Phantom Shoes and Arthurian Miss

We were rushing round this morning to get the FBR ready for deployment to camp and to drop off my Favorite Panamanian at church. We came to the critical moment to make the start of mass when my wife could not locate a certain pair of shoes. We were casting about when I remembered seeing a certain 5-year-old modeling a similar pair of shoes yesterday. She was all innocence when we asked about the shoes but delving into one her toy piles the shoes appeared. She again professed complete ignorance on how the shoes got there.

Evening Tea Party with Abuela

My wife and I are in charge of the pick up and drop off at summer camp and yesterday’s pickup was complicated by the absence of the ice cream truck at its normal location right next to the pick up point (good business decision there). It was also the hottest day of the week so the FBR wasn’t the only one bemoaning the lack of frozen treats. She rectified this upon arrival at home by absconding with the last of the whoopie pies I’d brought with me. These were earmarked for First Friday but granddaughter wishes trumps all existing plans, don’t ya know. We dealt with the heat with another late afternoon swimming (I mean grandpa dunking) session. We were able to coax my Favorite Panamanian into the water with us as well so a good time was had by all.

Exhibit A for Missing Shoes Mystery

Exhibit B

Wingman and his mom met their march objective for yesterday’s travel, arriving in Indianapolis. They hope to reach Harrisburg, PA today and here tomorrow. My daughter and I went out for a movie last night in the middle of an impressive lightning storm. We arrived early enough to have an adult beverage at Wingman’s bar, the Fox and Falcon, since it was right across from the movie theater. The theater was a cool experience, actor Patrick Wilson, who has a home in the area, bought the theater in order to keep it from closing. While the experience was good, especially since it was with my fellow cinephile daughter, the movie was definitely not.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a re-telling of the old Arthurian legend about a mystical green knight who shows up at King Arthur’s Christmas celebration to get his head cut off by Sir Gawain. Of course, he promptly puts his head back on and schedules Gawain for a similar blow next Christmas. I was truly looking forward to this movie because I’ve been an Arthurian geek since my earliest days. That’s probably why I hated this movie so much. I know it is getting some love from critics who love this type of fare, which I label “bellybutton contemplation”. There is virtually no action and no entertainment value. I don’t need to spend the entire movie watching someone slog through mud trying to find himself. The first ten minutes are okay and the last fifteen are truly great but the rest of this very long movie is a disaster. There is nothing heroic about Gawain, he’s picked upon by virtually everybody he comes upon in his travels including a teenager with a couple of girls helping out. This is not Sir Gawain. I will admit Dev Patel has a striking screen presence but he cannot save this. As stated above I entered with some biases about this type movie but even if I entered without expectations I would still have been bored out of my skull as the director and film editor conspired to be way too cute and “artsy” and in doing so ruined a perfectly good story. They also completely changed the ending.  Unless you’re bona fide hipster in search of meaning in life, avoid this bumbling disaster.

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

RECURRING CHARACTERS                                           

BR3 – 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; 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