Another sportsless Sunday

[Ed. note: this is a series of short blog pieces, one per day (maybe) <aren't we all bored, looking for something to do?>, talking about some daily thing affecting our lives on a personal level -- not comments about the feds, outside states, etc. That's the purpose.  Let's see...]

Yes, it's Sunday.  Sunday.  Sunday.

Remember the day.  Here in this house it is day 23 of quarantine.  Grrrr...

It's Palm Sunday.

Yet no one (sane) is out and about enjoying a spring-like day, or worshipping at the beginning of Christian Holy Week. 

We walked through our park around noon today.  We met no one. 

Our evening walk met a few, but it wasn't crowded, despite 66 degree temperatures.

In between: no sports. 

This would have been the Sunday between the March Madness seminfinals and the final on Monday.  Most years there would be baseball, this year in its second week, and probably golf -- priming for next week's (of course now postponed) Masters.

None of that was on. ): None of that will be on.  For awhile.

We are a nation that loves its televised sports.  March Madness, baseball season, golf, and, soon, NBA playoffs.  Gone, gone, gone, and gone.

And if you think all these "let's replay this game" things make up for it -- bull shit!!!  A big part of watching live sports is the drama: who wins, who plays well?  If you know Seton Hall beat Michigan in 1995, making PJ Carlissimo such a household name he is still on TV, then there's not much reason to watch, other than to see how long everyone's shorts were that year.

No. There's drama these days in live horse racing, this weekend from Tampa Bay, Gulfstream Park and Oaklawn Park.  I watched a little yesterday (it keeps raining at Oaklawn, which is in Arkansas) and it's fun to watch them go at it, even if you don't know who's who.  Part of the fun is in the not knowing how it'll play out -- will that crazy horse that goes out to the lead early and looks like it's running away hold on?  Will the one that looks uninterested in last place sweep past everyone and win?  Or will someone sneak through on the inside, having been pretty much ignored the whole race?

It's Sunday.  Palm Sunday.  We miss the drama of live sports. 

It just makes the days harder to take.  And harder to keep track of. 

Sigh...

New Notions of Time (pssst, it's Saturday!)

[Ed. note: this is a series of short blog pieces, one per day (maybe) <aren't we all bored, looking for something to do?>, talking about some daily thing affecting our lives on a personal level -- not comments about the feds, outside states, etc. That's the purpose.  Let's see...]

Some people read yesterday's first blog.  Thanks! 

Today is Saturday.  SATURDAY! 

I have a friend who has asked the last couple of weeks if it makes any difference what day it is -- yes! Yes! Yes! 

But we all, here in most of America, have gotten used to, or are getting used to, a whole new meaning of time.  

The first, funniest meme I saw on this was:

I have now lived through seven decades

The 60s

The 70s

The 80s

The 90s

The 00s

The 10s

March.

LMAO!  

Feels so true.  

But let me put it out there: if you thought March was long, wait till you see April!  

None of us were quarantined all of March; it looks like everyone will be for all of April.  

Oh, shit. 

T.S. Eliot said "April is the cruelest month" and though he lived through the Spanish flu epidemic, he had no idea about this.  

Is it only noon? 😒

We have all begun to strain as we can't separate one day from another, since we move our workspace, or not, a few feet, so that Monday is like Tuesday is like Wednesday is like Saturday.  

I have a new way to measure time:

Since I quoted Eliot above, this seems to be 2020's variation on his "Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,/I have measured out my life with coffee spoons."  We are measuring ours out in sheets of TP.

There was a piece on the internet where the person calculated how long toilet paper lasted.  You know, two weeks ago in the beginning of the rush to horde.  Aren't we all calculating that? 😠

And, if you haven't read about it, here's a good article about why there's a TP crisis. 

Search Results

Web results

What Everyone's Getting Wrong About the Toilet Paper Shortage

Eliot made a life of tea parties and social events sound like hell.  Now we have a life with no tea parties or social life and we know he was wrong. 

But we'll get through it:

Remember, it's Saturday!  Hooray!  

Notes from the Edge (of the Apocalypse): E Tu Brutus?!

[Ed. note: this is a series of short blog pieces, one per day (maybe) <aren't we all bored, looking for something to do?>, talking about some daily thing affecting our lives on a local level -- not comments about the feds, outside states, etc. That's the purpose.  Let's see...]

So, my thing today is: why can't local grocery stores get their act together to do curbside service?

Two weeks ago, TWO WEEKS AGO!, I tried to get groceries without going into the store.  There are two grocery stores within a mile of my house.  Well, the first, Weis, didn't do it.  Their app said they did, but it wouldn't go beyond filling the cart, so I called the local store.  I was told they didn't do that.

