Someday, maybe, I’ll have actual themes and essays to write. This is not that day.
Things have been fine here, mostly. C has been having health problems, but we finally, after vaccination and the two-week wait, got him to a doctor. Waiting for test results now, but he’s basically fine, except for this leg and balance issue. I’m nervous about him going out on his own alone, so went with him to the doctor’s and to the radiologist, but he went out on his own this weekend to buy a new phone and that went OK. But we do need to figure out what’s going on here, so he can move again.
Work continues to be very busy and I have yet to get ahead of my deadlines in the way I’d like to, but I’m mostly being successful and learning more every day – half the battle is having to stop and figure out stuff, and the more I figure out, the less that will slow me down. And again, I have to keep reminding myself, no one is breathing down my neck, irritated that I just can’t do everything now now now.
The weather’s getting warmer. I still haven’t been on the ice at all, and will probably wait until restrictions are lifted enough that I don’t have to make a reservation to be part of general skating or coffee club or whatever. But I’ve been out on my bike a couple of times and it’s been glorious. I’ll keep going with that every Sunday, I hope, taking longer and longer rides. I should make a list of the routes I want to repeat and the ones I haven’t done yet and want to. I also have this idea of riding to a neighborhood (such as Greenpoint) and then getting off the bike and walking around and exploring, but while that seems like fun, it doesn’t seem like exercise. Maybe if I gave myself a longer time slot and didn’t worry so much about getting other stuff done on the weekend.
So… we were vaguely considering a trip south, which would involve visiting my dad and brother in North Carolina, with stops there and back and maybe a couple of days at the beach. But my brother revived our tentative plan, put on hold due to COVID, of chartering a boat on the Chesapeake and spreading Mom’s ashes. Mom and Dad were avid sailors in their prime and were out on the Bay or the Patuxent River every weekend when I was growing up, and Mom loved it so much. So the tentative plan is to gather in whatever Maryland shore town has the boat charter, us four plus specific relatives, do like a sunset cruise, then have dinner on shore and spend the night in a hotel. That shouldn’t be onerous for any of us, and C and I can head to Cape May after that. (all very up in the air, and not sure when this is happening, but we will see)
Media consumption: I don’t do this deliberately, but managed to pick two movies this weekend with unreliable narrators who’d lost their children in car crashes. The first was The Woman in the Window. I didn’t particularly like it, but a great cast, I must say. Also, the author of the book is famous for having this batshit New Yorker bio.
The other was Wander, starring Aaron Eckhart and Tommy Lee Jones. It’s terrible. Not because of its story or premise, which is quite similar to Woman in the Window in that you have a crazy person trying to convince everyone that crazy things are happening, but they’re crazy so no one believes them. But in the delivery: inaudible dialogue, a constantly intrusive score, shaky camera work. I get that this is supposed to make you empathize with the lead character, who’s crazy, but it’s just completely off-putting. I love looking at Aaron Eckhart, even when he’s playing someone who almost certainly smells bad, and the acting is fine, but it’s a very irritating movie. Also, clearly, a labor of love from those who made it.
I recorded another invention this week, and then realized I didn’t post the last one here. So, here are two inventions. I’m past the halfway mark now, only seven to go!
The Toast Point Page 