Movie review, DVD: Wallander

A Swedish writer, Henning Mannkel, has a series of detective novels featuring a policeman named Kurt Wallander and BBC created a few 90 minute movies out of these books.  Kevin Branagh plays Wallender and he plays him quite well.  Having read most of the books over the past ten years, I envisioned Wallender as a bit bigger, taller and more physically imposing but Branagh has the rest of the physicality down: the pasty skin, the three-day growth of beard, the hunched shoulders, dark brooding attitude, antisocial behavior.  The crimes are usually unique and often gruesome and as in most foreign drama the viewer must pay attention and follow closely to figure out what is happening.

I got the DVDs out of the library but perhaps you can get them from Netflix as well.  Worth watching and since they are each about 90 minutes, it is a short time frame compared to some current movies.  Check them out..... great for a gray weekend day, curled up on the couch.

Sunday, Oct. 30

October, the best weather ....  nice days, cold nights. Leaves changing on the trees, slight smell of wood burning fireplaces at times and up here, the smell of fermenting grapes.  Nice.

Still looking for an apartment.  Still looking for more part time work. I have a Monday-Tuesday gig in Calistoga at a little 13 room hotel and spa, just doing a little continental breakfast, checking guests out, making reservations, checking guests in in the afternoon.  Easy. Pay is crappy but the people who run it are funnier than hell.  They've been in the hospitality industry most of their lives and therefore have that jaded sense of human kind that comes with dealing with the public all the time.  You must be nice to them but sometimes it's a struggle...... and sometimes they are very nice back!  So far we have had many laughs at the guests' expense, unbeknownst to those guests.

My third "daughter" Stacey is in labor right now with her second child, or perhaps the kid has already been born. They didn't want to know if it was a boy or a girl, so this is rather exciting. Plus it is just such a miracle that babies get conceived, carried and born. I can't wait to see this one.  Her first one, Sam, is, as many of you might know, the best kid to come into my life since Jenn and Gabe.  Reaffirms faith in the process of life.

At the inn right now, waiting to check in guests and pour them wine and make them happy.  Ah, customer service, the hallmark of the hospitality industry.

Movie reviews (DVD) coming up shortly.

Enjoy Halloween, if you like that sort of thing.  Personally, I don't.  But many do.

Think Cooper would like this outfit?

Still not gone......

Continuing my search for lodging, apartment and cottages, sublets, etc.  Nothing of merit so far, some really deserving of being torn down and put out of their misery.  It is shocking, actually, that a rental agent can ask more than $1000 for a place that looks like a shack and justify it by saying "but it's just been painted!"  As if paint can take away the air of desperation and debilitation.  Seriously, a couple of "cottages" I have viewed make my trailer look lovely. 

Same with the job market, not much out there.  What is available pays so little ($12-14 per hour seems to be the high standard, $10 more likely) that it seems foolish to even consider such a job.  But then one must start somewhere, even at the ripe old age of 61.  Shite, never thought I would be in this position, as I have said over and over.

As foolish as it sounds, I keep coming back to the idea of just saying "fuck it" and taking $5000 out of my savings and going to France for a couple of months.  I am sure I can bribe some friends into taking care of Cooper for a while and why not?  Spend money here and be sad through the winter or spend money there and be happy!  Not that I am really going to do that, not yet anyway, but trust me, I think of it every friggin day. The money holds me back a bit but even more than that is the feeling that I would be doing something irresponsible, which of course isn't true, but the nagging feeling of having to get a job, having to get a permanent place to live keeps snapping at me.

The guests at the inn here in Healdsburg have, for the most part, been great the past couple of weeks.  Nice to chat with over their glass of wine in the afternoon, they eat everything on their plates in the morning and they are polite and not demanding.  I am thinking, however, of putting a tip jar on the dining room table, a not-so-subtle way of making a little more money.  (Kidding.)  So at least this short-term work gig is pleasant. The weather is lovely, leaves on the grape vines are changing colors and I even bought pumpkins for decorating the inn!  So unlike me, but hey, the guests need some autumn colors to look at while hanging out at the dining room table.

More to follow.....

Still here......

In case you were wondering where I disappeared to, I am still here.  There is no internet connection in my trailer and thus blogging at random times during the day is not possible. I feel odd writing this from the inn where I work but since it's available, here I sit, just to say I haven't gone anywhere. 

I have begun the search for different lodging and that is quite the process, especially with a dog. But I will persevere and something will materialize.   I don't really want to spend the winter living over my poop tank, to be crass, and being forced to deal with the quicksand-like mud that surrounds the trailer so I hope to be out by the end of this month.  While I have no secure job, I do like this area and one has to begin somewhere.  If I find a good place to live I can only hope the job will follow.  If not, at least I will be safe and dry and sweet-smelling until early spring.

More to follow soon.

.

And the job story, again

I actually think I should capitalize the word 'job' and make it 'Job", as in the Bible story of the guy who was inflicted with woe after woe.  Not that I am that woeful, but this job thing again is wearing me down.  Three interviews this past week, one job offer that I would love to accept but it doesn't pay enough to pay my bills, one job that I am sure I wasn't "perky" enough for and one still a remote possibility.  Sigh.

It's back to the job boards for me this week, that and trying to scare up some work here in Sonoma county.  The substitute innkeeper job I currently have ends in about six weeks when reservations fall off dramatically.  Getting work in the winter is tough in any industry, especially in lodging. 

