Just A Peck 0038 // Construction, Drama Club, No Kings

Just A Peck

Welcome to the latest issue of Just A Peck. I’m glad you’re here!

JOURNAL

Our ongoing construction project seems to be nearing an end. The temporary wall came down this week, and we were reminded how awesome the view is looking up the shore. The interior garage wall is still ripped apart and there is still tinting treatments for the windows and some paint touch ups to do, but we’re getting close!

Interior construction - exposed wall framing
Sunset through scaffolding on the lake
Construction materials outside by the lake
Interior with plastic sheeting over wall framing
Construction worker installing windows
New windows installed - lake view

Jody’s Drama Club performance was this week. The musical this year was “Munchkin Mediation: Conflict Resolution in Oz” in which the characters from The Wizard of Oz need to learn how to resolve conflicts, deal with feeling angry, appreciate their differences, and other useful skills, all set to music. It was adorable and the kids were so proud. It was an exhausting process for Jody, but she crushed it (like always).

Lakewood Drama Club leaders
Lakewood Drama Club cast on stage

Last year I did a “100 Days of Peloton” challenge. This year I’m doing a different challenge, and since I just crossed the 50-day (20%) mark, I guess I can share. I’m doing 250 straight days of tracking what I eat and observing a 15+ hour fast. (Most days I fast for over 16 hours, but 15 is the goal.) It’s going well so far, and I’m down about 15 lbs.

Zero app - 50 consecutive fasts Sizzle Streak badge

Jody and I (along with 7500 other patriots in Duluth and over 8 million people around the country) attended a No Kings rally on Saturday. We saw quite a few friends in the crowd.

Selfie at No Kings rally with Jody and Kate

We spent Sunday morning at Studio Cafe downtown playing a board game and listening to our friends Tom and Brandy make awesome music.

Coffee and board games at a cafe with live music

WHAT I WATCHED THIS WEEK

The Driver
The Driver (1978). Walter Hill's minimalist action masterpiece. As one reviewer said: "Pure American machine brutality and stylish Euro crime existentialism in a head-on collision. Genre filmmaking stripped to its bare bones, like Bresson but with wet neon city streets, the solitude and hideous urban architecture of Edward Hopper and the roaring engines of Bullitt. A world where no one even has names because what are we if not a series of jobs and actions and impulses?"
Resurrection
Resurrection (2025). Bi Gan makes ambitious, poetic, opaque films. This one, which won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes last year, is no different. An ode to the art of film that starts with silent film and ends with an unbelievable 40-minute long single take. Told in five segments with Jackson Yee playing the (almost unrecognizable from section to section) lead in all five.
U Are the Universe
U Are the Universe (2014). A single actor, single location Ukrainian sci-fi film from last year. A space trucker becomes the last remaining human (or does he?) when the Earth explodes as he's on his way back from a run. Special effects and production design were pretty impressive for an indie sci fi flick.

WHAT I READ THIS WEEK

Finished:

My Ántonia
My Ántonia, by Willa Cather. I read My Ántonia for one of my book groups. It was a first-time read for me and I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. This quiet, poignant account of 19th-century pioneers in Nebraska is based on Willa Cather's own experience as a child, and the character of Ántonia is based on a Bohemian immigrant she actually knew. I immediately ordered Death Comes For the Archbishop.

In Progress:

MY FAVORITE QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“The earth was warm under me, and warm as I crumbled it through my fingers. Queer little red bugs came out and moved in slow squadrons around me. Their backs were polished vermilion, with black spots. I kept as still as I could. Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.”

-- Willa Cather

That’s it for this week. Stay safe, friends. Thanks for reading!

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