Today at Logos

In the morning I had lunch with my mother.  I had to laugh at her half of cheese sandwich.

That is a HUGE lettuce leaf that was folded in about fourths and stuck on her sandwich under the cheese.  The wad of lettuce was easily half again as thick as the rest of the things in the sandwich, to say nothing of the big bulk of the actual fold.  I sometimes wonder what goes on in that kitchen.  I didn't stay long this time, because of having to work at Logos, but just packed up her dirty laundry and came home.

Today was L minus 4.  Only 4 more work days before my days at Logos end.  It's a bittersweet thing to contemplate on one hand, but on another nice to think of "having my Thursdays back."

Today wasn't as busy as last week, but still busy.  The first customer greeted me like a long-lost friend and commented that it had been a long time since we'd seen each other.  We had a nice chat about Atria and her friend with dementia.  When she left I still didn't have a clue who she was. She did buy a contemporary fiction and the woman with her, who must have been her mother (because they looked so much alike), bought 2 contemporary fictions.

The guy I call "Pete Seeger" was in checking out books in anthropology and music but didn't buy anything today.

A tall young man with a yellow shirt that had something about McGurkin and Colorado, but his jacket covered up the rest.  He left his backpack on the chair while he browsed and came back with a contemporary fiction called "Moo" and a math book about future something or other.

An African American woman with a man I assumed was dark skinned Indian, since he had those Indian-from-India features.  They looked in the children's room and were disappointed not to find a book of Grimms fairy tales or anything by Hans Christian Anderson, since their son loves fairy tales.  I have to keep reminding people that we are a used book store and our stock depends on what people donate.

Jeri and Phil dropped by, followed by their friend Sarah and we all had a nice chat.  Jeri bought a book by Ann Patchett, her current favorite author, and Sarah, who used to own her own catering business bought 3 books on food and a book by Mark Twain

The store was filling up and I hadn't seen this cute little dog come in.  He was with a woman and a tall man in a black cowboy hat.  The dog shrank back with his ears flat whenever the man talked to him.  I wondered if he were a battered dog.

A mom with 4 adult children came in.  All looked around and mom bought a novel called "Samurai." Then they all left.  Soon one of the daughters returned with a bargain book and when she went back outside, another daughter came into buy a bargain book by James Patterson..

A man bought a copy of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and a book of cartoons.

A man in a red plaid jacket bought two history books -- one on the Balkans and one on historical fashion of the Renaissance.

A physicist who has been in before bought 7 physics books and paid in cash, pulling money out of his very ragged wallet made from duct tape and patched many times.

I had called Harrison, the store manager when Susan and Peter are out of town, to ask if he could relieve me a bit early.  We had decided to do another family movie night, this time seeing La La Land at the theater just a block from Logos.  This movie had a bit more of a crowd than last night's Rogue One.   It also had a better plot, more hummable music, and nothing exploded, so I liked it better.  Strange new-fangled musical, but with the most incredible opening scene you are ever going to see!

The movie ended at 8;10 and the sushi place where we planned to eat dinner closed at 9, so we rushed over there and had some delicious sushi.

Then home to watch Jeopardy, after which everyone but me headed off to bed, which I am about to do myself.

Lost and Found

When I picked up our >$100 prime rib the other day, I still hadn't decided what I wanted to do for Christmas Eve dinner.  It didn't seem right just to have a "normal" dinner.  But there were only going to be the two of us.

Then I saw the crabs at the meat counter.  A huge display of fresh Dungeness crab and I thought that would be the perfect dinner.  Crab and French bread.  Nectar of the gods.

I got a nice sized crab, had them clean it and package it and I brought it home.  

And it was delicious.  The perfect start to our decadent food weekend.

After I finished my portion I realized I had forgotten to take a picture.  (And you know it doesn't exist if you don't have a picture on Facebook of something somewhere!)  I went to get my cell phone to take this picture of the leftovers, but I didn't see the phone.  I didn't feel like doing a search for it, so I just took the photo with my regular camera.

But then I started looking for the phone.  It is usually only in a handful of places.  It's on my desk, on the table next to my recliner, in my purse, or on the kitchen counter next to the charger.

It was in none of those places.  Then  started to get worried.  Could I have left it somewhere?  I went on Facebook and found that the last picture I posted was the one of the label on the prime rib package, and I hadn't been out of the house since I got home from the store, so it had to be here. 

I started searching through everything, including emptying the garbage cans, going through the to-be-done laundry.  I went through my purse at least 3 times (and this baby is a BIG phone, so hard to miss in a purse!)

Walt got into the act and we looked in chair and couch cushions.  He checked all the paces I had and it was still just...nowhere. We wondered if the dogs could have taken it outside, but that seemed highly unlikely.  I did check the dog beds, though.

I even downloaded the "Find My Phone" app but it didn't work unless I set it up with the phone.  It did tell me, however, that the iPad I was downloading the app to was located half a block from where it was sitting in my lap.  Or a block away, it varied.  It did not inspire faith in the app!

I was just sick.  I love that phone and knew that there would be no replacement ... it costs too much! ... but how could I lose it in the house.  I had not been upstairs all afternoon.  I hadn't been in the living room either, though I searched there too.

Finally I sat down at my computer and noticed a pile of "stuff" on top of the scanner and could not remember if I had looked through that or not, so I got up to do it.  It wasn't there, but the lid of the scanner was not flat with the scanner and that's when I remembered I had taken a scan of the face of the phone because I was having problem with a game and hoped to get answers from the FB mind.  Opened the scanner and there it was. I felt pretty dumb, but oh so relieved to have it back.

I feel like I want to hang it in a pouch around my neck after all the hell it put us through!

---

We met the kids in Sacramento to see Rogue 1 tonight.  Given the popularity of this latest installment of the Star Wars saga, we decided to get there early to avoid crowds.  We need not have worried.

In fact, I'd be surprised if there were as many as a dozen other people in the theater by the time the movie got going

. 

This was the 3D version of the film, so we were all ready.

Now bear in mind that the last Star Wars movie I attended was The Emperor Strikes Back in 1981 and I fell asleep in that so I'm not of the Star Wars universe and got very little out of the film.  My professional review is that if you like lots of CGI and battles, especially involving very large equipment, you'll love it.  If you aren't into all that stuff, stay home...or go to see LaLa Land instead!  (Jeri helpfully explained the plot to me at home.)

But the best part of the evening for me and what made it all worthwhile is just watching how much my kids like each other and enjoy each other's company, how all six (our kids and their spouses) get along so well and how much Bri and Lacie love both Ned and Jeri, but especially Uncle Ned.  It just warmed the cockles of my heart, even if I didn't have a clue what was going on in the movie.

Afterwards, the four of them stuffed themselves into a photo booth in the cinema complex for some fun shots.

You can watch on a screen outside the booth as they are taking the pictures so you get an idea of what to expect

Then it was time to say goodbye.  Tom, Laurel and the kids are heading back to Santa Barbara tomorrow and so our holiday together time is over.  But it sure has been special!

Men in Trees

I looked out the window of the family room this morning and was surprised to see a man climbing up the trunk of our Chinese Pistachio tree.

About a month ago a huge branch of the tree came crashing down onto the patio.  Walt called someone to come and check the tree.  Contrary to what we thought caused it -- some sort of disease -- it turns out the tree is too healthy and the weight of the branch finally was too much for it to bear.

