Ruined

I hesitate to make the claim because I’m sure my mentor in this area would have serious issues with the standards I consider to have “achieved”. In times past whenever I had the house to myself and my Favorite Panamanian (the mentor in question) wasn’t around to monitor cleanliness I’d let the house sink into a more comfortable (at least for me) morass of clutter. Those days have departed the realm because my claim now is that I’m not comfortable with the clutter.

It’s taken her more than 35 years of marriage to beat this rudimentary skill level into me. I was actually vacuuming this morning, in the basement. I stopped halfway through to question my sanity. What the hell has she done to me? It now bothers me to see the same level of disorder I used to revel in – my lame effort at asserting male dominance (as long as she wasn’t around). It seems I’ve lost even that modicum of revolutionary spirit. I can only take solace in that it took her the aforementioned 35 years to beat these habits into me. There may still be hope though – I didn’t make the bed this morning.

At the Board Meeting Yesterday,
Political Boss and I Recognizing one of my Drivers for Heroic Actions

I couldn’t blog yesterday due to an avalanche of meetings on the political side and dealing with the personnel turmoil within the management ranks. It turns out my operations manager decided at the last minute to rescind his resignation so one hole was plugged but I have to fill another key training position and I will probably lose my Assistant General Manager shortly to a GM position. While everybody throws their hands up in panic I think this is one of the good things about coming from a military career. The military is constantly in flux as key leaders are regularly changed out every couple years. The lesson learned is that no one is irreplaceable and its more important at identifying the replacement and having a succession plan than wringing hands about losing someone.

On a more somber note one of my key managers and one of my favorite people in the world was hospitalized while I was in Panama. He was diagnosed with leukemia and immediately underwent an aggressive chemo therapy regimen. I went to visit him in the hospital yesterday and was relieved to find him looking better than he has in months. I had to wear a mask and undergo screening before I was allowed to enter the ward which had my fears embellished. He was positive despite still facing another two to three weeks in the hospital. He’s an Arab American whom I’ve come to respect and am praying he will pull through.

I know that I’ve been stingy with photos of the FBR but it’s not my fault. My Jersey daughter has been under the weather and along with Wingman is currently dealing with the onset of a virulent case of the “Terrible Twos”. All parents know whereof I speak. The FBR has had scant interest in talking with her grandfather in recent calls although last night she made a point of telling me, in the most charming manner possible, that she was coming to visit us in a couple weeks and expected me to be available to play. She then demonstrated her latest feat of crawling underneath her trampoline in pursuit of a toy train.

I’ve been adamant about using my free movie passes before they expire so I’ve been to the cinema every night this week. I saw The Shape of Water which was magnificent. Del Torro is a fascinating director and is up to his usual hijinks with texture and color. It’s kind of a bizarre interspecies love story involving a handicapped cleaning women and the creature from the black lagoon but inexplicably it works. Boy does it work and that directly attributable to the actors involved, especially Sally Hawkins as the mute cleaning women in a truly eloquent wordless performance. She’s ably supported by the incomparable Richard Jenkins and Olivia Spencer as her friends. Every horror film needs a monster and that’s supplied by Michael Shannon in his full unhinged government man mode fighting the cold war as only the early 1960s called for. I loved that there were so many levels to this unconventional story with the underlying message on the value of life. Loved this movie.

I wasn’t going to miss a Liam Neeson action flick like The Commuter but I struggled to like it. He may finally be getting too old to be convincing in the action scenes but most of those in this movie had him having his ass handed to him by a variety of opponents. He plays a former cop on his train commute home after getting fired when he’s approached by a mystery woman with a task to identify a mystery passenger. I struggled to accept both the concept and the impossibility of the task as well as the seemingly supernatural nature of the bag guys. The train ride becomes increasingly tense as the inevitable deadline stop approaches with Neeson ceaselessly running up and down the length of the moving train. The supporting characters, the fellow train passengers, are a strength and there’s a nice “I am Spartacus” moment but I could never fully suspend my disbelief for this to really work for me.

The Bad Cinema project count rises to #92 out of 100, with The Manster and no, I’m not kidding.