tales from the route

One of the four widows on the route for whom I get out of the car and take their papers to the porch wasn't waiting for me as usual by the door today.  I was about to leave the paper there when I heard her calling.  "I fell down," she said.  "Can you help me?"

I went in the back door, walked through the kitchen and found her collapsed.  I had to struggle to lift her up ("Don't drop me," she said, afraid), untangle her legs, and half-way carry her to a place she could sit down.  She didn't want me to call anyone for her, but I found her phone and brought it to her.  When I persisted, she said she would call her niece.  I gave her dog a biscuit.  She's 90 and lives alone in this old farmhouse right out of a Grimm's fairy tale, like Hansel and Gretel. 

Then, a couple of hours later, I killed a gray cat who ran right out under my car.  I slammed on the brakes but it was too late.

Tonight, Lee and I watched Rush Hour 3; I finished watching Cloverfield; and I am re-watching part of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly now.  The DVD has Spanish, English, and French language tracks, so we can watch without subtitles.  I had read them to Lee when we saw it in the theater.  It's a beautiful movie.

We bought Miles two copies of Grand Theft Auto IV by mistake.  I'll have to take mine back. 

I spent this morning finishing reviews of Mishima and The Cell for the Ebertfest blog.  Still have one more to go, my wrap-up of the festival.

My book of poems by Thomas Lux came yesterday.  Portishead's "Third" came out today, their first CD in 11 years, but I'd downloaded it from Russia about two weeks ago.  I'm listening to it repeatedly, alternating with The Brief Life of Oscar Wao, the first novel by Junot Diaz.  He won the Pulitzer for it and it's in Spanglish pretty much and they interviewed him on PBS news tonight.  I turn off anything related to Pastor Wright and I haven't read the local paper in 10 days now.