We made an appointment to have guys come out and trim the tree, which had to be rescheduled when they got hung up on an earlier appointment.  But today was the day and the tree got a big hair cut.  It's amazing how little time it take to cut off lots of big branches and feed them into a crunching machine that turns them into sawdust in nothing flat.

While that was going on, Walt was upstairs cleaning up the mess in the bedroom where last week's flood seeped in to soak the rug.  What was affected was a bookcase where my father's old 78 rpm records were stored.  Walt asked if he should just throw them out.  They should have been discarded 30 years ago, but Paul wanted me to keep them after my father died and then after Paul died, I just never thought about them, but they were taking up a whole bookcase, which can now be discarded.

I told him I would first put an ad in "Nextdoor."  Do you have that?  Nextdoor is a private social network for all the people in a certain community. It's an easy way to put up announcement ("lost dog" "found cat," "marauding racoons" or anything that might be of interest to that particular community.  There is even a section for classified ads and I thought maybe someone in our neighborhood might like the records.  I put in this ad:

My father left a collection of classic 78 rpm jazz records, which we will throw away if we can't find someone who wants them and is willing to pick them up. Free to a good home (or even a bad home!). PM to basykes@dcn.org.

Within FIVE MINUTES, I heard from someone who wanted them.  He's a nice guy named Sean who moved out here from the east coast to go to grad school, but had to leave all of his records behind because it was too expensive to ship them.  He just recently got a turntable that would play 78s and he was thrilled that we were just giving him the records.

I was thrilled that there was someone who would enjoy them.  Not only did he take all the records, but he packaged them in three Blue Apron boxes, so we got rid of three of those too.

In the afternoon we went to see Florence Foster Jenkins, the second movie we have seen in 2016.  What a wonderful film.  We learned of Florence Foster Jenkins a couple of decades ago, when our friend Stephen Peithman told us about "the worst singer in the world," a rich socialite in New York who loved opera and thought she could sing.  She gave concerts around New York, made a record, and even sang at Carnegie Hall.  We bought one of her recordings just to hear her and yes, she was the worst singer in the world.  But this movie with Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant makes her human and shows how her husband protected her and helped her achieve her dreams.  It's a very sweet story, It's Meryl Streep as you have never seen her....and Hugh Grant as you have never seen him and both are excellent.

After the movie we tried out a brand new Chinese restaurant having its grand opening this week and then home for Jeopardy.

I had seen my mother earlier in the day and she asked, as she usually does, if we were going to go out "partying" tonight.  I said no...but as it turned out, we actually did.

Hero Stuff

I made a big mistake last night.  I knew I had to get up early this morning and set my alarm and then decided to sleep the whole night in the recliner.  Instead of turning on Frasier to put me to sleep, as I usually do, I decided to watch one of the things I had recorded on our DVR.

Yesterday, while we were at the non-memorial I set the DVR to record the movie San Andreas, which I figured would be a corny, cheesy movie that would easily put me to sleep.

Yes on the former, no on the latter.  Yes, it was cheesy, but the CGI was so good, as I watched a 2 hour earthquake and tsunami destroy California and it did NOT put me to sleep.  So I ended up getting one hour of sleep.

San Andreas is a movie maybe one or two of you missed in its theatrical release, so I thought I would tell you the story.  I don't know if you call this a spoiler alert or not since we know the state is destroyed, but here's how the plot goes, more or less.

It starts with a girl driving and texting in a car on a winding road in Southern California.  Somehow she doesn't hit any of the cars coming around blind curves while she's not looking at the road, but a slight tremor disrupts the road enough that her car goes careening over the cliff and she is left hanging precariously in her car, which is caught on a tree midway down to the bottom.

A Los Angeles Fire Department helicopter, piloted by (actor) Dwayne Johnson comes to rescue her.

He sends one of his men down on a rope to catch her before her car falls, but the guy gets trapped under the car, so it's time for Dwayne to turn the helicopter controls over to his co-pilot and t Do The Job Himself.

As soon as he removes his helmet and jacket and starts to don the paraphernalia needed to drop down to the car, all those bulging muscles makes it clear that this is our HERO.

As the car breaks free of the tree and plunges to the bottom of the cliff, our HERO is shown with both the girl and his crew member on hand and all are rescued.

In the meantime the earth begins shaking in Nevada.  Seismologist Paul Giamati nearly dies as Hoover Dam collapses, but he manages to rescue a child on the way, but loses a co-worker, who falls into the rushing water. 

LA starts shaking, buildings fall.  Dwayne's almost ex-wife is trapped on one of the top floors of a hotel, having a nice lunch.  She calls her husband, in his helicopter.  He tells her to get to the rooftop and he will rescue her.  She does, amidst buildings falling around her and her own building nearly collapsing, but it's early in the movie so of course he comes to the rescue at the last minute.

Looking at his stats, Giamati realizes that the earthquake is going to travel up all of California, eventually reaching San Francisco.  He tries to get the word out to San Franciscans that they need to evacuate NOW.

(All of these scenes are accompanied by buildings exploding or imploding or collapsing, glass falling out into the streets, people being hit by falling blocks of concrete, and general mayhem).

Their daughter is in San Francisco with the wife's new boyfriend.  When the ground starts shaking there, she also calls Dad in the helicopter because the car she was riding in is trapped in a hotel garage.  (She gets great cell phone reception in the underground garage, trapped under concrete)

Dwayne turns to his almost ex wife and says "We're going to get our daughter!"  and heads the helicopter 400 miles north to Get. His. Daughter.  Only the helicopter gets hit by flying debris and has to crash land.  They hot wire a truck and continual driving north until the truck comes to a big crevasse in the highway.

It is, however, conveniently near in a field next to a small airport, where Dwayne is able to hotwire a plane and continue his journey. because that's the stuff HEROs do..

More falling debris, though now it's the familiar streets of San Francisco I see collapsing.  Daughter gets rescued by a boy she met and his brother and they are now out of the garage.  More buildings collapse.  She calls Dad again (amazing cell phone service in a town that is being destroyed!)  He tells her to go to high ground and suggests she get to Coit Tower (not what I'd call a  "high point").  They only have to go several miles over rubble and crashing buildings to get there.

In the meantime, nearing SF, the plane is running out of gas and Dwayne decides they are going to set down at AT&T Park (home of the Giants), only the plane can't go there, so while the plane flies off to crash who knows where, he and the almost ex wife parachute down into the park.  

Dwayne rescues people in the street, because he's a HERO and gets them inside the park, but with the amount of debris and continually collapsing buildings he realizes there is no way walk to Coil Tower, so they hot wire a boat and decide to go around on the Bay.

In the meantime, after walking forever, daughter and entourage see Coit Tower off in the distance and discover that the parkland around it is on fire and they won't be able to get there.  They decide to head for the next highest peak, Nob Hill (I'm not sure who decided these "high points."  Did nobody think of Twin Peaks?  A real high point....and also solid ground.  Also away from falling buildings, so uninteresting photographically.)  For some reason they don't call Daddy this time around.

Somehow they end up inside a building when a huge tsunami hits and what buildings weren't already shaken by the quake are now being washed away by water.  They manage to keep climbing higher and higher in the building to escape the water.

Dwayne and his little rubber boat has also encountered the tsunami and are now floating around among the debris of the financial district when suddenly, incredibly they see their daughter and her friends in the window of a building.