Yet I will persevere, as is my way.  Might be time to start thinking of small, pagan sacrifices or trying to bribe some of the saints like St. Jude or St. Anthony.   Something's gotta give, and soon.

.

Book Review: "State of Wonder" by Ann Patchett

Up front I must confess that I am a huge Ann Patchett fan, so I was predisposed to like this book.  And I loved it. The more I got into it, the farther the tale took me, the deeper into the Amazon the characters went, I went with them and became more taken by this story and the writing.  It is probably a dumb thing to say about someone like Patchett but I will say it anyway:  what a writer.  That a person can, simply with everyday words, give you goosebumps or make you cry, is an amazing feat to me. 

The story starts in Minnesota and ventures into the Amazon basin.  While the plot centers around Marina, a medical researcher for a pharmacology company and her search for the truth about the death of a colleague, it is more a story of what the truth looks like for each individual person.  The truth and what's right.  A basic story of good vs greed, I guess, although whittling it down to that is too dismissive.  But Patchett does that, she makes her characters stand for something, and that something is not always good.  It could be greed or selfishness or it could be honesty or self-righteousness.  No one is just a person in this story, everyone carries some weight.

But in the end it is a morality tale, at least to me.  The oath that doctors take says, in part, to "do no harm" and this theme comes up again and again.  There are many ways to do harm, aggressively or passively, and there are many ways to prevent that harm from being done. This story skirts those issues in a non-intrusive manner and many of the characters grapple with the thin line that separates the good for a few versus the good for society.

The bottom line is that I totally enjoyed this book.  As I finished it and closed the book I almost wanted to start reading it again.  I will, not just yet, but it is a keeper.  When I was in Texas this summer Borders Bookstore was going out of business and when I went in to see what was left, all books were 75% off sticker price.  I was lucky to snag a hard copy of this book and it is one to own.

Rain, weddings and hope

Written on Monday afternoon: 
You know how everyone likes the sound of rain on the roof?  The sound of rain on a roof does not compare to the sound of rain on the roof of a trailer.   This is intense.  Cooper and I hear every drop and since we are under trees and it’s the first rain of the season we also hear all the little acorns and twigs dropping on the roof and it sounds incredible.  I don’t know about the dog’s opinion but since rain is my favorite weather, I am loving this day.  The downside is that the trailer sits on dirt so when we go outside (when Cooper has to pee or poop) it takes concentration to walk along the trailer to the driveway, lest we slip and slide and fall into the mud. But the sound and the smell of the rain make up for the mud, at least for today.  This afternoon, as I was reading, I looked out the window and there was a Momma deer creeping along the path near the trailer followed not so closely behind by a tiny little fawn.  I expect fawns in the spring but I guess they happen in the fall as well.  It was maybe 30 inches tall, maybe 20 pounds, all legs and ears.  I know deer are flea-bitten and they eat all kinds of plants but this little fawn was as cautious as a kid at a rodeo, listening to everything,  waiting to cross the path and then leaping over to its Mom.  So cute.  Thankfully Cooper was sleeping, missed the entire scenario.

(This morning, Tuesday, I take back the part about the mud.  It's a mess.  And there was a dead rat just outside the door of the trailer this morning.  Nice.)

What can I say about the celebrity wedding?  If you don’t already know, Seth Rogen got married this weekend and most of the festivities were in Healdsburg.  The wedding was in Sonoma but buses carried people everywhere.  At the inn where I currently work there were about 7 people from the groom's side and 6 from the bride’s side and at the first breakfast on Saturday they all became instant best friends.  This group sat at the table for at least 45 minutes after breakfast, talking, asking for more pancakes or toast  and sharing photos and stories and it was the happiest, most congenial group I have met.  They brought their cameras to breakfast and showed me photos of the cocktail party on Friday night, the sit-down dinner on Saturday night and of course the wedding on Sunday.   I liked all of the guests and wanted to go  home with them and hang out.  If you know me at all, you know that happens rarely.  Stellar group, stellar peeps, stellar events.  If I ever get married again (insert barfing face here) I want to marry someone with a ton of money who thinks nothing of spending perhaps tens of thousands of dollars on flowers alone.  The flowers at every event were extraordinary.   Anyway, nice group, got to see photos of James Franco (hot!) and Paul Rudd (cute) and Edward Norton (totally regular looking, cute girlfriend)  and a few other folks, including the bride and groom who looked so happy and adorable.  Jewish wedding (duh) so they got married under the  canopy thing called a chuppah which was festooned with flowers.  Well, all this is from what I saw from the photos.  Google the thing if you want more.

Now the inn is sort of back to normal.  Some guests checking in tonight from France, cannot understand a word they say over the phone.  Another couple tomorrow, then pretty much full house for the next 5 days.  Eggs, toast, frittata, pancakes, again and again.  Coffee, pots of it, tea, juice, over and over, rinse and repeat.  Thank god I don't mind cooking.

On the job front, I have a couple of interviews this week for permanent, full-time jobs. Given what has gone on in the past two years for me, I am certainly not holding my breath on any of these but it is a positive sign.  I wouldn't even mention it for fear of jinxing it, but since the three or four loyal readers of this blog have stuck with me through it all, I figured you deserved to know.  If anything happens, fireworks will be scheduled.   

.