Virginia Is For Families

It’s Monday Morning and the sun is shining.  The Oscars are in the history books or at least on Youtube for another year.   I was happy to see Monique receive the Best Supporting Actress award.   She gave an awe inspiring performance in Precious.   Sandra Bullock won Best Actress and she really did a fantastic job as well.    Christoph Waltz won Best Supporting Actor for playing a Nazi in a way we have not seen before now.   Maybe Hogan’s Heroes was the starting point for his portrayal.   I don’t know.  But he went way beyond the cartoon character of Colonel Klink.

I didn’t see Jeff Bridges play the worn out country singer so I can’t really comment on his performance.  My favorite JB film will always be the movie Fearless.   The story is one that takes me to a place you may recognize if you read some of the poetry here.  And the music is the very original work of  Henryk Gorecki.   It also takes me to that place.   Right around minute 16 of part one is a good launching pad for “spiritual flight” in my opinion.  Want to  try it out?

Learn to fly. . .

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Play Symphony No. 3  Symphony of Sorrowful Songs  I

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I really must say that the show  was entertaining this year in a way that it often is not.  Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were very funny as they made sure that nobody took themselves too seriously.   It should be an evening about art not politics and it was a success  in this regard although a film about Iraq won many of the major awards including Best Film.

You can argue whether it won because of its artistic merit including the performances of the actors or because it was about the war and our sons and daughters risking life and limb in that awful place.  Or perhaps we can say it was both of these things that brought the voters here.  In any case a record was set for the film with the lowest gross receipts winning Best Film.   That should change now.

More people will see the film.  Could that be a motivation?  Almost everyone has already seen Avatar.  Maybe the movie public needs more than fantasy at this point in time.  There’s some heavy thinking going on. . .

It’s Friday and the weather guy is promising us a nice weekend.  The temperature should reach the low 60’s in fact.   That’s pretty amazing considering where we were just a few weeks ago.

The Academy Awards will be happening and we need to see at least one more nominated movie before Sunday night.   But for us it’s not all about nominated movies.  Recently I discovered  The Painted Veil on cable and was enthralled by the beauty of this  film.  Now B and I are reading W. Somerset Maugham’s  original story published in 1925.  And  there were two previous movie adaptations  we plan to watch.

Finally we will return to the recent film starring Edward Norton and Naomi Watts.   B hasn’t seen it yet.  She  seems to be entertained by the book as we read to each other (25 pages or so each day).

We have been doing this and then going for a walk together.

Not a long walk.  It’s more important for us to take a daily walk then to try and walk two miles at this point.   It’s better to walk down the street and back EVERY day then to go on a hike and then return home in pain with the semi-conscious determination to avoid this discomfort again.

We can go further than down the street now.  And we hope to go a lot further in the future.  We also hope to discover some really wonderful links between the two universes of book and film.  It changes your perception of what is happening on screen when you have the written history of the work in your mind.

Art and exercise both bring us together as a couple.  The Painted Veil is a love story with a very different premise that allows us to experience joy and suffering as we read and watch .   When we walk we experience physical pain as well as moments of  physical and mental well-being.  This also prepares us for longer periods of walking as we explore museums or historic locations.

Or we take time to walk in beautiful gardens full of exotic plants and vibrant colors.

It’s fairly easy for me to merge these two worlds in such circumstances.  As we walk in a garden I turn to B and imagine Naomi’s character  in a lush landscape somewhere south of  Shanghai.   I worry about her and hope she will begin to appreciate what nature has to offer.   I remember Edward’s fate and hope it is not my own.

And I sing Somerset Maugham’s  pleasurable,  fluid prose in my head when it comes time to  write something about all of this.

We want the various parts of our lives to work together as a whole.  And as a couple we want the same thing.

But, more than this, we want to be part of life in a significant way.   Art and exercise both offer opportunities to do this and they shall remain at the top of the list when it comes time for us to decide what we will do today.

There’s a really big hockey game going to be played this afternoon up in Vancouver.  It’s the US team vs the Canadian team in hockey and I don’t know why I am even bothering to note this event.  Because everybody in the world must already know about it.

It should be an interesting game but I don’t think it’s the kind of sports spectacle we witnessed back in 1980 when a bunch of college kids beat the very professional soviet hockey machine.   There were  a few folks back then who wanted to play catch with a bunch of  ICBM’s  after the game.   But things have changed a lot and today we love and appreciate our playing partners to the north.   We still want to beat them (again) but after the game we will want to boost their spirits!

Because they are great.  Canadians are wonderful people and we are so lucky to have them as neighbors.  I especially like Evita who has a lovely blog called Evolving Wellness.  I believe she is French Canadian.   And I also like Michael J. Fox a great deal.  He made some great movies and seems like a very nice person.

I was going to write a This Date In History post today but I looked at the list of things that happened on this date down through the years and not much happened of interest.

