When I started to type this post, it was the 16th of March. I truly do not know where the time is going, but it seems to be zipping by quickly.
We have seen a couple of movies over the past month. The first is an animated movie with a quite touching story, Zootopia. In this movie, the animals have human traits and feelings, both good and bad. The main characters are a bunny named Judy Hopps and a fox named Nick Wilde. While these names represent a bit of over-the-top use of puns, remember that children, who may not appreciate subtleties, are included in the target audience for this film.
The story begins as the animals are preparing for winter and the holidays. These animals have established a society that for the most part has them living quite peacefully. Judy’s dream is to become a police officer, but as a small bunny she has a hard time being taken seriously. Her first assignment after graduating from the academy is as a traffic officer giving out tickets to cars parking after the meters have run out. She is conscientious about this and gives an enormous number of tickets hoping she will be promoted to real police work, but the powers that be.
Along the way, she meets Nick, a hustler who gradually becomes her friend, and helps her work on a case of 14 “missing mammal” cases despite her boss’ instruction to stick to ticket writing. The two of them decide to pursue the 14 crooks on their own. At one point, they go to the Department of Motor Vehicles where they are “assisted” by a group of sloths (the double entendres go along with the other wordplay).
The ending is, of course, happy. But Judy remains humble while holding on to the joyful energy that is uniquely hers.
The second film we saw was a documentary on the current situation in Israel, Colliding Dreams. This movie perhaps tries to cover far too much in far too little time. The issues are surely somewhat more complex than the way they are exhibited here. I am no expert on this so it is sometimes difficult to sort out honest from biased reporting. But what cannot be denied is that there are problems that can neither be easily fixed nor remain indefinitely the way they are.
Meanwhile, I have continued combing through the hundreds of pictures and tried to organize them. We just found three more scrapbooks that Barry had taken out during Shiva and forgot he had stashed them in a closet in one of our extra bedrooms. I am glad we bought a binder-type scrapbook, which makes it easy to insert extra pages without moving too many individual pictures. And I have decided to work on pictures only until the early 70s, before any grandchildren were born. I still have a long way to go!
One of the days last week I had medical appointments in both the morning and the afternoon, leaving a gap that straddled lunchtime. So we brought a couple of sandwiches and headed over to the Conservatory Garden in Central Park. Things are just starting to grow, so there is not a lot to see, but we started reading the plaques on the benches, and this one amused us:
I guess you can read that two ways. Did she rescue the garden from her black-thumb family, or did her family give her this honor?
Meanwhile, we are having friends for lunch tomorrow who have been in Florida for a few months, along with friends who live around the corner. The six of us always enjoy each other’s company. This is the first Sabbath after the time change, so while Friday is less stressful, Saturday night quickly becomes a bit late for us.
Love,
Rebecca
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