1. Even though Debbie and Gibbs won't be back in Kellogg for a while, I'm starting, way ahead of time, to prepare the house for their return. My primary task is to move Copper and Luna's feeding station and their litter pans to the basement. Debbie is certain that Gibbs would eat their food if it's out on our main floor, and, because Gibbs doesn't like to go down stairs, the basement makes good sense. I've read some articles about cats, their love for routine, and changing the location of litter pans, so I'm slowly moving the litter pans from one spot upstairs to another, and, before long, both pans will be in the basement.
2. On the occasion of this year's Open Championship getting underway today at Royal St. George's Golf Course in County Kent, England, I am going to make a confession. Royal St. George's is a links course. Not only is it bordered by water, it also features fairways that have numerous mounds and challenging slants. This means that a player can hit what might appear to be a splendid drive, but watch helplessly as the golf ball bounces in an unexpected direction, even getting sucked into a pothole sand trap or into the course's thick rough.
Here's my confession: I do not agree with those who say a good golf shot should be rewarded. From my point of view, golf is, by its very nature, an unfair game that tests players' ability to cope with hardship, including dealing with having what might appear to be a great shot turn out not to be so.
On a links course, like Royal St. George's, players are tested all the time by external factors they can't control when the wind kicks up, when they have to play from awkward lies, when they have to make blind shots, and when the speed of the greens is unpredictable.
It hasn't, to my knowledge, happened this week, so far, but sometimes players will complain, when things on a course are unpredictable, that it's unfair.
I disagree.
Golf demands that a player play the course as it is, not as a player thinks it should be. That means, because golf is often an unforgiving game, that what a player thinks is a great shot will sometimes not be rewarded. It demands mental strength to deal with this fact and I enjoy seeing players facing these difficulties.
(I'll add, as I wrap up my golf comments, that the weather has been benign at Royal St. George's so far and the world's best players are shooting some uncommonly low scores in the tournament's first two rounds.)
3. Charles Grodin passed away in May and, as I read the tributes to his career, I realized that I'd never seen two of his well-known movies, The Heartbreak Kid and Midnight Run.
I was idly scanning through offerings on Netflix this evening and Midnight Run popped up as available.
I decided to watch it.
I had a blast.
I popped myself a bowl of popcorn and surrendered gladly to the movie's many absurdities, its slapstick car chases, and its scene after scene of law enforcement Keystone Cops failures. The plot was nutty, tight, and complicated. I found its wild momentum irresistible.
I also gladly surrendered to the relationship that developed between Jack (Robert De Niro) and Duke (Charles Grodin). Often when I watch movies, I wish I could perform like certain actors I see. This evening, I wished I could be Charles Grodin -- dead pan, wry, intelligent, urbane, and funny. In addition, this movie was jam-packed with great roles for a number of accomplished character actors and I had a lot of fun watching them bring to life this movie's gallery of thugs, mobsters, double-crossers, and befuddled feds.
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