Break is Wonderful

Summer break is positively delicious!

We had a very nice Mother's Day – Mommy invited a friend over and we all had crabs and shrimp for dinner. We also played a card game and our guest, who used to be a runner, demonstrated some stationary stretches for me to avoid shin splints. For dessert I tried my hand at flan, and thankfully it turned out to be perfect. The reaction to my flan was unforgettable: very innocent, spontaneous, and joyous. It will go down in history as the best reaction to my cooking I have ever seen.

A couple nights ago Kenny, Mommy, Fr. Ed and I went out to see the movie Poseidon, starring Kurt Russell and Josh Lucas. The film upset me very much. Aside from being my first disaster movie, the moral implications of some of the actions of the people in the film were very bad. For instance, in one scene, a man is hanging onto this gay guy's leg in an elevator shaft, and Dillon (Josh Lucas) is having trouble getting them to safety. In the end, Dillon screams: "Shake him off! I can't get both of you up!" The gay guy then proceeds to kick and punch the ill-fated fellow until he lets go of his leg and falls to his death. The scene was excrutiating, and the characters have the gall to later console Dillon when he is having doubts about his actions by saying that he has done nothing wrong. Oh, great. So now we are condoning his actions to theaters full of people around the world?! One word movie review: Stomach-turning.

But the movie was not a total waste because Kurt Russell was one of the stars (although he drowns in another horribly graphic scene during which I had my head buried in Kenny's shoulder). For an older man he is awfully attractive: must be that strong jaw and those broad shoulders. :::winkwink::: It's too bad he won't marry Goldie Hawn, but at least his politics are okay (Libertarian). Has anyone ever seen the movie Sky High? It is my favorite superhero movies (surpassing Spy Kids and even The Incredibles), and stars Kurt Russell as the father of a non-superhero son, who must attend this superhero high school. One word movie review: Hilarious!!!

Aha, I have watched way too many movies in the past week. Kenny and I also watched I Am Sam, starring Sean Penn. This movie was a beautiful film, and I subsequently showed the girls as well. Although I wasn't too impressed by Penn in The Interpreter, he did an amazing job playing Sam. I have wanted to see the movie since it came out, and am sorry I didn't see it before. One word movie review: Beautiful.

Finally, last night I watched a three-hour horror film called A Star is Born. Famous for being Judy Garland's comeback to film after a drug-induced hiatus, the movie also starred James Mason (which is why I wanted to see the movie). Watching Garland, especially during the songs, was horrific. I wouldn't have finished it except that James Mason was so delicious as a tad violent alcoholic. Oh dear I *love* that man. One word movie review: Painful.

Recently I finished a book recommended to me by Sr. Brady called Sarah's Song. It is the authentic journal of a woman, Janice Burns, who married a young man right out of college only to find out too late that he was HIV+ (he did not get tested until after he was married). She also contracts the disease. The rest of the book is about her decision to love her husband despite his being responsible for giving her HIV/AIDS. Here is an excerpt:

This is the first page of a book whose end I hope will come in thirty or forty years and not in 1988 or 1989.

I am a white, married twenty-four-year-old woman who lives in Yonkers, New York. My husband and I earn $67,000 a year and spend most of it on vacations and home furnishings. We love to eat out, go to Broadway shows, and shock people by revealing the liberal outlooks that hide under our conservative exteriors. We call each other "booby" and call on our doctor every four weeks. We spend $1,200 a month on prescription drugs, and we will never have children. In October we will celebrate our third wedding anniversary, we have known each other for five years.  

We are HIV-positive.

-Taken from Sarah's Song by Janice A. Burns

I would recommend the book to everyone as one of the most beautiful love stories I have ever read and (perhaps unwittingly) a testimony to the dangers of premarital sex.

On Saturday, Kenny, Celeste, and Elizabeth went auditions for Fiddler on the Roof with the Pasadena Theater Company. All three have been promised parts in the production, and we are currently waiting for word on which parts they will be. I will keep everyone updated! 

Tomorrow the Cardinal is coming to say Mass at St. Mary's…exciting and yet foreboding. I wonder why he is coming again so soon…