You can hear the machinery creaking as I try to bring this mostly-dormant blog back to life. It's been four months that I've been away, but I am back in Romania.
This trip back is an incredible emotional whipsaw. Right after I left Romania last time -- literally within the week, I think -- my father-in-law Gagi (whom all loyal readers know well) was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. He and the family fought as hard as they could, but this past week Gagi died. He was a good man who was dealt some harsh blows by fate. He led an upstanding life and found a lasting love. I will miss him, and I know Ioana and Tania will miss him every day.
So that is awful and hard on everyone. Everyone's days are an endless process of dealing with everything that has to be done in the aftermath and constant remembering. Earlier today we were starting to clean out his car, and you'll grab five things that are meaningless, and then find an ice cream wrapper from when we all spontaneously got ice creams while out doing errands last time I was here. It's like being sucker-punched, but all day long.
During Gagi's last weeks when things were very difficult, Ioana told me a Romanian saying that sums up their outlook on life: we don't make the road, we only walk the road.
He really loved Gabriel with all his heart
So that is very hard, every day. At the same time, though, I am over the moon about seeing Ioana and Gabriel again. We keep in touch via Skype while I'm gone (Skype, by the way, is an absolute Godsend. I would have gone crazy without it), usually 2-3 times a day, but it's nowhere near the same as being here. Especially with Gabe. Being able to see him smile when I come into the room, being able to make him laugh, to help with bath-time or just sitting with him, even just watching him sleep, there's no comparison.
Yesterday was my travel day, which is always weird because it's like I get up, work a full day at work, and then get on a plane and travel for 16 hours. British Airways remains the bomb, though, and the flight over was fine despite the fact that the people next to me seemed like they had not only never been on an airplane before, but perhaps had never really been around other people at all. For example, it's probably fine to never bathe if you're living in a cave in the wilderness somewhere. It's a little less acceptable when you are shoulder-to-shoulder with 500 other people in an aluminum tube.
Movie reviews from the ride over:
Limitless: A surprisingly good dramatic turn from that guy from The Hangover. Interesting high-concept premise (What if there was a drug that made you super-smart but had terrible side-effects?), good cast, good script. I vaguely remember this coming and going very fast in the theater, and I was happy to find it on the list of available movies on the plane. Thumbs up.
Bridesmaids: I watched about 20 minutes of this chick-flick before I had to turn it off. I had heard good things about this movie, but it is just freaking excruciating. What is it with chicks and their flicks? I know I'm not the audience this movie was written for, i.e. People Who Suck And Have Bad Taste In Movies, but I don't see how anybody, especially a woman, would enjoy this. F you, Bridesmaids. You're awful.
Battle: Los Angeles: Now THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. Army dudes vs. aliens. Heroism. Sacrifice. Characters so generic I think of them as "The One With Glasses" heroically sacrificing themselves.* I give this movie a marginal thumbs-up. It's hindered by the fact that it's so similar to the vastly, completely, in every way superior Black Hawk Down, but I guess if you take it on the level it's intended -- army dudes vs. aliens -- it works pretty well. Better than most movies of its genre.
Thor: I was not particularly excited about this movie. The trailers looked stupid. I watched it mostly because I feel like its my duty as a geek, and because I've seen all the other Avengers set-up movies so I might as well see this one, like it's some sort of movie Pokemon. Perhaps because of my low expectations, I was pleasantly surprised. This movie is not good by any measure, but it's better than I thought it would be and probably the best Avengers movie except for the first Iron Man. The guy who plays Thor is genuinely charismatic, and then there's Natalie Portman to look at as well. I liked how they somehow decided to put in a black viking, an Asian viking, and a British viking. And then it turns out the vikings' main weapon is a fire-shooting robot. What the hell? But anyway, thumbs up just for the ballsiness of it all.
* Spoiler.
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