Message 438

I just got back from Walking to Starbucks to have coffee with Helen and Jim. It is the first time we have met for the last three weeks. We will have to skip next weekend too, because they will be volunteering at a campout in the East Bay next weekend. Tomorrow Helen will be flying to Seattle for a few days to get her granddaughter fix.

Yesterday I had lunch with Julian, Vanessa and the kids at Una Mas. Afterward Julian and I took the kids to Nealon Park while Vanessa had her hair done.

Last night, after the Friday PBS shows, I watched a DVD of the movie The Chumscrubber. Incidentally, I notice that I did not complete the name of the movie in yestersday's message. It was Thumbsucker, not Thumb. Anyway, The Chumscrubber (which is also the name of a video game that is played by the kids in the movie), is a very strange movie with a first class cast that is an allegory about suburban life where both adults and kids are on drugs, and nobody is willing to engage honestly with anyone else. It tries to deal with serious subjects, but to me it did not come across as a successful effort. If the cast and their performances had not been so good, I would not even given it serious consideration. However, I give it three stars.