1. This afternoon I melted a stick of butter, let it cool, and added to it an 8 oz container of sour cream and two eggs. I whisked it all together.
Into this mixture, I added about four chopped slices of bacon fried crisp, a can of kernel corn and a can of creamed corn, and a small box of Jiffy muffin mix. I stirred it up, sprayed Pam on a Pyrex baking dish, poured the mixture into the dish, and baked it at 350 degrees.
After a half an hour, I removed this corn casserole from the oven. As I figured it would be, it was jiggly. I topped it, at this point, with grated sharp cheddar cheese, returned it to the oven, and twenty minutes later the corn casserole was baked and ready to rest.
Around 5:30, I showed up with my family dinner assignment completed to Carol and Paul's patio. Christy was in charge of dinner. She assigned Cosette to make an appetizer and Cosette presented a plate of superb twice-baked potatoes. Christy made a summer cocktail.
Upon finishing the appetizers, we dove into the main event: Christy prepared meat falling off the bones baby back ribs, Carol (and Paul?) prepared a fresh and tasty green salad, I offered the corn casserole I made, and Christy added garlic bread to our meal. We were all very impressed with how beautifully each part of the meal complimented the others and we enjoyed a cooling and refreshing dessert: Christy brought ice cream Drumsticks.
It was fun having Cosette, Bucky, and Taylor with us and a most welcome relief that the temperatures were moderate and an occasional breeze made being outside even more comfortable.
2. Having watched the stellar actresses work in Murder on the Orient Express moved me to want to watch one of my favorite contemporaries, Olivia Colman, this afternoon. She, along with David Tennant, are the leads in a British detective series, Broadchurch.
From her first appearance in this series' first episode to its end, Olivia Colman filled me admiration and moved me to tears. I love her work.
If I ever needed a reminder as to why, in general, I do not (maybe cannot) binge watch a series like this, Broadchurch provided it.
The series opens with the death of an eleven-year-old boy followed his family, the town of Broadchurch, and the media finding out, all of which intensely unsettled me.
At the episode's end, I couldn't go on to Episode 2. I needed time to settle down, to let my concern for Olivia Colman's character cool, and time to slow down my racing mind. Will I watch an episode a day? One or two episodes a week? I don't know. I only know that I won't be watching one episode after another after another in the same day.
3. When I returned home from family dinner, a strong desire to watch The Dresser overcame me. I'm sure since this movie hit the theaters in 1983-84 that I've watched it at least a half a dozen times, maybe ten.
Murder on the Orient Express inspired me to want to watch more Albert Finney, to watch him play in this move the role of an aging Shakespearan actor leading a traveling theater company during the German bombing of England in WWII. The actor, known only as Sir, is experiencing a descent into madness similar to Shakespeare's King Lear and the tempest in his mind is not, as in King Lear, made external by a thunderstorm, but by the fire bombings and the savagery of the Nazis war on England.
Sir, and Albert Finney's remarkable portrayal of him, is mammoth, attention grabbing, even dominant. It's awesome.
But the movie isn't titled Sir.
It's titled The Dresser.
The story's dresser, named Norman, and played by Tom Courtenay, has been attending to preparing Sir's wardrobe, overseeing his application of makeup, preparing his baths, pouring his tea and his beers, and navigating Sir's volatility for many, many years.
The dresser is not Sir's only devoted servant.
The mighty Eileen Atkins plays the role of Madge who has been stage managing Sir's company's productions for nearly twenty years.
Sir's descent into madness and the passages of him acting on stage are loud, riveting, and unforgettable.
But, again, the movie is titled The Dresser, and by the end of this movie we see how it's been Norman's story all along -- and, Madge's, too -- a story of how they have been affected to the very core of their being by working in service to Sir all these years.
I wish I could say more, but I don't want to spoil this movie if you haven't seen it and decide to watch one day.
I will say, though, that Eileen Atkin's portrayal of Madge moved me and stuck with me long after the movie ended in a way that I had never experienced before.
Wendy Hiller
Rachel Roberts
Ingrid Bergman
Olivia Colman
Eileen Atkins
What a weekend!
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