A few short notes.
Suprisingly, the movie "Gods and Generals" was sold out at AMC 1000 on Van Ness on Sunday. You wouldn't think this kind of movie would be sold out here, but it was despite the reviews. The movie theatre only had two showings because of the film length, and that may explain why it was sold out. If I want to see it, I will definitley have to think about buying movie tickets online.
The news is full of stories about the high price of gas in the SF Bay Area. I'm lucky, because I pick up gas at Costco where the price last week was only $1.86. The gas station is right near my office, so I can go during the day when the lines aren't very long. I saw a gas station in my neighbourhood that was charging $2.99 for full service premium, and they were people at the station. I guess for some people the price of gas doesn't matter.
I see gas guzzling cars on my daily commute, and I wonder what their gas bills are like. My car gets okay mileage since I mostly drive city miles, and average about 22 mpg. Still, that's better than 15 mpg. I have a small car with a small gas tank, but a short commute to work. I drive about 260 miles a week, and end up picking up gas every 10 days. When I put together my 2003 home budget, I expected the gas prices to go up and planned accordingly but maybe I didn't budget enough. The war hasn't even started yet, and already the gas is going up. I wouldn't be surprised if gas goes to $4-5 a gallon if and when the war does start.
Look for the economy to further tank when the gas prices go that high. I'm not looking forward to that.
Monday, February 24, 2003
Saturday, February 22, 2003
I rented the movie "About a Boy", and although parts of it were funny overall I thought the movie was kind of boring. One interesting thing I noticed is that hippies are the same in England as they are in the States. Toni Collette was great. She has a great voice, so it was funny to hear her sing that old Roberta Flack out of key, great acting. She reminded me of Julianne Moore in "Boogie Nights, who had to pretend to act very badly in the porno flicks.
Maybe I'm over the "isn't Hugh Grant just a doll" trip, because he just came across as a sad twerp, and biggest creep in the world. I felt sorry for the little boy, and started thinking we are going to have a generation of kids raised by single mothers, if we don't already. Will society be different because of kids raised by single moms? In college, I didn't know too many other people whose parents were still together. Most kids were from divorced families where there'd been multiple marriages for both parents.
A male friend has a theory that if you were raised by parents who never divorced, you will eventually marry someone who had the same family background. He has never seriously dated a woman who came from a divorced family, and actually neither have I. All my serious relationships including my marriage were with men whose parents never divorced.
My parents had one heck of a rotten marriage, but they were old fashioned and catholic so divorce was not an option. My guy friend tells me that this is the reason we both have problems finding relationships. They aren't too many people left who come from families where the parents aren't divorced. That's his theory anyway. Sometimes I wonder if he's right.
I think I will have to definitely read some Nick Hornby books. Maybe the book was better, or maybe it's just me because a lot of critics loved this movie. I thought it was good, but not very deep and somewhat trite. But then again, I didn't think "The Wonder Boys" was that great of a movie either.
Now "About Schmidt" - this is a damned good movie! Review to come later.
Maybe I'm over the "isn't Hugh Grant just a doll" trip, because he just came across as a sad twerp, and biggest creep in the world. I felt sorry for the little boy, and started thinking we are going to have a generation of kids raised by single mothers, if we don't already. Will society be different because of kids raised by single moms? In college, I didn't know too many other people whose parents were still together. Most kids were from divorced families where there'd been multiple marriages for both parents.
A male friend has a theory that if you were raised by parents who never divorced, you will eventually marry someone who had the same family background. He has never seriously dated a woman who came from a divorced family, and actually neither have I. All my serious relationships including my marriage were with men whose parents never divorced.
My parents had one heck of a rotten marriage, but they were old fashioned and catholic so divorce was not an option. My guy friend tells me that this is the reason we both have problems finding relationships. They aren't too many people left who come from families where the parents aren't divorced. That's his theory anyway. Sometimes I wonder if he's right.
I think I will have to definitely read some Nick Hornby books. Maybe the book was better, or maybe it's just me because a lot of critics loved this movie. I thought it was good, but not very deep and somewhat trite. But then again, I didn't think "The Wonder Boys" was that great of a movie either.
Now "About Schmidt" - this is a damned good movie! Review to come later.
