Virginia Breeze

We were off yesterday to see another movie with Academy Award talk swirling around it. This movie is the second one we have seen recently about the emotional crisis surrounding the move of a family member to a nursing home. Julie Christie played a married woman with Alzheimer’s disease. So she is up for the award in the Actress in a Leading Roll category.

And in The Savages Laura Linney is up for the same award for her role as the daughter of someone who needs to be placed in a nursing home.

Allen Page of course is also up for the award but her chances are not great I would say. And in her movie we are dealing with arrivals and not departures. Baby boomers will soon be transfixed with all sorts of ideas about nursing homes as thy approach en masse the realization that there are far fewer than are needed to care for them all.

For this reason alone I suggest the award will head in this direction.

The movie The Savages we found very interesting and entertaining to a degree. There was a scene in an airplane that prompted me to head for the popcorn machine. We have two adults who are confronted with the need to care for the father who left them long ago. And they are surprisingly compassionate.

They grow during the movie. That is one of its most satisfying features. And they manage to resolve the crisis with some help from Medicaid. Their father has nothing so there are no battles over property or savings.

I didn’t enjoy it as much as Juno but it was better by far than Away From Her with Julie Christie.

The other two nominees deserve another post. So here are some videos that I thought were pretty good. My good buddy YouTube is a real help these days.

And here is a review of The Savages in the NY Times if you want to read maybe a real review of the movie before you go see it.

http://movies.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/movies/28sava.html

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Part II/ Here is Part I

http://davidnotes.com/2008/02/11/1967-and-life-in-the-city-the-who-come-to-town/

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Grab a RSS feed and follow our path

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Cathy was full of surprises. She would be running around (or driving around in her Cutlass Convertible) with her business school friend one minute and then she would be at my door the next with much to say. Her major was sociology and she was always very curious about people. She liked to report on things she had discovered about them. As I look back it becomes clear that she was curious about me. I did not fit the BU mold. Perhaps I was a lab rat disguised as an unhappy boyfriend.

When she was happy we would often go off on long conversations about life as we explored the city. We would sit by the Charles River and study while the sail boats flew past. And then one day she surprised me with an invitation to come home with her for a weekend and meet her parents. I wondered how we would get there and she said her father would come get us in his private airplane. So we were off to Pennsylvania in a small airplane and since I had never flown before I was amazed by how peaceful everything looked far below. I glanced back at Cathy and discovered she was studying a small paper bag. We arrived and she did not seem to be her usual bouncy self for once.
Her parents seemed very nice although I did annoy her father a couple of times. I told him I was trying to convince Cathy to become an English major. It was a joking remark but I could tell he was not amused and I would not have been either under similar circumstances. We went out to dinner and he let the bartender give me a few drinks. This was before they dropped the drinking age to eighteen and then recognized their folly and pushed it back up again.

And then it began to snow. And it snowed and snowed. Soon we were buried beneath several feet of a cold blanket of the stuff and there was no way we would be able to fly back to Logan airport the next day. So we said good-bye and climbed aboard a Greyhound bus for the very long trip back to Boston. It was a day dedicated to long waits with an brief introduction to being together when you don’t necessarily want to be together. Because maybe you disagree about a few things and you are bored. In other words it was like being married for a few hours.

Spending sixteen hours side by side in this stressful environment following a weekend with the parents tested our relationship as it had not been tested before. We arrived home eventually and ran back to our apartments. I felt for the first time what it might be like to have a more permanent relationship with someone and was disturbed as if by a bad dream. Cathy was way ahead of me as most women are in similar circumstances. I went back to my books.

She no doubt called her business school buddy and went cruising in her car as soon as the roads became passable. But we were not done with each other. Our ride in the back of a bus through the snow fields of Pennsylvania was only a brief moment of inconvenience compared to what was to come. We could run but we could not escape the awful moment that would send her crashing to the floor and end our relationship as I looked on in horror.

