Friday Four

1. Oh, boy!, I thought, I get to referee again. Both of my kids -- three and five years old -- wanted to play hide-and-seek with me, exclusively.

Delightfully, I couldn't have been more wrong. I have no idea who came up with this solution, which seemed to arise spontaneously, but the hide-and-seek games each of my kids wanted to play with me merged and transmogrified into a what I can only describe as a "hide-and-seek race": When I was "it," the second kid to be found won, and when they were "it," the first to find me won. The best part about having kids is occasionally and unexpectedly getting to be a kid again, with them.

2. One morning this week, I had the pleasant surprise of spotting sun dogs for the first time in my life. I have no pictures of my own, since I was driving, but a dimmer version of the second image here will suffice. I spotted the right-hand one first, and wondered if it was simply part of a rainbow. But, then, its brightness jogged a memory, and a second look brought the reward of seeing both sun dogs and the sun.

3. To celebrate my birthday, my wife and I went last weekend to see Sully, which more than lives up to all the good things I'd heard about it. Although I first learned of the movie through HBL, I'll quote my usual go-to source for movies, reviewer Scott Holleran, whom I also consulted before selecting it:

Famous and accomplished Tom Hanks ... portrays Chesley Sullenberger with poise and command. The role requires that he show a man in full, to paraphrase Tom Wolfe, who goes from a haunted self-examination in a steamy mirror, self-doubt and fear of being found out as a fraud to supreme confidence in his knowledge of reality and his own judgment. He's a detective on his own case, putting New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in his proper place and stressing to Katie Couric the fact of his "whole life", as against merely this particular part of his life, until he integrates the facts of his extraordinary, slow-handed, guided mastery in the cockpit of an Airbus crippled by a flock of birds.

One thing that fascinates me about this superb movie is that I experienced it a little like the way the movie itself unfolded. Yes, I enjoyed it at the time, but I found myself remembering scenes in detail over the next couple of days and getting more out of them, culminating a couple of days later in an I really needed that! one sunny morning.

Between the demands of two young kids and my wife's unpredictable schedule, we don't get to see movies as easily or as often as we would like. This makes me really appreciate places like HBL and Holleran's site. It's nice to be able to find out what's good and make those trips count when we do get to make them.

4. I generally take some time off from current events (particularly politics) on my Friday posts, but this is too good to pass up. Psychologist Michael Hurd notes a Freudian slip on the campaign trail on the part of Hillary Clinton who, apropos of nothing, made it a point to insult Ayn Rand:

"Boyish" is a compliment, intended or not. It describes an innocent stage of life when one hasn't become hardened by the soulless, awful ideas to which many adults subscribe... [bold added]

Having a three-year-old son, I heartily concur. Our whole culture could stand to become a bit more boyish.

-- CAV