A Quiet Day

It's official -- I'll be headed back to Florida in early March, for a quick trip to join a "celebration of life" for my stepmother. I bought my ticket yesterday. I bought premium economy again, and it wasn't much more than what I've paid in the past for tickets in regular economy, so I felt pretty good about that deal. More legroom and the world's most expensive glass of "complimentary" champagne!

That's about the only meaningful thing I did yesterday, besides realize that we'd better stop spending so much money. Between our travels at Christmas, our trip to Spain, our summer cruise to Italy, this new ticket to Florida and my new laptop, I am hyperventilating about our checking account balance. We have more in savings but I'd rather not rip through that like a racehorse on the straightaway.

I went out yesterday morning with grand plans to transplant a buddleia that was growing at the back of our garden, underneath our fig and ornamental plum trees. The location was far too shady and last year it didn't look so good. Well, no transplanting was necessary, because when I looked again yesterday it was dead as a doornail. This is not a crisis. We have more buddleia than we know what to do with.

So I spent most of the day on the couch, reading. I polished off three New Yorkers. Oh, and I organized and archived all my photos for the last month or so.

In the evening, Dave and I went to see "Melania." NO! I'm KIDDING! I would never pay money to see that ridiculous film and in fact I wouldn't even watch it for free because WHO CARES?! Mr. Pudding posted this brilliant review from Mark Kermode on his blog and I have to link to it here as well because I got such a kick out of it. "Melania always talks about working," Kermode says. "When she says working, she means trying on frocks."

Other memorable lines from his review:

"It's like somebody making a documentary in which Eva Braun feels sad about war whilst Hitler invades Poland."

"She makes Derek Zoolander seem smart and self-deprecating."

"In its final act, it basically turns into 'Triumph of the Will.' It's a piece of handsomely mounted, crypto-fascist propaganda...a heist movie about a crime family breaking into the seats of power and stealing the cutlery whilst destroying democracy."

Trump "claims to be a peacemaker and a unifier and the ghost of Leni Riefenstahl fills the room."

(Photos: Stickers on Finchley Road.)