It has been a great weekend. On Friday night mom and I watched National Velvet, which I had never seen before. It’s no wonder everybody was blown away by Elizabeth Taylor. She was 12 years old, or maybe even 11, when she made the movie, and she is just incredible. My favorite character is actually her mother, known only as Mrs. Brown. She is a real hard case, and such a fantastic role model for her daughter. I also couldn’t get over seeing Angela Lansbury as a petulant teenager! It was a great movie and it was really fun to watch it with mom. Also took Javi for a walk and checked out neighborhood Christmas decor.
On Saturday morning we had a zoom call with my dad’s side of the family. My aunt and cousin were visiting another aunt we haven’t seen for a quite few years since she and her husband moved to Arizona. It was great to see everybody to catch up and share family stories. Later my sister Lori came over and she, Mom and I went to Napa to visit my mom’s best friend, Ann. Lori and I have been taking mom over about once a month to visit Ann who turned 92 last week. She’s quite fragile and looks smaller every time we go to visit, though she still gets out for walks with her caregiver every day. Dementia is having quite an impact on her life, but she still has a lot of people who care about her and come to visit her regularly. It’s always so touching to see her and mom together reminiscing about old times. It’s still funny to think they lived in San Francisco in the 60s they were definitely not the flower children you hear so much about!
Sunday I got out for a long walk on the Rhubarb Trail with Javi, he was so happy to be out in nature and running around off leash. We ran into a couple with their two dogs, and the three dogs ran around like lost friends with Javi literally bounding down the trail like a rabbit. It’s a good workout since getting up to the Alta Trail means climbing quite a steep hill with lots of stairs.
We got back home in time for me to have lunch and take a shower then Mom and I headed to the Marin Theater Company to watch an incredible one woman show called Dragon Lady. The playwright and performer, Sara Porkalob, has written a series of three plays about her family. This is the first one and centers around her grandmother who immigrated from the Philippines to Washington state as a young, pregnant bride with a daughter. We learn about her tragic childhood, and the various people who influenced her growing up and young adult years. Sara plays a multitude of characters in such a specific detail that you really think you are hearing from different people, even though she wears exactly the same clothes and often switches characters three or four times within a minute. It was funny and devastating and absolutely fascinating. Her performance is backed up by a three-piece band and she sings karaoke – Sara has an absolutely incredible singing voice, crooning everything from Holding Out for a Hero to Blue Bayou to Age of Aquarius. I can’t wait to see the next play.
I listened to a podcast today about self hypnosis – the guest was a psychiatrist from Stanford who runs their Center on Stress and Health. It was fascinating listening to the incredible impact self hypnosis has on some people. My vision of hypnosis has been more in the vein of someone getting pulled onto the stage in a theater and ends up eating a raw onion thinking it is an apple. I have heard about people using it to stop smoking or deal with fears. I’m going to check it out and see what it’s like, if only to see if I can help me deal with stress and sleeping better at night.