COLD WEATHER COMING
So the price of gas is going up . . . looks like I'll need more wood. A few years ago I talked to a man over at Northern Indiana Fuel and Light, which we affectionately call NIFL (niffle), said the hot water heater accounted for 1/4 to 1/3 of a heating bill.
Guess we'll be dirtier this winter. . .
MORE ABOUT MOVIE EVENING
Pulling stuff out of my pocket this morning, I found my movie stub and part of my change from the evening. Let's see: $4.50 admission, I think $2.50 for a large drink - Diet Pepsi with a some Pepsi added in. I know, whenever I go and a new guy is working the counter, I get a second look when I specify a mixture. You should see me at one of the self-serve beverage counters . . . may be three of four different sodas in one cup. People are always careful not to get my glass by mistake.
MOVIE AT THE STRAND
I went to the movie “Flightplan” starring Jodie Foster last night at the Strand. She looked different to me, and not just older: perhaps her face is thinner. I found myself paying more attention to her than the actual movie, trying to determine why she didn’t “seem herself” to me. Anyone interested can read Roger Ebert’s review
here. ; I wasn’t as impressed as he was still I appreciated that it was more of an Alfred Hitchcock movie than one dependent on bad words and nudity. Actually, the only thing that might bother someone is seeing a corpse in a coffin.
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HERE IS AN ARTICLE I WROTE ABOUT GOING TO A MOVIE AT THE STRAND WITH MY GRANDSON published in Kendallville Mall.
The name of the movie was “Secondhand Lions.” And “we two” were in the audience, each with a large cola in the drink holder and a large bucket of popcorn between us.
I am the elder of this two-person club, by a good 44 years. I am the grandma. Specifically, I am the grandma who likes good books and good movies and has always been drawn to stories where characters try to pull themselves up to what is right.
I am the grandma with scenes in her head: Humphrey Bogart in the rain in Casablanca telling Ingrid Bergman about how if the plane leaves without her she’ll regret it – maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of her life.
I remember Gregory Peck leaving the courtroom in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” I can see David Niven’s quiet determined bravery in “55 Days in Peking.”
But let us not think of me – this grandma – as a gentle soul of soft voice and compassionate character.
No, I am also the grandma who looks at a refrigerator door standing open and yells, “The next person who doesn’t shut this door is going to . . . “ Well, let’s not go into what exactly it is that I yell; let us settle on the notion that I can be pretty inventive.
I am the grandma who looks over her glasses and inquires, “Now exactly how long have you known about this project . . . that is due tomorrow?”
Now the younger partner on this “we two” team is 10, soon to be 11 . . . and he is Cameron, the grandson. He likes video games and action movies and is constantly badgering me for permission to build up forts and such in a computer game called “Stronghold” which is installed on MY computer.
However, he is also the boy who gets up before school to turn on the Animal Planet Channel or the History Channel. And once, he and I stayed up way past our bedtimes to watch “Attila the Hun.”
So when I saw Cory Renkenberger, manager of the Strand in the Do-It-Center and he said “Secondhand Lions” was coming the following week, it got my attention. I remembered the magazine reviews I’d read and I thought that any movie where Michael Caine and Robert Duvall star as two old eccentrics who spent 40 years of derring-do in Africa and are now hosting a great-nephew for a summer should be pretty good.
Actually, maybe too good to see alone . . . and maybe too good to see with a brood. So the idea came to me of “we two” - Cameron and I.
We went on a school night – homework done first – and were first in the theater. And this takes us back to the beginning . . . in the theater with the drinks and popcorn.
While waiting for the movie to start, we munched our way about three-quarters of the way down the popcorn container. Cameron looked at me and said, “Why, Grandma, I think you’ve outdone yourself.”
I got us a refill.
The lights went down . . . the movie came on. We watched through the exciting parts, the funny parts, the sad parts and the part where Robert Duvall gives a portion of his “how to be a man” speech.
He told the boy there are just some things you ought to believe in – honor and courage and virtue . . . some things you just need to believe are true – such as people being basically good.
I didn’t look over at the boy sitting next to me, but I thought of him – of us sitting there together in a small town theater . . . and I remembered another movie I had seen over a decade ago –“Shadowlands”
That movie was based on aspects of C.S. Lewis’ life. Anthony Hopkins played the title role and he spoke of feeling happiness lay in what was over the crest of a hill, around the bend of a road. Then later in the movie he reconsiders and talks about happiness being “here and now and that’s enough.”
I feel the pull of the crest of a hill, the bend in a road . . . but in that theater, in this little town, the here and now of “we two” was enough.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Got back from Oak Farm and walked in the kitchen and took off my hat – looked in the wall mirror and saw flat hair. I am letting my hair grow and pulling it back in a tiny, tiny ponytail - and then plopping a hat on my head. Well, not only did I take it off when I came home, I realized I took it off at the new Oak Farm. Ack, those ladies had to look at “Ol’ Flathead” for over an hour. Oh, well.
I not only learned about the school, I learned more about the Montessori philosophy. Very interesting. We sat on the floor in one of the new rooms of the revamped and expanded farm house and chatted, asking questions back and forth to make certain points were understood. I like that give and flow of conversation; I think people learn more that way. You kind of build upon each other’s remarks . . . and laughs just seem to happen.
OAK FARM SCHOOL
I am just leaving to talke to the people at the Montessori school near Avilla - going to find out about all the new developments there.
