A Weekend in the Country...

A Weekend in the Country...

Last Thursday, I worked until 10:30 am and then took off with the boyfriend to visit my youngest sister and her husband in Cambridge, WI - which is 20 minutes outside of Madison. Love it there. But this proved to be an especially nice stay. 

Their house is huge and very comfortable. I've been there many times before, so knew what to expect. Normally, we have a whole bunch of activities lined up, but I knew this visit... this would be different.

The drive was very pleasant. The weather was so nice and the highway was lined with wildflowers in bloom. We only stopped once, at a rest stop and I didn't touch anything except the pump for the soap dispenser. Not so much as a door knob!

It was a very laid back affair. There was no place to go. We had planned a hike, but the humidity and heat were too much, so it was cancelled. I didn't mind staying in at all. I took daily walks. We walked downtown and went to two shops - everybody wearing masks. I bought something for my soon-to-be-ex (a birdbath) and a couple of bottles of wine. I also laid out in the sun one afternoon, but, again, the heat and humidity proved to be too much, so it was short-lived. The sun seems exceptionally harsh this year.

The four of us played a couple of games on our laptops... Overcooked 2 and Don't Starve Together. And my sister and I continued a game of Civ 5 we have been working on. But, mostly I worked on things for this blog. 

We watched three movies:

Hotel Artemis (2018): Visually interesting despite some murky, indifferent cinematography. It has a great cast (with the exception of one miscast role), a terribly flawed screenplay, and suffers from indifferent, flat-footed direction. The film fails to capitalize on the primary relationships holding the 'hotel' together, the evolution of the disaffected lead character, and the fact that they have JODI 'fucking' FOSTER playing the lead. All in all, watchable, but a good idea wasted. Think Blade Runner meets TV's 'House'. Foster is enjoyable as ever and Sterling K. Brown makes for great eye candy. His lips. His eyes. Grrr. But the violence? Tired. The explosions? Unneeded. It's like they are trying to cover up something that's lacking. Too bad. That said, something about it stays with you. That raw sense of isolation and ineffectual-ism amid a decaying infrastructure? Sound familiar?

How Do You Know (2010): An oddly old-fashioned romantic comedy with Paul Rudd at his most charming and neurotic. (Was he modeling himself on Mark Lynn-Baker?) Reese Witherspoon is the object of his affections. Rudd keeps things as centered as possible, Witherspoon does what she can playing a cardboard cut-out and Owen Wilson smarms the place up with his lovable/stupid/bad puppy schtick. The movie relies heavily on tropes leftover from 1980's John Hughes films to tell us who the characters are and what they are 'feeling',  rather than spending any time fleshing them out. The sole exceptions being a couple, played by Kathryn Hahn and Lenny Venito, who steal the picture with an amazing wedding proposal scene. I wish the movie had been about them. The rest is a likable, forgettable waste of star power. James L. Brooks certainly has done better. So have all the cast members. But, it did satisfy my need for something romantic. It's like a sugar cookie that's a little stale. If I'm hungry? Yeah, I'm gonna eat it. 

The Help (2011): I have avoided this film like the plague since it came out. But my sister insisted I see it. It is everything I feared it would be. TIRED of the white savior syndrome. TIRED of learning about the lives of other cultures filtered through a white perspective. Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis both deliver knock-out performances. I'll give the director and Emma Stone credit for somewhat dialing down the whole 'how this affected the white women'. I mean, who the fuck cares? While Allison Janney and Emma Stone are always watchable, I couldn't help but wonder why their characters take up the space they do. Sissy Spacek? Funny bit. But this isn't Crimes of the Heart, dear. But then, the book the film is based upon is written by a white woman, so what do you expect? I get that this was successful and generally likable. Maybe it raised some type of awareness by employing Spencer and Davis. However, none of this is based in reality, so, as much good as everyone convinced themselves they were doing by 'exposing' this historical perspective, they were actually simply adding another couple of shovels of shit to an already overwhelming, odorous pile of deception and denial. I had to laugh at the film's concept of what southern poverty in the 1960's looked like. Do you really want me to take this seriously? Everything is so.... clean. And want? Need? Naw... everybody got plenty of everything here in the good old south. And the issues don't end there. Violent black male as off-screen domestic boogeyman, check. Mean racist white girl in charge, unchallenged and unbridled, check. Misogynistic racist white males providing the grit and poisonous stew that act as the backbone to this story but are mysteriously absent and therefore, by default, left unaccountable... checkmate. This is the antebellum fever-dream Hallmark card no one ever asked for; a dark chocolate valentine with a rancid vanilla pudding center. I am glad I did not bite into this one in the theater. I would have left spitting and hissing as I walked up that aisle searching for an exit sign.

And now...

...back to my weekend in the country...

My boyfriend made absolutely delicious vegan goulash and vegetarian tikka masala. Both to die for. We grilled. Beyond Sausages make the best faux brats.

I didn't drink much. Whaaaat? Two glasses of wine, one martini and two of my usual cocktails. Considering we were there four nights... Not sure what was up with that. But that's the way my drinking is headed these days... less is more.

I slept okay. 

And now...? I'm back. We plan on visiting again in October for Halloween.

Hmm.

Something tells me that, other than the leaves on the trees, nothing much will have changed. 

So, are we... is this... the new 'normal'?

I am convinced we will never return to life as we once knew it. 

As I was watching that Jodi Foster flick, I kept thinking: yes, this is what we could devolve into: a dark, chaotic, hollow, isolated, futuristic mess. I am trying not to lose heart, but... 

...here I am. Back in the bunker.

Something tells me there won't be trumpets...

...because I don't think the Calvary is coming. 

There Won't Be Trumpets - Millicent Martin

A Weekend in the Country 

from A Little Night Music