In any case, the one nice, brief moment of respite from the overwhelmed feeling I had this weekend (i.e., how in the WORLD am I going to make this in one trip?!) was when we went to see March of the Penguins! What a wonderful movie. I learned a lot without even noticing that I was - the best way to learn, I believe! It was incredible how like humans a lot of the characteristics of penguins were. I'm sure a lot of it had to do with me, as a human, ascribing the way we act and feel to the creatures, and also that they walk on two feet! (And can't fly, for that matter.) And it really did appear that they had emotions, but again that could have just been characteristics I (and the filmmakers) gave the penguins because we as humans often feel the need to associate with non-human creatures that way. Well, in any case, it was a wonderful movie. Don't know that it's one I'll want to watch over and over again, but I did enjoy it. Very amusing (although I was often laughing just at how like little old men they look when they waddle around!).
So to get back to the rest of the weekend, we finally got everything packed up and (mostly) taken care of, and were on the road back to CT by around 6pm on Monday evening. (I took the day off unexpectedly, because I realized I wasn't going to be able to get any work done while I worried about packing the car! And it's a good thing I did, because it ended up taking most of the day.) The drive back was uneventful except for our unplanned stop for a very late dinner at the Buckhorn Restaurant in upstate NY...very Southern-ish/truck driver-ish - Dan even bought himself a cowboy hat! But, no incidents or anything.
And, now we're back in-state for good until our move-in day on September 1! Yipee - I can't wait! (Well, I CAN wait for the physical labor of actually moving, but not for once we are in our awesome apartment!) Till then, I'm just kickin' around house-sitting for my parents while they are in Kenya. I visited Grandpa today at the hospital, and he looked much better than when I had last seen him. He has a lot more color in his cheeks, and he was very talkative! He's finally allowed to eat again (for 5 days he was on IV!). The visit was really pleasant; I'll go back again tomorrow.
I guess I didn't need to narrate my life like that...but, as usual, there's very little news to report! Oh but one thing that shook me up today was driving past the ruins of two semi-landmarks in my hometown: first, the big white church that my mother, sisters, and I attended every Sunday for almost 20 years is being torn down, and today I noticed that they had demolished the steeple! It's so sad to see something like that go - it was a beautiful building. Unfortunately it was also falling apart, and the new chuch is of course much more stable and all, but it is still so sad to see such an institution go. I don't feel a connection to the church per se so much as to the memories I have of it. A lot of my childhood was connected to that place.
And the other "monument" that's kind of been kicking around my town for a while is the charred remnants of what was once a Dunkin Donuts out on route 4...it burned down on my birthday this year (I only remember the date because Chandra was visiting that weekend, and we looked at photos of the fire together), and has ever since stood as a burnt-out skeleton in the same spot, with a chain-link fence surrounding it! Everyone was confounded as to why it was still there and not being torn down. I kept speculating that maybe it had to do with insurance - as in, they had to do full inspections before they could alter the "evidence" - but do inspections really take 3 months?! In any case, it's now been reduced to a concrete slab...I've heard they plan to rebuild another DD there. We'll see how long that takes.
Hmm, didn't I say I wasn't going to write much? I think I'll leave things here, for now. I need to go lie down in front of a fan with a good book...
Currently Reading:
TITLE: The Overspent American
AUTHOR: Juliet B. Schor
TITLE: The God of Small Things
AUTHOR: Arundhati Roy
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