Saturday

The usual for Saturday, getting up around seven to be able to eat breakfast and get to Dupont Circle by nine for Dawn's yoga class and my workout. On the step machine I watch the Bollywood segment of Darshan TV, and it's unbelievably cool. It's Raj Kapoor in Shree 420 from 1955. Then Shilpa and Ramesh discuss the US/India nuclear deal. But I generally cut my workout way back, having hauled stuff and broken up the shed last night, and looking forward to loading it all onto a truck and taking it to the dump today. We stop by Safeway on the way home, to get fixings for Easter brunch and dinner tomorrow. The place is jammed, and the liquor store is closed because they've lost power.

We wait in line a long time. I read Fine Homebuilding so I don't notice how long really, but Dawn pegs it at forty minutes. We chat a little with the woman behind us. I ask her why she's not reading, not catching up on celebrity gossip while she has the chance. She says that she reads celebrity gossip blogs and is up to the minute current. The magazines are all filled with old news for her. She specifically mentions Gawker and What Would Tyler Durden Do.

I go back to Mom's for the trip to the dump. Mom's ex-husband Glenn is there with his brother Carl. He's buying pretty much all the furniture that Mom's not taking to Florida. That's awesome to hear, because I didn't know what the hell we were going to do with it all. I guess let Purple Heart pick it up or something like that. Glenn is funny. I haven't seen him in years, but he looks exactly the same except for being really gray. He's grinning from ear to ear, in a good mood.

John and Rob and I fill up the van that John as rented from Rent-a-Wreck. Then John and Mom and I go in it to the dump. The van has two bucket seats in the front and is filled with debris in the back, so I crouch down up front between the two seats. I watch the clouds, is about all I can see. Mom narrates a little of the scenery to me too.

At the dump we get on the scale and the guy announces to us that we have 480 pounds of stuff and have to pay fifteen bucks. He says it somewhat hesitatingly, like we're supposed to argue or bargain or something. John and I both think it's a great deal, but it's not like we're the ones who have to pay. Mom's actually paying, but she hands the guy the bucks without complaint. Up the hill where we unload we have to shuttle between the wood and metal areas, because the stuff is all mixed up in the truck. For the trip back, I start out in the back of the van. But there's no windows so it's beastly hot, so I make John stop so I can come up and crouch up front in the middle again.

Back at Mom's I help Glenn load more furniture into his minivan as well as the big rented van. He's taking two filing cabinets from the upstairs office. I pull the drawers out of one and carry them downstairs, then carry the empty cabinet after that. Glenn decides to use the hand truck to roll the other one down. I tell him that the cabinet is going to be tumbling down the stairs in a second. Sure enough, it is. It makes giant gouges in the drywall before getting jammed between the wall and the railing.

I get home and Dawn meets me at the door with a beer. I've made it through the harsh Lenten regime of no drinking during the week. And we traded away Good Friday back when Laura & Elizabeth visited. So this is my first drink all week. And oh my goodness is it good.

We have fondue for dinner and watch Good Night and Good Luck. It's a fine movie, beautifully shot in a crisp black and white, and the clothes are gorgeous as well. I'm as familiar with the story as Dawn is not, so I enjoy it better than she does. But, then again, it's also somewhat pointless in its bland retelling of what happened. It doesn't for me evoke the paranoia enough, the danger of the times. It tries its best, but it just doesn't do. But it's a wonderful performance by David Strathairn. And they're all great for just presenting this obvious parallel to our own times.

We go to bed and for the second week in a row I forget to tape Saturday Night Live. So this is why we need TiVo.