Climbing Back

I’m not sure if the title refers to climbing back out of the emotional hole created by finishing my favorite span of weeks of the year or trying to start the arduous working off of the accumulated weight of, let’s be honest, massive overindulgence during the past week. I personally blame Christmas cookies for the latter situation. Well, that and a prodigious amount of Coors Lite, but I digress. I have a lot of experience with the emotional hole situation. I have to do it each year around this same time. I completely submerge myself in the holiday season and the preceding weeks (pub crawl, Thanksgiving, etc. etc.) that when I’m thrust out the other side I find myself in desolate territory indeed. I guess if I was prone to depression this would be problematic but I’m always looking at the next “project”. This year it is twofold, retiring for good and deploying for four months to Panama.

FBR Also Climbing Back, Her Room Yesterday
All Toys Put and Away!!

I finished one of the last events of my employed life yesterday with a farewell lunch with my boss. I briefed him on the situation in each of the properties I manage. He had some very nice things to say about my tenure as vice president which did wonders for my already over-indulged ego. Friday will be my last official day which marks the end of my employed life and the first time I won’t have a job since May 1977; so a pretty good run. I also got a free ribeye steak out of the lunch, so win win. I’ve also gotten off to a good start on knocking off the acquired weight from all those Christmas cookies. I’m back in the pool and on the bike. I’ve dropped seven of the thirteen pounds I put on over the last week. Yep. I know. That was a lot of cookies.

I saw a couple movies over the past week as well. The Matrix Resurrections is aptly titled, especially if you saw the original trilogy which ended with Neo dying rather spectacularly. Neo is back and he seems as confused about it as we are but the film does a fairly good job of explaining how that transpired. It also resurrects many of the other characters although most with new faces. While the original trilogy was a fight for humanity’s future this one is a love story as Neo is forcibly reawakened to pursue his lady love, Trinity. She doesn’t remember him and apparently is happily married with a family thriving in the reconstituted Matrix. Agent Smith is also back in a new body but still a complete a-hole. The movie does a superb job of taking the mythology of the original film and moving it forward sixty years but also giving some closure to that story. It had the usual Matrix special effect combat which were so groundbreaking at the time but it’s become fairly common over the years. It’s a still a good adventure yarn carried by the enduring chemistry between Keanu Reeves and Carrie Anne Moss.

I loved the first two Kingsman movies and all of Mathew Vaughn’s movies so far. That streak came to an end with this Kingsman prequel set during the First World War. It didn’t have the trademark whimsical fun of the first movies until the climactic battle which was pure Kingsman. Everything leading up to that was okay but I was expecting so much more. Ralph Fiennes does an admirable job of trying to lift the material out of the doldrums but is weighed down by a truly ponderous script that jumps all over the place recreating history. I’m still trying to figure out what the hell was going on with the Rasputin section which wandered all over the place. More screen time for Gemma Atterton would have been a plus but she’s mostly wasted until that final confrontation. I didn’t love it but my expectations might have been too lofty. Still worth a watch.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

RECURRING CHARACTERS                                           

BR3 – Blog Reader #3 – granddaughter #3, BRS - Blog Reader the Sequel - second granddaughter; FBR - First Blog Reader - first granddaughter, ABFA – Amazing Best Family Athlete = my daughter in law; Wingman – my son in law; Wingmom – Wingman’s mom, of course; Keene Friends 1 & 2 – friends since high school from my home town of Keene, NH; Soxfather - my brother in law; Great Aunt - my elder sister; Cantankerous Friend – friend since grade school who likes to argue about everything, poses as radical leftist to attract women; Kindergarten Friend – friend since kindergarten whom I reunited with after many years; Pittsburgh College Roommate– high school friend, also a “Minor Celebrity” in Pittsburgh; Deckzilla – our backyard deck which grew to monstrous dimensions once my wife got involved in planning; Maine and Virginia Musqueteras – two close friends of my wife – her US sisters, my wife is the 3^rd musquetera (musketeer); Riggins - also known as the Grandpuppy, son's dog; PanaGals – female relatives /friends of my wife from Panama; Panamanian/Latin Mafia – inevitable group of Latino friends my wife accumulates wherever we have lived & their spouses; Neighborhood Mafioso - wife's close friend and Panamanian mafia member, Favorite Panamanian - the wife (of course); First Friday – celebrations to mark the First Friday of the Week; Curbside Girls – close friends of my daughter acquired during her single days in Brooklyn