Friday, February 21, 2003
I have a strange religious life. I was raised catholic in a church, that was from what I've surmised from other catholic friends, more protestant than catholic. The Marist priests who ministered at my church were college educated and intelligent, and preached mind boggling, serious half an hour to an hour sermons every Sunday. They sermonized about how to still have faith and believe in God and still live your life. They preached sermons that were complicated, and for people who were well educated. In the Sunday catechism that I attended, we read the bible and played "Bible Hunt", things that my other catholic friends never did in their Sunday schools. My catholic priests stressed that bible reading was important to religious life, and talked every Sunday about we should read the bible every day.
When I stared attending catholic services in my adult life in California, I was shocked at how different the service was from what I remembered as a child and a teenager. The priests either didn't preach, or when they did preach it was awful. They didn't talk about why it was important to have faith and believe in God. They didn't talk about the difficulty of having faith in today's world. Instead, the catholic priests at the churches I attended in San Francisco preached simple sermons like we were all 7 years old and living in third world countries, who didn't have to wrestle with our faiths. It was so disappointing.
When I started to attended protestant churches, I felt more at home. The ministers reminded me of my childhood catholic priests. They emphasized the bible and its importance to christian life. And most importantly, they had long sermons about why have faith and belive in God in today's world, just like my childhood catholic priests.
But now, my protestant church is becoming more catholic. For the Lenten season, they announced that there will be a Thursday class on personal confession. How catholic, personal confession. I'm going to attend the class just to see what they have to say about "personal confession", which I consider a "catholic concept". Then, they're going to suggest that the congregation find a "confessor" during Lenten week, who I assume will be someone you will confess all your sins too. And the minister mentioned a confessor is a "priest, a minister, a therapist, or a friend". I think he was actually suggesting you could go to a priest and confess your sins. What a trip. I'll have to get clarification if he was really suggesting going to a priest.
Many in the congregation are like me, cradle catholics. In fact, my church is made of all people from various denominations. There's definitely a southern baptist group, and I know there's methodists, episcopalians, and I think a few jewish people as well. Is that where theh priest reference came in?
It's weird how I attended a catholic church, which was kind of like a protestant church, and now I'm attending a protestant church, that's now adopting catholic type rituals. They even play catholic monk music and gregorian chants during the Wednesday prayer service. Talk about me feeling right at home.
When I stared attending catholic services in my adult life in California, I was shocked at how different the service was from what I remembered as a child and a teenager. The priests either didn't preach, or when they did preach it was awful. They didn't talk about why it was important to have faith and believe in God. They didn't talk about the difficulty of having faith in today's world. Instead, the catholic priests at the churches I attended in San Francisco preached simple sermons like we were all 7 years old and living in third world countries, who didn't have to wrestle with our faiths. It was so disappointing.
When I started to attended protestant churches, I felt more at home. The ministers reminded me of my childhood catholic priests. They emphasized the bible and its importance to christian life. And most importantly, they had long sermons about why have faith and belive in God in today's world, just like my childhood catholic priests.
But now, my protestant church is becoming more catholic. For the Lenten season, they announced that there will be a Thursday class on personal confession. How catholic, personal confession. I'm going to attend the class just to see what they have to say about "personal confession", which I consider a "catholic concept". Then, they're going to suggest that the congregation find a "confessor" during Lenten week, who I assume will be someone you will confess all your sins too. And the minister mentioned a confessor is a "priest, a minister, a therapist, or a friend". I think he was actually suggesting you could go to a priest and confess your sins. What a trip. I'll have to get clarification if he was really suggesting going to a priest.
Many in the congregation are like me, cradle catholics. In fact, my church is made of all people from various denominations. There's definitely a southern baptist group, and I know there's methodists, episcopalians, and I think a few jewish people as well. Is that where theh priest reference came in?
It's weird how I attended a catholic church, which was kind of like a protestant church, and now I'm attending a protestant church, that's now adopting catholic type rituals. They even play catholic monk music and gregorian chants during the Wednesday prayer service. Talk about me feeling right at home.
Busy weekend coming up.
