World Enough and Time

Day 19 of my... enforced confinement. Or may I call it incarceration? The finger/hand exercises were a little less scary today, though I think the pain was worse. I guess I can expect it to come and go for a while. I seemed to sleep a lot, and ate rather a lot, too, for a change.

Today I watched:

1. Appaloosa - which has a great cast: Jeremy Irons, Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen. And it's a Robert B. Parker story, too. Why do people in movies about the old west tend to talk in a low monotone, whoever they msy be? Except the woman. Best thing about the movie was the jokes about vocabulary. Worst thing: Renee Zellweiger, who doesn't do much for me. I kept wanting to root for Jeremy Irons - too bad he was the villain.
   
   
2. The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. A wonderful movie: made me miss San Francisco, a city I love but haven't visited for ages. My little feathered guys loved hearing the conure parrots' song, and got quite excited at the start of the movie. I loved the ending, too, with a surprise denouement for the human protagonist, Mark Bittner.
   
   
3. 42nd Street. I thought i'd seen this once, but no, I hadn't: what I saw was a stage production, so I vaguely remembered the story but not the Busby Berkeley splendour. I quite enjoyed the low-key pre-Hays risqué quality.
   
   
4. Watched two episodes of Time Team, which random brought over - one about the Roman town on Conetio (Mildenhall, Wiltshire) and one about a Hopton Castle, Shropshire, destroyed in the civil war. Enjoyed the show mightily.

Got a get-well present today from Alan, one of my friends in California: he sent me Michael Whelan's Works of Wonder, which is gorgeous. and made me feel nostagic about several books there which loomed large in my consciousness, like Dragonflight ang The Lord of the Rings. Then Alan and redmtl phoned for a chat. Wonderful!

It was a great joy to have commodorified, fairestcat, random and raynedaze come over for an ad hoc supper of leftovers and fresh strawberries. A good time was had by all.