Asgardians & Ambush Site

It’s been a couple days away from Frail Deeds (you’re welcome) but my nonsensical ravings return. We had a very busy and entertaining Tuesday. The highlight of that was lunch and movie with Great Aunt. This is the second month in a row for this and I think my Favorite Panamanian, Great Aunt, and certainly I hope this will become a monthly tradition. We are re-introducing Great Aunt to her atrophied love of the movie going experience. We saw the latest Thor movie and this was the first Marvel movie she had ever seen (I know, who knew that kind of person even existed). She loved the movie but asked me afterwards if she had missed a lot of the inside jokes (she had). It will now become my task to slowly immerse my elder (😊) sister in the Marvel universe over the upcoming months. It was so good sitting around lunch with these two ladies, once a month doesn’t seem like enough.

Yesterday's Lunch and Movie Gang

You’ll see the modest progress I’ve made over the past couple days on my backyard project. I think tomorrow I’ll finally knock off the last of the huge bulge of earth in front of the style challenged fireplace. I’ve developed an effective, if physically taxing, technique involving a pickaxe and two types of shovels. For some reason I have to sit down and rest after using the pickaxe which is kind of weird. Once I get this area level I’ll start digging into the hill and transplanting the grass there. So exciting!

Day 7 Progress

Day 8 Progress

I’ve concluded that the place I am sitting at right now is a well disguised ambush site. I’ll sit down to put on shoes for the stationary bike workout and decide to check out one quick thing on the computer. Thirty minutes later I’m still there having been sucked into the vortex of information known as the internet. This is one of the secondary effects of retirement, a loss of time management influence. I have nothing, other than my Favorite Panamanian, to impinge on my schedule. It requires a physical effort not to succumb to the urge to check out that one thing, very quickly I always tell myself, before losing part of my day wandering the varied internet pathways. I’ll have to develop the ability to attack through the ambush, so far, unsuccessfully.

Thor Love and Thunder continues Marvel’s winning streak but is very different. Marvel noted the audience reactions to the whimsically funny parts of the prior Waititi Thor movie and decided to go all in. This was Taika fully unbound and the first half of the movie was dedicated almost non-stop to poking fun at the whole scenario. It was funny but it became almost too much before the plot remembered it needed to move forward and provide the requisite action. I was worried going in about Portman as the female Thor but it was done well, if completely at a very obliging Hemsworth’s deference. So, a lot of fun as a full-on, popcorn filled, summer Marvel blockbuster, with a more than a full dose of Waititi flair.

Three more movies have fallen in my A-Z effort, all keepers, 47 Ronin, 48 Hours and Another 48 Hours. Interesting to see Murphy coming back as a full on movie star in the second 48 Hours movie versus his rookie status in the first.

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RECURRING CHARACTERS:                                        

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