2006-05-28 - 4:44 p.m.
Well I guess that slowly, but surely, I'm getting some of the details of my summer lined up. I got the Outfest (film festival) catalogue yesterday and spent most of the day going through it, deciding which films I want to see and figuring out how to schedule them all in (it takes an Excel spreadsheet to sort through them all). All in all, I will be going to twenty-two different films or programs from July 6th to July 16th, that's eleven days, isn't it? I say "programs," because many of them show several films or include discussions with the directors and cast members. I've got a good mix of films from all around the world, including one film I'm looking forward to from Bosnia-Herzegovina, a country I've never seen a film from. I've also got on the schedule two films from the Philippines and one from Portugal, two other countries I've never seen a film from. Naturally, I've got several French films in my line-up, as French films are always among my favorites!
I'll be going to both the Opening Night Gala at the Orpheum (but I still decided not to spring for the V.I.P. pre-party--the post-party of dinner and dancing downtown under the stars will be good enough for me) and the Awards Ceremony at the end --the film after the awards ceremony is the one I chose to see out of the five offerings at the John Anson Ford Amphitheater, again, outside under the stars.
In my "old age," I'm not going to kill myself with this festival like I have done in years past. Last year was the first year I took it easy on myself and it was better that way. "Taking it easy on myself" first of all means not running all over town going to various different venues (they will be showing films in nine different locations this year). Unless there is plenty of time between the films I want, I will not be changing locations that much on a given day. It is pretty much that when I am in a location, that is where I will stay that day. There are some exceptions to that, but they fit in with my lunch or dinner times when I will have to leave the location anyway.
Also, speaking of meal times, I won't do meals on the run or in line, this time, but will plan my meals carefully and take time to do it right, even if that means I get to see fewer films.
Taking it easy on myself also means no more midnight showings (I have hated most of the ones I have seen, anyway) and no staying up late on a "work night," either.
Beyond the eleven days of Outfest, I've got myself a ticket for one musical event at the John Anson Ford Amphitheater (discussed two diary entries ago), but it won't be until mid-September--it's a line up of female jazz singers. I also got a ticket for the JVC Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl (which, yes, is also only a 20-minute walk from my apartment), but that will be in late August at the very end of my vacation. Right after that, we all have to be back at the school for the new school year. But in L.A., September is still summer (whereas June really is not).
So far, there is only one more formal thing I want to plan and pay for, and that is one of the S.S. Lane Victory World War II ship cruises out of the Port of L.A. to Catalina and back in a day. I want to do that in mid-July, after the end of Outfest. It's a chance to take a ride on a working World War II merchant marine ship. They provide us with breakfast and a buffet lunch, and a mock aerial battle with World War II fighter planes, and a return to L.A. before sunset. A friend of mine at work had taken that excursion several years ago and recommended it to me highly. The ship is a floating museum and looks pretty cool, really, and had quite an honorable history.
Other than those things....
I spent the months before spring break dreaming of all the places I could go for spring and then this summer--France, Brazil, Venice, The Seychelles, Dubai, The Dominican Republic, Belize, but then was seriously thankful that all of this struck me as too expensive for the time being and I hadn't decided on anything, because with my mother dying at the very beginning of spring break, I wouldn't have been able to go anywhere anyway.
And now all my father talks about is dying and his only desire is to make it to his 90th birthday, which will be August 31. He's really not sure he can even make it to then.
We had all hoped to treat him to doing some of the things he had wanted to do, but couldn't, because he needed to stay close to our mother who needed his constant care. We thought he'd want to go fishing, or spend some time at one sister's lake house, or go white-water rafting in Idaho where another sister lives, and my brother even wanted me to plan a repeat of the England narrowboating trip that he and I and some friends had enjoyed so much many, many years ago--my brother has long wanted us to repeat that so that his wife could enjoy it and he thought Dad would like it, too, along with the rest of our family (including his grandkids), but Dad said he could never travel to England at this point.
Actually, apparently Dad hardly ever even gets out of bed and will do so only when the woman who comes to take care of him makes him do it. He just says that he doesn't have any energy and has no desire to do anything anyway. I guess he is suffering from severe depression and a loss of purpose since our mother died. It's very hard to even talk to him over the phone.
I had loosely figured that regardless of what else I would do, I would at least go to England to visit a friend of mine whose husband had died (those two had gone narrowboating with us and there was some talk of her wanting to do that again, too), but since I have no idea what will be happening with our father, it is unlikely that I will be able to schedule any far-away foreign trips this summer.
Well, I have long wanted to go back down to Guaymas, Mexico ( San Carlos, actually, right next to Guaymas) on the Sea of Cortez, but keep deciding against it, because the only airline that flies there anymore costs as much as a trip to Cancun or Roatan Island (Honduras) or Belize--I would love to go back to Roatan and would also love to rent a seaside cottage on Caye Caulker in Belize, very reasonably priced, and for the same price as relatively nearby San Carlos, so San Carlos keeps losing out in my planning.
My main conflict is that probably the best way to get to San Carlos is to drive there, which you do from Tucson, Arizona quite easily via a Mexican toll road. But I won't take my car into Mexico. For one thing, I guess I have the unreasonable fear of "banditos," plus the country seems to have a myriad different laws, the violation of which seem to always end up with them taking away your car. I don't need to risk that for a few days by the sea. A more reasonable fear is that Mexican gasoline is very poor and the distance is too great to do round-trip on American gasoline so you have to fill up at least once with Mexican gas. (San Carlos is a five or six hour drive from the border.) The fuel isn't filtered very well and the AAA says that the impurities can clog up fuel injectors. I really don't want to wreck my engine for a trip to Mexico.
However, a friend of mine at work rented a car from the L.A. Airport and drove it across the border to San Felipe, another Sea of Cortez beach resort (that is starting to develop). She said that Thrifty, the car rental company, KNEW she was taking the car into Mexico, which I can hardly believe they would let you do, but she did it. So maybe this summer I will follow her example, but take the car further south to San Carlos.
Of course, I could simply take a bus down there--it is actually possible to buy a ticket on-line from Greyhound for passage from Hollywood (a fifteen-minute walk from my apartment) all the way to Guaymas (which requires changing busses in two or three different places), but it's an overnight and probably pretty exhausting ride, so I haven't just jumped into doing it. But it could be fun. The thing would be to schedule the nightime portion for the U.S. and do the Mexican portion in daylight, and they do offer that schedule. So maybe I will do one of those things, because they require very little outlay of money, aren't that far away, so if my father dies this summer, I won't have sacrificed thousands of dollars. Terrible to have to think this way, but that's the way it is.
What we all really would love to do is treat our father to some fun, but he just won't do it. So what can you do?
Summer vacation...who would think that it could be such a problem to plan? I probably put too much importance onto it. And all the other things I am going to be doing locally are perhaps vacation enough. After all, people come HERE for vacation, don't they?
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