It seems lately if I blog at all, I post some description of an event in the past; a photo of some thing I did or saw a little or a long while ago. Today is about today. (although this picture is a photo of something in the past, it is the past of only a couple of days ago. This is the best recent photo I've got to demonstrate how HOT IT IS today.) (the plant in the picture is fennel that's about 8 ft. tall. The sun is the sun, beaming down hotwaves and vitamin d.)
Today things:
1) I'm sweating. Today is cooler than it's been the past couple of days - the first day Portland went over 90 degrees for the year we went WAY OVER To 103. Today is only 87 and I know everyone east of the rockies is rolling their eyes, but still! I wish I had air conditioning in one room. Even an uncomfortable air conditioned closet or something - I feel guilty for wishing I had it when it's only needed a few days a year. (AND YET.)
2) Pat Benatar - Hit Me With Your Best Shot is playing now! It just seems right with the hot weather. But maybe that's because I lived in (hot) Florida during the Benatar heyday.
3) MARS!!!! I watched the landing last night on the internet and it made me cry - everyone was so happy! It was such a gutsy mission and it WORKED! Mohawk Guy and Pompadour Guy and all the other Rocket Scientist Hairdos of JPL/NASA in their blue polo shirts, being brilliant and happy and human.
4) Busby the cat has a limp. I think (hope) it's related to a fur mat that I cut out this morning. I checked out his paws and legs and they seem okay... He might have a bruise or a muscle pull. If he doesn't start walking normally within the week he's gonna have to go to the vet, which he HATES. It's so traumatizing to him - he does not like getting in the car, no way no how. He yowls and he fusses and it breaks my heart. Since he's normally the strong silent type it traumatizes everyone else. Poor fellow!
5) Two hours have elapsed since I started this! (I got hot and went outside to water the garden.)
6) another hour +! (food, shower.)
7) Now I'm sitting out on the patio and it's nice and cool. The breeze is blowing, and I think I covered up the smell of whatever disgusting thing had putrefied in the kitchen compost pail. (top suspect: watermelon rind. It hadn't been there long and the pail has a lid, but it was really hot. I didn't smell it at all until I dumped it in the regular compost. It was slimy and BAD.)
8) Have you read Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell? I'm really digging it, but must admit it almost lost me in the middle. I can't wait to see how it all comes together. This book has been on my to-read list for AGES - once I saw that there's a movie coming out, I knew I had to read it quick before Tom Hanks permanently attached himself to the story in my head. (I've got no beef w/ Tom H., I just like to imagine books myself before I see them on the screen.)
9) Otis (cat) just caught and ate a big old dragonfly - it was truly disgusting. He is so proud.
10) 30 minutes to Bunheads! I'm going to return to the Hanks-less Cloud Atlas until then.
Cloud Atlas was indeed very up and down. But also very transfixing. Ultimately not as satisfying as I would have hoped. And yet, I have pleasant memories for many parts of it. It's stuck with me over the years. But the movie will undoubtedly fall short, as per the law of movie suckage in the 21st century. Mr. Hanks has been involved in many of these movies that have established said law, including a certain spectacularly awful adaptation. All signs point to wariness.
ReplyDeleteps. I'm cinematically grumpy these days. :) I'm post-cinema.
pps. Anti Money Laundering sounds like a hoot.
ppps. I still need to get that modern library edition of Moby Dick! Ack.
Oooh - which spectacularly awful adaptation? Do you mean The Da Vinci Code? I haven't read it (or watched it), but I did enjoy Maureen Johnson's piece on the sequel. http://www.maureenjohnsonbooks.com/2010/01/08/robert-langdon-a-love-story/ Oh, wait! I did see one of those movies - the one with Ewan McGregor, because I heart Ewan. Even he couldn't save it! I'm sorry for your cinematic grumpledom, unless you're enjoying it in which case carry on.
DeleteI've crossed my personal Cloud Atlas rubicon (it was the dialect in the middle - I just couldn't take it and was dragging myself through it word after word until finally I could take it and then it was over), and am now rolling through the last 100 pages. We shall see! I have no doubt the movie will fall short, because I don't know how it couldn't. And then there's Tom Hanks in a blonde 70s wig. I don't even know.
You do need to get that modern library edition of Moby Dick! Although I don't expect it's going out of print any time soon.
I was thinking of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, actually. AWFUL. But Hanks is a big case for the waries. I wouldn't say I'm enjoying my grumpdom, as much as the suckage's predictability is comforting. And I'm enjoying more time for reading.
DeleteOh, man! My brain totally protected me from remembering that movie even happened. I'm glad you've been able to identify a reading bright side to the cause of your grumpdom, but maybe it's just a cyclical low period and in a couple of years it will be better. (It could happen, right?)
DeleteMy pps. made more sense when the prior nonsense comment was there. :p
ReplyDeleteHere you go: A creative element is surely present in all great systems, and it does not seem possible that all sympathy or fundamental attitudes of will can be entirely eliminated from any human philosophy. by Anti Money Laundering.
Delete(I sent it to spam because in my experience the original non-linky comment would be used as an anchor to later return and leave a lot of comments about how much money you can make money laundering or fighting money laundering or doing laundry or whatever.)
Oh, I in no way think you shouldn't have sent it to spam. Spam away. :p
DeleteHee hee! Like all the best (non word/link salad) spam, it has a certain loopy poetry quality to it.
Delete