Wednesday, March 23

Up around 7:30 this morning, and did a treadmill session and resistance exercises after breakfast. Didn't do a lot before 11:30, except pack a lunch to take to the first offering of this year's film festival. The event was held at the museum. Mother and Hubbie opted not to go...Hubbie because he was working in the yard, and Mother because she has become unnecessarily uncomfortable going to the museum. The last time she went, she imagined a couple of women had pointed toward her and talked about her, and that the woman sitting beside her turned her back on her. Mother thinks she was somehow offended by her (like she had an odor). I think this is all in Mother's imagination, but I can't dissuade her from it, so I guess she will no longer go to the museum.

A good crowd attended the showing, which included four videos. The first was about a woman who sold furniture, army surplus, and other cast-offs at her thrift shop. Later her grandson turned the space into a space where artists could create from the store's inventory. He included a small cafe' in the store. The second video allowed viewers to visit two semi-retired high school teachers, who traveled the world together, and who enjoy each other's company doing jigsaw puzzles. During one session of puzzle construction, the woman commented that she didn't think she could work on the puzzle anymore, because her fingers were frozen. The man advised her to go turn up the heat to "60 degrees...no go ahead and set it at 62." Holy cow, how cold does he keep his house? I'd have to wear thermal underwear and gloves to be there.

The third feature was very emotional...a young African-American couple and their baby stay in their home after a devastating hurricane rips through their Florida town. The woman had wanted to evacuate, but the husband refused to leave his home to looters. Eventually, looters do enter the home, and the husband, shotgun in hand, confronts them. One of the looters fires a pistol, hitting the man's wife in the stomach. He tries to rush her to a hospital, but he finds he can't exit his garage, because heavy debris blocks the way. The wife bleeds to death. The husband, flying into a rage, tosses all the household stuff outdoor, then sits on the floor, crying and rocking his baby. This video, done by a student filmmaker, was only 19 minutes long, but felt like a full-length feature. It was fiction, but it packed a powerful lesson about remembering what's really important in our lives.

The final video was a comedy about a romantic showdown between a roller derby girl and her film professor boyfriend, who finds her with another man. It doesn't sound like funny material, but with the girl in roller blades and helmet, and the "other man" in nothing but a bathrobe, it is funny.

Funny: a woman seated in the row behind me realized after the second video that she was at the museum on the wrong day for the feature she wanted see. She leaned over to the lady next to her and said, "I've been early to events before, but never 24-hours early!" Whereupon, she got up and left.

While I was gone, Mother simmered a pot of vegetable soup, and worked on her jigsaw puzzle. When I got back home, Hubbie and I gathered three large totes of books and took them to the college library as my contribution to their upcoming book sale. I decided to become a friend of the library, and handed over my dues, whereupon I was given an invitation to a champagne reception the evening before the book sale. I also agreed to work that afternoon helping sort books for the sale. Maybe I can get my own personal preview and buy some ahead of the reception.

For supper, we had hamburgers/turkey burgers, with leftover potatoes au gratin. Mother went home afterward, and around 6:30, Hubbie and I went to the college to attend the film festival's French Indie Showcase (all subtitled in English). This showing included eight videos, three of which were animated. One intriguing video features a woman taking refuge from a rainstorm under a archway, where she meets a man who lends her his coat, because she is drenched. Nothing is said between them for most of the film...but there is intense sexual tension with looks and actions. Finally, she walks up to him and starts to put her hand on his back. He turns and starts to put his hands on her face. They don't touch, though. He tells her he has always loved a woman in the rain, then walks off to where his small son is waiting to be picked up from school. The woman steps from under the archway, and the boy call to her...she is his mother. Turns out the couple is divorced or separated or something, and the man is there to take his son for the weekend. All of that was packed into nine minutes.

A fifteen-minute video was called "A Prostitute and a Chicken." A woman is let out of a car on a lonely road. She begins walking and complaining that men call her a prostitute. A man dressed in a yellow chicken costume rides by on a motorcycle. She calls out to him, and he tells her he doesn't have any money. She protests that all men thinks she's a prostitute. He stops and eventually gives her a ride to an apartment building. For a little while, they contemplate a possible relationship, but abandon the idea. He rides off, and she walks away from the apartment building down a street lined with prostitutes who greet her.