That was a really wonderful night of launching the Olympics. Loved the historical aspects, loved the tributes to things like great children’s literature and national health care and dancing and great Celtic music. Despite the stupidity of the US network commentators, the inclusion of the Glastonbury Tor was inspired.

So many wonderful moments – the lit bicycle birds, the forging of the big ring and the flying of the five rings, the entrance of the flame with 500 of the construction workers as honor guards. The passing of the torches to the next generation of athletes…

…and the lighting of the Olympic flame in the stadium. If it had stayed on the arena floor it would have been spectacular and touching in its image – like some great primitive flame beckoning across the windswept empty lands. To see it rise up, and up and joining the individual lights into one great cauldron of flame – totally uplifting.

Thank you.

I stopped to see the folks at Thom’s diner on the way home and a) was offered by the diner’s owner (through the kitchen window no less) a trade of a big red Harley for my Fiat. According to the Harley owner, inside and unaware of the deal, his motorcycle gets about the same mileage as the Fiat, so we agreed we’d keep our respective vehicles.

And then, I walked into the sewing room and flipped on the light and well – there was my quilt hanging and the effect of the quilting in the brown area was amazing. I love how it blurs and mixes and adds lines across the lines. I wanted to hug it.

I was still pretty stoked about yesterday’s Frankenstein film, but I went to work anyway.

I tried to think about 270-320 enriching words re Grimm’s Fairy Tales for my class at lunch today, but I gave up and got a caramel macchiato.

I tried to be nice to someone today and basically failed. I’m pretty sure he makes his living being a very contrary and helpless sort of person. He repeatedly told me he was a “tough nut” – not exactly what I’d describe. But I got past it.

And here I am watching the Olympics people filing in to start their big climatic events. So I’m going to do a little dedicated quilting for awhile whilst everyone takes their places on the world stage. (PS it could have used a bit of Silly Walks)

well, there you go – I heard a funny little noise and made my way over to the edge of the quilt and, just like that, the bobbin ran out. I’ll put in bobbin #12 tomorrow but now I’m off to bed.

I asked if my day off Friday could be switched to today, for reasons about to be revealed.

First up: trip down to chatham to pick up Shadow Show by Sam Weller at the Chatham Bookstore. One day recently when I was home sick, among other things I shopped for online was this book and since I was sick with bad head cold and sore throat and apparently delirious, I sent them an email asking if they had this book or if they could get it. And they did just that.

Then a bit of closing up the house because of the extremely wrong and hyped up warnings about destructive weather headed this way. Yes, we could have had some heavy weather but c’mon.

Then! off to round up pal Naomi and off we went to the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown. Our two-fold purpose: see the film of National Theater’s production of Frankenstein. What a concept – and what a commitment to get these fabulous stage productions out into the world for others to enjoy. This was one of two possible versions, today’s being Benedict Cumberbatch as the scientist Frankenstein and Jonny Lee Miller as his reanimated creation.

All I can say is that it blew me away. The staging was incredible with a complex moving stage and walkways out through the audience. The stage itself looked so small afterwards while the cast was taking its bows.

Before the film started, we took in the current exhibit of Chinese artifacts including a whole tomb building. Also very old, incredible things. Be sure to check out the videos linked at the left including this one:

We also looked at the U-curate exhibit, very old-school gallery format and we decided we could easily live with Winslow Homers and (for me) Renoirs.

It was a great day for a drive and, as Naomi put it, geeking out on a lot of celtic mythos.