2007-09-16

Fall has come to Camelot! I wore a jacket to church and really needed it, as the temperature was barely 50 this morning, and did not rise past 68 F all day. I don’t doubt we will have more hot weather before the year is through, but the heat wave is broken. Now if we could only break the draught!

Church was very enjoyable today. The choir sang Byrd’s lovely “Miserere Mei” and we chanted Psalm 51, both pieces fitting into the readings for the service, and Father Joe told stories with his usual effective preaching style at the sermon, urging us to relish being Christians.

I came home to Mick’s newly clean house and we sat down to lunch as we popped “Miami Vice” into the DVD player. I cannot tell you what that was like, as after only a few minutes, during which the piece seemed interchangeable with the old TV series except that Colin Farrell’s “Sonny” was not as interesting a character as the original played by Don Johnson, I fell fast asleep, rousing only at the closing credits.

I did better with “Perfect Strangers”, staying awake throughout the film. Bruce Willis made a good gimlet-eyed villain-turned-victim and Halle Berry was excellent as the victim-turned-villain, but both characterizations existed within a screenplay flawed by an uneven, hectic presentation. It was enjoyable, though.

We paused between movies after this and I did just a bit of e-mail, notifying Gary that I needed some L/L Research Board details so that I could ask both our Development Committee and our Marketing Committee for some help.

We settled into our third film of the day, “Shadow Boxer”, over supper, welcoming Gary home halfway through. Gary says he had a great time in Peru and confessed to taking so many photos that he will have to thin out the lot before giving us a slide show. It was so good to see him back in Louisville safe and sound after his adventures! He promised to hit the L/L admin work tomorrow with great enthusiasm.

“Shadow Boxer”, for all of its odd subject matter, turned out to be by far the best film of the day. Cuba Gooding Jr. and Helen Mirren offered believable and touching performances as two assassins whose personal relationship was created by murder. Their love was beautiful to see, caught somewhere between the mother-son wash of affection and the energy of lovers’ passion. I was especially struck by the quality and aesthetic of the cinematographer’s eye. It was a beautiful film, if decidedly perverse in its message and theme, which was “When in doubt, kill!”

Mick and I are greatly enjoying these meeting-free Sundays. I think the change to Saturday meetings will be very good for our morale, giving us one day of pure R-and-R each week. For Jim especially, who works so very hard physically, this is a good thing indeed.

We offered the Gaia Meditation with Gary and then called Mom McCarty for a good chat with her before coming upstairs for a kitty snuggle and bedtime at 11 PM.