Back to the real world again after a 4-day weekend. The week between December 19th and yesterday was the rainiest we’ve seen in eighteen months. We went out to the family service on Christmas Eve in a drizzle and it poured rain the rest of the evening. If it had been snow, it would have been a blizzard. We, of course, badly need the rain, but snow wouldn’t have been unwelcome (though my wife disagrees with that sentiment).
We had a quiet holiday weekend. Cooked some terrific meals, worked on a jigsaw puzzle, talked to family on the phone. Stayed in for the most part. Avoided all the holiday shopping craziness.
I added two more book reviews to Onyx Reviews over the weekend: The Impossible Dead by Ian Rankin and The Litigators by John Grisham. They’ll probably be the last of 2011. Right now I’m finishing off Dexter Is Delicious by Jeff Lindsay, which I started several months back but put aside. You have to mentally separate the two worlds of Dexter. The books are very much a different beast. Dexter and Rita’s child (born at the beginning of this book) is a girl, Dexter’s brother is still alive and Cody and Astor are little monsters. Plus Deb knows all about Dexter, and the Dark Passenger at times seems more like a demon possessing Dexter than a simple urge to kill, and it can behave like a spoiled brat if Dexter doesn’t pay attention to it.
We watched a couple of films that I recorded during the free weekend back in November. First up was The Town, which I saw at the theater when it came out. Just as good the second time around, and my wife liked it, too. Next up was A Single Man, starring Colin Furth and Julianne Moore. It’s set in 1962 and features a gay college prof who has just lost his partner in a car accident. The entire film takes place over a single day, though there are a number of flashbacks, some of them quite abstract and artsy. Moore plays his longtime friend and former lover (with a British accent). Firth has made a decision about his future and both Moore and one of his students cause him to rethink that decision. Can’t say we were big fans of the way it ended, but it was a stylish piece that seemed to capture the era well.
Speaking of British accents, we saw Gillian Anderson on The Graham Norton Show the other night and I was quite surprised to hear that she has a British accent. She is American, but lived in the UK for four years when she was a kid. Apparently she does an American accent most of the time, but she was herself on the British chat show.
Haven’t seen the Doctor Who Christmas special yet. Probably will some time this week. I hear that we have to wait until next fall for the new season to pick up again. And that there are some casting changes in the pipeline.
In the “making us wait” department, I can’t believe they won’t be airing the final six episodes of The Closer until next summer. They built a lot of momentum toward the end of the winter season (the finale was great) and now it all fizzles out for six months. Presumably we’ll also have to wait until then to see if Maura forgives Jane on Rizzoli and Isles.
