Everything is Illuminated

Today I got up just as J’s first guests started arriving for his annual hockey pool. Yes my friends - it’s that time of the year again- hockey! The habs season start on Friday, Oct 6th, and I’m very excited.

My dad’s manager Jimmy came by for this hockey pool bringing fresh bagels and boy was that delicious. I love fresh bagels. Always delicious.

I putzed around cleaning up a little bit, waiting for my friend Sherrie to get here from Boston. She arrived sometime mid-afternoon, and that was nice. It was really good to see her. We see each other a couple of times a year, and I am glad that we only live about 5 hours by car from one another. That’s nothing at all! Not a day trip - but definitely a weekend trip!
We chilled out during the afternoon, and then eventually made our way out for dinner, to this little Italian restaurant around the corner from my house. Sherrie treated - that was nice - and she calls me a cheap date because I can’t drink. LOL.

After dinner, we watched Desperate Housewives, and then settled on a movie to watch. We decided to watch Everything is Illuminated, which is based on a book by Jonathan Safran Foer. What a good choice.

A young Jewish American flies to the Ukraine in search of a woman who helped his grandfather escape Europe during World War II; he has a photograph and the name of a village. He hires the Odessa Heritage Tours, made up of a gruff old man and his English-speaking grandson. The three, plus grandfather’s deranged dog, travel in an old car from Odessa into Ukraine’s heart. Jonathan, the American, is a collector, putting things he finds into small plastic bags, so he will remember. Alex, the interpreter, is an archetypal wild and crazy guy. Alex asks the old man, “Was there anti-Semitism in the Ukraine before the war?” Will they find the village? The past illuminates everything.

This is definitely a movie I recommend, if you have the time. It was really well done, and we both really enjoyed it. At first I thought it was a true story…

In the summer after his junior year of college, Jonathan Safran Foer journeyed to Ukraine with a faded photograph, hoping to find the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. He intended to write a non-fictional account of his experiences, but he returned home deeply disappointed, having found next to nothing. Fortunately, Jonathan turned his journey into a miraculous work of fiction.

Oh well - I still enjoyed the movie - real or not….!

It’s late, and I’m babysitting my nephew tomorrow. I better get some sleep!