Dwayne turns boat controls over to his not yet ex wife and dives in to save. their. daughter.  He gets to her, but he is one one side of a pane of glass and she on the other and they can't break it (their goodbye is a real Spock-Kirk moment).  As he watches, helpless, she gets swallowed up in the water and begins to sink.  Not yet ex wife sees the problem, revs up the boat motor and rams into the glass, breaking it.  Hell hath no fury like a Mom trying to save her kid.  Dwayne reaches lifeless daughter and drags her out to the boat.

CPR goes on forever.  In the meantime boy and his brother have also come to the boat.  She's dead.  Can't be revived.  But Dwayne isn't going to take no for an answer because he is a HERO and tries again.  She coughs up water and sits up with a "where am I" look.  Happy hugs all around.

Now they are all together, at last, on the boat but another enormous wave is headed into the city.

Dwayne realizes there is no "through" it, only "over" it, so revs the tiny boat's motor and attacks the wave.  After near collision with a huge freighter, whose cargo nearly hits them many times before it rips through the Golden Gate Bridge, they come out the other side and look back at the destroyed city.

"Now we rebuild," HERO Dwayne says.

Not yet ex wife does not sing "San Francisco."

Oh yeah...not yet ex wife's boyfriend was conveniently killed by a falling building, so the rekindled love between Dwayne and not yet ex wife can proceed unhampered.  All's well that ends well.

And that's why I had no sleep last night.

Movie Buffs

We are such movie buffs that we saw a whopping 2 movies last year, 2 the year before, 6 the year before that, and 2 in 2012 (yes, I keep a database).

Starting a roll this year with one movie seen already, Walt and I went to see Room yesterday. I was so happy to see it had returned.  I read the book last year and was eager to see the movie but it came and went in Davis so quickly that I never had the chance. But with Oscar nominations under its belt, they have brought it back for another run.  There were about 10 of us (if that) in the theater, so I doubt it will be here long!)

As a general rule, movies made from books don't live up to the book, if you loved it.  This was that rare occasion where I thought the movie was actually better than the book.  The book spent a lot more time in "room" than the movie did, but I thought it covered pretty much everything it needed to cover.  My problem with the book was the last section of it.

For those who don't know, Room is the story of a young woman, abducted at age 17, and kept prisoner in a shed behind her captor's house, where she is raped on a regular basis and brought food and other basic supplies once a week.  Two years into her captivity, she is pregnant and gives birth to Jack.  The story starts on Jack's 5th birthday.

It's interesting to think of a child whose whole world is one tiny room with a skylight, but no windows, and one human being (he is shut in a wardrobe when "Old Nick" arrives so he doesn't have to see what his mother goes through).

The bond between them is beautiful and his mother does as much as she can to keep him healthy, active and intellectually stimulated.

She devises a plan to escape, and it works, Old Nick is captured and Joy and Jack begin their life back in the world.  

I hated that part of the book because after the initial excitement of her return, everyone seemed to cruel to both of them.  They didn't seem to understand that everything in the world was new and sometimes scary for Jack (even something so simple as going up and down stairs was something he had to learn).  Her mother had a lot of criticisms of how Jack was being raised (still nursing at age 5, hair tumbling down his back--she had no scissors, of course!).  In the book, Jack is enrolled in school and the administrators are ridiculously judgmental and cruel toward him.

However, in the movie, everyone was much more understanding and the gradual return to normal for Joy and learning about the world for Jack seemed much more realistic.  So I was quite pleased and glad we had the chance to see it before the Acadamy Awards rolls around (Brie Larson is up for a best actress award).

But when we got home, I just wanted to go to sleep, and I did, for a couple of hours, waking feeling "not quite right" in the digestive area.

I cooked a Blue Apron meal for dinner, but as I cooked, I knew that was no way I could eat it--or anything, and as soon as I got it on the plate for Walt, I took to the recliner and eventually went back to sleep. At 10, I staggered into the living room and flopped on the couch, where i slept until 1 a.m., after which I moved to the recliner again and slept an other 3 hours, during which time i seemed to be dreaming about various scenes from Room.

Whatever was wrong last night seems to have righted itself and I feel OK this morning, very happy that Walt set up coffee to start by timer so that I could wake up to freshly brewed coffee!

In Vino Somnus

I was reminded last night why I no longer drink.

A friend and I went to a movie and then out to dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant.  We decided to have glass of wine.  One glass of pinot grigio.  We shared a salad and a pizza.  She had 2 pieces of pizza, I had one.

I came home, it was a little before 9.  Walt had the rest of the pizza and I settled in to watch Rizzoli and Isles and was sound asleep in 10 minutes, if that long.  The reason I don't drink is that if I have anything alcoholic at night, it puts me to sleep.  There is too much I like to get done at night to waste that time sleeping.

What's more, it wasn't a sound sleep.  I slept in 2-3 hour increments all night long.  I woke up first at 11 p.m. and was going to write my journal entry, but Walt was using my computer, which was just as well.  I went to the couch and went back to sleep.  At midnight I was wide awake.  I thought of writing this then, but decided I really needed to go back to sleep.  I did, after putting on Rizzoli and Isles again,  I made it further into the show, but only because I fast forwarded to the point I last remembered.  Then I was awake again sometime between 2 and 3, then around 5 and finally at quarter to 6, when I gave up and just got up.

I don't blame the wine for more than the first bit of sleep, but it did remind me of why I usually have water with meals, even though I read yesterday that a glass of red wine a day is as good for you as an hour at the gym.

Lisa, with whom I worked in those golden days at Women's Health Associates, and I went to see Still Alice.  She has a mother-in-law who has been at Atria for 3 years, my mother has been there nearly 2.  Her mother-in-law apparently is not having memory problems, but we both wanted to see this movie about Alzheimer's.

The movie is very slow moving, but given the subject matter, it could hardly be otherwise.  It is a quiet movie, watching a woman trying to hang on to memory as it slips away from her.  I thought it would be depressing, but in truth it was oddly comforting.  Watching the slow progression of Alzheimer's, as it eats away Alice's brain, I could be comforted that this is not what my mother has.  Other than the continuing, worsening memory loss, she has none of the other problems, which is a good thing.

Though he finally got his birthday present... 

A reclining folding camp chair

 ...Walt had a bad day.  His laptop computer died.  This is the one he uses for everything, as his desktop is slow, clunky, and connects to the internet via dial up.  He is going to call my guru this morning.  

I went to Atria to pick up laundry.  I had to make two trips there because the first time there was no parking to be had for love or money, so I went to deposit a check and then when I came back, my parking angel was awake and there was one parking place, right across from the door to Atria, which was perfect.

By the time I finished my visit with my mother and got home, it was nearly time to get downtown to meet Lisa.

I just love this lady.  I think, if I remember correctly, that she was my primary care provider when I was working for Women's Health.  We had such a nice visit, reminiscing about the good days at Women's Health and the people we both love and miss (we must find a way to get together with Lynn, who lives in Ventura).

We eventually got into the world situation, the health problems world-wide (she and her dentist husband go to Guatemala each year to do health care), the critical water problem in so may places in the world, the depressing nature of the news every night.  We each bemoaned the inability of one person to do great things, though each of us, in our own way are doing little things. But it never seems enough.

