not that kind of movie

Today, I went to see "Kingsman: The Secret Service" for the second time. I had mentioned to Barbara at Tuesday's trivia how much I had liked it and that it definitely warranted a second viewing, so she had suggested this afternoon. She was able to play hookie from school - I forget just why that was - and could take in an early afternoon show.
And so we did!
Again, "Unbreakable" came to mind when Harry Hart and Richmond Valentine are together. They are about to dine on Happy Meals, so to speak, and are talking about the glorious spy films of old. The lisping multi-billionaire Valentine, wearing mismatched styles, says how much he had always wanted to grow up to be the gentleman spy. The ever-impeccably clad Harry replies that he had thought being a colorful megalomaniac was the better option for him.
It's implied, in the subtext of their eyes and their vocal tones, that they each recognize what roles they now play in the game of life. They recognize that they, the villain and the hero, have now met.
That is what reminded me of the horrifying speech between the incredible fragile Elijah Price and the indestructible David Dunn.
I do have to wonder if having Samuel L. Jackson as the villain in both films is what tipped the scales? Would I have seen the similarity if a different actor had been cast as Valentine?
I have no idea. Maybe I should pose that as a topic for discussion at Philo Cafe some time. It would be good to have others' takes on the subject of villains and heroes and the actors who play them.
Just like it would have been good to talk to Barbara about my visit with the ex last night.
I hadn't even known he was in town until I got out of lab and saw that he had texted me.
Strike that.
I hadn't consciously known he was in town.
Perhaps my remembrance on Tuesday about that inside joke between him and my youngest brother didn't just pop out of nowhere. Perhaps there remains a psychic link between us, after sixteen years together, that allowed me to sense his arrival in town that day.
Hey, stranger things happen, right?
His elder daughter had given birth and he texted me a picture of the boy, obviously in a medical setting. He was in town, less than a mile away, at Memorial Hospital. His younger daughter, a troubled teen twice this past year, was there, too, as he had fetched her so she could visit her half-sister and meet her nephew.
At first, I had misunderstood. I thought he had been in town since the birth of his grandson on February 23rd. (That would have been my stepdad's 93rd birthday.)
No.
Only since Tuesday. And he left this morning at 8 AM, transporting the younger one back to her mom before continuing his trip to his home in Saginaw, MI. She barely made it back to the hotel in time for the trip.
You see, she had hooked up with a facebook pal and jetted from the hospital about ten PM last night. She said he was taking her to dinner. After Jeff insisted on meeting the guy, Dani later texted Kaity that they were at the guy's house.
Beauty queen turned drama queen.
Anyway... her running off left Jeff free to come visit me. So, after he walked his other daughter over to the Ronald McDonald House, he came by here to talk.
He talked about his new little grandson, born with the umbilical cord strangling his chest. The doctors said the child would be in NICU for three weeks while they tried to determine if he had suffered any brain damage. I do hope the child makes a full recovery. I told Jeff I was so sorry his daughter was having this burden, and I truly am. Having a baby is stressful enough without medical complications.
He talked about the results of his colonoscopy last month. When I had asked him a week ago, he did not yet have the word back from the doctor. Now, he did. The word was "pre-cancerous", sadly, and not the hoped-for "benign". As I told him, the good news was they didn't feel the need for any surgery at this time. He will have to return to the gastroenterologist in three years to check for more polyps.
He talked about the continuing lack of a job and the "situation wanted" ad he had posted. ("Do your local radio ads suck? Of course they do! All local radio ads suck! Let me make it not suck for you!") I hope that gets him some prospects, especially someone who will appreciate his sense of humor.
I remembered that I had several articles I had meant to mail out. The page-and-a-half on the Polish group in town that was offering free language classes. The article, just last week, about a group that offers grants to cover early-in-the-year medical costs. (That may even help Kaity out.) The cartoon about barbequeing in the snow. (He thought that was funny! He said he would do that, but his grill is iced over.)
There were a couple more cartoons, but I don't recall the details of them right now.
I'm glad I was able to give all of that to him in person. I always feel like I'm following in his mom's footsteps when I mail him stuff from the newspaper. Mother Pat did that often, enclosing little notes with the folded, and carefully clipped, articles.
I guess I try to distinguish my mailings by the ragged, obviously torn-out, borders of any newspaper-derived items of interest. I may even be consciously leaving those edges ragged.
He left before midnight, knowing he had an early - and long - drive ahead of him.
I really would have liked to talk to Barbara about his visit.
Just to air it, you know? Some words need to be spoken aloud for them to find a restful home.
Or maybe that's just me.

