My Long Weekend

The weekend sure flew by and here it is Monday already. We don't have school today for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, so I'll be trying to tie up the loose ends from my weekend as I do most Mondays. Do you ever notice how so many things never get done because of all the mundane things that we feel must be done first? I don't think I ever really get done with the house cleaning, dishes, laundry, etc. and I have the mind-set that I need to before I do the fun stuff like sewing and going through photographs. It's funny how I find time for blogging and drinking coffee.

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One of the highlights of the weekend was going out with friends to see Gran Torino and have dinner out afterward. It was a great movie, both funny and touching, really the kind of movie where you laugh and cry. Clint Eastwood played the lead, a recently widowed retired Detroit autoworker who still lives in the old neighborhood. The neighborhood has vastly changed, becoming home to many immigrants, mostly Hmong, and the movie follows his relationship with the family next door. Their son, Thao is the other main character. He's a young man trying to find his way without a lot of opportunity except for the local gang trying to recruit and initiate him. It had a lot of themes, but mostly had to do with the racism of Clint's character and his enlightenment as the movie went on. I think most people can relate to it and probably know older people in their family very similar to him. Even without all of the racial epithets, there are a lot of people out there with the same kind of racism born from ignorance and lack of opportunity to experience diversity. Of course there are plenty of others who are taught to be racist and pursue it with a vengeance. Naming their child Adolf Hitler comes to mind. It will be an exciting day tomorrow with the inauguration. I believe that it's a great sign, but there is still a long way to go where racism is concerned in this country. In reading blogs before the election, I was appalled at some of the anti-Obama entries. Not all of them were coming from a racist perspective, but many were. Sweet little ladies who suddenly had this voracious interest in politics and would never have admitted that it had anything to do with racism. Anyway, I would highly recommend this movie, there was complete silence and many people in tears when it was over, attesting to its' powerful message.(Edited: I decided that I had better put in a cautionary note that this movie is rated "R", has a significant amount of foul language, violence, and racial epithets. I know that it is not everyone's cup of tea, however, I saw many older folks in the audience, really a cross section of (white) society.)

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The rest of the weekend was quickly consumed by painting the basement floor (pictures another day), taking CS back to college, bringing Quicken up to date, laundry, cleaning, etc. Oh yeah, and watching the Gopher hockey team sweep St. Cloud. I hope to get some sewing done today, but first I have to clean up the cat barf on the carpet and wash the dishes.

R and R

Yeah, a little rest and relaxation, but also a little about reading...and racism. One thing I wouldn't recommend is reading a great classic like To Kill a Mockingbird and then switching to a run of the mill "Christian/Amish" romance type novel. Ha. I had never read TKAM, so I read it recently. I actually got a first book club edition from my uncle when he cleaned out a bunch of books in the process of moving to an assisted living facility. Anyway, it took me a while to get into it, but I really enjoyed it and it was very thought provoking. One of my older friends had told me that she read it in college and really changed the way she felt about race and I can see that. Our church book group read it last year, so as usual, I'm a little behind them and now I'm sorry I missed the discussion. For some reason I have never liked "assigned" reading, so I had to get to it in my own time. Our city and the school district I work for have recently had some pretty serious race related issues. Although we have come a long ways on many fronts, it still amazing that race it such an issue. On a national level, I know there will be many deciding who to vote for in the fall simply by race. It's a sad commentary on our society. Education can make a difference to some extent, but sometimes all it takes is a person of a certain race taking a particular action to set everything back to square one. How do you get by that?

On a lighter note, we had a really nice lunch today with family friends. Our older sons are good friends, our middle two (boy and girl :) ) are dating and the two younger boys came along too. A good time was had by all. I got a haircut and hit another quilt shop this afternoon and we have our free downtown concert tonight. We have a concert every Sunday night for a few weeks in the summer and we always make a point of going. Usually there is a group of our church friends. Last week it was just hubby and I, so that was nice too. There is a different style of music every week, it always brings out a different segment of society, so the people watching is fun too. I hope the weather holds out, you can't beat 75 and overcast in July!