Browse Category: Movies

I MISSED SILENT BOB… BUT GOT MY ORGANIC BANANAS

(Originally posted on the website Heron Flight)

20050402girls3

Today my daughters arrived from Georgia for a visit on their spring break. As it has been three months since they were last here, we were very excited to see them again. We had Easter candy prepared for them. We got the movie “The Little Prince” from Netflix, which the girls are now watching as I write this.

We decided to stop at Whole Foods Market on our way to Newark Airport this morning. We haven’t found any decent stores that carry any significant amount of organic foods in our area of New Jersey. We heard about the Whole Foods Market in Millburn. We stocked up on organic juices, vegetables, soup base, snacks. We even got a bag of arrowroot cookies produced by Paul Newman, who, the package informs us, has given over $150 million dollars to various charities. Not too shabby! I hope his cookies are tasty.

Upon leaving the Market, I promptly got us lost. Being a man, I didn’t stop for directions. No surprise there, right? I didn’t even admit that I was lost for the first several minutes of being so. But I must have had that crap-I’m-lost look in my eye and gave myself away. Thankfully, fortune was on my side and I found my way towards Newark soon enough. The fact that the torrential rain had slowed up helped too.

20050402girls2

The rain did not help when it came to having the girls fly in today. Their flight was two and a half hours late. They left their home for the airport in Atlanta at 9 AM. They finally got off the plane in Newark at 4 PM.

In the meantime, we shopped at IKEA. WE LOVE IKEA! So many cool things there, including the nifty desk lamp that is shining up my keyboard at the moment. We got a very creative looking shower curtain with various images that appear to be hand-drawn. When the girls saw it, they asked if it was something to color on.

We had quite a wait at the airport. The plane was delayed even longer than we first thought it would be. We shuffled about through the little shops and thoroughly enjoyed a hot caramel apple cider from Starbucks. WE LOVE STARBUCKS TOO! I went through security several minutes before the plane was supposed to arrive. I ended up sitting in the terminal for over an hour! Lucky for me, I had a book in my pocket, “Life, the Universe and Everything” – the third book in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe. That was all well in good. However, the other half of “we,” the pretty half, saw Kevin Smith coming out of the very terminal in which I was sitting with my nose in a book! Don’t tell me you don’t know who Kevin Smith is! If you don’t know, you must have never seen a good movie in your life, man! His movies are the best. WE LOVE KEVIN SMITH! Click here to see what I’m talking about.

After the airport, we made a quick stop to see a friend who was having an open studio showing of his paintings. He lives in Summit, which turned out to be the area in which we were lost earlier! Driving down the road, we looked at each other and said, “Gee… this looks familiar!” As everyone was starving, we didn’t stay long at the studio.

Half way home from the airport, we ate dinner at a nice Chinese restaurant… after another quick stop at Starbucks in search of madeleines. Don’t tell me you don’t know what they are either! WE LOVE MADELEINES! After dinner, we had dessert at Dairy Queen, where we saw a little red-headed boy slip and nearly cream his face on the floor. If only he had known that he came so close to flying. All he had to do was miss the floor when he fell! Oh well, maybe next time he’ll get it.

That’s it. That was our day, movies stars, painters, clumsy kids and all.

(Oh no! The deadly bunny ear chokehold!)

20050402girls4

IT’S NOT LIKE THE MOVIES

20040829lineOfTrees

(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

I WENT to visit my father today. The cancer is taking its toll. Six months is what the doctor has given him, as if doctors are the givers of life. That was almost a month ago. Don’t do the math.

I brought a funny movie with us so that we could all watch it together. The movie was one that I saw at my friend Pete’s house recently, “Along Came Polly” with Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston. I thought that maybe it would lighten the mood and create a happy memory. Deep inside I was hoping that enough laughter would shield me from the reality of my father’s disease. With enough merriment maybe time would stand still. Maybe the shared hilarity would be enough to drive time backwards and my father would be all better again. They always say that laughter is the best medicine, right? Part way through the film my dad was holding his belly. That would have been a normal motion during a funny flick. However, my stepmother’s question, “Do you need some percocet, Pappy?” became the non-funniest line during the movie. Somehow, Ben Stiller’s farting noises in Aniston’s bathroom were no longer funny either.

