Oscar night

Well, the Oscars are on tonight, and Susie and I actually did a decent job this year of getting to the movies to see most of the films up for best picture. Yesterday, after spending some time walking through SOMA trying to figure out if we would like living in one of the Avalon communities on that side of town (the answer is no by the way) we caught an early afternoon showing of Doubt. Just in case anyone stumbles across this blog that hasn’t seen the movie (highly unlikely since Susie is the only one that reads this) I won’t spoil anything, but I’d be remiss if I failed to mention that Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep are stellar in the movie. But I guess that is the popular opinion since both are nominated for Oscars for their respective roles.

I can’t pinpoint exactly why I love film and theater, but I can truly get lost in a well-told story on stage or on screen. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good book too, but due to the amount of reading I have to do at work, I find myself looking forward to movies more than the books that gather dust on my bedside table. These days most of my leisure reading happens on the bus to and from work. The most astounding part of Doubt was the audience reaction to Meryl’s performance. The film is by no means a comedy, but there were several moments when we couldn’t help ourselves from laughing in a sort of child-like appreciation of watching someone so incredibly talented at their craft. For me, it was similar to the feeling of watching an athlete do something so extraordinary, so utterly unthinkable for anyone outside of the realm of sports, that you can’t help but feel a sense of joy for having experienced it. Simply put, she’s the best and no one’s really close.

In other news, it looks like we’re going to be staying in Sunset through the term of our lease. This past week Susie noticed that rent has come down quite a bit throughout the city, and since our leasing company owns several properties in the city and supposedly allows tenants to transfer units mid-lease if there are vacancies, we thought it might be a good opportunity to move closer in (i.e. shorten my commute) and possibly upgrade. Unfortunately, the two Avalon communities we checked out are in some of the least “walkable” locations we’ve seen since being here. Hopefully rates will stay down until the fall when we’re going to be looking for real.