We also talked about the movie, about Alzheimer's, and about the fascinating nature of the brain and how interesting it would be if we weren't right in the middle of dealing with mental decline.  I'm convinced, given family history, that I will eventually become my mother.  Lisa is worried that she shows signs of early Alzheimer's.  But I suspect this is the reaction any of us seeing that movie would feel afterwards, beginning to examine every little memory loss and wondering "is this it?"

But all in all, it was a lovely afternoon and evening.  And I enjoyed the wine, even if I lost the rest of the evening because of it!

Rum Punch

World famous Trinidad rum punch

 

How many times have I seen this in my life?

We had the opportunity to spend time with friends from college this afternoon.  Originally, we were going to go mid-afternoon for some coffee and cookies, or maybe rum punch.  Then the invite was changed to lunch, definitely including rum punch, and the chance to visit their daughter and grandchildren, who had spent the night after Christmas celebrating yesterday.

We were happy to see the daughter, but we definitely were glad of an invite for rum punch!

We were introduced to rum punch by D, whose relatives were from Trinidad, and who made the best ever rum punch, which was made not only with rum, but also with simple syrup, and dark rum (if possible from Trinidad)...the real McCoy.  Whenever we had a party, he would be called upon to make his rum punch.  

We all eventually married and we don't see each other much, but when we get together, we try to coerce him into making rum punch again.  I don't drink as much of it as I used to, but it still tastes as good and today's did not disappoint. It's funny that I almost never drink anything alcoholic, but I never turn down a glass of that old favorite when I have the opportunity to ship it again.

We had a good visit with the daughter and her children, I was given a set of Wizard of Oz ornaments because my love of Judy Garland is legendary, and we enjoyed leftover Christmas dinner, and then a trip through Paris via a newly finished travel scrapbook (we are both scrapbookers).  Then it was time to go.  Hugs all around and promises to do it again whenever we are in the neighborhood.

It always amazes me how well we get along, since we are at polar ends of the spectrum religiously and politically, and normally very vocal about our views (our husbands are both very quiet) but if we stick to kids, grandkids, rum punch and scrapbooks, we do all right, and even better than all right.

After we left our friends and started home, we conferred with Jeri about a "family movie night," which we try to have whenever Jeri comes to town. Ultimately it was Joe, Jeri, Walt and I who wanted to go and we chose to see Saving Mr. Banks, the story of the making of the movie of Mary Poppins.  My friend and former boss, Derrick Bang, who is still the movie critic for the paper, didn't like it very much.  I sort of disagreed with some of the things he said.  I enjoyed the movie and any movie that makes me leave the theater with an embarrassingly red face can't be all bad!

Miserable

8 January 2013

There is one thing you can say about those revolution-era French peasants...they were definitely "miserable," and more miserable in the sweeping movie saga than can be presented in the stage version of Les Miserables.   (The stage version, for one thing, can't begin to give anyone a feel for how disgusting it REALLY is to be mucking around in the sewers of Paris!)

Yes, we have seen yet another movie.  Almost every time Jeri comes, we end up having "family movie night" where we pick a movie to see together.  Since we were on our way to celebrate a belated Christmas with Ned and Marta in the evening, we had "family movie morning" today, since the first showing of Les Miserables was at 11:30.

Everything you may have read about this movie is true.  It's a spectacle, most of the performers are incredible, Ann Hathaway should win an Oscar for her performance of Fantine, and what in God's name was the director thinking casting Russell Crowe as Javert?  

If there is anything that takes this movie down, it's every scene that Crowe is in.  Instead of giving us the power of a Gladiator, he is stiff as a board.  He may have the voice of a pop singer (which means he can carry a tune, sort of), but is hopelessly out-sung by the quality of the voices of everyone else in the show, even down to little Gavroche.  Maybe he was cast to add "star power" to the marquee, but he certainly is not an asset to this otherwise wonderful film.

Now.  That said.  What happens when three theater people, all of whom have seen this musical many times (and Jeri has played it many times) begin to analyze the movie, which we all agreed we liked very much?  We nit-pick it to death.

We went to Panera restaurant for a late light lunch after the show and started to analyze both the movie and the story.  It is not a plot that stands up to close scrutiny.  Take Javert, for example.  I have never understood why he is obsessed with a guy whose crime was stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family and who has served his time (19 years of hard labor) to the point where Javert chases the guy for more than 20 years, trying to capture him and, I guess, return him to jail after he has served his time and has been released (well he had jumped parole).  Twenty years chasing this guy.  Are there no other crimes in France?  Is Jean Valjean really on France's Most Wanted list?

Secondly, I have never understood this rebellion in the first place, from the first time I saw the show on stage, and it makes less sense in the movie version where the scale is grander. This isn't "the French Revolution" but merely the "June Rebellion" (the sequel to the "July Rebellion" two years eariler).  They gather all the furniture they can find, they block off a street, and this rag-tag band of rebels with just a few guns take on the entire French army--and their canons.  After spending half the show getting ready for the fight, the battle lasts about 5 minutes, almost everyone is killed and the soldiers take their canons and presumably go back to the barracks. 

This battle didn't even last as long as the Six-days War.  

I'm sure there was more to it than that in real life, but it always struck me as an exercise in futility and a sure-fire way to end your life quickly...and if that was the purpose, it works beautifully.

Also, Javert takes time off from chasing Valjean to lead the soldiers into battle against the rebels, but he also is the spy for them.  Are there no other competent soldiers in the French army?  Does Javert have to do it all himself? And if there ARE no other competent soldiers, why were they not beaten handily by the rebels?  After Valjean spares his life (nobody questions his assertion that yes, he did shoot the guy, though nobody asks to see the body either because they heard the gun go off), Javert is instantly back in full uniform and leading the charge.

See?  The movie, at least, does not hold up to scrutiny.   There are more explanatory details in the book, and perhaps even fewer discrepancies in the stage show.  Also we all hated that the Thernardiers, the couple who have been taking care of Cosette for her mother, are supposed to bring comic relief to all the gloom and doom and misery, but they were even more gloomy and doomy and miserable and did nothing to lighten the mood.

But that said, we all did love the movie and I'm glad we had a chance to see it with Jeri.

In the evening, we drove in to Sacramento to see Ned & Marta's new place (last time I saw it, they were still unpacking boxes).  The five of us went to a neighborhood Mexican restaurant called Three Sisters (apparently no connection to the chain Tres Hermanas!) and had a lovely dinner.

I've said it before...one of my very favorite things is watching my adult children interacting with each other, and how happy I am that they all get along so well.

After dinner, we went back to the house so I could finally give them all their Christmas presents.  The Superhero dog toys were a big hit with The Bouncer.

And Ned seemed pleased with his "waddle family" (family joke)

my father with his waddle family in the late 1950s

Unfortunately, I had brought the wrong present for Marta and gave her my mother's, not hers, so I brought that back home again and will give her the "real" present when I next see her.  Everybody (my mother, Jeri, Laurel, Alice Nan, and Marta) got Sentsy warmers and 3 different scents.  All have theirs now, except my mother -- and Marta, of course!

We left around 9 so Ned and Marta could get to bed, since they have work in the morning.  The rest of us were pretty sleepy, too, from our big day.   Tomorrow we take Jeri and leave her at my mother's, where she will spend the rest of her brief vacation here.

A Movie! A Movie!

Alert the media!  We have seen a movie!  Our first in 2012 (and I daresay probably our last for this year!)

Walt asked if I was interested in seeing Lincoln this afternoon and I literally jumped at the chance.  I've wanted to see the movie ever since it came out.