tryin'

I drove up to north Georgia yesterday so I could visit my youngest brother today. He is only allowed visitors on Saturday and Sunday, from 9 AM to 3 PM. I got lost (as unusual) and even went to the prison annex by mistake, but I did finally get there at 10:15 this morning. We had a very upbeat visit that was nonstop until 3 PM! Apparently, they are quite generous with visit length (though that may not be so on holidays, when they have more visitors than usual).
I had brought my $20 in quarters (the only money allowed and the maximum allowed) for the machines. He feasted on foodstuffs he didn't usually get: Buffalo chicken wings and cheese-stuffed pizza "bagel" with marinara. I had a pretty good chicken salad sandwich from those machines. Later, I got him some bbq pork rinds, an ice cream bar, and peanut M&Ms, then we split a Butterfinger. And we talked and laughed and talked and laughed and talked.
The really nice part? We were actually IN each other's company, for the first time since June of 2007. We were allowed to hug when he came in and before we parted, which was very nice. During the visit, I could reach over and touch his hand whenever I wanted. It was so much nicer than visiting through the reinforced glass window when he was incarcerated here in the county jail.
At the prison, visitation is held in one large room, with chairs set up in various groupings. Prisoners are allowed up to three approved visitors at a time. If there were three visiting, they would sit in a grouping of three chairs across from a tiny plastic table and a single chair for the prisoner, for example. The guards walk around while everyone is visiting, but really leave you alone. And all of the groups are good about keeping their conversations at a decent level so they aren't obtrusive to an adjacent group. Prisoners are to remain seated at all times, but visitors are free to go to the vending machines and microwaves.
Visitors are not allowed to bring anything into the visitation area except the $20 in quarters. If you wear glasses, you cannot bring the glasses case, for example. No purses, no photo books (I tried to bring one of mine and had to take it back out to the car and start the entrance process again). Your driver's license and keys are kept at the guard station and you are given a visitor ID badge and a numbered disc to regain your license and keys when you leave. They did allow me to wear my scarf during the visit, but that may have been an exception. My jacket had to be hung outside the visitation area and retrieved when I left.
ONLY approved visitors are allowed. NO ONE CAN JUST DRIVE UP AND VISIT. You must first fill out the two-page application to become a visitor, an application which grants the prison the right to run a background check on you. That takes about ten to twelve weeks to be processed. At the end of that period, you may call and see if your background check made you eligible to visit - they won't contact you about the result. Once the background check is complete and you are approved, it is then up to the inmate to place your name on his visitation list. He is ONLY allowed to do so twice a year, in May and in November. So, I have let all know about this process so they can take the steps NOW if they would like to visit him this summer.
The prison is about six hours from Savannah, depending on traffic around Atlanta and McDonough and Macon. I actually made it home in 5 1/2 hours today, as there was hardly any traffic once I was clear of Atlanta. Last night I stayed in Rome, which is less than an hour from the prison.
My brother was in great spirits and had even had a haircut on Monday to get ready for the visit. The prison had finally granted his repeated request for a new uniform to wear and new boots, so he was quite pleased at that. (The uniform and boots he's been wearing since late summer were paint-splotched from a paint detail he was allowed to participate in prior to an inspection of the prison.) He really looked GOOD and not at all like that horrid picture on the GA Dept of Corrections website. THAT did my heart good - I truly hadn't known what to expect. But his skin looks great, since it hasn't been ravaged by alcohol or other drugs in years now, and his eyes sparkle. When I first saw him, I reflexively greeted him with his childhood nickname and gave him a big hug! I told him, later, that I could see the young brother I had several decades ago,the young brother who had gone on to make such a bad series of choices in his life.
Away from the substances and people who had influenced his past life, he has been working hard to forge a new path, to make good decisions with a clear mind. He's even been taking classes for his GED and has been doing well in all of them, scoring in the 90's on the practice tests. He has a goal, a program of study he wants to enter, and the attainment of his GED is the next step toward that goal. I know my grandfather is quite proud of him, as am I.
Why? He is making positive choices, choices to benefit others, not just himself. He could choose to continue with drugs - they're as available in prison as they are on the streets outside your door - but he is consciously deciding to distance himself from those substances and the people who deal them and take them. I would like to think his son, now approaching thirty, might choose to make those same decisions, to learn from the mistakes of his father, to consider the effect of his choices on the lives of his children. Time will tell.