On occasion, I have intense flashbacks to other times in my life, triggered by the strangest things. (No, these are not drug-related or post traumatic stress syndrome. At least, I don't think they are.) Today it was looking at the clock at 4:47 PM and thinking “Daddy will be home soon and we will have dinner.” Now, considering that I didn’t call my father “Daddy” since I was about 10, that was flashing way, way back. We always ate dinner at 5:00 right after he got home. I didn’t realize this was considered an uncivilized time, the territory of Early Bird Specials, until I was in college.

I never minded the early dinner time until I started watching the ABC afternoon movie on channel 7 at 4:30 in the afternoons. These 90 minutes, highly edited and condensed versions of a variety of films gave me a good introduction to a many different styles and genres. Can-Can, The Train, The Circle of Love (with an excised nude scene that was highly titillating), and others that have since evaporated into so much memory dust. Far better than the after school special crap that eventually replaced the movies.

Because I was born into the Boomer generation, I was never given a chance to slack off. High school to college to work to grad school to work to kids to more work. Since I missed out on Generation X (or Y or the Millenials), I've decided to celebrate the joys of slackerness this summer. This is The Summer of Slack. The weeds are bigger than the plants, and the sunflowers have taken over the back bed under the bird feeder (even the squirrels look confused). I only planted one cycle of annuals in the spring and didn't replace them with summer flowers this year. The pansies and violets are still in their pots in the front of the house, yellowed and dead and giving the house an air of "we don't really give a shit what the neighbors think". I stopped cooking months ago - the take-out places now call *us* to see what we want to order each evening. The dog keeps getting out of the back yard because I'm too lazy to search out the places in the fence that she squeezes through. I haven't even been in the pool or spa because it seems like too much work to gather up a towel, put on a bathing suit and find my sandals (to walk across the grass that has not been de-pooped in a long time). I sleep and read and eat and watch movies and dream about going on vacation. And then I sleep some more. And hope that autumn doesn't come too soon.

Movies: I, Robot. Isaac Asimov is rotating at the speed of light in his grave (or his ashes are if he was cremated). He is also haunting the members of his estate who allowed the title of one of his stories and his name to be used in conjunction with this movie. Although there are references to some of the ideas in his stories, the tone and context and plot have nothing to do with anything he ever wrote. All that being said, I actually liked this movie. It was an enjoyable diversion, which required almost no thinking, one of the major criteria for a summer movie (especially when my brain is slacking in addition to my body). It was not in the league with Minority Report or Blade Runner (I'm sure Philip K. Dick is resting comfortably), but it did have enough futuristic elements to keep me happy. Audi gets the award for best product placement, and Will Smith wins the Best Buffed Up Actor prize, bionic appendages notwithstanding. Not worth the $9 ticket price our theater is now charging for non-matinee shows, but a good rental candidate.