I woke up a full 25 minutes later than I intended this morning, so I missed the gym. I had felt I needed to, to get the week kick-started. It was such a long week last week and I was so bushed that on Friday night, the last thing I wanted to do was to be in church for a long night of movie and fraternizing. Oh I know I shouldn’t use that word but on that night I really felt that way. Any form of socializing, unless it is with a very small group over a warm meal and a few bottles of very good red, was to be avoided. Anyway there I was, in the church hall on a cold and tired Friday night, watching this movie called One Night with the King. It was on the story of Esther of the Old Testament. The sound was a bad, as obviously it felt like one of those cheap movie sessions Malaysian schools used to organize – the hall wasn’t meant to the a theater and it showed. We ploughed through the 120 odd minutes of celluloid, after which we worked our way through cakes and other delights totally unsuited for such a late hour. Despite all that, it felt good to be in the company of church friends so as tired as I was it was not a totally bad way to end the week.
Saturday was therefore the start of my recuperation from the week, including the events of the previous night. I was particularly looking forward to it as we were supposed to look at a couple of houses which we had seen on the internet. As it turned out, one was a dud and the other has been sold, but that was only one part of a damp squib of a weekend. After the usual house cleaning, we dropped kiddo off at her morning class (final one, with at least a few months’ break). After replenishing my wine stock, we went off all the way to Wantirna South, for the first inspection. The internet copy writer was extremely skillful, for what was a small unit stuck behind another one occupied by very messy owner/occupier was given a description like it was a Taj Mahal perched on the Cote d’Azur going for a song. We left the house, dropped off the dry cleaning, picked up some bread and went to pick kiddo. After lunch with her, we went to do the weekly shopping, after which we headed home. I fixed up the wiring for the home phone (a new set with an answering machine, which Theresa picked up from the recent Myer stock-take sale). The made-in-China electrical extension cord was a challenge and by the time I was done it was time to go look for the second house, which turned out to have been sold the previous day already. I was peeved at the agent for making us go to the property, when she knew it has been sold. If it was to lure us to see other property it failed, because I don’t think I would want to deal with her again. That property was so close to kiddo’s present school so we were really keen on it but then again I know God has His ways of dealing with us.
We went home and it was nearly 5pm but we weren’t hungry so we watched a DVD – Stranger Than Fiction starring Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson. Dustin Hoffman played a role as well, in what was a very novel plot. Will Ferrell played an IRS agent, Harold Crick who lived a regimented life. His life was actually written as a fiction by Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson). Their paths somehow crossed when Crick started hearing Eiffel’s narratives of his life. He thought he was going cuckoo, saw a shrink, who referred him to a Professor Jules Hilbert (Hoffman) who worked with Crick to unravel what was going on. It turned out Eiffel was writing a tragedy and she usually kills of her dramatis personae. Crick was waiting to be killed of but fortunately for him Eiffel had a writer’s block when it came to the ending. She struggled as Crick’s life took a turn for the better. One of his assignments took him to an Anna something (Mary Gyllenghall) and they hit it off after a rocky start. Eiffel finally had her writer’s block cleared up and found a way to kill her guy. By then Crick had figured out it was Eiffel who was writing his life and managed to contact her. He got her outline of a script, gave it to Hilbert, who thought it was a poetic and most beautiful ending so Crick should opt to go this way, rather than a mundane death albeit much later. He thought the book (titled Death and Taxes) could end no other way. The brave Crick went ahead and lived the final moments of his life exactly how Eiffel wanted. Except of course, Eiffel had struggled with the idea that her character was real and she was killing a real person so unbeknownst to Crick, changed the ending which saved Crick. Hilbert of course thought the ending spoiled it, thought the book would have been much better had Crick died as per the original version. It was a strange movie, but enjoyable.
We finished the movie just before 7, I cooked some vermicelli for dinner, after which we did something we hadn’t done for a long time. We caved in to kiddo’s pestering and played monopoly. She won, we lost, she was happy and we went to bed. Yesterday afternoon after church kiddo had lunch with the youth group followed by a jam session so Theresa and I went for lunch on our own. We went to Shangrila Inn at Brentford square – she for her char koay teow and I had my laksa. We went window shopping at Forest Hill after that before we went home and I did some ironing and cooked some more, for this week’s dinners. I also boiled some red beans for supper. SBS had a EPL classic match on where United thrashed the tractor boys 9-0 with Andy Cole scoring 5. It was great to see Giggsy turning the Ipswich defense upside down for half if not all of the goals. I wondered again if United would be better next season than they were. With Hargreaves, and the two latin dancers they should but one never knows. Maybe Anfield would be more threatening this time around. Apparently they are close to signing Spain’s Torres for over 26 million GBP…
And so it was a very uneventful weekend, but great because it had loads of family time. It was also great because yesterday morning, I found myself really getting stuck into acknowledging God and worshiping him. That echoed again this morning just by listening to some songs on an SD card which I thought had gone walkabout. I found it again yesterday and the songs on it (Amy Grant mainly) were inspiring stuff. It drained the battery on the phone but just listening to music about worship for a change (instead of reading) was great. Mundane stuff huh? Living, I guess.
Ante 