I had a fairly depressing fact thrown at me today. There has been measurable rain for 42 out of the past 50 days. In the immortal words of a famous pundit, “That sucks!”. While everything is predictably very green we haven’t had the accompanying rise in temperatures. For the first time I can recall I had to turn the heat back on in the house. In mid-May. I’d like to blame my Favorite Panamanian who, to her immense credit, didn’t complain once about the cold house. I finally took pity on her yesterday when I walked downstairs and noticed the internal temperature in the house was at 57 degrees. Now that I think about it, she did seem a lot more chipper at lunch yesterday. All this rain has prevented me from getting outside to start on a couple projects. All the rain has killed one of the border pine trees we planted a couple years ago and my wife has already purchased a replacement. When I dig out the dead one I want to install a drainage pipe below the surface so the same thing doesn’t happen but I need it to dry out at least a little bit.
One of the problems with getting as old as I seem to be is the passing of childhood icons. Doris Day died this week and she was probably my first crush when I started noticing girls back in the 1960s. A couple years ago I bought a stack of her old movies and thoroughly enjoyed her early rom coms. It also reminded me why she caught the attention of the much younger version of myself.
Date night had us at the cinema to see Tolkien. I was anxious to see this bio-pic about the legendary author because Lord of the Rings was the first of the many thousands of books I’ve read over my life. My lifelong love of the printed word began when his words captured a very young version of myself. I knew very little about him and was worried he wouldn’t emerge from Hollywood’s need for the dramatic. This turned out to be a very nice ode to him and provided a significant amount of fun seeing the various LOTR themes and characters surface during his path through life. Seeing the dark lord hovering over the World War I battle of the Somme was the most obvious but I liked the more subtle ones even more. Nicholas Hoult displayed a lot of understated range in his portrayal of Tolkien when it would have been easy to go over the top. The movie chose the simpler aspects of his life, such as his love of languages, rather than devoting too much to his books which must have been tempting. Somehow the simple love story of a bookish Oxford professor was highly entertaining.
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RECURRING CHARACTERS
BRS - Blog Reader the Sequel - second granddaughter; FBR - First Blog Reader - first granddaughter, ABFA – Amazing Best Family Athlete = my daughter in law, formerly known both as MEF – Most Excellent Fiancé & MEG – Most Excellent Girlfriend; Wingman – my son in law; 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; 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 3rd musquetera (musketeer); Buddy – AKA the Wonder Pooch – family dog, a black lab – hates squirrels, died in 2017; Riggins - also known as the Grandpuppy, son's dog, surrogate grandchild while awaiting arrival of the BRS; 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; Excellent Boss – my former direct boss at work; Deckzilla Dude – senior citizen carpenter/contractor; Voices of Inappropriate Worth - members of public who come to every Worcester public meeting to complain, all are on public assistance along with demeanor issues
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