Reconnecting

Over the past weekend I attended my niece's wedding/baby party in northern New Jersey. I had a wonderful time and saw some friends that I had not seen in years (or decades). And because there was a small window of time in which to try and catch up with all these friends, I found myself repeating that Sally and I would come back for a weekend and spend more time, sleep over, etc. because these friends are anywhere from 2 - 2-1/2 hours away. Seemed like a reasonable plan. However, as we drove home, I realized Sally and I have our life here, and it's a good life, and my previous impulse towards a more extended reunion was somewhat abated. I've been experiencing similar feelings on and off for the past quarter century but with different people, and over time (and probably with my getting older) I don't feel conflicted if I can't meet a social obligation.

Sally and I spend the majority of our time with one another, and we see some friends and family on either side once or twice a year, and maybe some friends several times a year, and kids a bit more than that. I think the time we spend with friends --- which always results in positive feelings, at least for me --- is not quite where it should be at this stage, but since 2008 we have been in the process of getting out lives in order with a substantial and often unexpected cloud of unsettled dust. The house is still a major work-in-progress and we are cash strapped. But we've had this house for 4 months now and it feels quite good and we plan to be married in October once Sally's divorce is finalized. So things are moving forward, and hopefully will continue to move forward. I envision a nice house party in the early Spring and more weekends away to New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Rhode Island, maybe even California (Sally's family) in the not too distant future.

I feel these types of relationships have also changed to the point where everyone seems a little more relaxed about how often they see one another. We all understand.

God

NPR, or more precisely the NPR website, is currently my favorite time-waster. Shouldn't call it a time WASTER, really, because the effects on my general educational/informational/ability-to-KILL-at-the cocktail-party-banter are HUGE. (and I do appreciate this.) But it's not an educational impulse driving this urge to click. I go there whenever I am not so much enjoying whatever it is I am doing, and want a short, clandestine break. There is ALWAYS something brilliantly diverting, or funny, or just incredibly useful in the what-can-I-make-for-dinner tonight vein. And sometimes it is uncategoriazable, as witness:

Usually, I would just forward the link to Harry. I know he enjoys when I do this, and I enjoy sharing things with him electronically. I do eventually get a reply, it's always smart and funny, unless the link has lapsed/disappeared for some reason, probably having to do with the length of time between when I sent it and he opened it. . . (The internet is SO impatient! )

My sweet Boyo is not the plugged-in Dude he presents as. By which I mean he checks his email the way we all used to check our (now-called) snail mail - whenever we got around to it, and without much enthusiasm. . . NOT every minute on the minute the way some of our younger colleagues do. . .but anyway tonight my internet access is dragging, (Harry? WTF??) and I thought (since I am ALSO way overdue for a post here) I would share this with you-all: THE INTERNET.

Anyway, God. I think this post is so intelligent and at the same time so - I don't know, blinkered? Anyway I found it smart and bizarre at the same time. We conceived of spirituality/godhead just so we could have a cop? I don't find this compelling. Isn't spirituality more crucial and functional than this? I do admire people who have the patience and discipline to DO RESEARCH but sometimes the results confound me. Partly this is X-related; partly due to my own very anti-intellectual approach to LIFE.

And all.

(Posted by Sally)

The Third Floor - Second Thoughts - Posted by Harry

Over this past weekend I painted the third floor and Sally and I laid a new rug up there. We have a stuffed chair and end table to add and we are looking for a small dresser.

But as Sally had mentioned in her previous post, there probably isn't any heat. I am going to check now. Be right back....

Yep, there is no heat delivery to the room on the third floor, so in realtor's terms, this can not be considered a 4-Br. It doesn't mean that the room still could not be heated, and the heat would rise in the winter so it may get partially warm up there anyway. Nonetheless, it makes the room/floor less desirable as a rental. Like our missing the absence of a dishwasher, here is another thing that Sally and I have overlooked. It doesn't detract from how we feel about the house. We love our house.

But even without this discovery, I was beginning to have second thoughts about renting the room on the third floor. I really love the space and Sally loves the space too, and we could use it for ourselves. Having grown up in a small house where I didn't even have access to a second floor, I was always drawn to upper floors, especially because the world looked quite different from upstairs windows --- a feeling that piqued my childhood imagination and one that has never really left me.

Although money is tight and relief possibly still anywhere from a month to several months away, I don't believe we could rent the space for the amount we originally intended, if we can rent it at all.

