Journal of a Sabbatical

January 8, 2000

i want to live in a miyazaki movie

Today's Reading: Winter from the Journals of Henry David Thoreau edited by H.G.O. Blake, Wild Fruits by Henry David Thoreau

So besides looking at robins and winterberries yesterday, I did interact with some humans. Ned parked right behind my car in front of the coffee shop. I went out to take a look. He had it towed to the dealership and detailed after the police recovered it. The thief did nasty things in it, but now Ned's car looks fresh out of the showroom. They did a great job cleaning it and even buffing out scratches that didn't come from being stolen. I am amazed that he is not paranoid about having it stolen again. He takes this in stride better than I do.

Tom told me I missed QI at the coffee shop yesterday morning. He was asking for me. He's just back from the Japan/Korea trip but on his way up to Maine for the weekend. I guess his real life is in Maine nowadays. Maybe he's getting to be like laptop man thinking Andover is a fake life.

Yesterday's coffee shop highlight, though, was Tom and Julie looking for each other in the coffee shop like a French bedroom farce. I spotted Tom in the parking lot behind the old town hall as I was driving by. I rolled down the window to ask if he was going to have coffee. He'd already had his coffee but was supposed to meet Julie there so promised to meet me there as soon as he put more quarters in the meter and I went to the post office. I went right there from the post office and found no sign of Tom, and only one place to sit with my coffee. Every chair in the place was taken. M&M were sitting at the counter, and the one empty chair was near them so we were chatting about Maria's job search and various things when Julie came in looking for Tom. She started chatting with Maria about an opening at the Whistler House. Still no sign of Tom. Julie asked me about 4 times if he had gone to the historical society to meet her instead of the coffee shop. No. No. Definitely not. He told me he was meeting her at the coffee shop. She disbelieved me and left to go back to the historical society to look for him. A few minutes later, Tom appeared looking for Julie. We sent him off in the direction of the historical society. I know they eventually found each other because their car passed me on Elm Street with both of them in it.

So today: Walked with Priscilla. Joan-east canceled out at the last minute due to not enough Saturday. Unseasonably warm weather continues. We only walked for 25 minutes because my nose started dripping again big time. It stopped as soon as I got home. Then it was a quick change of clothes and off to Nancy's in Providence.

We rented Kiki's Delivery Service tonight. What a gorgeous movie! I want to live in that town. I want to live in that loft above the bakery. Nancy wanted to move to a small seaside city and open a delivery service immediately. Of course, not being witches we wouldn't be able to fly around on a broomstick to make the deliveries. Every scene was full of little details. I'm sure many of them got by me, there was so much to look at. I really got the sense of the town as a real place. Not necessarily a real place in Japan because a lot of the buildings looked very European like maybe from Italy or the south of France or some amalgam of fantasy European countries. Some of the buildings reminded me a little bit of Sapporo but not most of them. The place was almost a character in the movie.

One funny thing that Nancy pointed out to me was that except for the very first delivery (which was before she started the service) poor Kiki seemed to deliver things the recipients didn't want. The adventure of getting the package to the recipient seemed to be the main point of each delivery task. Kiki's clients all seemed to want to overpay her and befriend her too.

Kiki's love interest with the boy Tombo wasn't quite developed enough. I'd have liked to have seen maybe one more scene with him before she rescues him from the runaway dirigible, but it was cute nonetheless.

Why can't I live in a Miyazaki movie?