cool and wet this morning

I am stiff and sore today from my butt-whuppin class on Friday and further workouts on Saturday. At the playground, I have developed a practice of seeing how many chin-ups I can do. Yesterday I did two reps of eight each, then two reps of six each. I don't push or strain, just do what feels right. I stood on my hands for a while with my toes holding against the chin-up bar. So I will take it easy today. Spent most of yesterday afternoon on a ladder pruning up a top-heavy hedge of yaupon hollies. These are 30 foot tall trees with so much top-growth that the branches touch the ground in some places. I took a lot of weight and sag out of the trees and hung four bird feeders which you can no see from the house. There is a big pile of limbs out at the street. Hope the landlord doesn't mind. So today I will take it easy. Maybe put the kids in the truck and go down to the Tombigbee National Forest so Mrs. Icker can write.
Saw a good German film Friday night called "Im Juli/In July." Sweet and clever romance with a sort of "Bonnie and Clyde" motif. Interesting scenery, they go from Berlin to Bavaria, then to Budapest and Istanbul. Good date movie. OK for the kids, unless you have a problem with your kids seeing people smoke marijuana in the movies. My six-year-old loves to watch German movies with us. He watched "Comedian Harmonists" last week, and he liked "Beyond Silence" a lot. We didn't let him watch "Downfall," which was good because watching Frau Goebbles murder her children was disturbing even for me. When he was four he loved watching that Russian movie that was filmed in the Hermitage Museum, famous for being one (actually two, there is a splice where the camera zooms in on a painting, but you hardly notice) incredibly long tracking shot. I forget the title, but it is a dream, wherein the dreamer is lead by a mysterious figure through both the museum and the history of pre-Communist Russia. We were intrigued by STG's fascination with it. He doesn't understand Russian or German, but only rarely does he ask for the translation. Part of it is, he just really likes movies, and doesn't particularly need the dialogue. Last night we watched Pirates of The Carribean: Black Pearl. We had all seen it a few times before, but still got a kick out of it.
Got my Oxford American Summer Music Issue Friday. Nice to see Katharine Whalen in the magazine and on the CD. Terrible, terrible song, but she sings it so pretty. I also am digging "Three Is A Magic Number" by Bob Dorough. This came along just in time, as you know, my iPod was getting a little stale. I don't understand how they consider Richard Hell's "Blank Generation" to be southern music. Maybe because he moved to Kentucky and became a writer. Speaking of music, does anyone else get the feeling that Pink's "Dear Mr. President" was written by Jack Black?