I wanted to protect her but this was something I was utterly unprepared to do. I wanted to hold and comfort her but she was beyond caring on this terrible night.

We were still children. Sometimes young people marry and learn about adulthood as part of a package of both joyous and difficult times. Our education took little time and involved no ceremony at all.

And they forgot to include the joyous moments as well. I hope that somewhere down the road she did find them. I pray that she did. Because she certainly deserved to enjoy them all after her time dating me and the young Wall Street businessman.

I doubt he even remembers her today as he marches down Park Avenue in his platform shoes.

The last part:

http://davidnotes.com/2008/03/17/a-college-romance-reaches-its-limits-part-3/

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I might have the flu. It’s difficult to tell at this point. But it’s either a cold or the flu. Or it could be one of those Alien babies that incubate for awhile inside you before they decide to make a run for it. Whatever it is produces a lot of stuff you don’t want to hear about.

The other evening we were having dinner and someone was describing the sores that had mysteriously broken out on a friend’s body. It is difficult for me to focus on my chicken when hearing about things like that. Last night on television I saw this great looking guy who recently had a skin cancer removed from his lip. Now he uses sun block. We have a friend in Florida who had a skin cancer removed from his ear. And they keep going back for more. We pray for our friends who are going through these terrible ordeals.

It’s so important to use sun block when out in the sun. And smoking cigarettes is beyond dumb. Does anybody do that anymore? I hardly ever see anyone smoking. I can remember a time back in the 80’s when the waiting rooms in the hospital where I worked were filled with clouds of cigarette smoke. I can’t imagine how that could have been permitted.

There was a guy who manufactured televisions. I think his name might have been Mathis. Were there such things as Mathis televisions at one time? In any case he was on an airplane. At that time you could smoke on airplanes. So children got to inhale cigarette smoke in this cylindrical tube. But they didn’t really have to worry about that in this case. Because someone lit up when using the rest room and dropped their cigarette into the trash receptacle.

Unfortunately it was still lit. And the airplane never made it to its destination. They did a study later on as they always do and discovered the cause. I can’t imagine how they figure stuff like this out. They are so smart. But on the other hand they are pretty dumb too. Because they allowed people to smoke on airplanes. “Hey Charlie! How long do you think it will be before some guy with early stage Alzheimers forgets to put his cigarette out in the lavatory?”

Apparently no one ever asked this simple question.

I really become so cheerful when I have the flu. You really have something to look forward to if I do. Better pray it’s an Alien baby. That would be much more entertaining. Maybe I can take some photos of it waving good-bye.

This is the last thing I want to do before leaving this earth. Take a picture. Hopefully it will be of something nicer than an Alien but you can’t really be too picky at a moment like that. “Hey. Alien baby! Could you hold still for a second and smile. Show me those teeth. And stop drooling all over the carpet.”

Someone told me recently that I ask questions of my readers when I post. And that part was good. “Good boy! Here’s a biscuit!” But then I often answer the question myself instead of just letting it sit there and waiting for a more intelligent answer from a reader.

Really? Is that the case? Probably not.

Oh! Wait! Maybe it is the case. And it might have something to do with my insecurity about comments. I could be thinking that the question deserves an answer and may never get one because no one will ever comment on the post!

So it’s time to get over this insecurity and learn just how wrong I can be about comments! I have questions for you….

What makes you happy? And when you are happy does it last a long time?

If you could have anything for Christmas what would you choose?

Do you enjoy living in the particular state or region you live in? Would you move someplace in particular if you could?

Have you ever been to Bolivia and seen a killer rabbit?

Do you enjoy writing?

Is there someone you never see anymore who you think about a lot?

If someone said they would give you a hundred thousand dollars if you jumped out of an airplane (with a parachute) would you do it?

What is the fastest you have ever driven in a car?

What is your favorite thing to eat?

Do you want to live to be one hundred years old? Are you looking forward to exploring the next world?

Do you have a question you would like to ask me?

Do you plan to respond to any of these questions and prove me wrong? Probably not, right?