2008-06-29

It was a heavenly Sabbath, the grass verdant from the rains and so many things in bloom! Our elderberry tree is in extravagant blossom and the day lilies are coming into their glory now. Mick and I took a stroll around the yard before lunch so I could see the new water lilies he got for both fish ponds and behold his new plantings – he has added to our astilbe garden and to the huechera in the cross-shaped patio area. He says ten more huechera are needed as we finish transforming that area into all-perennials. We used to plant dahlias there every year, but we are moving the whole yard’s plantings to perennials now. It is less expensive once the initial plantings are in, and it is less time-consuming to maintain them.

I awoke early today and had the time after I finished my journals to complete the read-through of 101 before breakfast. In our afternoon break time, I started working on the inside pages – title page, dedication page, table of contents and so on. What a joy to be tidying up this project! It represents two and a half years of work, almost exactly. I started the project in January 2006.

After our morning of my singing a service at St. Luke’s and Mick’s spiffing up the house, vacuuming and dusting for the week, we settled into our weekly three-movie film festival. We had a good week! Our first film was My Mom’s New Boyfriend, with Meg Ryan and Antonio Banderas in a family-film-slanted comedy-romance in which Meg plays a free spirit and Tony plays an undercover agent. They find each other in the midst of many hijinks having to do with his undercover role as a thief. It was adorable.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets took the screen next, with Nicolas Cage as an Indy Jones clone and Jon Voigt and Helen Mirren as his Mom and Dad. The action was constant and the ensemble was – well, it was also adorable. I have never seen Helen Mirren do anything but wonderful work, and she rendered a memorable supporting performance here.

The best-of-day was our third film, The Music Within. This was a remarkably enjoyable and funny film with a substantive message concerning handicapped people. Michael Sheen gave a bravura performance as a man with muscular dystrophy and Ron Livingston was excellent in his lead role as a deaf Viet Nam veteran who devoted his career to helping employers understand – and hire – the handicapped, especially handicapped vets. Ed Harris and Hector Alizondo were fine in their supporting roles.

The message of this film, based on a true story, never got in the way of the humor and drama of the piece and it garnered awards from film festivals in Palm Springs, Newport and Santa Barbara. Go see this film. And by all means, view the others as well if you like adorable films – and who doesn’t?

Mick offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.