Three Beautiful Things 07/18/13: Slumpbuster, *Magnolia* = Pain, Relief for Charly

1.  I admit it.  I've been in a slump this summer when it comes to taking pictures.  Part of it has to do with the summer sunshine.  It's my least favorite condition to take pictures in.  This morning, however, a cloud cover lingered through the morning and I took pictures of some of my front yard flowers and then, in the sunshine, I went down to the U of O campus.  I didn't have much success there.  Not much was attracting my attention, but I did come away with three pictures I liked, in part, for their contrast to one another.

2.  I think you might say I'm having a private "It's About Time I Watched That" film festival.  I didn't realize Magnolia came out about fifteen years ago, so it's been for about fifteen years now that I've had friends tell me to see it and others show astonishment that I hadn't seen it.  I experienced a lot of pain watching this movie.  Much of the movie chronicles a day in the the painful lives of several characters and the movie tested my endurance.  I admired the movie making.  And I realize that various of the story lines came to hopeful resolution.  Those resolutions didn't do much to mitigate the pain I'd felt for nearly three hours to arrive at those resolutions.  That's not a criticism.  It's how I experienced the movie.  It was a workout.  I think any movie exploring spiritual plague is bound to test my threshold for pain.  Magnolia did that.

3.  I'll keep track of this on a day to day basis, but I think the level of medication I'm giving Charly for her arthritis was working later today.  She was moving around a bit more freely and gave fewer indications of being in pain.