We like our back deck, but so do the flies, so last summer I bought this canopy thingie that fits over the patio umbrella and forms an enclosure around the table. The bottom is weighted by a water-filled tube. We didn’t get any chance to use it last summer, though, and I took it down before Ike struck and only yesterday got around to re-installing it. It was a hot, hot evening for the Fourth, but we enjoyed sitting in the back yard as we barbequed all the same. The flies came, but they were stymied by the netting and we laughed at them as they landed on the mesh and glared at us with their complex eyes. The squirrel that liked to cool himself on the concrete base of the table probably isn’t going to be happy about this turn of events. If I find him chewing through the base to get inside, he’s history, though.
I finally got to see Gone, Baby, Gone, the movie adaptation of one of Lehane’s Kenzie/Gennaro novels and, wow, what a powerful movie. Usually, child abduction stories are based around middle or upper class families, but here is one where the mother is reprehensible and totally unsympathetic. There is a lot of moral ambiguity built into the story, and I think the fundamental question it asks is: what is the nature of moral certitude. Several characters acted out of the belief that what they were doing was fundamentally right, even if it was legally wrong. On the other hand, a character acts on the side of the law and what he felt to be right, but did his sense of moral rectitude make a victim out of an innocent? Very nicely done. Casey Affleck strikes exactly the right note as the baby-faced PI who has a lot more spine than anyone gives him credit for. Michelle Monaghan, who I’ve never heard of before, was also fine as Angie.
We also watched Last Chance Harvey, a romantic comedy with Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. Harvey’s a jingle writer in London for his daughter’s wedding–in one fell swoop he misses a flight, gets fired and finds out that his daughter wants her stepfather to give her away at the wedding instead of him. He meets up with Thompson, a lonely woman who works as a statistics interviewer at Heathrow and they click, and spend a wonderful day together that culminates with the wedding reception. A nice, light film with two great actors and a couple of fine moments, including the one where Hoffman stands up for himself to deliver the toast to the bride.
Eureka! returns to SyFy (formerly SciFi) on Friday evening, the first of 10 new episodes. It’s been a while since the end of season three, so I’m not sure exactly where the story left off. It’s a fun show that appeals to my inner geek. The stars of The Big Bang Theory should go on a field trip to Eureka someday.
I’m working a little this weekend, tinkering with an essay and reading material that I need to complete it. Also learning the best ways to get Word docs onto my Kindle, which isn’t an exact science. A couple of times I’ve sent files over only to discover that there are no indents at the start of paragraphs. Saving them as HTML files seems to be more reliable, except that the smart quotes and other special characters don’t always translate. I think I’ve got a reliable formula down.
