New activity – Selected Shorts

Barbara: I went to the Dallas Museum of Art to see Selected Shorts. The theme this year was Friendship. I love this program. Actors (in this case Tony award winners Michael Cerveris and John Benjamin Hickey plus film actress Cindy Cheung) read a selection of short stories on the same theme. I love short stories but find them hit or miss when I borrow a book of them at the library. When they’re a hit I LOVE them. But I find that a short story that perhaps I wouldn’t be crazy about on my own, totally comes to life when performed by a talented actor. This evening was no different. In fact, I think the next short story I get I shall read aloud or get in Audible and see if that increases my enjoyment.

Activity – Movie theme – Friendship

Having loved Fredrik Backman’s novel “A Man Called Ove,” we were both hesitant to see the recent Tom Hanks’ Americanized film version “A Man Called Otto.” (There is also a Swedish film version that was produced several years ago that we did not see.) Typically if we really love a book, we find the movie lacking and often avoid seeing the film so as not to “taint” the story we hold dear. But since we wanted to watch a film about friendship, we decided to give this one a chance. The beginning of the movie set the stage for yet another grumpy older man story and we were feeling a bit bored, but once they introduced his pregnant neighbor, it drew us in and we began to enjoy the film and the performances. The film makes the point that friendship is crucial to a good life but that the feeling of community and family among friends was the vital link to having a purpose for living. Originally, we wondered why a remake of this film was necessary but our research revealed that Tom Hanks felt the human condition requires belonging to a community. Since the recent pandemic left too many of us isolated, he wanted to show the benefits of people coming together to live a larger life than would otherwise be achieved.

Learning Center – Figs

Barbara had to bring an appetizer to a friend so since she made figs stuffed with goat cheese, we decided to learn a little something about the Fig. It’s definitely a good thing she ate the fig appetizer before we did this because we found out this little tidbit: Wild figs are pollinated by wasps crawling inside them to lay eggs. After laying their eggs, the wasps die and are digested by the figs as nourishment.

Somehow the figs wouldn’t have been as appetizing as they were before learning this.