Friday, September 30, 2016

L'apres midi d'une old lady

It's just that I need to tell someone about it, and there's no one here, so I'll give you an account of my morning. 
Got up early, emailed the kids that I was still okay, hot bath to ease the hip, balanced breakfast --prunes, egg salad sandwich, coke (need the caffeine.) Back in bed to read the sad excuse for a morning newspaper, made the mistake of surfing TV for something to watch while getting dressed.
And came in on the start of Shimon Peres' funeral in Israel, in a huge tent that held, the NYTimes report immediately online tells me, 4,000.  I haven't watched C-SPAN lately, kind of forgot its "you are there" fascination -- no commentators, no breaks, no commercials, just the whole of whatever's going on, however long it lasts.
So here's the moment I wanted to call "Hey Doris, look at this!" about -- I watched Netanyahu make his way in along the front row, shaking hands with the mourning family, then with the assembled world leaders (including Mohamad Abbas) arrive in front of his seat next to Obama, and -- was I the only one who saw it that way?-- deliberately ignore a discomfited Obama by talking for a full minute with the other World Leader before him.
After which, I have to confess, I stayed in bed and watched the whole funeral.  Waited for the TV director to zoom in on Obama's speech so we wouldn't keep getting distracted by that secret service man who was constantly moving around, visible every time the wind stopped flipping those flags (see him with his back turned?)



And discovered three hours had passed. 
So then I made the mistake of surfing TV again for something to watch while getting dressed and found the tear-jerking end of The Prisoner of Zenda, possibly the best movie ever made. So I got back in bed.  Ronald Coleman's voice -- Doug Fairbanks' so-charming villain -- and the dialog!  I came in on Princess Flavia saying "If love were all, I could follow you in rags to the end of the world."  But love isn't all, so she's going to follow her duty and marry the King of Ruritania instead.
And that's how it got to be a couple of hours past noon.
Time for lunch.

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

What Went On?

These days the obituaries are about the most interesting part of our increasingly feeble excuse for a daily paper -- there's plenty of sociology here, and it's intriguing to see what family members consider important about a Life.  I've been wondering about this one for more than a week now:
 
“…Although he experienced significant betrayal in his life (and you know who you are) far far more important was his relationship of 42 years with his wife, best friend, companion, partner and business manager Victoria.  He loved his sons Michael Patrick and…”
 
Who do you suppose you-know-who-you-are is, and what went on?  At least there's no mystery about who wrote the obit -- definitely Victoria, wouldn't you say?

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Hosta Hospitality

Three graceful fawns (is that the word?) just showed up, but -- sorry -- they simply refuse to stay together and say cheese for a picture.  
I knew there was some reason I planted that hosta -- and here I was getting ready to hire someone to weed!