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Showing posts with label YaYa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label YaYa. Show all posts

Thursday, January 25, 2024

Breakfast Denied


Yaya just sent me this picture of one of her cats cursing the inventor of glass. 

Thursday, January 11, 2024

The Iron Claw


Late Tuesday YaYa and Alex invited me to see The Iron Claw at the theater. 


The Iron Claw is the story of the Von Erich family of professional wrestlers, almost all of whom met a grim fate. I'll review it as a film first: it was dark and tragic, with little interest in humor or happiness. Start to finish, the movie envelops the viewer in a feeling of dread as, instinctually, you grasp that the so-called curse is very real, if not literal. It's very well done, and Zac Efron was great. I'd grade it a B+

Now, my personal review of the movie: 

I wanted to see this because the Von Erich's were my favorite wrestlers as a kid, and I have great memories of watching  them on World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW) on either channel 18 or 24 every Saturday night.  Of the family, Kerry was my favorite, and I was proud that he later wrestled for the WWF, although by then I'd abandoned professional wrestling. 

I remember the Von Erich's feud with the Fabulous Freebirds, and later Chris Adams and Gino Hernandez. The "blinding" of Adams has always stuck with me. I remember reading about David's death and mourning for the family; I remember reading about Chris's death and being shocked; I remember Kerry's death hitting me in the gut. 

So for me, it both odd and exhilarating to see those moments recreated on screen. I caught myself - no lie - almost cheering out loud at one excellent move during a match before restraining myself with a reminder that I wasn't nine years old and this (too) was scripted. 

So for me, personally, as a testament to part of my childhood: I grade it an A+

Tuesday, January 2, 2024

Gone too Soon

Horrible news reached us this afternoon.

When YaYa moved to her first apartment a few years ago she befriended Mike Somer, her older neighbor across the hall. I know, your mind goes immediately to "creep" but it wasn't like that.  He was genuinely kind and cared about her as a friend/surrogate daughter, and we all got together for a 4th of July BBQ at their apartment complex last year. 


 As YaYa is fond of telling me,  he told her I seemed much too nice to be a lawyer lol. 

The two stayed in touch even after she moved to her new place.  This was their text last week:


It was to be their last communication. Mike was found dead today in his apartment during a welfare check.

He was nice to my kid and made a positive impact in her life.  That's enough in my book to make him, in the words on my Grandma, a Good Joe. He'll be in my prayers. 

RIP 

Saturday, December 30, 2023

Migration



As what he described as an additional Christmas gift, YaYa's boyfriend paid for both sets of parents to join them at a showing of the new movie Migration this morning.

Migration is the story of a duck family led by an anxious, fear filled father who reluctantly allows his family to leave their home pond and migrate south for the winter. Naturally many problems pop up on their adventure, since that's just another word for trouble in the first place, including a maniacal chef out for their heads.  The movie has a great quip about chefs too; they're apex predators, but they choose to feed their kill to lazier predators.

It's a cute movie, fun but with a genuine character arc, and gorgeous color throughout.  

It's worth a watch. Go see it!


Wednesday, December 27, 2023

Rebel Moon: Part One


Very late on Boxing Day, as midnight neared, I went over to Yaya's apartment to watch a movie with her and her boyfriend. We chose Rebel  Moon.

A Zach Snyder science fiction film, it's the story of a farming community at the mercy of a diabolical empire. The farmers believe that if they recruit enough mercenaries they can thwart the empire and gain their independence.  How even an unlikely victory would stop the empire from coming back and Alderran-ing them is never explained to my satisfaction. 

There's nothing original in the movie, as it's pretty clearly The Magnificent Seven meets Star Wars, but so what? Sometimes originality is overrated. It was fun, visually impressive, and had some decent action scenes. My main beef, honestly, was that Snyder once again dragged a movie out so long you start glancing at your watch.

I grade this one a solid B.

It's worth a watch on Netflix. 

Dig a Mammoth Skeleton

For Christmas Yaya bought me a mock mammoth skeleton that came encased in a block of clay. The box included a plastic hammer and chisel with which to free the individual skeletal pieces. 



I greatly enjoyed digging them out but, just as with model airplanes as a kid and Legos when Smiley was briefly interested in them, I really am no good at assembling these kind of things. So Smiley stepped in to help with that part of it.