We went at 3 p.m. and fortunately got there early enough to get my favorite seats, because within 10 minutes the theater, even this long after the movie's opening, was just about full.

I. loved. it.  As many have said, even though you know how things are all going to play out, Spielberg does such a masterful job that he creates great tension as everyone in the House chamber waits anxiously for the outcome on the vote on the 13th ammendment to the Constitution.  In listening to the arguments for and against, it made me think that this is probably similar to debates going on on many gay rights issues that have been debated in the House lately.

If Daniel Day-Lewis doesn't get an Oscar, he was robbed.  Sally Field may be up against some fierce competition, but she, too, gave a masterful performance in a role that, according to her, she had to really fight to get.  But having seen her performance, it's hard to imagine anyone else playing Mary Todd Lincoln.   As for James Spader as the scoundrel W.N. Bilbo, I didn't recognize him, but Walt did and said that with that cigar he frequently smoked, he needed William Shatner to be with him.

As always, we stayed through the credits.  If not, we never would have known that Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith had a bit part as one of the "shouting women" in a scene.  Or that Kevin Kline--yes "the" Kevin Kline--was a "wounded soldier."  Now I want to see the movie again to see if I can spot those two!

It was a nice way to escape from all that's going on around here right now, if only for a few hours.

---

 
This morning I received a note from my cousin Donna, asking me to post the following information on the Caring Bridge site I set up to keep people informed about Bob's condition:

Dearest Family,
Our dear Bob is not doing as well as hoped. Peach has asked me to share this picture from Christmas of Bob and his beloved Sophie and to let you all know he does not have a lot of time left here with us, though it could be up to 6 months. Hes not really responsive and we need to send him our love and light and prayers and hope that the time he is here will be as gentle and easy and loving as he is and always has been. Please, if you want to contact Peach, do so through facebook or the Caring Bridge Page that Bev created. These are difficult times for the family and we all need to give as much support as possible in our own ways. We will keep you updated on what is going on, but for now please hold our family close in your hearts with love, especially our Peach and Bob.
Much love to all, and have a wonderful New Years
~ Donna

As soon as I had posted Donna's update to Caring Bridge I called Peach and we had a good conversation and cried together.  They are meeting to decide the way to go with him, whether hospice care or long-term care.  Hospice care seems out of the question since it would involve moving him home and Peach is just not physically able to care for him 24/7.
 
It's at times like this when I am angry with how our system works.  If this were Sophie, the dog, who were in this condition, Peach would hold her in her arms as a veterinarian gave her a shot which would let her peacefully leave this life.   But because Bob is a human being, there have to be decisions made about how to keep him as pain-free and comfortable as can be, while the family sits around watching him die.   Somehow it just doesn't seem fair...or humane.

I picked up e-mail after Peach and I finished our conversation and there was a note from one of the Lamplighters letting us know that someone we have known since the 1960s has been diagnosed with Stage 4, inoperable pancreatic cancer and is now on Hospice care.  She's a wonderful person, a wonderful actress and director and this will be a great loss to those who have been closer to her in the past couple of decades.

I also called my mother to give her the update on Bob.  I've talked with her three times since we got home from Santa Barbara on Wednesday and each time she asks me if we are home yet, when we got home, and if we had a good Christmas.  This has been another proof of the theory someone expressed to me that when someone with memory problems has another physical problem (she's had mild flu symptoms this week and just wasn't feeling well over Christmas), it affects the memory.  I am hoping that now that she is starting to feel better, her memory will improve a bit too, as it has in the past.

As soon as Peach feels she can take a day off, we are going to my mother's for another overnight.  Won't call it "cousins day," but I think she desperately needs both a day away, and a day with my mother, who has been her surrogate mother since her own mother died many years ago. She agrees.  But first all the paperwork needs to get done and Bob's situation needs to be settled.

That's Entertainment

It's only April and already we have seen our second movie, in the theatre, for the year! (In a good year we average about 3-4 movies a year, compared to about 60 stage shows.)

When I took my friend Ruth for her post-op appointment last week, we were talking about what fun we had on our trip to Half Moon Bay to meet author Michael Connelly and about how the movie, based on his book, The Lincoln Lawyer, should be in theaters now.

I suggested that we should try to go to see the movie together, since we had been discussing Connelly books for so long. Also, Ruth has been cooped up in her house following her hip surgery, and now that she is starting to get mobile that sounded like a good idea to her.

Walt decided he wanted to see the movie too, so we picked Ruth up this afternoon and the 3 of us headed to the theatre. Until about 2 minutes before the show started, we thought we were going to be the only people in the theatre, but three other people arrived before the lights went down.

I'm always a little leery about seeing a movie about a character I know well. Lincoln Lawyer follows Connelly's character, Mickey Haller, a defense attorney who practices law out of his car on the streets of Los Angeles. I wondered if the actor could match my image of Haller, but I was happy to see that Matthew McConaughey makes a very satisfactory Haller and will now be the image I see when I read a book which features that character.

Haller's stories are always very gritty and I was pleased that the film version didn't pretty them up. It remained quite true to the book itself and I can see why Connelly was pleased with the film.

If a Harry Bosch book is made into a movie I will probably not see it, because I have my own image of Harry Bosch and don't want it spoiled.

(I remember how disappointed I was when they made a cartoon movie of The Hobbit. Since the movie came out, I can only picture that image of hobbits, though prior to the movie, my mental image was quite different._

It's an entertainment weekend. I hadn't reviewed a stage show in quite awhile, but we saw the touring Broadway production of Young Frankenstein last night. I was glad to see it, though it wasn't on a par with Mel Brooks' earlier The Producers. Still it has that unmistakable Brooks humor, the crude Catskills comedy (which, at its best, includes an awful lot of jokes and physical comedy about male genitalia and female breasts). The dances were good, "Puttin' on the Ritz" brings down the house, and there are costume changes that will have you gasping and wondering how they did that!

I was up at 5 a.m. this morning finishing the review and sending it off to the theatre.

Still to come over the weekend are tapings of the radio show Says You on Friday and Sunday and Charlotte's mother's memorial service on Saturday.

I probably will not review the memorial service, though I'm sure it would get four stars if I did.

A Mash-Up

With the advent of social media, and especially smart phones which allow you to let all 1000 of your friends know where you are at any given time (I think there's even an app for the iPhone which automatically keeps track of your whereabouts and publishes it to your friends in case, you know, you never ever want to be private again in your entire life), people started having things called mash-ups. They may be called something else, but I remember mash-ups.

A mash-up is where you let all 1000 of your closest friends know that you're going to be at Joe's pizza (or, perhaps, are already there), and you invite everybody to come and meet you there, if they are in the neighborhood. Presumably people in other states or countries ignore these kinds of notifications.

It matters not whether you actually KNOW the people you've invited. Presumably when someone enters Joe's pizza with a smart phone in his/her hand and begins looking around the room, you will find each other.

It all sounds like a lot of fun (unless, of course, you remember that there are bad guys on the net who now know that you are not at home and that you are a person with electronic gear so you probably are a good target for a home invasion robbery. But let that pass.)

To my great surprise today, I created a small local mash-up.

I suggested to Walt that we go and see The King's Speech which was finally playing in Davis. Last year, you may recall, we saw a whopping three movies all year and I thought that if we saw one in the first couple of days of January, we might actuall see more movies in 2011...like maybe four or...gasp...even five.