Then I tried the Giant app.  Which switched me to Peapod (I'm just reporting).  In the end, I couldn't schedule till five days later?!?!!?!? 

WTF!?!!?

How hard is this?  I've been in Giant when their "associates" were filling these orders for people -- it doesn't look like rocket science (or, as the joke goes, rocket surgery), so it doesn't seem like it is about personnel (and as of now there are only a handful of Covid cases in this county, so it can't be people out sick), and they do it with a scanner on their arm that tells them they are getting the item ordered. So, it doesn't look tricky.

So how can grocery stores not have this figured out?  Why don't they have their personnel doing this already? How hard is it?

It's something we all want -- access to groceries without having to stay this far away from each other --
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcn6sah5vf8

So, today's first day rant is this: why can't grocery stores get their act together and provide enough slots for us all to drive up and get our groceries?  Or most of us? 

Get your act together?!?!?

Summer 2019 Baseball Trip: A rock in Cleveland, a roar in Detroit, & a storm in Cincy

So, this week was our "annual" (defined as anything that has happened twice) baseball trip, as we attempt to cover all 30 parks in Major League Baseball (because we capitalize it now, right?).  With these three, we have now seen games in 20.

The synopsis: I liked Cincy best, though Tiger Stadium was close, with Cleveland last of the three, and not high on any "all-time list."

For context, my favorite three: Candlestick (by whatever name) Park, D-backs Stadium, and Camden Yard.

Bottom three: Anaheim, Kansas City, and Wrigley (I know...but, really...)

I have some criteria: I want a park with amenities (different types of food, plenty of bathrooms), seats with good views (see Wrigley, above, where the last several times I've gone part of the field was blocked by the pillars), and the stadium having certain design quality: one qualm I have with Pittsburgh park is the fact they didn't bother with any brick or stone facing anywhere in the park.  The river is great, if you have the right seats, but not that kind of almost hidden external feature elevates the place.

Cincy (named "Great American Ball Park") has these things.  I had Skyline chili dogs for lunch (with the instant heartburn that comes with Cincinnati chili -- a feature of that haute cuisine) and they had a huge craft beer stand.  The Ohio River is still there (like Pittsburgh) and you add the cheesiness of the steamboat with the smoke stacks that shoot fireworks and you have something.  Where's the thumbs up emoji?

Tiger Stadium has tigers.  Huge statues of tigers.  Multiple types of food.  The fascade was stone covered.  There was no river in the background, but it was a quality, inner city park.

Cleveland.  Okay, credo: one's experience of a game is better or worse depending on the weather.  It was 55 with a breeze, with potential showers, for the Indians game. They were playing the Orioles -- you know, the best team in baseball.  And lost to them.

Generally, there's nothing terribly wrong with Progressive Field (okay, too many Flo references, but we'll ignore that, for now) -- you have good views of the field; it's cozy enough, as the modern style baseball-only parks are, and had plenty of food.  But there was no brick or stone on the facades (this is a feature of Target Field in Minneapolis that really stands out) and the background of the Cleveland skyline is...blah.

So, that's my report.  K liked Detroit best by a little bit.

But all three are variations, more or less, of the current thinking in baseball stadium: smaller, good seats, good amenities, with some touches to add character.  None of them is Wrigley or Anaheim or KC, all dinosaurs of our baseball architectural past.

I think our next addition is Fenway (no, never been there...based on my criteria, I don't have high hopes -- I've not been a fan of either Wrigley or Yankee Stadium -- but we both want to see it.  Something to look forward to.

Play ball everyone!

Green Book: Book the performances

In my continuing saga to see "Christmas movies," we saw Green Book this weekend.

Let me say this: if this is the Best Picture, then it wasn't a great year.

It's good.  Maybe very good.

But it's not "best."

If you missed the gist of the story, it's Driving Miss Daisy, except the twist is the driver is the white one.  And I guess Mahershala Ali isn't "miss."  But you get the idea.

Car, driver, drivee: two worlds.  They interact.  Come to know each other and, Lo and Behold! become friends.

I'm not sure there's a real twist here. Because it's based on a true story?  Nah.

Viggo Mortensen is good as Tony "Lip" -- a New York bouncer who has enough reputation as a driver, bouncer, etc, to be recommended for a two-month trip with Ali's Doctor Shirley, a jazz trio pianist of some fame who is doing a circuit through the South. This is 1962.

Ali is good, too.  Where Mortensen doesn't have to get far from the early 60s working class New York Italian stereotype, Ali is both a cultured African-American (there's a shot of them stuck on the road opposite African-Americans in a field -- we might think it's cotton), a man with some money, but still the color of his skin in the South means, in the one example, he can't eat in the very restaurant where he is the headliner to play that night. 

