Still alive and kicking

What can I say? I'm still alive and kicking, although not very hard. A lot has happened that I haven't recorded for posterity but the urge to write a bit has struck again.

Today we made our home safer by putting a new battery in the smoke alarm in the living room (and testing it), plugging in our new CO detector (with battery backup) in the living room by the front window and testing it, and by getting our new fire extinguisher out of the box and setting it in the living room, ready to be mounted onto the wall as soon as we get the right screws for it. I bought the 9V batteries for the smoke alarm right before Christmas but hadn't gotten around to putting one in the living room smoke alarm until today. I bought the CO detector/alarm and fire extinguisher in Portland, Maine, on my birthday and resolved to get them ready for action on my return home. Unfortunately I was ill and unable to even remember to take these safety measures until this afternoon, but now they are done. When I locate my smoke alarms that I brought (new) from Indiana five years ago I'll get Toad to put one in each bedroom and the front hall. I think that there are 3 or 4 new ones to put up. At the moment I can't get to the place where I think they are due to this dizziness.

Toad and I have been watching some videos lately as we both recuperate. Tuesday we watched Silk, one of three DVDs I borrowed from the book mobile in early December. It was very slow but okay, I guess. Afterward we watched one of my all-time favorite movies, a Dutch film called Antonia's Line, which is anything but slow. I highly recommend it. Toad had not seen it before and I had not seen it for a few years, since I lived in Indiana. A good friend had borrowed from the library in Indianapolis and had recommended it to me. It is a remarkable film!

Yesterday we watched Simon & Garfunkel, the Concert in Central Park, the second DVD from the book mobile. It was terrific! I can't believe how young they were and how beautiful their voices were together. Today we are going to watch the third DVD from the book mobile, since tomorrow morning I have to return all three and the six books I borrowed. The third DVD is a French film titled C'est pas moi je le jure! (It's not me I SWEAR!) which has English subtitles. By the time the book mobile gets to our area most of the DVDs have been picked over,,so these three were the only ones left that interested me. In November I borrowed one DVD Polytechnique, which we enjoyed very much, although it seems wrong to say we enjoyed watching such a tragic story. It was, of course, a very sombre and violent film, but the events it portrays are important parts of history and deserve our attention, our remembrance. We watched the DVD just a few days prior to the 20th anniversary of the Polytechnique massacre, which made it even more poignant to us.

I received notices from the NB Library Service that tomorrow I'll be able to pick up three books and one DVD that I requested in December. The DVD is The Weatherman, starring Nicolas Cage, a movie I first watched with Emily during my visit with her in September. I really like it, even though Kyle says that he and James didn't like it. He brought me James' DVD when he came to visit for the holidays and said that James didn't want it back. By that time I had already received word from the library that the DVD was on the book mobile for me to pick up in January, so I will go ahead and get it. I'll probably watch it again for a third time. Toad and I watched it while Kyle was here and I don't think that Toad liked it nearly as much as I do. Too bad.

I'll talk about the books another time. We are getting ready to watch the DVD now.