Anyway, we went down to the theatre but the garage seemed to be full and we found a line of people waiting to buy tickets.

OK, so it's a wimpy line and you probably stood behind more people in your supermarket, but it was a line. True, True Grit, The Fighter and Little Fockers, all current blockbusters were also playing but this being Davis, and given the age of the crowd, I was betting this crowd wasn't there to see True Grit. I stood at the head of the line and eavesdropped and learned that the theatre wasn't completely sold out and that there were still some seats near the front.

I did that. Once. Sat in the front row of a movie theatre. It was for The Empire Strikes Back back in the 1980s and the kids wanted to see it. But I vowed I'd never do it again.

I suggested to Walt that we buy tickets for the 4:30 showing, and we did. This gave us the opportunity to go to the store, and then relax at home for an hour and a half. I posted a Facebook status report that we had tried to see the movie but had bought tickets for a later showing.

Not wanting to risk not getting a seat the second time, we went very early and I got my favorite seats in the house and sat there, watching the theatre fill up. It was lucky that we went early because the line for the later show extended to the corner.

Shortly before they started showing previews, my friends Evelyn and Anne came in. Apparently Evelyn had read my status report, had called to make sure there were still seats available, called Anne to ask if she wanted to join her and they were able to sit next to us for the film. What fun! My first mash-up.

As for the movie, it left me speechless and teary-eyed. What a fabulous movie. Even grumpy old Derrick (former boss, current movie reviewer) gave it 5 stars and he rarely does that. Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush are just amazing. I can't gush enough about the film.

After dinner, we went next door to the Thai restaurant for dinner, so I didn't even have to cook. All things considered a real winner of a day!

And now everybody, go see The King's Speech. I probably won't be there, but create your own mash-up.

Post Cousins Day Meme

You may recall that a few mnths back, I decided that I would do a meme for the day after a Cousins Day, since nothing much happens between the time I write my Cousins Day entry and the time I generally post the next entry, so without further ado, I present this month's Post Cousins Day Meme (I got a million of 'em, folks!). This one is a movie meme.

The best movie you saw during the last year
Oh that's easy. Hands down, Toy Story 3. Now whether it is or is not the best movie of the year is irrelevant. It's the ONLY movie I've seen in a theatre this year!

The most underrated movie
Hmmm. I'm going to name a movie that probably few have heard of. The Frisco Kid. It's a little movie with Gene Wilder and a very young Harrison Ford and it's just great, but I'd never heard of it until someone recommended it to me.

Favorite love story in a movie
It's a tossup between Affair to Remember and Shadowlands. I loved the story of C.S. Lewis and his relationship with his wife, but isn't everybody's favorite romantic movie Affair to Remember (or at least everybody of a certain age).

The most surprising plot twist or ending
I will admit that I was totally shocked by The Sixth Sense. I had to go back and watch it again just to check out all those scenes that are made to fool you. I should add that I never saw Diabolique until long after I knew the surprise ending, or that might rank right up there as most surprising ending.

A movie that makes you really happy
Dave. I could see that movie a lot. Of course it made me happier during the Bush administration than during the Obama administration, but I like to think that a good, honest man could do greate things for the country very simply...Yes, I'm a cockeyed optimist.

A movie that makes you sad
Lost of movies make me cry (heck, supermarket openings make me cry), but the most recent movie that I saw that made me SAD was Beyond the Gates, that movie I saw last week about the Rwanda genocide. It just filled me with so much sadness for our world.

Favorite made for TV movie
There have been lots of made-for-TV movies. So many. I like mini-series like The Six Wives of Henry VIII (the first one, made for PBS) and Roots. I also like very schlocky made-for-TV Hallmark Movies, but I'm too embarrassed to admit which ones I've actually watched.

A movie that you’ve seen countless times
Well, that would obviously have to be Judy Garland's A Star Is Born, which I've probably seen more than 100 times.

A movie with the best soundtrack
I should pay more attention to soundtracks than I do, but anything that John Williams has scored is great. I also loved the soundtrack to Shadowlands so much that I bought the CD.

Favorite classic movie
How old does a movie have to be to be "classic"? Does Hitchcock qualify? Then I'd put North by Northwest and Rear Window on my list. Does it need to be older, like To Kill a Mocking Bird? or older, like Gone with the Wind or City Lights. Or should I just put down what everyone would expect me to put down, Wizard of Oz, though that wouldn't be my favorite

A movie that you hate
That one is easy: The Prince of Tides. Barbra Streisand, whose work I generally like, ruined what was one of my favorite books, making herself, in the character of the psychiatrist (a very minor role in the book), the star. All of the charm of the movie, which was told in flashbacks to the days of the children, was minimized. Close second would be what Ms. Streisand did to A Star Is Born.

A movie that changed your opinion about something
I think The Nun's Story changed my mind about wanting to be a missionary!

A character who you can relate to the most
Shirley Valentine...before she left for Greece

A movie that is a guilty pleasure
Trading Places, which I complained for years that I hated, but which I kind of like now and will watch if it comes on.

Favorite movie based on a book/comic/etc
Superman with Christopher Reeve. Could there have been a better Superman...even in his personal life, to the end.

A movie that disappointed you the most
The aforementioned Prince of Tides. I had been looking forward to it because I loved the book so much and I just HATED it.

Favorite movie from your favorite actor/actress
Well, that's an answer everybody who has read this journal for any length of time can answer for me. All together now: Judy Garland's A Star Is Born.

A movie that you used to love but now hate
I don't know that I ever really loved it, or that I exactly hate it, but I'm sure tired of Wizard of Oz. Really!

Favorite action movie
I'm not really an action movie fan, but the first James Bond that Daniel Craig was in sure kept me on my treadmill for a full 30 minutes. I was so impressed with the action in that action movie that I made Walt watch it, which I almost never do.

A movie that you wish more people would’ve seen
The Court Jester, because everyone should know where to find the brew that is true.

Favorite documentary
I watch a lot of documentaries, and it's hard to remember them all. My favorites are generally the nature documentaries (like Planet Earth, which had such amazing photography). The last one to impress me was March of the Penguins and another one about a year in the life of an elephant herd (which I can't remember the title of).

Favorite animation
I love animation, so it's difficult to choose one favorite. From the old cel-based animation, it would have to be Bambi for the story, but Snow White or Pinocchio for knock-out ground-breaking animation. For the more recent CGI type animation I would choose Monsters, Inc. I still remember the scene of the blue guy lying in the snow, with the wind ruffing his fur. I don't remember anything else about that scene except being literally blown away by how good the animation was. A friend in the movie industry tells me that they had to invent a whole different kind of animation to create that scene.

The most hilarious movie you’ve ever seen
Maybe W.C. Fields' short, The Fatal Glass of Beer, though I've seen it so often I don't think I laugh as much any more.

A movie that you wish you had seen in theaters
I know it was a terrible movie, but I really wanted to see 2012 in the theatre, for the impressive CGI. I haven't actually seen the movie at all, even on the small screen.

Favorite movie from your favorite director
Not sure if he's my favorite director, but I think my favorite Hitchcock movie is North by Northwest, with Vertigo a close second.

A movie from your childhood
Well, I saw all the usual ones, but there are three that I remember vividly, that nobody has ever heard of:

1. Paula, with Loretta Young and Tommy Rettig in his pre-Lassie days, where he is an orphan who is hit by Young, a self-absorbed society matron, who is driving to a party. The plot is predictable and very soap-opera-y but I loved it.