Shortly thereafter Lulu and I delivered the mammoth to my office in Kenosha, where it sits a top my microwave and one side of my Polish flag, with the other side guarded by a porcelain bird that Lu got me for Christmas.


It was a very thoughtful gift.

Thursday, December 7, 2023

Ralph Passes

At 11:15 this morning I saw that Smiley was calling me at my office. Knowing that it would have to be something bad for him to call (not text) during work hours, I answered by saying "What's wrong?"

He told me that Ralph was dead.

Smiley had woke up and found Ralph beneath his cat tree, clearly having passed away overnight.

I remember wondering that morning why Ralph wasn't downstairs to greet me as I prepared for work, as had become his custom.

Even in this picture, you can tell he'd lost a lot of weight in the last three months.  We were concerned enough to adjust his food to a less diet- conscious brand, but we chalked it up to the stress of joining a chaotic household. 

In retrospect, while he did become a resident of the second floor instead of the common areas on the first, he never seemed phased by the noise, or by Sawyer. 

I told Smiley to wrap Ralph in a pillowcase and lock him inside one of the dog's cages and to tell the rest of the family.  I told him I would leave early to bury him and say goodbye, but that I had to stay at least until early afternoon.

Shortly before 4:00 I came home, dug a hole along the fence line, and gathered Lulu and Junie with me. Yaya had been notified by phone and sent her sympathies and a number of great pictures of Ralph. By this point Smiley said that he had shed his tears and said goodbye and did not want to participate.



We clipped some hair from him, collected his custom engraved brown leather collar that I had ordered for him, placed him in the grave, and said some prayers.

He was not with us long, just like the grandfather that I named him after, and the similarity of him passing in his sleep unexpectedly was mentioned more than once.

He deserved a longer life. We deserved more time with him.  But I am confident that his 3 months with us were spent surrounded by happiness and love, and were certainly a better alternative than life in the shelter that I took him from in September.

Rest in peace Ralph. We love you. 

Saturday, November 18, 2023

The Holiday Ethnic Fair

Today YaYa bought me a ticket for the holiday ethnic fair at State Fair Park, where she was volunteering at the booth for the Polanki Women's Group.


Their booth featured many fine examples of Polish pottery and ceramics, nearly all of which were beyond the reach of my pocketbook at the moment.

I was surprised at both the scale and diversity of the fair. They were literally countries represented that I had never heard of, as well as representatives from nations on five continents (I didn't see an Australian booth, although I could have missed it.) I didn't photograph any of them until I was literally walking to the exit so this is but the smallest example of what there was to see.

Afterward, after I made her go along while I did a little necessary shopping, Yaya treated me to dinner at Luna's where I had huevos rancheros with chorizo.


Thanks for the invitation and the generosity YaYa!

Friday, October 13, 2023

Wednesday, October 11, 2023

The Nun II

Yesterday YaYa and I went to a 9:50pm showing of The Nun II at South Shore. She selected seats in the back row, which is deeply unsettling to my sensibilities. Back row in church, as close as possible to the front for a game, mid-range for movies. That's the accustomed way to chose your seating in a civilized society, but whatever, just more evidence Gen Z is gonna ruin it all in the end.

'Twas a Tuesday, so at least the hot dogs were $2.50 and the soda 20% off. 


The Nun II takes up four years after the events of the first movie. As a string of Catholic clergy are killed/forced into suicide across Europe, the Church suspects the demon Valak has returned and orders Sister Irene (the future Lorraine Warren) to once again investigate.  She tracks it to a boarding school in France, where her old friend Maurice has taken a job as a handyman, and confronts the evil once again. 


I saw The Nun  with Lisa but forgot most of the plot until I reviewed its Wikipedia page before the movie yesterday. I think you can easily follow along without that knowledge, as little of it relies on the past installment besides Taissa Farmiga's portrayal of Sister Irene. They even dispose of a main character from number one off screen, giving him only a curt "He died of cholera" as an obituary -an odd and flippant dismissal of an ally and friend. 

As for scares, I can remember only one moment that made me jump, not that the rest of the film was completely absent of tension and fear. But much like the plot, I simply found the scares too predictable to not see coming. 

