Another Week: Number 115

This was a good week to lay low and let the 97th Academy Awards and the parade of basketball games unfold on TV however they might. Kieran Culkin won; Cynthia Erivo did not. Iowa lost, Notre Dame lost, and UConn won — but Geno Auriemma remained dubious. I like his style.

March came in … not like a lion, exactly, but maybe like an ornery raccoon. There was a series of what WISN 12 News calls “alert days,” which are basically days with any meteorological characteristic whatsoever. It rained Tuesday into Wednesday, ending with a weak attempt at snowflakes. It was windy and gloomy — too chilly without my cardigan, too warm with it on.

In the news, President Donald J. Trump kept flicking his magical tariffs into and out of effect like a toddler with a light switch, plunging the stock market into uncertainty. Even his supporters are beginning to see that he has no plan whatsoever. He’s just pulling levers to assert power, like some Kansas humbug.

On Thursday, I woke from a dream that kept looping an awkward moment over and over, then realized that this was an unconscious version of my guitar practice the prior evening — repeating a couple of pesky bars dozens of times to smooth them out.

Such is my mission these days — a slew of small refinements that add grace. One triumph was ordering a shelf board to span the arms of my recliner, and some non-slip rubber pads for its underside to protect those arms. Presto! I am typing to you from my new laptop desk.

By Saturday morning, spring had returned and a cardinal was singing its head off in my backyard. I haven’t seen any robins yet, but they’ve got to be close.

I walked zero miles this week.

Crossing Delancey (1988)

On Friday, browsing the web to find movies I can watch with my mom, I read a summary of Crossing Delancey, currently available on The Criterion Channel, that sounded about perfect.

It was.

Mom loves Moonstruck, and this is another late-80s, New York-based romantic comedy with ethnic characters and a curly-haired female lead who moves between working-class and sophisticated spheres.

Amy Irving stars as a single woman promoting an elite bookstore. She is very close with her bubble — portrayed by Reizl Bozyk in an absolute gem of a performance — who wants Isabelle to find a husband.

Jeroen Krabbé is intriguing as a suave, Dutch-American author full of romantic poetry. Peter Riegert plays an upstanding guy who has taken over his father’s pickle business on the corner.

 It’s not the sort of movie I would choose for myself, but the writing is deft and my mom was on the edge of her seat, adding advice.

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

I had two dinner-and-a-movie nights with Mom this week, so on Saturday I thought we might try A Fish Called Wanda, the heist comedy by Monty Python’s John Cleese that was regarded as one of the funniest movies of all time back when I first saw it in the theater.

It has yellowed just a little. Maybe Kevin Kline‘s portrayal of weasons-expert Otto is too broad, or perhaps the Michael Palin animal cruelty side story is unsavory — I don’t know.

I did see my mom cringe every time Jamie Lee Curtis engaged in a close-up, open-mouth kiss with various guys, which was a lot of times.

But we both also laughed out loud at several points.

It’s currently streaming on Prime Video.