May 17, 2001
Dear Everyone:
Things suddenly got very busy around here this week.
My Adventures in Billing went so well last week that I’ve been revamping several other “feeders” and have only one left to go so far. When I’ll be able to get back to that, I don’t know.
ARMA (Association of Records Managers and Administrators) decided to have the regular Thursday night meeting on Wednesday (last night), which is one reason why I’m running late. Running late on this week’s Letter, but also running late in general as I lost a lot of sleep last night due to being out with those wild and crazy Records Managers. Then I had to run out and get a road map of “Grapevine”, California today.
This is because I’m going to “Grapevine” next Monday, a genuine Road Trip. I’ll drive a company car to “Grapevine” after lunch. Then I’ll spend all day Tuesday training about a half-dozen extemporé Users and drive back on Wednesday. So I’ve been running around getting ready for the trip, plus pulling together training materials to take with me. The Really Good News is that I can just throw everything in the back of the car and not have to drag it onto a plane with me.
Then I had planned to take the following Thursday as a vacation day so I could wait around for The Salvation Army to come and take away my old sofa. Remember a few week’s back, I’d bought a pair of new chairs and an ottoman for the living room? I was told that it would take 6-8 weeks before they would be ready for delivery. Nevertheless, I decided to divest myself of excess furniture before the last minute.
The coffee table and rocking chair were taken away by a charity this week on Monday. But they don’t accept old hide-a-bed sofas, so I had to arrange for someone else to take it. Problem was, all the days they could come I couldn’t stay home because of terribly-important meetings (lots of terribly-important meetings going on around here). Next Thursday was the first I could schedule.
But then my boss informed me that he’d scheduled me for an all day (terribly-important) meeting that day. So I’ve moved the sofa pickup to the following week. That wouldn’t be a problem except for one thing: The furniture, which wouldn’t be ready until June 2nd is arriving this evening. Any minute now, in fact.
So more running around shifting pieces in the living room in hopes of making enough room for three new pieces. We’ll see how well it all fits together soon enough.
In other news…
“Jeannie” was too busy to come out and play last weekend, so I went to see A Knight’s Tale by myself. This does for medieval Europe what Buffy the Vampire Slayer did for Dracula and Nosferatu. And what Hercules and Xena: Warrior Princess did for Greco-Roman, not to mention Norse, mythology. In a word, knocked ‘em on their ears.
All his life, William (Heath Ledger) has wanted to be a knight and joust in tournaments. But by the early 1370’s, “chivalry” has solidified to the point where only “nobly-born” knights are allowed to joust. In point of fact, real nobles probably didn’t consider mere knights as being quite in their league.
William is only a squire. But luck lands him in a tournament anyway and William is hooked. Soon he and his friends are looking to work their way into another tournament. Luck again when they run across a rather chatty fellow by the name of Geoffrey Chaucer, whom they promptly nickname “Jeff”. He talks a lot but he has a way to get them into the “big time”. (He’s also the best thing about the movie.)
And they’re off. William falls in love with a real Lady and incurs the animosity of a real knight. He also comes across a true Noble who has to disguise himself as a “mere knight” in order to do what he loves, joust in tournaments. He and William recognize a kindred spirit in each other, so you know that’s going to come up again.
The music is very modern: David Bowie, Queen, Eric Clapton and a lot of others I would never recognize. Nevertheless, even I could predict what rock song would come blaring out of the speakers when our heroes arrived in London for the Super Bowl of tournaments.
The gang, which is politically correct enough to have a woman for a blacksmith, has their ups and downs, the gigantic setback and an ending so predictable that the only thing missing is a crowd in the background doing “the wave” while chanting, “And they lived happily ever after”. So what? It’s all a lot of fun. Enjoy it.
Love, as always,
Pete
PS. The
furniture, scheduled to be delivered at 5:30, arrived promptly at 5:54.
My living room now has enough seating for a small tournament of
its own.
P.
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