: a prolonged sitting (as for a discussion)
... Don't you just love that word?
Here are some things I'm looking forward to between now and the end of the year:
1) Julia's brother David visiting us for two weeks
2) Getting a Kindle Fire
3) Julia getting an I-Pad, Gabriel getting a Mini I-Pad
4) Going to Jacksonville and St. Augustine
5) Going up to Augusta and Beaufort, too
6) Going to the Bluffton outlet malls and Robert Irvine's restaurant
7) Taking David to get another tattoo, maybe to see a few movies (I haven't gone to the theater in a year, people - a year!)
8) Further planning out next summer's European trip
9) Watching Gabriel's face on Christmas Even when he gets his new big wheel, Jake and the Neverland Pirates toys, and tent.
10) Seeing how the seasons of Dexter and Homeland end
11) Waiting to see if Julia has any job interviews lined up when she goes to Seattle
12) Spending Christmas Eve in Savannah
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One show you should be watching right now:
PBS' Call the Midwife
Julia got me into this show, and I'm just about done with the show's first season (six episodes); the second season premieres soon. It was released in Britain in the wake of Downton Abbey's success and actually averaged more viewers in its first season than that show did in its first season!
Based on a trilogy of memoirs written by the late Jennifer Worth, the series follows a group of nuns and midwives working in London' East End in the 1950s. The main character is Nurse Lee (played winningly by Jessica Raines), one of the newest members of the nursing convent (Nonnatus House), a young woman who quickly adapts to the life: bicycling around the slums and flats, ready to lend a sympathetic ear or capable hand to pregnant young mothers or lonely old men who have no one to talk to. The most memorable of the midwives is Chummy (Miranda Hart), a big, broad-shouldered, earnestly clumsy woman who means well.
What can I really say about the show? It's appealing, nicely acted, often touching and moving, sometimes dryly funny, never boring. There's usually one rather bloody, squeamish birthing scene per episode; the film doesn't skimp on the verisimilitude of the creation process. It's a pleasant hour in front of the TV; oh, yeah, and it's narrated by one of the greatest actresses alive, Vanessa Redgrave.
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And finally, let's unveil one more selection to my unfolding list of the 500 Greatest (English Language) Performances of All Time:
Denzel Washington
as Rubin "Hurricane" Carter in The Hurricane (1999)
Washington is at his absolute best - steely, magnetic, charismatic, jazzy, impassioned - as the real-life boxer Carter, who, as Bob Dylan sung, "could have been the champion of the world." Carter was, of course, railroaded by some racist New Jersey cops, charged with a murder he didn't commit. Norman Jewison's compelling, absorbing biopic might not be 100% accurate, but enough of Carter's spirit and fire gets across; it's a film that sways and infuriates you. And, really, it's Washington's show the entire way, and he delivers in scene after scene. Denzel is one of those rare creations: a great movie star who is also a great actor.
Images courtesy of:
http://img.metro.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/22/article-1327261735803-11680A8E000005DC-736362_636x407.jpg
http://thumbs.anyclip.com/tFSllztGb/tmb_8166_480.jpg
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