Well it is pretty much official, Dave is certain that he’ll get the job at the National Institute of Health (NIH).  On Friday, he flew from Rochester to Maryland, interviewed and made a presentation on his research work.  He still has to cajole two letters of recommendation out of his professors and complete the application process to make it official.

After he completes that process the real fun begins.  Dave has to figure out where he is going to live and how he is going to get around town and how he is going to get all of his stuff there.  The deal with his friend’s Jetta fell through, can you say a new car?  Dave can.   😮

Dave is uncertain now whether he will be able to join us at the Cabin this summer.  He has to finish up his work at Rochester and begin his year-long stint at NIH soon enough so that in the fall of 2011 he can enroll and start graduate school on time.  Where ever that might be.

I asked Dave what he was going to be doing at NIH and he started to explain, then stopped.  He promised to send an email explaining things.  He probably figures that this way he wouldn’t have deal with too many dumb questions.

Dan spends his days alternating between packing up his apartment, moving stuff into the basement and completing his registration and enrollment to CalArts.  He and Annie and Anne and Susan all depart for California a week from today.  And then I’ll be left home alone again.

Chris sent me the lovely following picture of the entrance to Joe Rombi’s, Chris and my folk’s favorite restaurant.  It is located in Pacific Grove.  I’ve been there and it is really quite nice.

Anne and I went out to the movies Friday night.  We went to go see the new movie, The Kids Are All Right.  The movie stars Julianne Moore, Annette Bening and Mark Ruffalo.  The following synopsis is from IMDb:

Nic (Bening) and Jules (Moore) are in a long-term, committed, loving but by no means perfect relationship.  They have two teen-aged children, Joni and Laser.  Joni and Laser are also half-siblings, having the same unknown sperm donor father.  Joni now eighteen contacts their sperm donor father.  He is late thirty-something Paul (Ruffalo), a co-op farmer and restaurateur.  After Joni and Laser meet with Paul, Nic and Jules learn what their children have done.

Although the movie features the two principal actresses as a lesbian couple, the movie is less about gay life than it is about marriage.  The gay community is actually all up in arms about the movie’s  portrayal of middle age married (gay) sex.  “The Moms” worry about and nag their kids: about the friends that they choose, their unwritten thank you cards and most humorously about their son’s sexual orientation.  Nic the doctor is the bread-winner, while Jules has played the role of the stay at home mom.  It is almost the picture perfect representation of a story book 21^st century family, mother, mother, son and daughter.  Then in marches the buffalo, Paul, and he cracks the fissures that are already there wide open. 

Marriage is about raising children.  Nic and Jules have done that.  Marriage is also a marathon.  You need to be able to go the distance.  I’m told that when you run a marathon you eventually hit what is called the wall.  Every runner that wants to finish their marathon must summon up the strength to break through their wall.

Marriages sometimes face major obstacles like the wall, but they are more commonly torn apart by the mile after mile, year after year regime of daily running.  It is harder to run in tandem than it is to run alone.  Your partner is either running too fast or too slow.  Either way you find yourself off of your best pace.

In the film Nic and Jules find their wall in Paul.  Crashing through their marathon wall gives them the what they need to re-seam their marriage’s cracks and gaps.  Given the lighthearted tone of the movie, I don’t think that it is giving away too much to relate the son’s sage advice to the Moms, “You two should get back together, you both are too old to get a divorce.”

This is the best movie that I have seen this year.  If it doesn’t win gobs of nominations, then I’m not watching the Oscars next year.  It is a shame to pit Bening against Moore in the same movie.  They’ll likely split the Oscar vote.  My vote goes for Moore.