Monday, June 23, 2014

I Get Knocked Down, But I Get Up Again

For the past month I've been battling some sort of infection - worse than a cold but not as bad as a flu. It started with a few harmless sneezes and then morphed into an incessant, noisy cough followed by a 5-day sore throat, so bad it felt like I was swallowing glass. But yesterday - ahhh - yesterday - I awoke sans throat thing, after a round of antibiotics - the miracle of modern medicine. Today I even did an errand. I am so grateful for my general - and now restored - good health. Being sick feels absolutely crummy. I'm sure I picked this up on the plane flight home from Mexico. I even remember glaring at the lady who sneezed in my face without covering her mouth. Enough about her - and enough about ill health...

Next trip on the docket is to the Bay Area. This will be an eclectic trip and will include a dear friend's daughter's bat mitzvah, a visit to Petaluma and the Polly Klaas Foundation, a trip to SF to see friends and finally a jaunt down to Redwood City to visit another friend. I am looking forward to road tripping up there with my friend Erika. With our opposite lives on opposite coasts, the 5 1/2 hour drive will be a good, solid chunk of time to reunite.


Monday, June 9, 2014

Sick n' Such...


Summer is here, along with an incessant summer cold. It was all fun and games (and movies) while I was feeling down and out, but now that I'm hacking up a lung, it is off to the doctor's...

Being sick isn't so bad when you're an Amazon Prime member. I've watched a ton of movies and even made progress on The Goldfinch, which I've been reading for quite a while now.

I've always been a fan of the actress/director Sarah Polley, and enjoyed watching two of her films pictured here. I think about her works long after they've ended and just find her whole aesthetic very interesting, and very Canadian. 
Then there was this documentary... My friend John was obsessed with this news story about the woman who went the wrong way on a freeway in upstate NY killing herself, her daughter, 3 nieces and three other men in an oncoming car. It was a totally tragic story that resulted in the fact that she'd been drinking heavily and smoking pot. The movie doesn't give answers, but probes deeply into the state of denial of her family members. A disturbing but powerful film


In a moment of feeling well, I also snuck out with friends to a screening of Maleficent. It was so over-the-top in so many ways: acting, music, story, etc. Now if Sarah Polley had directed it, THAT would have been interesting. All through the movie I kept thinking that we're going to be seeing a lot of Maleficent horns come Halloween.