2. The Blue Veil isn't even availble on DVD and probably not on VHS. Jane Wyman plays a war bride whose husband is killed. She is pregnant at the time and the shock of his death causes her to lose the baby, and to learn that she can never have another. Instead she becomes a nanny and the movie follows her through all the children she cares for and the grand reunion of all her grown "children" at the end.

3. Driftwood is another one that you can't get anymore. Natalie Wood as a young child. This is ImDB's synopsis: Six-year-old Jenny rescues a collie dog, the only survivor of a plane wreck. A tag on the dog's neck states that it is en route to a medical laboratory where its blood will be used for spotted fever vaccine. Dr. Steven Webster meets both Jenny and the dog and "adopts" them both. His fiancée Susan isn't too fond of either the girl or the dog. Webster wants to get a hospital for the town but he is suppressed by the town mayor. In the arguments that follow, Webster's lab is wrecked and ticks infected with spotted fever escape. The town is in a panic and all want to be vaccinated. Jenny is infected and is about to die. (guess who saves her..)

Like I said, I was really into soap operas!

Your favorite movie of all time
All together now:

"My Eyes are Watering"

I had been warned to bring tissues when we went to Toy Story 3 but I would have done it anyway. I mean--Disney? heartwarming story of a boy and his toys? You KNOW there is going to be a moment or two when you're going to need a tissue.

We decided to go to the movies today because it's so hot outside and we might as well take advantage of the theatre's air conditioning system.

Walt and I were the only people there without little kids with us. I remember the first time I went to a kids' show alone. I was very pregnant with Jeri when they re-released Bambi to the theatres and I needed to see it, so I waddled to the theatre all by myself (Walt dropped me off, but wouldn't come with me) and sat there bawling like a baby as Bambi starts calling for his mother after she is killed.

Nowadays, cartoons are just as much for adults as they are for kids...especially a movie like Toy Story 3, which deals with what happens to a child's beloved toys when the child grows up and goes off to college.

I ran into Joann this afternoon. She is the mother of one of David's friends and after he died it was years before I saw her. But lately it seems that we have apointments on the same day for blood donation. I donate whole blood; she donates platelets and we have brief conversations at some point.

But today she was there with her four grandchildren. She explained that the air conditioning at her house was out and she was babysitting and desperate for someplace cool to take the kids. I was in shock when I discovered it was costing her $35 to take her grandchildren to a movie!

As the movie was ending, and I was fumbling in my purse for that tissue I'd thought to bring, the little girl sitting next to Walt turned to her mother and said "my eyes are watering."

I wonder what little kids think about emotional tears, such as those that come while watching an emotional scene in a movie.

Little kids are really good about tears. They know tears come when you get hurt. They know that tears come when you're sad.

But what do they think about tears that come when you aren't hurt or sad? When something that you're watching is just...sweet...or tender, or any of those things that we adults can be maudlin about. What do they think about their urge to cry?

"My eyes are watering" seems a perfect way to put it!

I realized how good all those credits that go on endlessly at the end of a film are for me. They give my face a chance to get back to normal again...and trust me, I stayed until the lights came up after watching Toy Story 3. My eyes were definitely watering!

Camp Beaverbrook

It's just amazing how you stumble into things that turn out to be just fabulous experiences. If it weren't for the upcoming Lamplighter History, I never would have known about Camp Beaverbrook.

When we had our last meeting, Alison and I told Kathryn Fox Ma, who started this whole project, that we still have the tapes from all of our interviews for the previous two books, including some key people who, sadly, are no longer with us (like Gilbert). Kathryn immediately asked if Matt Callahan knew about the tapes, because she said that Matt was working on a documentary about the Lamplighters.

Well, I came home and immediately sent Matt an e-mail letting him know about the existence of the tapes. He wrote back almost by return mail saying that he had put the Lamplighter documentary on hold and instead had made another film and, in fact, he was having a showing of the film this weekend and asked if I wanted to come. I'm sure he never thought we would come down to see his film. And I probably wouldn't have been interested, but it was being showin in the new Walt Disney theater in the old Presidio, which is part of the new Walt Disney Family Museum which had just opened and I wanted to see the museum and thought this might be an opportunity (it wasn't--but that's not part of the story).

So today we took a busman's holiday -- after seeing three shows in a row this weekend for "work," I was taking my day off...to go see a show (except this was a movie and I didn't have to write a review of it--though that is essentially what I am doing here anyway!),

We got to the Presidio early and were both hungry. I remembered that there had been, at one time, a fast food (McDonald's?) nearby which Gilbert always said had "the best view in the city" and I suggested we try there. Signage showed that it was no longer a fast food joint, but we thought we could grab a quick bite anyway. When we walked in and saw tables covered with cloth tablecloths and the woman asked if we had a reservation, we figured we were in for a pretty pricy "bite to eat." We opted for something small which we could order from the bar, but things were moving so terribly slowly that we were afraid that we would miss the movie, so we just had a drink and left (my French martini and Walt's glass of wine cost us $22).

Then we went to the theatre, meeting our friend Will Connolly en route. He was also headed to the big premiere. He asked what the name of the movie was and I didn't know. I didn't know the movie title, I didn't have a clue what it was about. All I wanted to do was see the Walt Disney museum.

Well, let me tell you, folks, this is one wonderful film. It's not finished yet, but oh so all but. I laughed (a lot), I cried (a little) and I thought back to my own childhood, to the experience I always wanted to have and never did. It's a slice of life, a piece of American history that you can't find now--and never will again, the way that our lives have changed.

It's just simply the story of a summer camp. Not one of those big fancy summer camps. It wasn't music camp or computer camp or some other specialty camp. It wasn't even a particularly NICE camp. It was rough and it was hot and it was dirty and the kids loved it.

Combining home movies from the 1960s and 70s, family snapshots, and interviews of campers and camp counselors today, Matt has woven this wonderful picture of 2 weeks at a camp that changed his (and many other kids' lives) where kids could come and get dirty, and swim, and ride horses, and do crafts, and make friends and it didn't matter if they were rich or poor or from good homes or from bad homes. They were just all kids there for summer fun. They slept out under the stars, they swam in a mud hole, they learned to shoot guns, they did all the things that would horrify parents today. Horseback riding without a helmet? Danger of rattle snakes? Questionable sanitary conditions for food? Today's bubble-wrapped kid would never be permitted to set foot in the camp and the first time he scratched his little pinky, a team of lawyers would show up.

In one scene there was a brochure about the camp showing a list of items campers were expected to bring. It reminded me of the years when I would pick up such brochures, hoping that somehow I could go to summer camp. But even in those days it wasn't cheap. The brochure in the movie showed something like $435 for two weeks, which was way out of my parents' financial range, especially since there were two of us to pay for. We did day camp at the local playground (much like "Rainbow Summer" where some of our kids worked here in Davis, over several summers), where we did arts and crafts. But you went home each night after day camp. It wasn't like what I saw in the movie.

It's not a perfect movie, and that was the purpose of the screening--to get feedback. There are some spots that go on too long and some things that might be cut. But the basic stuff is all there and I sincerely hope that it gets picked up by some PBS affiliate and/or that it goes to DVD eventually, because I will buy a copy.