Hopefully Sally and I plan on being married in late October. We have a few hard months ahead of us. We are in love all times of the day, but those 4AM groggy hugs and murmurs are especially sweet. Hang in there Darling. I will too.

Catch-up

How to start?

Well, Harry's son Tony has gone off to his college to "look for a job," which, remember, is what he has been doing all this summer; while sleeping until 4 pm and going off on his skateboard every once in a while to drop off an application, returning within the hour.

My daughter has gone off to her freshman year at a marine biology program. Not California, thank god. But really far away, which was probably what she was thinking. So far (four days in) she seems to be doing well.

Harry and I are trying to prepare to rent our 3rd floor room despite not being sure there is heat up there. Also we really don't want to. We love the attic space, and anyway are reluctant to share our new house with yet another adolescent (probably. since most likely only a student would interested) One we aren't even related to. . .

AND we are worried about money. I am still not earning a real salary. He is hating his job. Everything costs more than we can afford.

Withal, we are still happy and in love, especially at four am when we groggily hug and murmur before falling back to sleep. We are planning a marriage ceremony, just as soon as we can gather all our off-spring into one place for an hour or two. . .

Oh, and my college bound youngest has entrusted her little Moose:





to us, well me (the Mom) and although I have never been a fan of small dogs, all of whom seem to be much too enamoured of their yappy little voices. .. Of course Moose is, as well. But he's cute and cuddly too, and very very sweet.

Movie Review - INCEPTION - Posted by Harry

Sally and I saw the film "Inception" last evening and I was pretty wowed by it (with a few reservations), more so than Sally who was put off by the endless chase scenes, car and building explosions, and torrents of bullets. I have to agree with Sally on that score. I think though it was visually brilliant and a bit philosophically ambitious, the director/producer/writer should have made it less of an action movie, or maybe not an action movie at all, or maybe an action movie with less action and more drama. I thought Inception was incredible at certain plot junctures --- but honestly, though amazing at times, the work would have been improved by lopping off 20-30 minutes of action sequences. It definitely would not have lost anything.

I've been thinking about the film on and off throughout the day, so it has some staying power, and not in a bad way. Perhaps Monty Hall or Vanna White should have been behind the vault (that's how I dream, my absurd subconscious) with a big prize. I was riveted at times by this film, and at other times maybe a tad "disappointed" like the magnate Fisher, on his death bed, says to his son....

...and why isn't there a verb "inceive"? or we have conceive, deceive, receive, perceive

http://www.answerbag.co.uk/q_view/2083074

The Kids Are So-So

Harry and I saw "The Kids are All Right" because we were both pretty sure it was impossible to make a bad movie with EITHER Annette Bening or Juliane Moore in it; together (we thought) had to mean golden, right?

Wrong. It's actually pretty awful. Go figure. What were they thinking?

After a first half that is fun and charming; a nicely light handed comic romp about (gay) marriage, california-speak, teenagers and midlife crises, the plot takes an inexplicable and unmotivated left into soap-opera-style melodrama. Bening, who is sort of Felix Unger-ish odd up to that point, turns into an emotional Creature from the Black Lagoon and the whole second half is devoted to Geraldo Rivera-style emotional purging which, even performed as it is with finesse by Julianne Moore, (who cries beautifully) had me doing so much eye rolling my forehead was sore.

Of course nobody's asking us, but Harry and I can fix it. All it would take is re-editing. We thought it should have been a comedy throughout. The melodrama (Juliane has an affair with the sperm donor of their children and gets caught when Annette finds red hair on the SD's pillow) should be confined to fantasies (hers, his or both) - that way we get to keep the sexy scenes - and in the end the children (and everybody else) realize that parenting is care-giving and history, not biology. THE END.

Boarder - Posted by Harry

House expenses (and other expenses) are challenging at the moment, so Sally and I have decided we will need to rent out our 3rd floor which is a semi-converted attic space --- quite nice and private actually, but a tough space to occupy in the summer heat.

My son, who has only been a part-time boarder since May, will be heading back to college soon. He will probably leave around mid-August and then we will paint upstairs and put down carpet. Sally found rugs on CL for free and all I needed to do was pick them up.

Hopefully the boarder will be a graduate student or maybe late-20s-early-30s-something professional. A student would be ideal because they wouldn't have to be there next summer with the heat. There have been ads for rooms to let in Lansdowne. We may get lucky.

Sally's daughter is leaving for college soon, and will be stopping by tonight for a last dinner with Mom.

Want to see "Inception" badly. Hopefully next Monday. I will post a review then.