dual personalities

Well, a weekend without many plans turned into a pretty busy weekend after all. And it was cold again–it even snowed on Sunday!

I followed my usual weekend routine plus I re-read The Hours by Michael Cunningham, which was good but not as good as I remembered. I was overly aware of his details and his writing in general. But there is some real truth in it.

She simply does what her daughter tells her to, and finds a surprising relief in it. Maybe, she thinks, one could begin dying into this: the ministrations of a grown daughter, the comforts of a room. Here, then, is age. Here are the little consolations, the  lamp and the book. Here is the world, increasingly managed by people who are not you; who will do either well or badly; who do not look at you when they pass you in the street.

I watched The Shape of Water (2017) which has been nominated for 13 Oscars, including best picture, and has already won a slew of awards.

I did not like it. “‘The Shape of Water’ is partly a code-scrambled fairy tale, partly a genetically modified monster movie, and altogether wonderful,”  gushed the reviewer in the NYT.  I would beg to differ. “Bigotry and meanness flow through every moment like an underground stream,” he continued. This is true. We are shown several examples of this. Women, blacks and gays are treated badly. We see, we understand, we virtue-signal our superiority.  Men are the bad guys in this movie, the enemy. The only decent man is gay. (Oh, and the other is a communist spy.) The #1 scary villain, of course, is a white male who works for the military, is married, has two children, lives in suburbia, and aspires  to own a Cadillac. He is the real monster. I am tired of being hit over the head with this view of the world. “The most welcome and notable thing about ‘The Shape of Water’ is its generosity of spirit,” the NYT reviewer concludes. Is he kidding?

The wee babes, thankfully, came over for dinner on Sunday night. They cheered me up! They are so active now and curious, so happy. They get very excited about  peanut butter and jelly, 30-year old toys, investigating the kitchen, and checking out the handles on the highboy. The wee laddie climbed all the way up to the second floor twice.

Miss Lottie slept on my shoulder after arriving, but perked right up once she awakened. She is a speed demon on all fours and can crawl the circuit of our first floor in under a minute.

The wee laddie can take up to six steps on his own and is swiftly gaining his sea legs.

Now it’s back to the salt mine–have a good week!

*Isaiah 40:31