I do love a three-day weekend, even if it’s for a minor holiday - especially if it’s for a minor holiday, because I don’t have to shop or cook or decorate for Indigenous People’s Day. It’s just a nice little break. It’s a lovely Saturday morning, sunny and cool but not cold and very autumn-like. I’m still not reconciled to the end of summer, but I’ve been sitting outside for an hour, and nothing has bitten me, so I have to acknowledge that fall isn’t all bad. And I do like to wear sweaters.
*****
I keep thinking about October 2024, the gosh-darn good old days, when I had 99 problems but Donald Trump being President wasn’t one. I never thought that he COULDN’T win but I did think that he WOULDN’T win. I was hopeful, even optimistic. I miss the October 2024 version of me.
*****
It’s Sunday now, rainy and gloomy and very October-ish. It’s a soup-making day, so I’m going to make some soup. Yesterday turned out to be a rather nice day. I did my usual Saturday household tasks and errands, and we spent most of the afternoon hanging around outside in the absolutely perfect early fall weather. Then we went to the movies.
*****
I’ve never read any of Thomas Pynchon’s novels, but I think I’ll read Vineland, which was apparently the inspiration for the movie we saw last night, “One Battle After Another.” That movie was insane (and insanely long), but very good. I’m sure that Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn will be nominated for all the big awards, but Regina Hall is the one who stood out for me. She’s only on screen for a short time, but her performance as the kind and courageous revolutionary Deandra was beautiful and memorable. DiCaprio was very good, too, as was Teyana Taylor as the revolutionary femme fatale Perfidia Beverly Hills. Sean Penn was Sean Penn. He’s fun to watch, if nothing else, and the rest of this cast was more than equal to his scenery chewing.
*****
It’s Monday now, and I’m not working because it’s a holiday. Today is Indigenous People's Day, FKA Columbus Day. When my children were growing up, IPD was never a school holiday. Instead, it was open house day because so many Montgomery County parents work for the government in one way or another, so it was a good time for parents to visit their kids’ classrooms. My husband and I also always went out for a late morning breakfast on IPD. We'd eat eggs and toast and laugh about how mad our kids would be if they knew we were at the Tastee Diner without them.
The Tastee Diner is gone now, may it rest in peace. Our kids are grown, but the IPD breakfast tradition continues at our beloved Silver Diner. Eggs and toast taste so much better with diner coffee in a thick white mug.
*****
I went shopping yesterday. It was raining, and so the mall was as good a place to go as any other. I don't shop in actual stores very often, and maybe I should, because I left that mall empty handed, which is perfect because I don't need a darn thing. Nordstrom has some very nice clothes right now, and I tried things on but nothing inspired me, and so I went home with all my money.
And I did make soup, and then found out that no one else was going to be home for dinner. This was also perfect because now I have a huge pot of soup and I don't have to cook anything tonight. Soup is always better the next day, anyway.
*****
My husband had to go to work after our late breakfast on Monday, and it was a gloomy wet day, perfect for hanging around the house and watching a movie, so that’s what I did. I had never seen “Reds” before, and so I watched it in honor of Diane Keaton. My feelings about this movie are complicated. First, it was quite brave of Warren Beatty to make a 3.5 hour epic about the Bolshevik Revolution, when “Doctor Zhivago” was not all that old in 1981, and comparisons were inevitable. BLUF: “Reds” is very good, but “Doctor Zhivago” is better.
Things that I really liked about “Reds” - I loved all of the witnesses’ first-hand stories, but I cannot understand why Beatty didn’t identify them onscreen. Maybe they didn’t want to be identified. Once a radical, always a radical. I also loved the great acting (especially Maureen Stapleton as Emma Goldman), beautiful cinematography, and amazing dialogue. But of course, misogyny is always going to be one of the biggest stars of any movie made in 1981. Louise Bryant, played by Diane Keaton, comes across as whiny and entitled and a little boring. John Reed (Warren Beatty directed himself), on the other hand, comes across as selfless and heroic and charming. But Louise comes through at the end, so maybe the perceived misogyny is just my imagination.
See? I’m gaslighting myself now.
Warren Beatty as John Reed is one of those performances that makes me think that the actor wishes that they were the character. I thought the same thing as I watched Brad Pitt play Billy Beane in “Moneyball" (one of my favorite movies), and Morgan Freeman playing the President or the Speaker of the House in who knows how many different movies. Julia Roberts won an Oscar for “Erin Brockovich” because she wanted to be a tough working-class broad sticking it to the man. I can watch “Hidden Figures” any time because Taraji P. Henson and Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monae played it as though they wanted to be Black female mathematicians at NASA in the Jim Crow south. I bet Warren Beatty still thinks it would have been cool to be an intrepid American reporter witnessing the Bolshevik Revolution first-hand.
*****
I was sad on Monday night. I should have done more this weekend, I thought. I should have had people over, or gone hiking or done something memorable. But I’m in survival mode right now, like the rest of non-MAGA America. At least I made soup, right? At least I went to the movies. The Capitals beat the Islanders and the Rangers. I read Nancy Mitford and added two more books (Vineland and 10 Days that Shook the World, which will be a re-read) to my TBR list. I took the money that I would have spent at the mall and donated it to our local food bank. It was a nice though not spectacular weekend; a quiet little interlude. Sometimes, that’s enough.
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