The last month or so has been so packed with new experiences, I haven't even had a chance to blog about it all. Mostly good and great, some a bit more yucky.
For almost two weeks I raced from one film to another during Seattle's annual film festival. Such a glut of cinematic possibilities; I only managed to see about a tenth of what was being screened. I saw, in no particular order: documentaries about whales, Donna Summer, Mary Tyler Moore, the first 20 days of Russia's attack on Mariupol, an extraordinary photographer named George Platt Lynes, the history of the movie camera, fishermen in India, the Chopin piano competition, a dance program that is brought to children in homeless shelters in New York. And narrative films: a Spanish film about a young boy who knows he is actually a girl but doesn't know how to tell his family; a Croatian film about the aftermath of the Bosnian war, played out during a dating event; another Spanish film about ancient times in the Pyrenees when Basque warriors turned to a pagan girl in order to find a treasure; an Japanese film which imagines a future in which old people are invited to let themselves be euthanized in order to decrease the financial burden on the younger generations. Also a collection of short films by and about women, as well as two films I can't say anything about because of a legally binding NDA.
Soon after that, Sweet Hubby and I went to Seward, Alaska for his best friend's daughter's wedding. SH and I have not traveled together much in the past because we don't like to leave the kitties, but thanks to a wonderful friend who was willing to come stay at our house while we were gone, we were able to leave with confidence that Angel and Bandy would not just be fed, but also given the attention they crave. Even my wary SH knew he could trust this friend to be careful, considerate, and honest.
Seward is a small town of not quite 3,000. There isn't a lot to do if one isn't in AK for the hiking, boating, camping, and other outdoorsy activities, but there is a great Sea Life Center where we spent several hours. We took walks, went out to eat, and of course there was the wedding. The ceremony itself was outdoors in the woods, beautiful despite a light rain. The reception was in a big tent, lots of food, including king crab legs, and dancing to a live band. Jolly fun. I enjoyed spending time in this town, getting to know it a bit.
We got home late after a delayed flight, and the next morning I had to get up at 5am to get to a university by 7am where I was one of several standardized patients taking part in OSCEs (observed standardized clinical exams) for nurse trainees. My character was an older woman (of course) with a urinary tract infection, so for 10.5 hours each two days straight, I got to talk to one nurse trainee after another about my pee, as they were observed by an examiner. This was definitely the most rigorous of any of the standardized patient work I've done because of the long hours and repetition of the scenario, but each trainee brought in a different personality and level of skill, so it was tiring but not dull.
The training was scheduled for one more half day, but the night of the second day, what I thought was a bad cold came on fast and hard. And yes, it was (and is) COVID. We found out later from SH's friend that the wedding ended up being a superspreader event. I had one of the worst days I've ever had, but thanks to Paxlovid, I'm already feeling almost human. SH has been such a helpmate, picking up meds, doing laundry, running errands. Now we're sort of holding our breath to see if the ogre bites him too.
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