what I do instead (lyn)

Here’s my plan for the day:  eat little, finish my overdue library book, and watch a movie with Carol at night.

Around noon, I get an email from Adam, asking if Alexander and I are around for lunch.  I love seeing my nephew and do not see him enough.  It’s raining, so I suggest making lunch and invite him over.  Instead, he ends up stopping at Sables and picking up lobster salad sandwiches for all of us, along with a pound of their amazing tuna fish salad.  I supply only the drinks and chips.  Each one of my three grown nephews is the perfect guy.  All handsome, smart, kind, funny, witty, fun, and genuinely nice.  I’m not exaggerating either.  I adored each of them when they were little kids, and now that they are grown (Adam just turned 30), my adoration has only become stronger.  Now that Alexander is older, his relationship with “the boys” (as the family has always referred to them) is one of respect, also adoration, and genuine like.  When Alexander returns from Saturday Morning Tutoring at his school, and I tell him Adam is coming over, all other plans get put on hold.  Spending time with Adam is a favorite activity for us both.

Carol comes over around 7, and our plan is to watch one of the many screeners I received as a voting member of BAFTA.  I chose Leaving, a foreign-language film with Kristin Scott Thomas that is described by one critic as “a masterpiece.”  I put it in the DVD player, and because it was sent from the UK, the DVD will not play (though strangely it will play on my computer).  So then we choose Made In Dagenham,  another foreign-language-like film.  We watch about an hour before admitting that we cannot understand the thick British accents.  Our third and last attempt is a movie called, Get Low with Robert Duvall, a true story about a man who wants to enjoy his won funeral.  I later think of Hazel's comment about my soup: how could I even think that a soup dominated by parsnip could be good!  I lose interest 10 minutes into the film, and Carol dozes off. 

We order pizza from my favorite pizza place, Giorgio’s, and wait an agonizing hour before it finally arrives.  The  large, thin-crusted, 8-piece Santa Monica (mozzarella, tomato sauce, pesto sauce, sundried tomato, and goat cheese) is amazing and I’m starving.  I eat three slices. 

In the end, I do nothing as planned.  I eat a ton, read little, and watch half of two movies (does that qualify for one whole?).