My father appeared evidently weaker than the last time I saw him a few weeks ago. He was noticeably thinner. He has reached that point of looking unhealthily thin. I know that next will come feebly thin, and then… He has become too weak to take the dog, Murphy the black labrador, out to the back yard. True, a black lab is a large, strong dog. But my dad was always a big strong guy. No dog ever intimidated him. Murphy is so used to my dad taking her out that they now have to trick her by having my dad walk part way down the steps and then my stepsister takes her the rest of the way. Then Dad walks back up the steps and is exhausted.

At dinner, my father’s suffering was further displayed. The poor guy can hardly eat. It’s mainly a side effect of the chemo. He went through heavy chemo treatments since he was diagnosed in February. When that proved to be ineffective, the doctor recommended a milder chemo treatment in order to improve his quality of life. To watch a man, who once loved to eat, sit at the table and poke at the tiny portion of macaroni on his plate was depressing. He left the table at one point. As my stepmother watched him go down the hallway she said, half to herself, “It just gets a little worse each day.”

Two years ago, my dad’s brother died from cancer. His remains are interred at Arlington Military Cemetery in Washington, D.C. I was not able to attend my uncle’s funeral service at Arlington. My dad went though. Last year he went again to visit his brother’s grave. This year he has cancelled his trip to Arlington. The bumpiness of the car ride makes the pain from his tumor intolerable now. For the same reason, he doesn’t drive into town to have coffee with his buddies as much these days.

There is no reversing this for my dad. I knew that as we said good-bye this evening. With much effort, he walked us to the car on our way out. He patted my shoulder a few times and told me he loved me. I saw the tears in his eyes as he turned away. He stood on the lawn and watched us. I couldn’t drive off right away, just started the car and waved. He waved. I thought that maybe if we just stay right there and wave back and forth to each other, it would never happen. We would never lose sight of each other. He would never leave.

But I know that one day there will be a last wave, one last good-bye, one last, “I love you,” and a pat on the shoulder. No matter when exactly it happens, it will always, always, always be too soon. Even if there was some bizarre quirk in the space-time continuum and we somehow found ourselves sitting on the couch doubled over in laughter at Ben Stiller’s antics for a few more millennia, sooner or later the movie will end. Movies always do. Sadly, so do lives.

I feel that I should wrap up this entry with something positive, something upbeat or happy. You see, that right there is one of my faults. Maybe I’ve watched too many movies, been too conditioned by Hollywood. Life is not like the movies. There is real pain in life, real sadness. People do die. True, there are plenty of good and pleasant things in life: love, peace, joy. There is faith to connect us with things that transcend this life. But tonight, what I sense is the frustration of humanity’s mortality. That sense is just as valuable as faith, in its own way.

Bueller’s Girl

(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

I saw this girl working on the boardwalk at Seaside Heights last night. My first thought was, “Man! What a pretty girl!” My second thought was, “Hey! She looks like Ferris Bueller‘s girlfriend!” Doesn’t she look like Sloane Peterson (Mia Sara in real life)?

I’m moving to Seaside!

20040720buellersGirl

ZERO, ZIP, ZILCH

20040531pizza

(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

Zero, zip, zilch…

That’s how much I’m writing tonight. I’m tired. I have pneumonia. I don’t feel like writing. I think I’ll watch a movie instead. Maybe I’ll watch “Pulp Fiction” since I’m in a Tarantino mood after watching “Kill Bill 1” with my friend Suzy today.

