April 24, 2015
Dear Everyone:
“Manny” the Maintenance Guy is the contractor who takes care of all the
little, and not-so-little, things that need taking care of around here
in my community. Lately, he
and his minions have been working on repair work on some of the
carports. It seems a
busybody from the city happened to notice one of the carports listing a
little to the side and decreed it must be repaired before it fell down
and hurt someone, or at least, someone’s car.
Replacing a few of the vertical posts that hold up the roof required
cementing the new posts into place.
And one thing led to another, and “Manny” and “Randy”, who is on
the Homeowners Association Board, and who evidently has a lot of
experience in construction, decided that, as long as they were working
in concrete, they might as well put some new walkways into places where
they were deemed appropriate.
Personally, I was delighted.
There is a concrete walkway that leads up to my carport, but ends
abruptly at the corner.
Those of us who use that particular carport have two choices:
Walk around the outside of the carport, then back in to get to
our cars; or walk across the grass to get to the front of our cars.
Not good for the grass.
And, on the infrequent times that it actually rains around here, the
rain drops off the roof directly onto the same grass that I’m slogging
through to get to my car. So
“Manny’s” Minions have been working diligently around here for the past
month or so.
Meanwhile, I happened to notice a large truck that was showing up in the
parking areas. It had words
painted on it reading, “Metal and Appliance Hauling.
Free.” After a short
while, I realized that the truck belonged to, or was at least used by,
one of “Manny’s” Minions. I
figured it was the modern version of a collector of what used to be
called scrap metal.
Last week, while they were working on the new walkway, I asked him if he
only hauled actual “appliances” like refrigerators and washing machines,
or if he would take a couple of
televisions that I had taking up space
in my second bedroom, also known as the “catchall room”, or like
“Jeannie’s” garage, “The Really BIG Closet”.
He spoke enough English to say that he didn’t usually handle
“electronic recycling”, but that he knew a guy who could take care of
them. And how big were the
TVs? They were both 17”
table-top models.
So the next day, once the concrete was spread and settling, he took both
the old TVs away and now I have all kinds of lovely space cleared up in
the room. And I won’t have
to lure our niece, who lives in
Oakland, to come out to
San Ramon to
help me carry them to the car and thus to the recycle center.
I “tipped” “Manny’s” Minion $20, which he said wasn’t necessary,
but I assured him that he was doing me a favor.
In other news…
Last weekend, “Jeannie” and I wanted to see a movie.
Since we both agreed that we would pay good money to see
Helen
Mirren read the phone directory, we quickly settled on
Woman in Gold.
This tells the story of the late
Maria Altmann (Mirren) who lived in
Vienna,
Austria, as a child and young woman prior to
World War II.
Shown in flashbacks, young Maria adored her Aunt Adele, a
patroness of the arts who sat twice for the artist
Gustav Klimt.
In one portrait, Klimt employed a technique that used gold foil
as well as oil on canvass in an Art Nouveau style.
The
painting hung in the family’s home.
Then the Nazis came. Maria’s
family was Jewish. Things
did not go well. As
newlyweds, Maria and her husband succeeded in fleeing to the
United
States. Others were not so
lucky.
Decades later, upon the death of her sister, Maria discovered that the
portrait of her beloved Aunt Adele was now the property of the Austrian
State Gallery, and that her sister had made some attempt to reclaim it.
Enter Maria’s friend, Mrs. Schoenberg, portrayed all too briefly by
Frances Fisher. Mrs.
Schoenberg’s son,
Randol, was a lawyer.
As a favor to his mother, Schoenberg took a look at Maria’s
claim.
And before you could say, “Hopscotch”, they were off to Vienna where
they did not get the painting back, of course.
Maria’s return to her childhood home brought up painful memories.
When their claim was initially denied she was disinclined to
pursue the matter any further.
But by this time “Randy” had the bit in his teeth, so to speak, and
found a
technicality that allowed him to take the claim “to the highest
court in the land”.
Jonathan
Pryce plays
Chief Justice Rehnquist, also in a brief appearance.
The entire cast is excellent.
The whole thing is eloquent and moving.
Worth the matinee price, even if the painting was a little too
Art Deco for my taste.
Love, as always,
Pete
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