one flew over the cuckoos nest

Just finished watching this movie, and hadn't seen it in quite awhile. Jacks performance is the best of his career, 'cept maybe for the Shining. It is a slow moving film and so utterly depressing. Perhaps more for me as it rings a little too close to home, as my maternal grandmother (Babci, rip) had been hospitilized many times for schitzophrenia. As kids, Sean and I had to visit her in the hospital on more than one occasion and it was always a terrifying experience.

But, even more terrifying was that when my parents were having "problems" (which was more often than not) they often left us with our grandparents for days. That was the real terror. The food was always expired or weird and the glasses and dishes were dirty. My brother and I were super skinny kids, and these 'vacations' didn't help us at all, as we never ate or drank while there, except from the garden hose or our hands.

My grandfather was a drunk, but stopped drinking after his 2nd open heart surgery when I was about 11.

I remember a fishing trip when I was around 7 years old which ended at the 8-acres tavern with me eating the semi-regular maraschino cherry lunch. I learned how to tie a cherry stem into a knot with my tongue at around 6-7 yrs old, The bad thing about this trip is that we started home and cars were blaring horns at us like crazy. My grandfather had entered an exit ramp onto a parkway and was going in the wrong direction down an open highway. To make it worse, when he found out that he was going the wrong way, he slammed on the brakes and his toy poodle "topo" fell out of his open window onto the highway, so he had to lumber out onto the highway to retrieve his dog.

Many times at drop off, I'd go into the house and I would hear topo barking and my Babci singing. I couldn't figure out where the dog was as it sounded 'echo-y'. My grandmother had once again, put the dog in the oven (off) because she couldn't take his barking anymore.

I may not be 100%, but it's surprising that I have one iota of sanity. J. Walls and A Burroughs only have a little leg up on me.