Actually, what I’m doing is cheating. (Not something a zaddik should do, I know. Not even one wearing a zucchetto. Though one would question the appropriateness of a zaddik wearing a zucchetto.) In my zeal to get started with the AlphaBytes project for June, I am writing an article and posting it today! Ha! It’s still only May! The goal of the project is to write a journal entry for each of the letters of the alphabet. Being as zany as I am, I thought I’d start with the last letter instead of the first. So, you can thank the letter Z, affectionately known as “zed” to some of you outside of America, for this entry.

Not wanting to stay up too later, let me just write a few words since I’m here. I promise not to use the words zucchini, zebra or zygote. I will, however, listen to Frank Zappa while writing this. As a cultural note, I must say that zuppa inglese sounds absolutely delicious, especially the rum part.

Change of plans… Let’s listen to Warren Zevon instead.

Like I said above, I have pneumonia. WHAT? How did that happen?? Exzactly my thoughts! (Slipped that one in there. Heh.) You might remember that I mentioned having bronchitis back in December. The doctor that treated me then, the one who looked like Groucho Marx (not Zeppo), said that I was also experiencing bronchospasms. I had a lot of wheezing.

The breathing difficulties never went away. I was always out of breath, sometimes receiving both the concern and ridicule of those around me as I huffed and puffed up the stairs. So I went to the doctors again in March. Groucho’s partner thought that I might be developing asthma. So he gave me some asthma medicine and told me to get a chest x-ray, even though he didn’t expect anything to show up on the x-ray. Since he didn’t seem too concerned, and I’m a big procrastinator, I didn’t go for the x-ray until mid-April.

When I called for more asthma medicine a week ago, the nurse informed me that my x-ray showed that I had pneumonia in my left lung. Say what??? “Didn’t anyone call you, Mr. Snyder? The doctor wanted you on antibiotics a month ago!” No, no one called me! I heard zero, zip, zilch!

Well, I picked up the antibiotics, Zithromax, as a matter of fact. Today was the tenth day after starting the medication. Guess what. I’m still a wheezing, hacking, huffing, puffing one-lunged tired sucker! I called the doctor on Friday to see what I should do next. He was on vacation and his receptionist told me not to worry about it and just call next week sometime. I don’t think so. This sucker’s going to a different doctor.

You know, a half-year of not being able to breathe properly is enough. The fatigue is driving me crazy. I am not the kind of person who can simply shut down and rest. I don’t want to miss anything. There are too many things to do in the world. I always say that I wish I could just go without sleep completely. Who needs it? I’ll sleep when I’m dead. Well, under the circumstances, if I don’t rest now, I might be dead sooner than I want to be.

But what did I do this weekend? On Saturday, I drove the kids around to work and such, something I do nearly every day now. Then I took a drive to Merril Creek Reservoir, intending to walk around for a few hours and take a few photos. That turned out to be a zoological wonder! The place was swarming with cicadas. It was unbelievable! But that’s a story for the letter C. After a few hours of walking among the billions of bugs, I went home and fell asleep for a few hours. That is completely out of character for me!

On Sunday, I took Suzy to Merril Creek to witness the cicadas. We ended up hiking the five-mile trail around the perimeter of the reservoir. Believe it or not, I made it all the way on just half a functioning lung. Later, I fell asleep again. Exhausted.

Today, Memorial Day, I drove kids to jobs, picked one up an hour later after Burger King lost electrical power. I did manage to take it easy for most of the day though. Our little town had a Memorial Day parade. I haven’t decided to write about that under the letter M for Memorial Day, P for parade, or F for the whole 15 minutes that the parade lasted. Maybe I should use B for boring. Other than that, I did some laundry and watched “Kill Bill.”

Speaking of movies… I gotta go. Warren is almost done singing.

My apologies to ZZ Top for not mentioning them in this article.

(Just out of curiosity… Do you consider yourself to be zoophagous?)

I guess “Zero, Zip, Zilch” wasn’t exactly fitting for this article. I should have called it zomething else.

alphabyteslogo3 An AlphaBytes Project – The Letter Z