So all the girls are still out in Hawaii and will be flying from there to Japan tomorrow. I’m by myself in California for the next four days. Like I expected, it has been a relaxing few days without them, but like clockwork, after about 48 hours I’ve begun to miss the screaming, diaper-changing, and toy-kitchen baking. It didn’t really get to me until I was shopping for groceries and saw all these families walking around, and I realized my family was abut 3,000 miles away.
That said, I will be try to make the most of this solitary time to myself. Today I’ve already gone for an eight-mile run, put together an earthquake kit for Karina’s school (that was uplifting), finished most of my holiday shopping (I hope), and reacquainted myself with Netflix.
I had discontinued my Netflix account shortly after Riona was born and I realized I had about negative two hours of free time a day. But now that I am flying solo I will try to catch up on contemporary cinema and see how many movies from 2011 I can watch over the next few weeks. So far, including the films I watched during my flight to/from Hawaii, here’s what I’ve seen:
Contagion: Not bad, but this really should have been a mini-series. Too many characters keeps the story from being compelling. And Jude Law was pretty lame. Grade: B -
Drive: Gets big style points, but the story didn’t make sense in a number of places. Great soundtrack. Very good movie that could have been great. Grade: B +
Rise of the Planet of the Apes: Surprisingly not horrible. Wish it could have been darker; the film seemed to strain to get the PG-13 rating. Grade: B-
The Arbor: One of the best films of the year. Never seen anything like this before. Grade: A
