Book and movie reviews

Trying to cat nap on the counter.

Tacumwah in her box on the heating pad.

Mommy has returned from Sleepover #10. No movie for the second month in a row as she and Grandma were busy.

Mommy determined that lightning had taken out Grandma's phone and the modem in her computer, so off the twosome went to purchase a laptop for Grandma. They had already decided not to put any money into fixing Grandma's antiquated computer. They bought a 17" Toshiba only to get it home and find out it did not have a phone jack. (Grandma is still on dialup.) The man at the store said it had a phone jack but the fine print said "available on some models." So back they went to exchange the laptop and they had to get a 15" which was more expensive because it had more bells and whistles than the 17". Grandma did get a 10% discount on it for their trouble. Mommy also had Grandma buy a wireless mouse with a bluetooth USB device and a surge protector.

Setting up the laptop was a breeze as the bluetooth device was instantly recognized and set up by Vista, and as soon as the mouse was turned on it worked. Mommy set up Grandma's email and added all of her contacts and tried to make everything easy for Grandma to read. The computer boots up very quickly and shuts down quickly too. It will take some getting used to, but Grandma should be able to handle it. Mommy also changed Grandma's cellphone battery. She didn't get the painting done she wanted to do, but there is always next month.

Dinner was the last of the scallops. It took 8 months to eat all the scallops in the package. They also had fillet mignon, baked potato, a yummy salad, wine, coffee and homemade cookies. After dinner they did watch The Good Wife which Grandma had taped.

This morning Grandma had to leave early to meet Charlie to go to Indy for a concert, but Mommy and Grandma still had breakfast together and Mommy got back to us fairly early.

Book review: Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow. Mommy enjoyed this short novel. She said it was beautifully written. Though Doctorow took great license with his story, having the Collyer brothers live into the '70s when they died in 1947, she believes that the basic facts were probably accurate and taken from documents and news accounts written at the time the mansion in which the brothers lived was broken into by the police who were notified of a foul odor coming from the house. Homer and Langley were two brothers who inherited a mansion on 5th Avenue in NY from their parents. Reclusive hoarders, there was hardly a square foot in the house that was not piled high with stacks of newspapers and other things collected throughout his life by Langley. There were 4 or 5 grand pianos in the house, a Model T Ford, and anything else Langley thought they might have a use for. The house was booby-trapped by Langley and the doors and windows barricaded on the inside. Langley was crushed to death by one of his own booby traps while trying to reach Homer to help him. Homer starved to death. The police had to break into the house, and Wikipedia has photos of the things that were thrown into the street so that they could try to reach the brothers. It was days before Langley's body was found. A very good novel; however, Mommy wonders if an equally good non-fiction accounting of the brothers' lives could not have been written, sticking more to the facts. It seems to be the trend today to speculate and write fictional accounts of famous people; i.e., Frank Lloyd Wright, who had interesting enough lives that it seems silly to write things that aren't true.

Movie review: Flash of Genius, starring Greg Kinnear. Mommy always enjoys watching Logansport native, Greg Kinnear, in movies and she was not disappointed in this based-on-a-true-story movie about the man who invented interval wipers. Kinnear was very good as Dr. Bob Kearns who sued the Ford Motor Company for stealing his pattens...and won! Three stars.

Movie review: Sunshine Cleaning with Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Alan Arkin. The writing, directing and acting in this movie was excellent. A story about a family and, in particular, two sisters, who start a crime scene clean-up business. Their mishaps, their relationship with each other and with others, is the crux of this movie. Each sister is dealing with her own story-within-a-story, Adams, a single mother dealing with her high school sweetheart who married another woman but with whom she is having an affair, and Blunt tracking down the daughter of one of the crime scene victims whose ID and photos she took from the scene to use to find the daughter who she felt should know about her mother's death. This movie might not rate 4 stars, but it gets at least 3 1/2 from this reviewer.

I guess this blog was all about Mommy, huh?

Tacumwah is all better from her cold though she is still using the heating pad in the box. Marquette is not coughing any more, and I never got sick.

Each day when Builder Mike comes I hide under the quilts upstairs. Today Mommy came home from the sleepover and found me there and told me it was ok to come out. I came out within a few minutes and stayed out the rest of the day because I knew Mommy wouldn't let anybody hurt me.

~There is no such thing as a FREE kitten!~