I know that Brianna lives in a safer world. She will wear a helmet to ride her bike and she has the safest car seat she can have and she has a nanny who introduces her to all sorts of fun things. But it makes me sad to think that she will never have the opportunity of a camp like Camp Beaverbrook. She may go to music camp or dance camp or some other camp, but she will probably always be clean and organized and safe and swim in a swimming pool instead of a mud hole and no camp counselor will save her from a rattlesnake because there won't be any there. And she will miss a bit of the magic that I saw these kids experiencing in this movie.

Sometimes progress isn't always the very best thing in the world.

Remember the name "Camp Beaverbrook" and if you should see it coming to a screen near you, whether a TV screen or a movie screen, go see it--you definitely won't be sorry you did!

Table Ballet and Tom Kha Gai

What a great day we had today. It started out kind of iffy. My digestive tract wasn't behaving properly and I had the horrible feeling that I was going to have to send Walt off alone, but fortunately I just had a bland breakfast and by mid-morning, when we had to leave, I was feeling OK.

We drove down to the Bay Area to pick up Char and Mike so we could carpool over to the City. We had tickets to see the San Francisco Symphony play live music for a showing of Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush at Davies symphony Hall.

We have attended some of these live music showings before. A couple of years ago we saw the symphony play the score to The Wizard of Oz and there was some great silent Russian epic film that we saw many years ago. It's amazing how much richer the films are with a live orchestra.

We went early so we could catch the prologue . While waiting for the speaker, we looked out over the audience, and all we could see was a sea of white hair (unless there was no hair). There was also a walker-brigade of ushers who would accompany an older person in a walker to his or her seat and then take the walkers to the back of the hall. As Char put it, "It was the biggest collection of walkers and canes seen anywhere. We felt young and fit in this crowd." Walt later commented that probably a lot of the people in the audience had seen the movie when it was new!

Before the prologue started, there was a guy dressed as Chaplin who went all over the theatre, interacting with the audience. He was very cute and everybody seemed to be enjoying him.

The pre-movie talk was delivered by Stephen Salmons, co-founder of The San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Originally made in 1925, Chaplin reworked the film in 1942, so that it was shorter. He also took out the printed material and added his own narration. They were able to put back the deleted scenes and all the printed material so that audiences could see the film as movie-goers did at its premiere in 1925. They don't consider this a full restoration, but more a "work in progress."

I had, of course, seen The Gold Rush before, or at least the most famous scenes--the house teetering on the edge of the snowy mountain top, the shoe-eating scene, the "table ballet" Chaplin does with the dinner rolls (Photoshopped onto the screen above). It turns out that the dance he does with the rolls was really a fairly authentic reproduction of a clog dance he had done in England as a boy.

The full movie is 2 hours long (and I know I've never seen a 2-hour long silent film) and what a delight it was. For one thing, it was played on the type of projector that it was made for, so you didn't get all that jerkiness that you usually see when watching silent films and after you got over the fact that there was no spoken dialog, it didn't matter. I could understand why people were suspicious of "talkies" when they came along and feared that it would ruin the art of movie making. Of course that was long before people started fearing that Avatar was going to ruin acting. It's all just one long progression, I guess.

When we left Davies hall there was a big line of buses, tour buses and buses from assisted living facilities and any kind of bus you can imagine, coming to load all those white haired people with all of their walkers and take them home.

(and this was after a lot of them had left!

It was too early for dinner when the movie was over, so we drove back across the bay and by the time we got close to Mike & Char's house, it was 5 p.m., so we stopped at a place called Chada Thai, where we had a wonderful dinner starting with Tom Kha Gai, a fabulous sweet and sour chicken soup with a coconut milk stock. I could have made a whole meal on that alone, but we ordered several dishes to share.

Everything was wonderful, and I think this was the first time I've ever eaten in a Thai restaurant where I did NOT get Pad Thai.

We were home in time to find out who was booted off of Survivor. It was all just a lovely day.

Julie and Julia

From the first time I saw the first promo for the soon to be released movie, Julie and Julia, I knew that I had to see it, preferably with a bunch of women friends, all of whom had been through their "Julia Child" period. Meryl Streep's performance looked amazing.

I waited anxiously (most of the summer, I believe) for the release date.

When we were in France, Char, Pat and I talked about going to see it together, but there were the logistics of getting three of us from three different parts of the state together.

When we were at Lake Tahoe this past weekend (coincidentally, opening weekend of the movie), we all wanted to see it and talked about going together in a group.

I got home from Tahoe and read the review written by my boss, Derrick Bang, which was a rave review. Of Meryl Streep's performance he wrote,

...with “Julie & Julia,” Streep has taken celebrity impersonation to a level rarely achieved in the movies: a portrayal so uncannily accurate that artifice essentially replaces reality. Cate Blanchett caught Katharine Hepburn that well in “The Aviator”; Streep has done the same here.

Her Julia Child is simply astonishing.

Nice to have my opinion backed by a competent authority. The bits and pieces I'd seen on TV looked like she really nailed the character.

For those who aren't familiar with the story, a young writer (Julie Powell, who published the book on which half of this movie is based) is working in a boring job in a cubicle taking abuse from people who are trying to get assistance after 9/11 while all of her friends are climbing corporate ladders to high prestige jobs. She and her husband are living in a 900 sq. ft. flat in Queens, over a pizza parlor and she's in the depths of depression, because she's a writer but she isn't writing.

At her husband's suggestion, she starts a blog to honor her idol, Julia Child. The plan is to make all 500+ recipes in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" over 365 days and to blog about her experiences.

(I loved it that Derrick said "Blogs, it must be remembered, were fairly revolutionary back in '02." I poined out to him that I started mine in 2000!)

The parallel story in the movie is the story of Julia Child and her husband Paul, how they came to Paris, how Julia enrolled in the Cordon Bleu out of boredom (and a love of food) and how she came to collaborate with Simone Beck and Louisette Berthole to write "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" (and the frustrating 8 years it took to get it to print!)

I contacted all the women from Tahoe to see if anybody wanted to see the movie this week. Already three had other plans, but there was a tentative date for three of us to see the movie today, and then one's plans changed and it was just two of us left. I was determined to see the movie today!

So Rosemarie and I went to the late afternoon showing. There was a line of mostly middle-aged women at the box office, all of whom ended up in the theatre showing Julie & Julia.

The movie did not disappoint. I loved every single minute of it. In fact if anybody else wants to see the movie, I'd love to see it again.

(Aside -- Julia's sister is played by the marvelous Jane Lynch, whom I seem to see everywhere on TV these days. I just love her!)

I knew midway through the movie, when Julie and her husband were watching a Saturday Night Live parody of Julia Child that I had to write a blog entry about it so I could include the Video of the Day, the 13 year old Paul's imitation of Julia Child. It's called Sparky Juice and it is Paul making a drink out of our cat Sparky. A family favorite and it still makes me laugh all these years later.

By the end of the movie I was ready to come home and cook boef bourguignon, if (a) I had the ingredients, (b) it didn't take 3 hours to prepare and cook, and (c) it wasn't already 7 p.m.! Instead I put together a somewhat weird dinner of artichoke and bruschetta with some leftovers from the Tahoe dinner. Definitely not anything to do with "mastering the art of french cooking"!! This is a terrific movie! Don't read any negative reviews, just do yourself a favor and go see it. Maybe you could put a pot of boef bourguignon on to simmer before you leave the house. You'll be oh so happy when you come home and have it all ready for dinner!