They do a good job of interacting; it's good to see Tony do his job well and to develop, and it's good to see Doc gets his fingers dirty with KFC and ripping up some dance music in an impromptu session in a club.

It's worth seeing.  Does it do anything in terms of story, in terms of camera work, in terms of anything that gets outside the box?  No.  But it's a good, solid story.  See it.

Why Did Mary Poppins Bother Return? or, the things we do for Love

[This is the third in a series this week covering movies seen in the last month during the holiday. Enjoy!]

 As even the most incidental Reader of this blog will know,  it would not be my preference to go see Mary Poppins Returns. However, as the subtitle indicates, we do things for love that we wouldn’t do otherwise. My wife was a fan, okay a big fan, of the 1964 Julie Andrews Mary Poppins and when the previews started leaking out– It seems 18 months ago–for this version she was all about it.:-(

So we went. Me under duress.

I dozed through some of it.:-)

Remember the context here: I’m coming off a TBI. One of the things to be careful about in my situation is ”too much input”. Mary Poppins Returns was just too much input.:-(

It’s very colorful. It has lots of music. It is either a wonderful eyeful, or, if you have a brain injury, a pain.

I’m not a fan of the form –my father asked of it ”where in the world people stop in the middle of their day and start singing?”–so it is hard for me to evaluate its elements.

But let me start with this: none of the actors in this version can saying like Julie Andrews. This may not be a real damning statement, but it lets you know that the singing isn’t really the thing here. Probably the worst of the lot is Ben Whishaw, who talks through his songs more than sings. Maybe thankfully.

Lin Manuel Miranda comes up short too; although he’s known for his work in Hamilton. My daughter says he is the weakest voice on the original cast record and he doesn’t change that reputation here.

Next, I did not think any of the songs were memorable. No “Let’s go fly a kite ,” no “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” no “Let’s have a wonderful time with Mary” – just a bunch of innocuous tunes moving us from scene to scene.

If you didn’t get this the movie is visually rather stunning. It uses a lot of primary colors, including with the balloons in the final silly scene, and the costumes are well done in an over-the-top kind of way for the 1930s in London and quite colorful.

Should you go see it? If the original meant a lot to you, or you just like musicals, sure. If you’re a curmudgeon like me, shoot yourself first.

One final note, and I know this is overdoing it, but in the last two decades+ I have spent a lot of time in London– sometimes a month at a time. So I think I know my way around the city. I don’t think anybody involved with the movie does: Time and again I think I know approximately where they are in the city and they jump on a bike or trot by foot and end up in the part of the city they couldn’t have done to that way from there. I know this is pedantic, but WTF?! They can’t get THAT right?!

On that curmudgeonly note, I sign off until there’s another movie, or another game or postseason to comment upon.

*The Favourite* is my Favorite

[This is the second in a series of three movie reviews to catch up on those that I saw over Christmas break while on the IR are due to my brain injury. Hope to have the third in the series out as soon as tomorrow, maybe?–this one (gag)on Mary Poppins Returns]

Since I’m told context is important, it is worth telling, I guess, that to see The Favourite we had to go a little more than an hour away to a theater that shows ”art house films.” This theater not only shows art house films but it has those big comfy chairs like barcalounger’sJ. However, given my physical status, I was unable to drive either way and even have to sleep on the way home -- as I indicated I found that movie viewing & going Is hard work.):

But it was worth it. I can’t actually catalog everything I saw this year, but I’m not sure if The Favourite isn’t my favorite movie of the year (and yes I agree with the critic I saw on TV who said that may be part of it -- getting to say The Favourite was my favorite J)

We like period movies here and this one is in excellent example of the form. Based loosely on the biography of Lady Marlborough (Sarah Churchill), The Favourite does an excellent job with costumes and cinematography to make you think that it’s really the early 18^th century.

On top of that, three main actors are all excellent. It’s hard to distinguish who you would single out– Rachel Weisz is great as Sarah, Emma Stone is a devilish Abigail and Olivia Colman has a great time being the Queen.

 If you haven’t gotten the gist of the story from the TV ads, Colman plays Queen Anne (1702-14) and Weisz and Stone compete to be her favorite. It is both historical and comical with some bits of it that are hard to believe given the time period (I’ll leave the details as if spoilers).  In all the manipulation among the courtiers, it is not clear whether Weisz’s Sarah or Stone’s Abigail are manipulating Colman’s queen or Colman is using them to get what she wants and needs. This is both the fun and the intellectual challenge that director Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster) presents for us.

To finish – very highly recommended.