Tag: Hulu

Housebound due to…..Nature.

I thought, silly me, that being in Oakland for the winter would be warmer than another Paris winter. Who knew? Cyclones, windstorms, endless rain, and flooding. Oh my!!! Storm drains that have had so little to do in the worst California drought ever turned out to be stuffed with leaves and debris. Water just circulates and then floods the intersections. ‘Fountains’ have appeared on the sides of many roads. Monday, Highway 13, which is close to me, had a tree fall across the southern driving direction and a multi-car accident in the northern direction. It was only one of seven road closures that day.

Needless to say, the advice on TV, on the radio, and in e-mails from the city, all advise ‘Stay at Home’. For those of us that actually follow directions, well, what does one do? You’d think we’d be well practiced in ‘sheltering at home’ after how many years of Covid? But I was under the illusion that it was easier here in Oakland than in a small Paris apartment. I never took into account RAIN! Not to be able to sit outside in the backyard or walk around my neighborhood where it is easy to put six feet between me and the nearest person. This has been extraordinary. I will say that I still am very lucky. I have not lost electricity or Wi-Fi and there have been no mudslides near me. We learned that Kevin Costner could not be at the Golden Globes Tuesday night to pick up his best actor award because of the severity of the weather in Santa Barbara/Montecito. The presenter was joking around about it but many people have had to evacuate from very expensive houses down there. So I’m sort of complaining but when compared to what could be….I’m actually happy that it has not been worse.

Mudslide near Santa Barbara

So what does one do in this new ‘Sheltering in Place’? It turns out there are a number of streaming services available in the US that we don’t get in France. One of them is Hulu. And one of the best shows on Hulu is called Only Murders in the Building with the wonderful Steve Martin and the hilarious Martin Short. They are joined by a young singer/actress I knew nothing about: Selena Gomez.  OMITM is a great show. Martin and Martin are seniors who love a True Crime Podcast. They meet each other in a café during a false fire alarm in their building in NYC. Into the café wanders Selena Gomez, hears them talking about the Podcast, and it turns out she is a huge fan also. During the false alarm, someone in the building is murdered and they quickly whip up the idea of having their own podcast called, you guessed it, Only Murders in the Building. Wonderful mayhem ensues. This is not slapstick. This is a witty vehicle that shows off the best of the two comedians. They work so well with each other or as I’ve heard actors say recently: They are wonderful dance partners. And anyone who has seen their Saturday Nite Live hostings in the month of December can tell that they are fond of each other. Hulu has two seasons of ten episodes each. Giving us the opportunity to watch two masters of comedy solving murders and making it thrilling.  Selena Gomez isn’t bad either and it is fun to see the generations mix. She claims these two ‘old men’ are her only friends.

I just recently discovered the author Richard Osman, a British screenwriter among his many talents, who has turned his attention to writing mysteries. The first book, The Thursday Murder Club, introduced the world to four seniors, known as pensioners in the UK, who solve murders! They started with cold cases, but by the third book in the series, things have escalated. These books are fun! They are exciting, addictive, and just plain fun! In a time when the world seems to be falling apart, this seems reminiscent of the 40s screwball comedies that were made during WWII when everyone needed a laugh, a smile, and a distraction from what was happening around them. That is what OMITB and the Thursday Murder Club members are doing for me. It’s not quite so bad staying at home with these folk as company.

Is watching streaming services on a TV called watching TV? Other than watching The Golden Globes last night, I haven’t seen any mainstream channels. It’s good to have a large Smart TV that downloads apps and, for a hefty fee, one can be entertained around the clock. Here is another channel not available to me in France even with a good VPN. Turner Classic Movies (TCM—there is a version on French TV but it is not this wonderful classic channel where movies are presented by hosts who know their film history and can relate fascinating details that one would never know otherwise). I watched the 1974 That’s Entertainment, The Sting (1973), The Philadelphia Story (1940) , and the brilliant Inherit the Wind (1960) with Spencer Tracy over the four days of New Year’s weekend. Inherit the Wind is the story of the 1925 Scopes trial where the teaching of evolution by John Scopes was being prosecuted. It could be made today. Do we have a Clarence Darrow available who can go mano a mano with our present-day fundamentalists? All these classic movies hold up. They could have been made yesterday.

Tuesday night was the 80th Golden Globe ceremony. Until last year, when it didn’t air because it was learned there were no black members, it was always everyone’s favorite award ceremony. It is much more laid back, and fun with lots of faux pas that no one really cared about. Then George Floyd was killed and the US started to examine itself on racism. Some entities anyway. Tonight’s show tried to make up ground. The host, Jarrod Carmichael, opened with the line “You know why they asked me to host this show? Because I’m black.” He went on to talk about the elephant in the room in a low-key folksy way. I thought he was excellent. I haven’t read any reviews. Last night’s winners were a diverse group of people many of which would probably not have been honored if not for George Floyd. The two best movies were directed by white men. The Irish movie The Banshees of Inisherin won in the category of best musical or comedy. I haven’t seen the movie but I hear it is not uplifting at all so I’m wondering…. The story of Steven Spielberg’s childhood and his wild wonderful mother, The Fabelmans, won for best Drama. I haven’t seen that either. I can watch both of Apple TV + if I choose not to go to a theatre.

Swollen river near Santa Cruz

According to my iPhone, this California freak of nature will continue for six more days and maybe beyond. The average temperature is 52o. Much the same as in Paris though the temperature seems to be dropping there. So, to all you brilliant people who developed streaming services, and produce these amazing shows that distract from reality, I say thank you. I will survive yet another housebound adventure.

