Jojo Friday

“Let everything happen to you / Beauty and terror / Just keep going / No feeling is final.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

Okay, friends, first of all, Happy Friday! Happy Favorite Things Friday! Second of all, time for me to gush. I love a lot of things in life. I adore my family and my friends and my pets and my experiences and my home and books and driving in a convertible with the top down and adventuring in unknown places and delicious spicy food and writing and music and hiking and candles and throw pillows and perfume and art and fashion and good lighting and jewelry and nature and the mystery of all things spiritual and the sound of rain and our adorable three baby pineapples growing out back . . . . I could go on and on, but I also adore good movies and last night, during Thursday’s “Family Movie Night in the Living Room”, we watched (even my eldest son in New Jersey, Facetimed in, for this one) one of the best movies that I have seen in a long, long time. I was, at first, very hesitant to watch a film that was supposedly a “comedy” featuring Hitler, but when I saw how well this satire was done, I sank into the delicious experience of watching it and I could watch it again and again. The poem above is featured in the film, which will be the first of today’s Favorite Things. New readers, please see previous Friday posts for more favorites and all readers, please post your favorites in the Comments section. Let’s focus on our favorite things today, friends, not those things which we detest, such as nasty, nasty, ugly viruses.

Jojo Rabbit – This film puts me in mind of a darker A Christmas Story (also one of my all-time favorite movies). The acting is incredible, the filming is all together charming, and the painful winsomeness which all we feel, when we are going through dark times (such as now), is captured perfectly in this innocently honest, coming of age tale. I LOVE this movie! I found it to be entertaining, poignant, funny and raw. If you like Wes Anderson type movies, such as The Grand Budapest Hotel, you will like Jojo Rabbit, as much as I do.

Sea Bunnies – When Zooming with my high school-aged mentee yesterday she showed me her excellent artwork which she is working on. She drew a postage stamp with these adorable little creatures called “Sea Bunnies” featured on the stamp. I said to my genuinely genuine and authentic-ly refreshing mentee, “Those are so adorable, I wish that they were real!” She said, “They are real. Look them up.” And so to you, reader, I say, “They are real. Look them up.” If you want delightful eye candy (eye candy has no fat nor calories), look up “sea bunnies.”

“I Did Not Touch The Food” video – I don’t think that I have ever seen more conviction in a denial of the truth than from this adorable toddler, Lily. This video does not get old for me. I love the forcefulness she uses to profess her “innocence.” If you want a giggle, watch the video. I dare you to try to only watch it once.

https://videos.dailymail.co.uk/video/mol/2020/04/22/4327567503805953879/640x360_MP4_4327567503805953879.mp4

Enjoy chewing on some grapes this weekend! See you tomorrow, my wonderful friends and readers!

(Scene from Jojo Rabbit, featuring Scarlett Johansson)