"Before Midnight"

So much for days of nothing but focussed work - it's 5 p.m. and all day today, so far, has been spent on the house and garden. My dear handyman John came in the morning and left at nearly 4. We made a long excursion to Canadian Tire for deck furniture on sale, furnace filters, smoke alarm, solar lights, hose nozzle etc. ... oh the excitement. And then the rest of the day dealing with it all, assembling, putting up, fixing. John is gold, solid gold.

As I sit on my new love-seat on the deck, which replaced the ratty chair that I picked up from the street, I'm watching the crowd of sparrows at the feeder, especially two who are feeding a little guy perched on a nearby branch. They pick up seed and flutter over to shove it down his throat.

Went last night to see "Before Midnight" with Suzette. I've seen the two others in this Ethan Hawke/Julie Delpy/Richard Linklater trilogy and enjoyed them, but this one is something else - a cautionary tale about marriage. Though the acting, writing, production of the film are marvellous - the dinner scene alone worth the price of admission - it's a profoundly sad portrait of two nice people tearing each other apart. It hit too close, for me, reminding me of the dark days toward the end of my own marriage. The problem as a partnership fails is that all you feel is the profound misery of the marriage. You don't know that what you're headed for is the profound misery of divorce.

Anyway, this film is definitely worth seeing, but it made me extremely glad that I'm single. Be warned.

And now, back to my glass of rosé and then to work, at the end of a perfect summer day. With John.