The cinema

Saturday night, without warning, we found ourselves alone. Alison was away for the weekend at a YRUU rally in Dallas; Maddie got a phone call around 5.30 to spend the night with a friend, and Sylvia got invited by a friend next door.

Suddenly, we were by ourselves. Just the two of us. Dinner was already started, so we ate at home, then decided to go to the movies.

The movies are a rarity for us - well, movies in the theatre, anyway. Or, to be more preciese, movies in the theatre that are not animated or that don't star the current teen queen. Our film of choice? The 2006 Oscar-winner for best foreign film, Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others). It's a German film, set in East Berlin in 1984, revolving around the corrupt government and secret surveillance of artists, in particular a writer and his artist girlfriend.

It was excellent - one of the best movies I've seen in a while. Highly recommend it.

We saw the version with subtitles, and it's a good thing - my German is OK, but I think some (some? who am I kidding? Let's try all) of the subtleties of language would have been lost on me. I can watch children's movies, read at about a sixth-grade level. But I couldn't possibly follow a movie of this complexity. However, I could catch when I would have done a translation differently - or the same. Kind of fun.

Gary left Sunday morning, so I was alone on Sunday morning for more than an hour - unthinkable. The girls came home, took Sylvia to her soccer match (they won! yay!), went to lunch, then came home, read my book til it was time to go pick up Alison. Watched Catherine of Aragon on PBS. Read more (Never Let You Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro, author of Remains of the Day - amazing book. Very strange, but wow - he's a great writer, and the story is quite compelling).

On the agenda for this week: Plant some flowers, maybe paint the half bath, do some reading. Some writing. Get an estimate for getting the rest of the downstairs painted. Look at sunroom furniture. Look for drapes. Fun stuff. Tickets for the Glass Menagerie Friday; I'm taking Alison since Gary will arrive home Friday afternoon.

What's on your agenda?