More Clouds, Gray Skies, But NO Rain!

A Gift from Mc Clures of Plastic Wine glasses

We were both up around 5:30 this morning for some reason, perhaps the boats from the fishing tournament woke us because I know I heard one go by around 5:00.  I did walk out on the dock around 5:30 and their were some fishermen going out next door though they were not in the tournament.  The Theissen's grandchildren, three boys, were out around 6:00 at the end of their dock, fishing and having a great time.  What fun to see.  It's almost 7:00, and Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is almost finished and we'll listen to the You Bet Your Garden, with Mike McGrath, then Weekend Sunday Edition on NPR.  It's nice not having a TV in our living room.

Yesterday afternoon was our tri-annual Woodlawn picnic at the right of way.  About 25 people gathered around the buffet tables, enjoying their wine/beer and pupus.  The usuals were there, so it was fun to get acquainted again after a long winter.  Everyone was excited when Evie talked about the CLA picking up our weeds once a week.  Most have never done it, but they want to clean up their front lake yards, so a couple are coming down today to look at our weed rakes.  There's algae on top right now, and if you just drag it to shore, your lake front looks fine and the water flows more easily.  Let's see how many actually take action.

We had fish tacos for dinner and watched another Mike Leigh movie called Happy Go Lucky, a delightfully upbeat movie about a young English girl named Poppy (Sally Hawkins), who is determined to be happy and make others happy as well.  A primary school teacher, she brings her enthusiasm to her classes, to her somewhat depressed friends, and most touching, her relationship with a dour, curmudgeonly driving teacher who eventually mistakes her cheer for romantic interest, complicating his and her life,  getting her to see by the end that her good intentions may be misunderstood.  She befriends people on the street, in stores, bringing her cheer, often to little effect and by the end she seems rewarded, a she begins a relationship with a fellow teacher, quirky and upbeat like her.  We leave the film feeling good about ourselves.

Because it was a gray day, I did watch the Spanish movie BIUTIFUL with Javier Badem.  A very dark observation of mortality, the ways we survive, and the mistakes we make.  Badem is diagnosed early on with terminal prostate cancer.  He makes his living off illegal Chinese immigrants in Barcelona.  They make black market goods, which he has illegal Africans sell on the streets.  He pays the police off, but complications arise, the Africans are rounded up, sent back to their homes, and the Chinese, living in a basement of a warehouse, end up dying from a  gas leak.  Not only does he have some responsibility for these lives, but his marriage is falling apart, his wife's unfaithful and not a very good mother for his two children, the center of his life.  As his death nears, he sets his life in order, doing what he can to rectify hIs errors, ends up befriending an African woman whose husband was sent back to Africa.  Eventually she makes the choice to stay in Spain, with her baby, and take care of Badem's children when he dies.  I could not wait for the movie to end and since I had started it, I stuck it out to the end.  Badem is wonderful, the story depressing, the realization of the awful lives some people live makes you feel how fortunate we are.  Both the first and last scenes are surreal and we are not quite sure what they mean until the end when we realize it's Badem meeting with a young man in a black/white forest scene.  I think the young man he meets, talks with, then walk off with is his father, who died young, like Badem, and welcomes him to the world of the dead.  I think.

We worked on and off most of the morning raking rocks out of our torn up lawn, to some good, we hope though it's still muddy towards the parking area.  The sun has finally come out but there are still puddles in the mud.  We went off to the Chautauqua Lake Conservancy gathering, at the Artist's Loft, a really interesting building, just beyond the Institute.  It used to be an old saw mill, but a couple had it completely redone over the years, turned it into their home and an art gallery for five months of the year.  The owner took us on a tour of the house, amazing kitchen, old rough hewn cupboard doors, painted scenes on them, who know how old.  He was a teacher for 18 years in Dunkirk, then became a financial planner.  They live in Scottsdale for half the year.  The art loft itself had some really neat pieces in it, very pricey I suppose for the CI crowd but we liked lots of the stuff.  There were about 30-40 people there when we arrived, with free wine tasting, some pupus, and soft drinks.  We met the couple we had met earlier in the week at the CLA meeting.  They both sing in the Chautauqua choir, were thrilled as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was there yesterday.  They sang this morning and had another sing tonight at 7:00.  I think it takes up quite a bit of their week, but they love it.  Charlie and Ruthann Mc Chestney.