after the storm

Wow. We just had a much anticipated thunderstorm, with lightning cracks and ferocious downpour; we spent the long, heavy, breathless day waiting for it, finally at 4.15 it hit, and five minutes later, the sun is out, the drops are trickling, there's a swimming pool at a low spot in my yard, and it's nearly over. The birds hid for five minutes and are out at the feeder again. That's what we do for excitement in the city in summer - wait for the storm.

Before that, I had a busy day doing the final post-party clear-out, laundry and cleaning out the fridge. I'm making some sort of soup with the yellow plums Kate brought which have gone past their prime; have grilled an assortment of aging vegetables on the barbeque while listening to Eleanor Wachtel interview C. Milosz, the Nobel-Prize winning Polish poet. If you douse things with enough balsalmic vinegar, they're delicious despite their age. And at some point, I will read the fall "Elle" I actually paid cash for today, and figure out which of my Goodwill clothes to put away for this season, and which might spring into focus.

Over the last 2 nights, I've watched two films rented for my guests - we all watched "Waltzing with Bashir" together, which was superb, but they watched "It's Complicated" without me, so I watched that and "Rachel getting married" alone. I have to say that, just as I often do after reading something, at the end of both films, I wanted to shout, "Where were the @#$%^ editors?" Where are the people crying, "ENOUGH already?"

"It's Complicated" has funny bits but in the end is tiresome and shallow. Imagine a film that strangles Steve Martin's comedic abilities and makes him look dull. I lost it when Meryl, the divorced but otherwise perfect modern woman with an extremely successful and glamourous catering business that takes none of her time, an incredibly upscale house and three unbelievably perfect children, strolls in her kitchen garden, yes, her enormous kitchen garden which has perfectly neat rows of every kind of vegetable with nary a weed in sight; she's wearing a stylish straw hat with a winsome basket, picking perfectly fat red tomatoes. Excuse me - has the director Nancy Meyers ever actually SEEN a garden? Could we not admit a tiny bit of imperfection, dirt, maybe a weevil or two, in this Hollywood fantasy? No, we could not.

Meryl did her best, as she always does, and so does Anne Hathaway in "Rachel," which was a film with something important to say about dysfunctional families that got drowned in sappy live music and its own good intentions. Where are the editors? It was at least 3/4 of an hour too long. I read a book through the interminable end, sticking it out to see how it ended. Predictably.

Ah well. Everyone's a critic, and that's the fun part.

But now - down to business. I need to rent my apartment and find writers for my garden workshop, and get back to my own writing work.

Started today. YAY.