The Damp Nastiness of Summer

Nan's weekend movie finds were some "adult" movie with a spin on the Tarzan legend, which I think was called something like Tarzana and the Jungle Jigglers, and a foreign film called Immortel (ad vitam) about the Egyptian god Horus taking over a guy so he can make a little blue jay with a girl that cries blue tears. It was very artsy and therefore fascinated me. Which is why I was staring directly at the screen when the animated pigeon got it.

Last weekend, the 20-something-foot-tall elm that grows between our house and the house of the neighbor who does not like uncontrolled greenery was given another trim. By trim, I mean all that's left are five feet of the trunk. I do not approve of the topping of trees, but when you pass out in high temperatures and only have one functioning arm you have to concede some things. This elm, it keeps coming back for more and I admire the hell out of it for that. It's the last of about fifteen that were purchased as tiny little sticks back in the '80s to create a sort of privacy hedge. I know you may be wondering what kind of thought process is involved in planting fifteen deciduous trees as a privacy screen, and from where I stood during the whole thing I can tell you...not much.

We watched Fool's Gold, the Kate Hudson/Matthew Mcconaughey treasure hunting movie, and it was fun. It fit right in with the type of Romancing The Stone/Six Days, Seven Nights adventures I love, and sometimes it's nice to watch a fun movie. Not that the movie with the CGI bird wasn't fun...in a way.

Cable apparently thought we hadn't seen enough damp Mcconaughey, as U-571 was on way past our bedtime but Nan and I watched it because we hadn't seen it before and any movie involving the sea and Enigma machines is A-OK in our books...or T-YR depending on what settings we're using. Eh, it's too early for Enigma machine humor. I still haven't gotten Nan to see Churchill: The Hollywood Years, I think she'd enjoy that.

Then, much like last week, vine wrangling and hot weather turned a few days into a blurry mess. Every time I go outside I find more pokeweed or Virginia creeper. It's like it's out to get me. Of course the pokeweed probably feels the same way about me.

I washed the windows and cut about eight inches off one of the XL T-shirts Nan didn't want. I don't usually take scissors to clothes because I never liked waking up to find my pants missing the elastic, but these shirts make me feel like an escaped inmate and I'm tired of strangling myself every time I sit on the back of the shirt. Shockingly, the shirt does not look like an escaped inmate took scissors to it after washing windows on a sunny 90° day. My hair did, though. I didn't know until I walked past a mirror...after having walked past a few neighbors. Oh well, at least I said hello in a pitch they could hear.

Last night Nan found a Japanese horror movie called Pulse, which is about the futility of dial-up. No, I kid. A ghost is in a website, and people get so lonely that they disappear into walls, and eventually the city is all wrecked up and it's very bleak, but very artsy, and we watched the whole thing. Then I turned on my computer and wrote this. Spooky.

The Damp Nastiness of Summer