PacificWalrus of Sleet
Feb. 10th, 2023 09:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ismoYesterday, the rain came down like a black hat on the sky. It was dark and rained heavily for a good part of the day. Most of the snow has been washed away, and what remains lies in streaks and little heaps of white, like discarded laundry. This is the time of year when all my past misdemeanors, in the form of unraked leaves and untrimmed borders rise again to haunt me, but it's too muddy and wet to do anything about them. I managed to get out in between downpours to do the grocery shopping, while the Sparrowhawk was having his piano lesson, and got back in time to give Dr. Music the bag of chocolate and birthday card I bought at the store. At the bookstore on Wednesday, I had found a bar of chocolate made with oat milk. I included that for Dr. Nurse, because as far as I know she's still off dairy for fear of upsetting Bird Baby's delicate stomach. Have we heard anything about our own Philosopher's wonder child? Not much--we did learn that the baby had his most recent check-up and has gained lots of weight and no longer has any excess of bilirubin, so it's okay to feed him on demand and stop waking him up every four hours. I'm sure that's a relief to the anxious parents.
Today we had our usual satisfactory Zoom with Deb and the Prussian. We ranged over a wide range of subjects, from what to do with sour grapes to aspects of medieval monasticism. It's always refreshing. I admit to spending most of my writing time after that down a rabbit hole of proper names. I learned that the nickname for Eduardo is Lalo--no surprise given that the nickname for Francisco is Paco, and the nickname for Jesus is Chuy. For dinner, I cooked a quick mushroom omelet, baked potatoes with cheese, and a big heap of salad. Then we watched the 1946 David Lean movie of "Great Expectations." I saw this once with my parents, but it was completely terrifying to me as a child, and I had lost all memory of it beyond the very scary opening scene. It's still pretty darn scary even to an adult! It's really good, though a movie can never do justice to a Dickens novel. The convolutions of his plots have to be ruthlessly stripped down, to the point of partial incomprehensibility, and you lose all the relish with which he reveled in his characters' eccentricities. I read the complete set of Dickens that my parents had when I was a child. I still find Dickens rather frightening. His chiaroscuro is violent at times. This movie carries that out faithfully--darkness and light play important roles in the cinematography.
The Sparrowhawk admitted to feeling relieved that we were not hieing ourselves off to Pittsburgh today. I am too, though I still regret the circumstances.
Today we had our usual satisfactory Zoom with Deb and the Prussian. We ranged over a wide range of subjects, from what to do with sour grapes to aspects of medieval monasticism. It's always refreshing. I admit to spending most of my writing time after that down a rabbit hole of proper names. I learned that the nickname for Eduardo is Lalo--no surprise given that the nickname for Francisco is Paco, and the nickname for Jesus is Chuy. For dinner, I cooked a quick mushroom omelet, baked potatoes with cheese, and a big heap of salad. Then we watched the 1946 David Lean movie of "Great Expectations." I saw this once with my parents, but it was completely terrifying to me as a child, and I had lost all memory of it beyond the very scary opening scene. It's still pretty darn scary even to an adult! It's really good, though a movie can never do justice to a Dickens novel. The convolutions of his plots have to be ruthlessly stripped down, to the point of partial incomprehensibility, and you lose all the relish with which he reveled in his characters' eccentricities. I read the complete set of Dickens that my parents had when I was a child. I still find Dickens rather frightening. His chiaroscuro is violent at times. This movie carries that out faithfully--darkness and light play important roles in the cinematography.
The Sparrowhawk admitted to feeling relieved that we were not hieing ourselves off to Pittsburgh today. I am too, though I still regret the circumstances.
no subject
Date: 2023-02-11 12:42 pm (UTC)