duck, duck, gosling film festival

I could very well have called this "Film Festival, Interrupted".

Believe it or not, it took me ten hours to watch three movies.

Fortunately, I'd chosen two that I know by heart, so there was only the middle one (as Otto would say, "What was that middle thing?") that was relatively new to me.

I did that purposely, of course, as I had expected multiple phone calls, and made multiple phone calls and texts, earlier in the day.

I'd had breakfast and gone to Memorial Hospital, wanting to lay eyes on my middle brother before I got involved with anything else.

I might as well have not tried, as I certainly did not have the opportunity to visit Ronnie.

The woman in charge of visitors to the Emergency Room area told me he already had a visitor, so I would have to wait.

Oh, really?

Then she told me about the "rules during pandemic", namely, only two visitors would be allowed to see him for however long he was to be at the hospital, and those two had to visit separately, not together.

By the time I was done with this fruitless errand, it was almost 2:30 pm.

I contacted my other two brothers, explaining the rules to them, fixed myself some lunch, and settled in for a bit of distraction.

Specifically, I had "Blade Runner 2049" cued up and running about twenty minutes later.

At 4 PM, I had almost a 30-minute pause.

Tony had called, wanting more specifics so we could decide who would be on that visitation list, and we spoke of his upcoming left-knee replacement (next Monday).

I rewound the movie a little, then got back into it for a while.

At 6 PM, Smitty called and we had our own 30-minute talk about Ronnie and the hospital and about his upcoming anniversary trip.

I spun the movie back a little, then managed to finish it at 7:39 PM.

It had taken me almost five hours to watch it.

Before starting "Lars And The Real Girl", I phoned Christina, speaking with her about 25 minutes and asking that she call her mom.

It was close to 8:15 PM when I started the second Ryan Gosling film, featuring a version of him that was a decade younger than in the science fiction film.

Michael called at 8:50 PM and we talked for about 25 minutes.

He said he could come to the hospital and stay with his dad every day.

I had already learned that only Smitty and I could be the two names for visitation, per the Five Wishes directive, but I told him he could certainly come and see Ronnie one day this week, that I would make sure of that.

I had to rewind the movie quite a bit, as I'm not sure that I've ever seen it before.

Still, by 10:55 PM, I was done with it, not bothering with the credits.

The free movies were ending at midnight and I wanted to see as much as I could of "The Fifth Element", the only Gosling-free film of the trio.

And, to my surprise, I was able to watch the whole movie, which just ended.

i thank You, God.

Now, I'm going to bed and resting up.

I'm determined to see Ronnie today!