Message 351

Yesterday I picked Beech up at school and took him to McDonald's for lunch. We then went to his house and I helped him with a couple of pages of his homework, after which I watched him play Mario Cars. When Vanessa got home with Annie, I went to Little House (the senior center at Nealon Park) and had my taxes done. It is good to get them out of the way, and I should get my refunds in a few weeks.

In the evening I watched a DVD of the movie An Angel at My Table. It is another movie directed by Jane Campion. It is a biopic based on the autobiography of Janet Frame, a famous New Zealand author and poet that I had never heard of. She was a brilliant writer, but because she was such a shy and insecure person she had a difficult and troubled life, but she hung in there and got a lot published. I have a lot of respect for the movie, but it was somewhat painful to watch, so I give it 3.5 stars.

Message 650

Yesterday I picked up a new bottle of antibiotics at PAMF and did two loads of laundry. In the late afternoon I watched a DVD of the movie The Merry Gentleman with Kelly Macdonald and Michael Keaton. It was a strange sort of crime/love story, but it was good enough that I give it 3.2 stars. In the evening I watched 24, so I am up to date on what Jack Bower is doing.

Message 649

Yesterday I read some more of The Economist. In the evening I went to San Mateo for the regular family dinner. Julian had fixed a pot of chili. It reminded me of Chris's favorite meal to cook. In the evening there was nothing except fundraisers on PBS. I suppose they figured most people would be watching the Oscars. I watched a DVD of the Japanese movie Departures, which won the Academy Award for best foreign film in 2008. I was not expecting much from it, so I was again amazed at how good it was and how strongly it affected me. It dealt with some of my favorite subjects like life, death, music, work, and love. The photography was beautiful, and the subtitles were easy to read and not distracting. One the best things was the cello music. The story is: a classical cello player loses his job when the orchestra goes broke because few people go to their concerts. He then leaves Tokyo with his wife and goes back to his home in the country that was left to him by his mother who died a few years before. He then finds meaning in his life in an unlikely line of work, the ritual preparation of bodies for cremation. I give it five stars.

Message 648

Yesterday I went to Justine Solomon's wedding in Los Altos, and then to the reception and dinner at the Lucy Stern Center in Palo Alto. There must have been a hundred or more people there, including all of the people who work with Justine at Cafe Barone. I sat at the table with Ron and Marci Ariagno and Dennis and Therese Rohan, plus three others. It was a very nice wedding and reception. Eddie's Parkinson's symptoms have continued to get worse, so he has a full-time care-taker with him all the time now, but he was able to manage a speech as father of the bride at the dinner. I got home in time to watch the third period of the Sharks game. They were behind Columbus 0-1, but Dany Heatly and Joe Pavelski both scored in the third period to finally win the game 2-1. I then read some more of The Economist, but I was a little tired and there is no Charlie Rose on Saturday, so I went to bed around midnight.

Message 647

Last night after the Friday PBS shows were over I read over half of The Economist. I am going now to Safeway for my weekly shopping. No Starbucks today.

Message 646

Last night I watched a DVD of the movie In the Cut. It was directed by Jane Campion, who also directed The Piano. It starred Meg Ryan in a very different type of role from her usual, and it featured several other well known stars. It was a very raw and gritty movie about people with troubled lives. I give it four stars because it was so well done, but I do not like giving such a high rating to a movie that is so difficult to watch. When I went to bed after Charlie Rose, who had a very good interview with Elizabeth Warren, who is very good, I realized that I had forgotten to watch the Sharks game, but I went to their web site and found that they came from behind in the third period to beat Montreal 3-2.

Message 645

I am late getting back from having breakfast at Heidi's Pies because I stayed to pick Beech up at school so Vanessa could keep an appointment to have her hair done. Beech is here with me now waiting for her to pick him up. Rob Ballard left early this morning before I got up so he could depose the plastic surgeon who is key to his case defending the nine year-old girl whose ear was bitten off by a horse. Last night I watched a DVD of the movie The Dark Knight. Even though it had a good cast, I just do not like movies based on comic books. I give it 2.4 stars. I am now washing the guest room sheets so they will be clean when Liz and her family arrive next week.