. The book grabbed me pretty quick.
I started watching DELI BOYS on Hulu. Two season available. A crime comedy with two dopey Philadelphia brothers in their 20s. Their father dies on the golf course after being hit by a stray golf ball. They expect to inherit the family business empire. As the brothers are going into the business offices to discuss succession the place is raided by the FBI. Their beloved father had been a cocaine distributor for years.
Madison's Overture Center had a 100 year anniversary over the weekend with multiple free performances. Wife, Boy #2, and I took in a organ performance on Saturday. Wife and Boy #2 went to an orchestra performance yesterday.
I thought the Mummer's Parade in Philly was for mine. I have never picked a blueberry but i sure eat a lot.
I loved FOR ALL MANKIND although I haven't seen the final season.
We loved out Crosstrek and now Kevin is driving it.
I started DELI BOYS too. Love the Philly references. I didn't know they still made Tastykakes.
Sorry to miss last Monday Monday entirely (due to jury duty) and this week I have nearly missed it. Today Glen and Doug took me to Urgent Care because I continue to have problems with digestion and fatigue. I was in there a long time doing all kinds of tests so I am glad they could entertain each other.
The Urgent Care doctor thinks that it (the fatigue) has more to do with my low heart rate (which is not new) than digestion problems. We shall see. She prescribed a wearable cardiac ECG monitor to wear for a week, some sort of vest I think.
That's about it. I am reading MIDDLEMARCH by George Eliot and am at 400 pages out of 800. It is challenging for me. Glen finished HEYDAY: THE 1850S AND THE DAWN OF THE GLOBAL AGE, by Ben Wilson; a long read but very good. Last night he read a manga, CHTULHU CAT by Pandania and started HUMPHREY BOGART, a short biography by David Thompson, at Urgent Care.
A quick nip in while feeding and petting the cats--you can get TastyKakes in Hawaii (if you're willing to go to WalMart)...I suspect they will turn up near you...
YIYI sounds interesting as someone I've been living with for thirty years springs from Taiwanese parents who didn't have a great time back home and didn't have a completely fulfilling time here, and how that's played out in her and her sibs' lives.
Jeff, the Toyota AWD is tricky. The two front wheels operate independently, but if you want all FOUR weeks to work independently, you have to push a button. The Subaru Crosstrek is AWD all the time. No buttons to push.
Tracy-you and I seem to be traveling the same path if from different perspectives.I had one incident of an AFIB reading and none since yet I am on four medications for people with AFIB. Also to get my bp down, other meds. I fall asleep anytime I sit down.
YIYI was very good. The more I have thought about it, the more I like it. It did seem like a fairly discontent population.
Exactly! Subaru has been doing this a long time, and they've perfected it.
Patti, although many doctors and nurses, etc., have commented on my low rate and blood pressure, I never have had any problems in that area. And I guess it would be good to find out if I do. But I don't see the connection between my digestion problems and heart rate issues.
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