It’s not what or how you plan but how you respond to what actually happens. That’s what they tell me.

For more photos of the damage: https://ktla.com/news/california/california-storm-damage-in-photos/

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A bientôt,

Sara

Just another day in confinement; Paris, France

I woke up at 7:30 after sleeping terribly. So badly that I’d pulled the bottom sheet away from it’s nice hospital corner tuck-in. Am I anxious? I don’t think so but I’ve never slept so badly that it appears I’ve been wrestling someone or something. I get out of bed yawning as I have for the last five mornings. After making coffee and filling a bowl with fruit and yogurt, I meander to my computer to read the latest bad news. I can’t watch the news. I have to read it. If I don’t like the headline I can scroll down. I can start with the sports pages or the culture pages if I want to and then scroll upward. What I read this morning was that the President of the United States of America said he would not send life-saving equipment to any state if the Governor “isn’t nice to me”. I started crying. I’m living in a nightmare. Maybe I hadn’t really awaken. My sister said yesterday that he was favouring red states over blue. She calls him malevolent.

A part of me wanted to crawl back in bed and have a re-do. Energy just seeped away from my body. I turned the television on, went to YouTube and clicked on Walk at Home with Leslie Sansone. I’ve seen more of Leslie in the past three weeks than any friend on Zoom. I chose a Boost Walk and hoped I could march away the blues. I walked and marched and swung my arms and stomped my feet and muttered.

The fun of walking at home with Leslie Sansone

Thirty minutes later, I sat down at my computer to work. I can’t catch up with work. I felt resentful. The Guardian, every day, has a list of movies and box set TV shows that we can binge watch since we have nothing else to do. HA! If I could watch every season of MASH, I might give up on work, writing these blogs, keeping up with e-mails and all the things my publicity agent wants me to do for my book which comes out May 12. I haven’t found MASH anywhere. If you, wonderful reader, know where I can stream MASH, please let me know.

MASH is no longer on Netflix but is now streamed on Hulu

I spoke with a close friend in California the other evening. She told me how she and her daughter are taking walks and respecting the six foot distance, how check out lines at the food stores have tape on the ground six feet apart and people respect that. I seemed to be hearing that she was spending a lot of time outside of the house. I told her I’d been out three times in the past two weeks. “You haven’t even taken a walk?” No I haven’t. So I told myself I would use my hour of outdoor time today to walk over to the Bois de Boulogne and back. Then I saw an interview with Bernie Sanders who told us, the listening audience, “stay at home unless you absolutely, without a doubt, have to go out.” I don’t think a walk falls in that category. I felt paralyzed. Go out, stay in. When in doubt, leave it out. I still haven’t completely given up the idea. In my heart, I know we are being given better instructions in France than in the US but then one friend writes about being at the beach and how beautiful it is and another about hiking on a lovely trail and another describes the eery, terrible, wonder of empty streets in the middle of the day.

Coronavirus Cases: 1,210,422 view by country

Deaths: 65,449 Recovered: 251,822

Thursday, as the US announced that the limits would last until May 3 and the newspaper publishes horrifying statistics of deaths doubling overnight (New York had almost 600 yesterday), it began to sink in that there was a good chance that we’d be in confinement for a minimum of another month and likely two months. Intellectually, I knew that that was probably going to happen but acceptance is a whole other feeling. That’s probably my nighttime tossing and turning. History books will describe this time in my lifetime as “unprecedented”. To me, it’s like trying to live one day at a time with the braille method, trying to sense what is the right thing to do for my own self-care but also for my fellow citizen of Paris. Hoping and praying that what I’m doing and saying will ultimately be the best that one can do. And isn’t that what we are all doing?: the best we can do with the information we are given.

In France24.com this morning, a reporter was confirming what most of us are already suspecting–that we are in this for a very long haul. He thinks that the lockdown limits will be lifted slowly but not all at one time. He pointed out that already China is getting a second wave as people travel around again. So government administrators will have to really be prepared to advise as to how to begin living our lives outside of our homes. “The prime minister cited the possibility of easing lockdown measures on a region-by-region basis and “subject to a new testing policy – depending, possibly, on age and other factors”. It’s a scenario similarly touted in Italy – one of the countries hit hardest by the virus – where Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has said that a “return to normalcy” will have to be achieved “gradually”-(France24). But it’s not going to happen for awhile.

police checking on the reason for a couple to be sitting in a British park

The Guardian says that in the UK, people are starting to rebel against the going-outside restrictions. I don’t think they get fined the way we do here in France. I’ve rebelled against limitations so much in my life but this time, I’m more scared of getting sick than of following the advised restrictions. Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, since 2018, is now live telling people if they don’t obey the restrictions and stop putting others’ lives at risk, all outdoors exercise will be banned. I think this might be called ‘lockdown fatigue’. I’m sure it is what I was feeling the other day.

“May you live in interesting times.” That is a Chinese curse. (There is actually no record of this being a Chinese saying or curse but an English saying from a translation. No one has ever found what it is supposed to have been translated from.) These are indeed interesting times, times when each one of us has to be creative, self-motivated to care for ourselves and others. Getting our high on being with others isn’t going to happen. The crowd euphoria of singing and dancing at a club isn’t going to happen. Taking a long hike in the beauty of our natural world isn’t going to happen. We have been challenged to find ways to entertain ourselves and our loved ones and live within the parameters set by our governments. I wish for everyone that they find their best selves within and call on that being hourly to stay safe, stay well, stay inside, wash your hands and don’t touch your face.

A bientôt,

Sara

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