Back to "normal"

Our family get together is over, and we're just kind of taking it easy. We were so busy last week: concerts in the park almost every night, including an excellent Irish festival, swimming, amusement park, museum, and playing with the kids. Wore me out. Coming back to work was hard, as it always is after so much freedom and fun.

We have a long shoot tomorrow, followed by some boating and jet skiing on saturday at my bosses house. Last year I messed up one of his jet skis; let's see how it goes this year.

I'm spending the evenings working on making my documentary series a reality. I now have a website (www.narrowridge.com), although there's not much to it right now. I hope to begin shooting this two-hour series next summer. It'll take all winter to write them. Then there's raising some money. But one thing at a time.

Pollack, meet Allen

WOODY ALLEN: That's quite a lovely Jackson Pollock, isn't it?

GIRL IN MUSEUM: Yes it is.

WOODY ALLEN: What does it say to you?

GIRL IN MUSEUM: It restates the negativeness of the universe, the hideous lonely emptiness of existence, nothingness, the predicament of man forced to live in a barren, godless eternity, like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void, with nothing but waste, horror, and degradation, forming a useless bleak straightjacket in a black absurd cosmos.

WOODY ALLEN: What are you doing Saturday night?

GIRL IN MUSEUM: Committing suicide.

WOODY ALLEN: What about Friday night?

Our neighborhood

After all the unpacking we've been doing, we took most of last night off and walked down to the water, where a local rock band was doing some decent covers of eighties favorites. Tons of people out, enjoying the night at the Lake Harriet Bandshell, swimming, feeding the ducks or taking advantage of the breeze in their sailboats. We really like our neighborhood; getting kicked out of the last place was definitely a good thing.

The next ex-family car

Our transmission blew on our "new" Passat. Four months. Our third car in 12 months. I loved that car. Sure, it had some quirks. Annie hated it. Maybe it sensed that. But I thought I looked pretty cool driving it, aside from the sweat streaming down my non-air conditioned face. And so we look for the next ex-Tom, Annie and Silvi family car. In the words of Jurassic Park's Ian Malcolm, "I'm always on the lookout for the next ex-Mrs. Malcolm."

Where is...

There's a scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark that captures how it feels trying to find a shaving razor on Monday morning when you've just moved and you're late for work.