Message 362

Yesterday I went out to dinner with the Morrills and Ariagnos. The restaurant was in Palo Alto within walking distance of The Aquarius. The movie was Every Little Step. It was a documentary about auditions for a revival of Chorus Line. It was interesting, but I have never seen the stage production, which was OK, but by the end I was thinking I would like to see what all of this effort accomplished. I was left thinking that show people in general and dancers in particular have a hard life. Also, I would not like to be a producer, director, etc. who has to decide who gets the part and who gets rejected. Anyway, I give it three stars.

Message 361

Last night I watched a DVD of The Ballad of Jack and Rose. It had a very good cast, including Daniel Day Lewis. It was written and directed by his wife (who is also playwright Arthur Miller's daughter). It is an ambitious film. It dealt with several important subjects, but not in a successful or satisfying manner. I give it only three stars even though I appreciate the efforts of all involved.

Message 360

I just got back from my usual Thursday outing with Vanessa and Annie at Heidi's Pies and the library. Beech and Annie were both real good this morning. I took Beech with me to drop him off at school on our way to Heidi's Pies.

Last night I watched a DVD of the movie The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. It was an extended version that had all the scenes that were cut out of the original U. S. release in the 1960s. I give it three stars. I have now seen all of the three spaghetti westerns that started Clint Eastwood's career. I think they are worth watching mostly because of their place in the history of movies. They are interesting, but do not rise to the level of intrinsic greatness.

Message 359

I forgot to mention earlier that I got a call from PAMF that all three of my skin biopsies came out negative, in other words none were cancer. That is nice. Now I will not have to go back for the surgery. The doctor did ask that I come back in May so she can freeze the one below my lip.

Yester I did my usual Tuesday routine with Beech. We had lunch at Burger King. He saw the Star Trek movie and knew that they are giving out toys based on that movie. Afterward I took him to his gymnastics class. When I took him home he said I did not need to walk him to the door. He thinks he is big enough now to do it by himself. Vanessa had a couple of Mexicans there working on her lawn and garden.

Last night I watched a DVD of the movie Sex Drive. It is a teenage road comedy. As a new twist it had a funny encounter with an Amish community. I give it three stars.

Today I am getting the house ready for Orlindo's cleaning crew to come in at 2 PM

Message 358

Yesterday I finished reading The Economist. Before noon I went to Nealon Park with Vanessa and the kids. She had mad sandwiches and other stuff for lunch. Annie loves to swing. After pushing her for a while, I ask her if she would not like to go play with Beech or go down the slide, but she always says MORE SWING. Sometimes Beech helps with the pushing. I am the only one who does much eating. The kids and Vanessa mostly nibble small amounts, but I always eat and drink all of mine. Vanessa always stops at Starbucks and gets coffee for us and chocolate milk boxes for the kids.

Last night Joshua came over to watch 24 with me. Next week is a two-hour last show of the season. Because jack is being set up to die from inhaling a lethal gas that takes a day to work, this may be the end of the program too.

Charlie Rose was good last night again. He had two women that I had never heard of on different segments that were impressive, especially the Harvard law professor that is monitoring the banks' compliance with the TARP contracts.

Message 357

Yesterday I forgot to mention that it was my Boniva day. Once a month is better than once a week, but it is still a drag. Yesterday I helped Joshua take the Camry to the auto wrecking yard down near San Jose. He had gotten the papers from the DMV so they would give him a check for $1000 whit the idea that they want to get clunkers off the road. It had nearly a quarter of a million miles on it, so is had been the best car I was ever connected to. It still ran good, but it had a leak in the radiator that Josh was told it would take over a thousand dollars to fix. The problem was that it had to be driven to the wrecking yard to collect the money, and it overheated whenever driven. We finally solved this problem by borrowing a couple of five gallon empty water jugs from his work, along with an oven glove to open the hot radiator cap. Then whenever it heated up Josh would pull over. I was following in my Sienna so I would pull over with him. After a couple of times of pouring new water into the radiator, I managed to fold up a couple of pieces of a McDonald's Happy Meal box to stick in the main holes in the radiator, which slowed down the lead enough that we could go three or four miles between pullovers instead of one mile. The wrecking yard gave him the check and told him the car would be crushed first thing this morning. This adventure reminded me of what my life used to be like in Alaska.

When I got home, I read some more of The Economist and watched Masterpiece Mystery on PBS.

Message 356

Yesterday afternoon I watched a DVD of the Indian movie Lamhe. It is by the same director (Yash Chopra) and has the same female lead as the movie Chandni that I reviewed a couple of days ago. The two movies are similar in many ways. They are each over three hours long. They are both musicals with a lot of singing and dancing The photography is beautiful and it is filmed both in India and Europe (England in this case instead of Switzerland). I think Lamhe is even better than Chandni, so I give it five stars.

Last night I picked up Julian, Vanessa, and the kids at SFO on their return from Kona. They all had a wonderful time, but seemed glad to be home. I also got started on reading the new Economist.