I finally saw my own family doctor on Thursday. More x-rays, some blood work and an upcoming ultrasound for my nearly broken foot. There is still some pain, and Dr. P thinks it might be related to a tendon injury rather than a broken bone. Whatever it is it's messing up my walking program after five years of daily exercise, and remains a major obstacle to our late September travel plans. At the moment I could not deal with airports, train stations, etc, and of course I am unable to restart my training program. I might try to ride my bike this week, though the weather has been so hot and humid I much prefer indoor exercise.
Earlier in the week Deb saw her kidney doctor for a followup, only to discover that she has another stone, this time in the opposite kidney. He wants a CT scan, which will take a long time. Deb wasn't too pleased to hear that news. Her new drug for morning stiffness, hip, shoulder and neck pain seems to be working wonders. She is just beginning her second week of a four week course of the drug. So far the results have been great!
On Friday we spent much of the day in Windsor. It was sunny and 89 F and very humid. Deb had her annual mammogram and I had my foot x-rayed again. Those appointments were at 10:30 am. We had appointments downtown for our new passports, so we had a lot of time to kill. We had tea and coffee at Chance, actually sitting outside in the shade. We went for lunch, then to City Market for a walk (very slow walk for me), then down to the river for a while. Our passports are now being processed and we should receive them in about 10 business days. By then we should know if we are able to book flights, or postpone them until my foot heals.
In film news there are three and a half to report. World of Glory is the half, a short from 1991 by Swedish director Roy Andersson. This film probably has the most shocking opening to any film we have seen. From the Mubi website:
A prelude to the director’s acclaimed studies of human alienation, this
magnificent short from Swedish master Roy Andersson is shattering yet
darkly ironic. Unfurling in drab domestic and public spaces, World of Glory lays bare the grotesque numbness of a man’s life, and modern society at large.
I'm not certain I would totally agree with that blurb, but the film is unique and startling, to say the least. Heads will shake after watching this. Mine did.
Leaving Mubi soon.
Deb paired that with a short feature film called Incredible But True. It is a French film from 2022 directed by Quentin Dupieux, also showing on Mubi (and leaving soon). Mubi's blurb again:
Descending into a bizarro world of electric genitals and elastic time,
French jokester Quentin Dupieux devises newfangled, side-splitting
methods for well-off egotists to keep up appearances. Suspend disbelief:
this wild-eyed pursuit of eternal youth and virility is absurdly
funny—and incisive too.
A couple buy an older home and discover that it has some magical and fantastical qualities. As it involves becoming younger, it is the middle-aged wife who soon becomes addicted to its power. Meanwhile, the man's boss happens to live a few doors down and they get together for a dinner. The boss tells them about his new electronic penis (from Japan) and all the marvellous things it can do. This has to be one of the funniest quartet dinner party scenes I have ever seen. An absurdist film with elements of Dada (black ants), it is highly amusing. Recommended. I will look out for the director in the future.
We also watched the first two movies of the most recent Planet of the Apes series. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is from 2011, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is from 2014. A third and fourth film are available to us; we'll see. For now we have had enough of apes versus humans. The first film is the best of the two, showing how medical research into a cure for Alzheimer's Disease goes awry, not only giving incredible intelligence to the chimps used for research, but causing a devastating virus that soon wipes out most of the humans on Earth. The second film begins ten years later. The action is set in San Francisco, a nice change, and it allows the apes to escape the city and dwell in a large forest. The effects are nothing short of spectacular and totally amazing, and the character of Caesar, the lead chimp, is realistic and totally believable. He is given not only intelligence, but sensitivity and a moral sense (apes must not kill apes). Of course everything is ruined in the first film by bad humans, and in the second by bad humans and a bad ape. Bad things tend to ruin everything for everyone, as if we need to be reminded. The films are definitely good, but there is lot of violence, much of it using machine guns. And the old trope of having two males fight it out as the climax of the second film (even though they are apes) keeps the tradition alive. The first film is certainly well worth seeing; the second one not so much. And I have a feeling that the third one will be nothing but more gunfire and sadistic humans killing lots of apes.
Yet another sale on Steam saw me acquire more railroad lines. I now run trains in England, Germany, Switzerland and the USA. Since each locomotive is quite different, especially between countries, I am always in a panicked learning mode. I was hauling a mile-long freight train yesterday, realizing near the end that the brakes were not working! So I had my first runaway train. It did not end well. Since then I learned what I did wrong. Sometimes the trains are set up and ready to drive; others times not so. This was one of those not so times. I had three locomotives at the front of the train and two in the rear. They were not speaking to each other, and needed to be properly linked. Problem two was with the brake setting, which hadn't been done properly. I needed to go into the on-board computer (I didn't even know you could do that) on the lead locomotive and change to settings. I reran the service and aced it. Live and learn (though I would have died in that first one).
Mapman Mike
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