My Dad wasn't a natural animal lover, but he came to be very friendly with my two rescues. A lot of times it was just a small chuckle, other times the tuxedo male would curl up with him as he slept.
On their end, I know they miss the nurses coming in during the day if only for the sheer excitement of a stranger being in the house.
I finally saw Killers of the Flower Moon. It's an amazing (true!) story, and maybe one of the few modern films that actually portrays the F.B.I. in a positive light.
That said, DiCaprio sleepwalks through this performance. I actually had to remind myself that his character was intensely evil, but he comes off as a dumb lump of rocks who had no agency beyond his desires for sex and money.
That's also true though. Evil can be stupid, not just devious. Tons of Americans throughout history have both lied and murdered their way through life as racist assholes, but at the same time seen themselves as "innocent" (more Manifest Destiny than White Man's Burden, but still).
De Niro gets it, and acted appropriately. He's doing evil against these people, but actively sees himself as doing the right, justified thing. I think that's what a film about this material has to address head on.
Also, it's too long. Multiple reviews argued that since it's Scorsese it's worth the three and a half hours.
Nope. This is good Scorsese, not great Scorsese. It's too damn long and the necessary cuts present themselves throughout the film.
Good, but could have been a lot better.
Kenny Rogers & The First Edition, "Ruby Don't Take Your Love To Town"
I've got plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I'm looking for work again since the last job didn't work out. I did give two weeks notice, but it just seemed like a bad fit right off of the bat. Teaching college and adult students for over a decade in South Korea just didn't translate to teaching much younger students here in America.
Anyhow, my Dad didn't have the most diverse musical taste but he did like what he liked. And he absolutely loved Kenny Rogers. Maybe it's a bit of a cheesy song, but there's some definite pathos underneath.
Things are going back to color from black and white, slowly but surely.
My Dad passed away last week. If you've been following this blog, you might remember that I moved back to America from South Korea in February of 2021 (COVID time!) to live with him and become his caregiver.
It was not easy, because one thing about being old (he was 92 at the time) is that you really come to hate being old. Nobody wants to wear "adult undergarments." Throw in a dementia diagnosis from about two years ago and yeah, it was hard on everybody.
Long story short, we moved him back here to Maryland to be closer to family. He was also in a nursing home for about six months but eventually we decided to move him back into his own place, with me.
In the end, at the age of 94, it was a really nasty pneumonia that ended up taking him. We had nursing care and lots of help from hospice, and this allowed him to fulfill at least one of his wishes -- to die at home, visited by his family, and kept company by my two rescue cats.
I'm still a bit tired more than anything. I've got plenty to say about the good, the bad, and the ridiculous when it comes to elder care in America. I quit my job a few weeks ago (which probably would have happened even without his illness). I need to get back to a more regular exercise routine as the weather gets colder here in Frederick. If I'm being honest, I just need to leave the house more and make some new friends. There is still a lot of paperwork and, well, death stuff that needs to be handled, of course.
My dad was a scientist, a world-traveler, a lover of a good joke, and a glass of red wine. He loved gardening and fishing. Our relationship was never perfect, but over the past few years I think we both realized time and biology are generally not on anybody's side, not for long at least. I think he lived as full a life as possible and made a difference professionally. (Maybe in a later post I'll talk about how he was one of the first agricultural scientists to take organic farming seriously, in an era of high-input "miracle" fertilizers that would solve all our food problems forever.)
Mostly, I think me and my sister did our best.
