Weather, Movies, and Books

Guess what? The weather today has been wonderful. Wonderful to the extent that I am ....

....... sitting on my deck in a T-shirt while writing this!!!!

It has been around 60 today, and I think it is beginning to cool just a bit. I'll probably have to go in or put on a sweatshirt soon. But it is marvelous to be outside, comfortably enjoying the fresh air in my porch swing! I wish it would stay close to this, well, OK, 10 degrees warmer, now for about six months!! Yeah, right!!!

The dogs are both stretched out on the deck at my feet. They have spent much of today outside. You'd think they have bad bladders, because ten minutes after I let them in, they are asking again to go out! They've missed the mild warmth as much as I have, I guess.

I got the office almost completed. I stopped to do a couple things on the deck, and when I discovered how wonderful it was, I decided it was time for a little break and a short blog.
I'll have to go finish it up pretty soon. I'm not happy that I can't get rid of some of the clutter in the office until I have time to do some tasks that are time consuming. I have a stack of tubs filled with photographs as high as my hip, no make it a little above my waist, waiting to be scanned and saved to CDs. Once that is done, most of them will be divided out between the kids and they can decide to keep or toss the originals. I'll make a CD for each of them, of course. I can hardly wait to get that done so I can get rid of the stack!

Last night Gail came over and we watched two movies, "The Son of The Bride" and "Catch and Release." TSOTB was an excellent movie recommended by my daughter-in-law. I'm going to guess that most of you haven't seen because it is an Argentinean film and in Spanish. Unless you're much better at Spanish than I am, you'll need the subtitles! To make it even more interesting, the family, or at least the father, is from Italy, so we detected several Italian words tossed into the mix, too. The movie is about a 42 year old man (the son) who has assumed running the family business (a restaurant) from his father while his mother is falling into the throes of Alzheimer's. I won't tell you more in case you want to see it, but it was, again, a really good movie, but it was also emotionally difficult for me because it brought back so much of my mother and her descent into the abyss. BTW, the woman who played the mother was very good as she portrayed the disease. How she seemed to come and go from the here-and-now to the wherever was superb, and she kept a "vacant" look in her eyes most of the time. I think that her acting was why the movie got to me ... I remember when my mom still talked to us quite a lot, but was vacant in the eyes. Such a sad time. But such a good movie!

We watched C&R after that, mostly to cheer me back up! If you've seen it, and I'm sure most of you have, it's a delightful little romantic chick flick and definitely picked up my mood. Nice evening.

As for the books, I haven't started on any of that list yet. I haven't been to the library or bookstore. However, I decided to finish some of the 8 books I found here, all partially read with markers in each one! I'm finishing "Complications" by Atul Gawande. It's sort of a "tell all" about doctors and the mistakes they make, things the author witnessed while he was in his residency for surgery. It's not a vicious exposé, but he is taking a look at why mistakes are made, from being overly tied during internships and residencies to taking on too much in the pursuit of riches to just plain ego involvement. Pretty good book. I bought it and started reading it right after it came out .... in 2002!! I think I will really finish it this time!!

OK, gotta go inside. It is getting chilly now! Happy week ahead!