Well there ARE a  couple of things.  Mr. Ed died in 1979.   And the first basketball game was played on television in 1940.   I didn’t even know they had television in 1940.   Back then I’m sure the basketball hoop seemed a lot further up in the air than it does now.    One of these days the players will need to  duck  when they go under  the basket.

Poor Mr.  Ed.   I wonder what he had to say before he was reunited with Trigger and the rest of the guys?

He really was a very smart horse and Wilbur should have helped him get an education or brought in a tutor at the very least.

I really would like to watch the hockey match but the commercials are driving me crazy.   The GEICO commercials are cute.  The ad agency that makes all of them is right here in Richmond.  They recently got an award for their work.

But there are others that are just plain bad.   One of the other insurance companies has a wild-eyed guy sporting an old style blue phone that is somehow tied around his waist.   I can’t figure out if he is supposed to be funny or just plain annoying.  I really wish he would just tie the phone around his neck and jump off a building.   Not in reality of course.

Do it in  a commercial.  Because that’s what it will take to make him interesting.

I still wouldn’t buy what he is selling.  But I might answer the phone if he did that.

They are having a long range skiing contest on television now as we approach the start of the hockey contest.   One of the skiers fell down and started a chain reaction.  There are skiers everywhere in the snow.

But they are getting up again.   I really admire them when they cross the finish line and collapse in the snow.  They look so young and physically fit.  Their skin radiates health.  And in just a few minutes they are up and running around again.

I could run with these guys and probably win too.

If  I had little motors in my skis.  And a relatively small seat attached to the skis so I could sit down.

And a few snacks to keep my energy level up so I could steer around the course.

I hope Evita doesn’t see this post.   She will not be impressed by my workout regimen or my attitude as I sit here waiting for spring.   And she probably wouldn’t appreciate my presumption about the victor in the upcoming hockey contest.   But that part is alright!  Because what if the US loses?

And I don’t get back here fast enough to edit a few things?   Then she can have a wonderful time in the comment section!!

And I won’t care (very much).   Because I will be happy for her and all her  Canadians brothers and sisters (and husband).   And thanks to them by the way for hosting the games.  They have been awesome!

Thank you very much!

The weather has become much more pleasant in the past few days so I decided to get out and explore Richmond for a few hours. First stop was the Virginia Historical Museum which sits right next to the Museum of Fine Arts and all the construction that is going on there. I was particularly interested in anything they might have on display about desegregation and events fifty years ago here in Richmond. There has been a lot in the news on this anniversary about the lunch counter sit-ins and black college students who were arrested at Woolworth’s Department Store in this city.

I took a few photos including one of Martin Luther King talking to some children and then headed out for the park while I was still thinking about the insanity of trying to force one group of people to sit in a different area from another group of people. There was one instance of a black woman named Irene Morgan who was taking a bus in 1944 from somewhere and going to Baltimore but when she got to Richmond they told her she had to change her seat and go to the back of the bus. She refused and legal action resulted that went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said that Virginia could not impose their rules on interstate travel and she was vindicated.

Good job. So the park was fairly deserted except for a few of my barnyard friends including Dan the donkey and Morgan the goat. A woman was taking her little girl in a stroller around for some fresh air and stopped right in front of Morgan. The child took one look at his wonderful eyes and let out a shriek that caused all the birds in the area to rise into the air.

Oh well. Goat eyes are a little strange. I took a photo of a wonderfully large tree. Lately I have been thinking about trees and their expressiveness. They often seem to be reaching out to the sky as if to embrace the heavens.

And then it was time to go but I decided to call Zachary my younger son who lives in the area and he was receptive to a visit. He wanted to show me an area of downtown that I had never seen and away we went. We journeyed down to the James River and a very long pipe that has a walkway on top of it. There are rapids underneath and train tracks above and many, many herons nearby sitting in the trees a safe distance away.

So I took some photos of all of this and then it really was time to go home and rest. Zachary was driving back to his place and on the way he showed me the new VCU gym which he says is the best college gym on the east coast. Apparently it is a huge playground and a great place to lose calories. And it’s for ALL the students isn’t that great?

And then we rode by his workplace. He has been working in a small restaurant and reports that they really like him because he’s never late, never misses shifts, works hard and keeps his shirt tucked in. He hopes that he will be promoted soon to waiter status and will begin making more money.

He has a lot to learn but he doesn’t have to worry about insane seating arrangements that would break his heart.

Good. So I wished him well and ventured home in my own car dodging pot holes that have opened up everywhere since Snowzilla visited us a few weeks ago. Some of the photos seem to have turned out well. You can click on the photo for a full- screen slide show if you wish. And here’s a little music to go with it.

Play Earth, Wind and Fire – Getaway

And now it’s back to watching the Olympics and sedentary living for awhile.