Quote - I'll open with a line from Dante:
In His Will, our peace.
It was considered by T.S. Eliot to be "the profoundest line in all of human literature". I heard it the other night listening to Catholic radio when I couldn't sleep. It stuck with me. The next evening when I was at an Opus Dei meeting, the theme was reinforced as the priest's main meditation was a reflection on "Thy Will be done". Then we conspired on how to take out Dan Brown.
Allergies - So why have I been up a lot at night? Allergies. The pollen levels have soared as the temperatures suddenly surged to 90°. Michelle has set up a kiddie pool on the back deck and I hung some hooks in the porch to hang towels on. My primary symptom would seem to be minor: post nasal drip. It leads to a lot of clearing of the throat and coughing. It got bad enough that on Monday morning I had laryngitis. The kids had never seen someone lose their voice. “Wow! A parent who can't raise their voice at us!” I went to the doctor right away to make sure it was just allergies and she seemed to agree. She told me to move up from taking Claritin to Claritin-D with decongestant. She also gave me Flonase as a more direct means of clearing the nasal passages. Meanwhile I've had to reassure almost every co-worker I deal with that "it's not contagious, it's just allergies".
Movies - Our family watched two movies over the weekend. The first was Racing Stripes. It was so-so. Claire, being a typical 9 year old, enjoyed some of the potty humor of Scuzz (voiced by David Spade). Luckily it isn't excessive. The main character, Stripes, is voiced by Frankie Muniz, so it's hard not to picture "Malcolm" when you see the zebra. The other movie was the new Pooh's Heffalump Movie. I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would and would recommend it to families with young children. I've seen other recent Disney "Pooh" movies and felt like they were just milking the marketing appeal of the brand. This one introduces a new character, Lumpy, a young Heffalump who befriends Roo. Both have to get over the misconceptions that they have about each other's worlds. Yes, the heffalumps are afraid of the characters in the Hundred Acre Wood. Disney intends to follow on with this development in an upcoming Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie.
Claire and I are also working our way through the 3+ hour long Anne of Green Gables. This version of the book was a Canadian produced TV show that is well shot and produced. I can't get over how dramatic Anne's character is. Last year Claire and I watched Lindsay Lohan in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, but she has nothing on Anne.