I  want to give  praise to the movie - the 8th installment of the Conjuring franchise  - for consistently portraying Catholicism and practitioners in a positive and respectful light. That said, I wouldn't write a new catechism based on what you learn on screen, as a lot of it seems like Catholicism visa-vis good-meaning Protestant writers. An upside down cross is NOT a sign of the devil (it's St. Peter's cross), only an ordained Priest can consecrate the bread and wine, and as I whispered to YaYa when the scene was playing, the Novus Ordo (modern Mass, post Vatican II) was most certainly not what you'd see in a quaint 1956 French parish. 

All in all, I grade this a B, and a C+ if you're going into it just for the frights. 






 

Friday, September 22, 2023

May 2nd, 2007 at 7:01 pm

A blast from the past: this is my old office at Job Prior, with six year old YaYa keeping me company. 



 

Saturday, September 16, 2023

Goodbye A&J's Polish Deli

This afternoon Lisa and I met up with YaYa and Alex at A &J Deli on Lincoln, just east of 13th St. Earlier in the week we'd heard the sad news on Facebook that they were going out of business, and we wanted to stop by, not only to stock up, but to say our goodbyes to a fine place. 


From the first glance, it was obvious the news wasn't just correct, but had been met with a similar reaction in the Polish community. 



All we wound up walking out with was a jar of pickles, red cabbage, jam, beet chrzan, and a bag of milk cookies. Oh, and a bottle of Polish alcohol for YaYa. 

The owner was there and said he was retiring, but I don't know, it didn't seem like a planned move. In recent years another Polish store, Wioletta's, has gotten a lot of press attention and foot traffic. I have to imagine - and imagine is all it may be - that Wioletta's greatly impacted their bottom line. If so, it's a shame. A&J's felt real - Wioletta's  . . .man, it's like shopping at a Target. 

RIP A&J's. We'll miss you. 
.

Sunday, September 3, 2023

40 Years Later

Today is the 40th anniversary of my Little Grandpa's death, and I chose to honor his memory all day. I know that my perception of him is certainly not 100% accurate - after all, what adult presents their whole authentic self to a nine year old? - but the man he showed me is a man that shapes my life right up to the here and now. 

It being a Sunday, I went to Mass (with my mother-in-law today), and said a prayer for him. Then I met YaYa and her boyfriend Alex at the cemetery to pay our respects. YaYa had purchased and brought along a bouquet of flowers at my request. 






I said some prayers over the grave, introduced Alex to his potential future Great-Grandfather in law, and broke up a little bit. 40 years and it still stings. Man. Whodathunkit? 





Tacky it may be, but there's actually a Poke stop/gym at the cemetery, and they spent a minute or two showing me how to use my app. 


From there, I went home for a bit. Then I grabbed Smiley and headed over to a rummage sale run by Alex's parents, more to pay my respects and support them then anything, although I picked up a neat JFK PT boat lapel pin that YaYa had tipped me off too (kudos to me for raising a kid who knows enough history to have picked it out of the group), and a copy of a NY Times from 9/11. 

Later, after Lisa went to work, I dropped Junie off at her friend Lucy's house for a picnic with most of the Core Four.  If I haven't mentioned it, it was a blisteringly hot day (in the 90's) from start to finish, and just moving around was enough to make me thankful for air conditioning. So the idea of a *picnic*  . .  yeah, no thanks. 

Since I was already on the north side I went and refilled the little library at Junie's school 


Then, partly by design, partly by proximity, I moseyed down to the Milwaukee animal shelter where I was introduced to two kitties, a one eyed and very afraid Cleveland, and this fine specimen of canine genetics, all 15 pounds of him lol, ridiculously named Snoopy . . . 




I wanted him. Not gonna lie. But I sent text after text to the family and got no response, even after sitting at the shelter for 45 minutes. So I left. 

And when I got home Lisa texted that I should get him. Naturally. 

Alas, when I called the shelter was closing soon and would not adopt him out, and is closed for Labor Day tomorrow. 

Swell. 

Anyway, about an hour later Junie called for a pickup and I trotted back out. She had a great time, and I greatly enjoyed laughing at her carrying all her picnic stuff back to our car LOL 





So, a pretty varied day, but overall a good one, and (I think) an honorable way to honor Little Grandpa. 

:)