Daughter Work and Masterless Once Again

Two Beautiful Ladies at Work Yesterday

It’s been thoroughly entertaining to monitor the New York debut week of the First Blog Reader. She continues her fascination with her first ever swing rides, dictating that gramma spend as much time as possible in Central Park instead of the confines of the hotel room. I think the gramma likes getting out and about as well. The big event yesterday was a trek to my daughter’s office so her co-workers could bask in my granddaughter’s divine presence. She quickly set about charming everybody, especially the male co-workers (something Wingman will have to pay close attention to as she gets older).

On the Swing With One of Her Signature "Faces"

In the Hotel Room

Wingman actually arrives in New York City today for two shows after last night’s show in Hartford. I’m sure he’ll move as quickly as possible to a certain upper East Side hotel for some long overdue father-daughter time. I wish I could be there to see the reaction he gets from his “little bug”. 

Wingman (r) in Hartford Last Night

I didn’t have to drive through Connecticut last night so I spent my nightly one hour of packing and moving things across the street. My wife called in the middle of this and asked how many things I had broken in the effort (ahh the sweet scent of spousal support). I was a little surprised that I could truthfully tell her that nothing had fallen victim to my customary lack of caution (so far – the move is young). Progress on the deck jumped ahead, this thing is huge! I almost asked the contractor where my wife directed the tennis court to be situated. I’m sure some fun times with friends and family await on that structure.

Deck Progress

From Behind the House - New Door on teh Far Left

I wasted some time going to see Warcraft last night. I’m totally clueless as to the background mythology on the whole Warcraft world but they promised orcs fighting knights so you knew a dedicated geek such as myself would not pass it up. I think my lack of knowledge hurt in understanding the plot which wasn’t helped by some mumbling of lines that should have been policed up in the editing room. Paula Patton can even make green skin with protruding tusks look good and she was one of the best things about the entire movie. I left with the impression this entire film was simply an opening chapter in a series. I’m not sure it’s doing well enough in theaters to justify any sequels, especially given the cost of CGI. I enjoyed the battle scenes and a couple of the very many story lines but when you try to do too much sometimes you don’t do enough.

I am in a brief mourning period because I am once again bereft of the Master (Stephen King). I polished off his latest tome End of Watch, in the usual much too fast manner. I blame King for this because he creates fiction that is impossible to put down. This was the concluding book in a trilogy that started with Mr. Mercedes. One of the things that makes King so good is the gulf he creates between his heroes (good) and his villains (evil). He takes an everyman/women and imbues them with bone deep decency that’s impossible not to root for. At the other end of the spectrum his villains are so deliciously evil that the wait for their comeuppance drives a reader to finish the book as fast as possible.

The heroes in End of Watch are Bill Hodges, retired police detective, and his faithful/quirky partner Holly. Bill is diagnosed with terminal cancer and as his body fails is drawn into another confrontation with the Mr. Mercedes himself, Brady Hartsfield, who was left brain dead by Holly at the end of the first novel. An unethical doctor treated him with some experimental drugs which resulted in some terrifying new psychic abilities which he is using to exact revenge. While the first two books were straight detective novels this concluding chapter veers strongly into King’s world of arcane evil. I am once again left in awe of King’s ability to create yet another set of unforgettable characters – he is truly the Master.  Here are some of his words as Hodges ruminates on suicide while in an oncology ward: “Eventually,” Hodges says. “But with social media or without it, with Brady or without him, suicide is a fact of life.” He looks over at the card player as he says this, especially the two baldies. One looks good (as Hodges himself looks good), but the other is cadaverous and hollow-eyed. One foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel, Hodges’s father would have said. And the thought that comes to him is too complicated – too fraught with a terrible mixture of anger and sorrow – to be articulated. It’s about how some people carelessly squander what others would sell their souls to have: a healthy, pain-free body. And why? Because they’re too blind, too emotionally scarred, or too self-involved to see past the earth’s dark curve to the next sunrise. Which always comes, if one continues to draw breath.”