This week, I have had a regular moment (or several) of grief for my brother’s death each day, usually in the morning while I am working and listening to music. So
much of what I listen to (mostly eclectic tunes on
Pandora or
Amazon Music) is due either directly or indirectly to my brother’s influence, or it
reminds me of certain times together with him. But the feelings are not quite
as raw as they were the previous week. Well, at least, most of the time they
are not. I have no deadline or expectation for grieving. Grief comes as it
will, and I embrace it right now. It feels...necessary.
Yesterday morning, I awoke to find a new geocache had been published in town —
at UNCG, in one of the parking garages, which do tend to be challenging, since they
frequently offer a choice of levels for hunting. Initially, I did not read the cache description as thoroughly as I should have (shameful for a writer of
such ill repute!), and thus I ended up spending considerably more time and
energy on the hunt than was necessary. In the end, I did find my
quarry; in fact, I snagged the almost-coveted first-to-find slot. As I was
logging my find, a group of geocachers I had never previously met (they were
from the Raleigh area, it turned out) showed up on the scene. Sadly for them,
they had missed out on the FTF, but they appeared to have an
enjoyable time on the hunt. They clearly found it in far less time
than it had taken me.
Later, Ms. B. came round to put in a shift working on our kitchen upgrade
project. On a trip to
Home Depot, we stopped for another newly published cache, which I managed to find in
short order. But as with the other cache I found this day — both created by the madman known as
cachecredit (a.k.a. Ken) — accessing the log required some
additional time and effort (although this one proved less complicated than
its brethren at UNCG).
Unpopular opinion time:
I have very little appreciation for the "classic" 1961 film, The Innocents, based on Henry James’s “Turn of the Screw.” I had never much cared for it
on previous viewings from many, many years ago, but having found the
recent The Haunting of Bly Manor a brilliant, masterful work, Ms. B. and I decided to revisit
The Innocents and give it another look. Despite exquisite cinematography and
extraordinary performances by the two kids, the film itself is one of the most
unengaging, overwrought, self-conscious works ever. There are perhaps two
scenes that qualify as “creepy.” The characters, to the last, remain too
distant to relate to, their identities largely defined by how much noise and
blather they can emit — so unlike the sensitive portrayals of emotionally
traumatized individuals in Bly Manor. It’s exceedingly difficult to resist comparing The Innocents, not so much to Bly Manor, but to Robert Wise’s The Haunting (1963), which is, to
my mind, a classic that gives The Innocents a pounding rivaling
Abigail Crain’s cane on the walls of Hill House.
Between last night and this morning, we had significant precipitation, some
rain, some snow, some sleet. Mostly, it made mud. Today, I spent some time
working on a new short story for an upcoming anthology. Since the sun came out
midday and the temperature turned out tolerable, I took a nice break and
headed out to
Triad Park
to hunt a trio of relatively new caches. I went, I saw, I signed
logs. A fine outing, to be sure. And now it is back to the story, for our deadline, she be tight.
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Despite mucho precipitation during the night and early morning, the
afternoon weather turned out perfect for geocaching. |
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| The cache was not in “there,” but the pipe made for a nice, muggle-free environment to sign the cache log. |
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