There's an orchid show in town, and I'm so looking forward to going. My mom raised orchids when I was growing up, and our house was surrounded by pots and pots of orchids. My mom is too old to care for her garden and she ended up selling most of her plants, but I still have good memories of spending ours looking at these strange looking flowers.
Orchid collecting can become an obsesssion, and take over your life. Orchids need a lot of care, and you can get into collecting all the different varieties. There's the time you spend trying to diagnose them when they're sick, and the best potting soil for them. Then there's the expense. It's an expensive hobby, with the cost of the plants, the pots, the special potting soil, the fertilizer, etc.
My mom was really into it, and spent hours potting and repotting her orchids, fertilizing and watering them, and then going to orchid shows or friend's houses to look at their collections. When I was little, I used to think that my mother's orchids meant more to her than I did. She spent way more time with them than with me. I used to wonder if she had names for them, but I was afraid to ask her.
I'm sure orchid care was easier for her than child care. At least orchids didn't talk back, do wrong things, disappoint her, or whatever. Orchids were always beautiful and you didn't have to tell them that they looked too fat or freak out that they were wearing the wrong clothes or needed therapy because their problems were just too much for you to handle, because you're the type who's too reserved, too stiff upper lip, too emotionally frozen to ever discuss unseemly things like feelings and emotions.
No, I'm not bitter about my mother. I've resolved her reluctance for motherhood, and now that I've spent thousands of dollars in therapy and growth and development courses, I can understand why orchids were infinitely more appealing to her than her own children. I can go to an orchid show, and have good memories, because orchids are beautiful flowers, but that doesn't mean I don't remember the effect orchids have had on my life.
Then there's a Tulip Festival at Pier 39 that I'm going to attend. The last time I went to the Pier 39 Tulip festival I was with my friend Amy, who died a coupld of years of a brain tumor. We had so much fun that day, although poor Amy was so sick and walked very slowly and was already starting to lose her balance and mind. That day was of the last good times we had, before the illness started to take over her life and eventually take her life. I love tulips, and during tulip season I buy tulips every week. They were the only flowers I could draw when I was little, and I love that what I drew on paper looks the same in real life.
There's an orchid show in town, and I'm so looking forward to going. My mom raised orchids when I was growing up, and our house was surrounded by pots and pots of orchids. My mom is too old to care for her garden and she ended up selling most of her plants, but I still have good memories of spending ours looking at these strange looking flowers.
Orchid collecting can become an obsesssion, and take over your life. Orchids need a lot of care, and you can get into collecting all the different varieties. There's the time you spend trying to diagnose them when they're sick, and the best potting soil for them. Then there's the expense. It's an expensive hobby, with the cost of the plants, the pots, the special potting soil, the fertilizer, etc.
My mom was really into it, and spent hours potting and repotting her orchids, fertilizing and watering them, and then going to orchid shows or friend's houses to look at their collections. When I was little, I used to think that my mother's orchids meant more to her than I did. She spent way more time with them than with me. I used to wonder if she had names for them, but I was afraid to ask her.
I'm sure orchid care was easier for her than child care. At least orchids didn't talk back, do wrong things, disappoint her, or whatever. Orchids were always beautiful and you didn't have to tell them that they looked too fat or freak out that they were wearing the wrong clothes or needed therapy because their problems were just too much for you to handle, because you're the type who's too reserved, too stiff upper lip, too emotionally frozen to ever discuss unseemly things like feelings and emotions.
No, I'm not bitter about my mother. I've resolved her reluctance for motherhood, and now that I've spent thousands of dollars in therapy and growth and development courses, I can understand why orchids were infinitely more appealing to her than her own children. I can go to an orchid show, and have good memories, because orchids are beautiful flowers, but that doesn't mean I don't remember the effect orchids have had on my life.
Then there's a Tulip Festival at Pier 39 that I'm going to attend. The last time I went to the Pier 39 Tulip festival I was with my friend Amy, who died a coupld of years of a brain tumor. We had so much fun that day, although poor Amy was so sick and walked very slowly and was already starting to lose her balance and mind. That day was of the last good times we had, before the illness started to take over her life and eventually take her life. I love tulips, and during tulip season I buy tulips every week. They were the only flowers I could draw when I was little, and I love that what I drew on paper looks the same in real life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)