Get ready to tack on 4 more weeks!

Stardate 20117.3 – Quarantine day ???

Today is technically day 34 of Washington State’s shelter in place order but judging on yesterday’s walk, a lot of people no longer care.

As you know I walk the dog every day. She’s an effusively friendly puppy (3 year old) and our 6 foot leash is perfect for social distancing. But yesterday it felt like no one seemed to care about the quarantine. I witnessed no less than 7 porch visits – including my neighbor Amy who is very nice but who decided to ring my doorbell and bring me a dang potato plant! – plus the cars are thicker on the streets now. Where I once could walk down the middle of the road without seeing a car, I now have to go back to the sidewalks. I also received an invitation to a kid’s birthday party on Friday. I declined, thanks.

I can’t judge people for this behavior. We are social animals. We need human interaction. We are also selfish and some of us like to engage in risky behavior: people got HIV (people also got pregnant, got some other disease, thought they were in love when it was only lust, etc.) by simply not practicing safe sex. Humans have a long history of falling to our base desires. I’m pretty sure the bible and every single work by Shakespeare is an extensive illumination on the topic.

Ok, truth for a minute, I can and am judging, but at the same time I understand these people as just people. As John Wayne once supposedly said “Each of us is a mixture of some good and some not so good qualities. In considering one’s fellow man it’s important to remember the good things. We should refrain from making judgments just because a fella happens to be a dirty, rotten SOB.” They aren’t evil monsters (most of them) but unfortunately, the cost is going to be lives. And ultimately, this all just means that the Governor is probably going to lock down the state for another 4 weeks. Or worse, we may see stricter measures put in place.

I need to go to the store for some essentials but I’m deeply concerned that today is going to be the day a new, major, eruption in cases starts. I will probably go Monday morning – when most folks will be at “work”.

On a positive note, despite the dang park chock full of people playing Pokemon Go, Avie and I saw a Bewick’s Wren! They are little brown birds with a white stripe above the eye and at first I thought it was a Chestnut Backed Chickadee: they are about the same size and almost exact same coloring but just as I was telling Avie to mark it down as a Chickadee the little thing sang us an incredibly loud song! Bewick’s wrens are named after John Audubon’s friend Thomas Bewick.

Avie is also doing some art projects for school and this week’s project was photography and learning how to take better pictures. She finished lesson 1 – Simplify – and today we are going to be working on the rule of thirds, angles, and storytelling, telling the story of our dog walk.

We also watched True Grit (1969) last night and having seen both films and read the book, I have to say that my favorite version is the one with Kim Darby and John Wayne.

Kim Darby plays Mattie Ross but I know her better as the mom from Better off Dead. Her character here is a bit odd: strong-willed still, showing true grit at times, but then also other times far too demure. It’s probably a product of the time the movie was made.

But when it comes to a faithful reproduction of the book, I prefer this version: it is a mostly scene for scene retelling, including all of my favorite quotes. Also, the sweeping Colorado landscapes are incredible and you get a musical cue every time the posse goes riding.

One side note on the production of this 1969 version: Elvis Pressley was first choice to play that Texas brush-popper “Labeef” and he was dropped from the film when he demanded top billing. John Wayne lobbied hard to get on the crew and I can’t imagine that he would have wanted to play opposite Pressley. Nor would the film have been nearly as serious an affair with the pop star given the main role. Imagine the scene with labeef whistling but instead, Elvis singing some awful warble. How would Rooster have even been able to tell him to shut his hole? Or Elvis singing the title song instead of Glen Campbell

In the end, Wayne won an Oscar (beating Dustin Hoffman AND John Voight for Midnight Cowboy to much chagrin), True Grit was an instant classic, and a huge hit. Elvis made a Western called “Charro!” that year and it’s considered one of his worst films because he tried to play a straight role and didn’t even bother having any songs.

Funny how we often decry a man’s ego – or point out “fragile male ego” as a fault – and yet here is another example of a time when a man’s fragile ego made something significantly better. Thanks, Elvis!

Qq