Endings

Last night's dinner was a white fish, Basa, I have never made before. I did it broiled with parmesan cheese and bread crumbs and herbes de provence. Along with some longgrain rice, I did a fruit salsa, mango, peach and banana and baked a couple of flour tortillas spread with a little butter and some raw sugar and then broken up into pieces. This worked very well with the fish and rice. It is important to Kimberly and myself to have a good dinner that Piper can share with us. She can do the fruit, and she likes rice.

After that we watched the final four episodes of Sex and The City on DVD. We don't have HBO, so we don't see those shows until they come out on DVD and are rentable. We have seen every episode of Sex and the City. I think it was the best situation comedy that has been on tv in my lifetime. I know TV Guide says that Seinfeld was the great one, and I certainly do like Seinfeld. But it was very uneven. When it was great it was unbelievable for network tv. When it wasn't it could be tiresome. Still, let's hear it for Jerry and the gang. But that final episode was sooo bad. And that returns us to Sex and the City. I don't think I've ever seen a more satisfying final episode of a show. It was just perfect. A happy ending. A romance. And what I think about it is that it is a brave tv show that can have its characters sexually active and yet clearly be good, decent human beings, looking for love, and for some of them, marriage. The show was also much kinder to gay people, and far more realistic in how they were treated than network tv. I like Will and Grace, but the gayness of the Jack character is deliberately a cartoon. So the straight guys can afford to laugh at him.

There are cartoonish aspects to the gay men in Sex and the City, but they are allowed to become real human beings, with feelings, and not just loose men looking for the next experience. I liked how they have Stanford (Carrie's gay friend) in the second to last episode. And I really liked the way Charlotte's gay friend asks her if he will still be important to her after she gets her baby (adoption). And she tells him she loves him. I also liked that the last time we see Samantha, she is finally having sex with Smith, again, after having beaten breast cancer. And she is riding him like he's a wild horse. Very sweet, and funny.

I have a lot of respect for Sarah Jessica Parker. She really made this show work. The voice overs are what really drive the show. And the fact that Carrie really is a writer allows many things to be said in a natural way that you don't normally get in a sitcom. So here's to the women of Sex and the City! Real Americans, trying to be okay and find out what life is all about. It was a remarkable show. TV as it could be.

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I also rented Shrek 2 for the baby. I think her first great romance is with a big, green ogre, voiced by Mike Myers. Paige's first full-length movie experience was the recording of the broadway show, Peter Pan, with Mary Martin. She was given that by my brother David, when she was about Piper's age. And it became the first of many stories she really attached to. We will see where Piper's developing mind takes us. As always I will learn more from her than she will from me.

The treadmill came yesterday. I used it a couple of times for brief periods. I think I like it. In any case, I need more physical exercise. That is the problem with intellectual jobs. Eventually we will turn into mush.

It snowed a little more last night. Winter is getting to that part where it becomes just a bit tiresome, since you know that Spring really will show up. Eliot said April is the cruelest month, because the spring can turn on you and it leads you on with its promise of renewal. I think he goes too far there, but perhaps he could see where Europe was headed at the end of the twenties. In any case, April will bring us a trip to California, and Piper's second birthday.

I thank the Lady for these gifts. May we all walk with Her this day and every day.