Message 423

This will be me last message until I get back from Sandbridge where I will see all of you anyway. I did not watch a movie last night. Joshua and I went out to dinner at El Cerrito, and when I got back I got hooked on watching a couple of PBS shows.

I got calls this morning that Vanessa is sick and throwing up. I hope she is recovered enough to be able to travel with the rest of us tomorrow as planned. If not I do not know what we will all do. It will all work out somehow though, I am sure.

Message 422

Yesterday I did laundry and played with Beech for a few hours. He did not feel like going to school or going to gymnastics. Also the heat wave is continuing so it was nice to be in my air-conditioned car.

Last night I watched a DVD of the movie All Passion Spent. It was a three episode Masterpiece Theater treatment of a novel about rich English elderly people staring Wendy Hiller. It was the second movie in a row about the same general subject with her in it. I give it five stars because it was so well done.

Message 421

We are in a heat wave now. It started yesterday and should be over in a couple of more days. Last night I watched a DVD of the movie The Kingfisher. It is a bit of fluff with Rex Harrison about romance between rich old British people, but I give it three stars.

Message 420

Yesterday Chris and Marilyn took me to breakfast at El Cerrito and to dinner at El Cerrito. In the evening we watched a DVD of the movie Angels and Insects. It is in my collection and most of you have probably heard me recommend it before. It is still excellent. I give it five stars.

This morning I took Chris and Marilyn to Starbucks and then to the Menlo Park train station to catch their train to San Jose. From there they will catch a bus to Monterey. It has been great to see them again.

Message 419

Chris and Marilyn and I are about to walk up to El Cerrito for breakfast. This morning I got up at 4 AM and drove Jamie, Chelsea, Audrey, and Jack to the San Jose airport to start their journey to Sandbridge. I was back at home by 6 AM and so was able to go back to bed for a couple of hours before Chris and Marilyn woke up.

Yesterday afternoon we had dinner at Julian and Vanessa's with the kids. As usual They fixed a feast that included ribs and steak on the grill. The kids were great and Chris and Marilyn were happy to see Beech again and Annie for the first time. When we got back to my condo we watched a DVD of the movie Four Days in September. It was one they picked out of my collection. It is a Brazilian movie that is based on a true story about a group of students who join a terrorist band to oppose the military coup that took over their government in 1969. It had been a few years since I first saw it and I liked it even better this time. I had forgotten a lot of it and it was more interesting this time in the light of the behavior of the Bush administration after 9/11. I give it four stars.

Message 418

Yesterday I watched Beech's first basketball game. It seems absurd to me that 5-year olds would play organized basketball, but the kids were all very enthusiastic about it. Some players on each team were occasionally even able to shoot the ball into the basket, but not Beech, who could not even throw the ball high enough to reach the basket, which was at normal height. After the game we took Beech and one of his teammates to a hamburger place for dinner with Annie, Vanessa, and me.

In the evening I met Chris Coleman and his wife Marilyn at the train station. They had just returned from a day long tour of Yosemite. They are spending a couple of days with me before returning to Monterey where the are spending a couple of months. We walked this morning to join Helen and Jim for coffee at Starbucks They have now walked to Stanford Plaza which gives me time to send this message.

Message 417

Last night I watched a DVD of another French movie called (in translation) I've Loved You So Long. It was a very powerful but slow moving story about a woman doctor who gets out of prison for murder after 15 years and is reunited with her sister. She is very reluctant to talk about herself and has trouble integrating back into normal life. It is not until the end of the movie that it is revealed that she killed her six year old son to relieve him from his suffering from an incurable disease. I probably should not reveal the plot this way, but I doubt any of you will see this movie anyway, so it will do no harm. In the middle of the movie I was thinking I would give it three stars, but by the end I decided to give it four stars.