Gratitude again

1. Thank you to God and all who help me get through a day
2. Thank you to friends. They multiply the happy times and divide the sad.

Maybe this is obvious, but I'll say it anyway. Happy times, hmm, those would be things like birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, graduations. Sad times would be times of sickness and death.

On to other matters, Rick and I watched Syrianna this weekend. So this is my two cents. The movie was much better than I expected, especially the end. Matt Damon and George Clooney (with a beard) star. Roughly, I would say the movie is about U.S. relations with oil-rich countries of the the Middle East with Iran and Kazakhstan mentioned. The various threads of the story - and there are lots of threads - are made-up but believable enough. The cinematography is beautiful and acting excellent.

The various threads made me say at one point - boy, this looks just like a movie except it jumps all over the place and doesn't really tell a story. I'm sure that was part of the point, as the threads show relationships that are complex. Matt Damon plays the part of an energy analyst who becomes very influential in the Saudi family and brings his own family overseas. George Clooney works for the CIA and gets very challenging assignments throughout the Middle East, in part because he is fluent in Arabic. I must say both actors were very convincing. Clooney in a beard is really like a whole different person from the Ocean's 11-type Clooney. Matt Damon in addition to being a very serious business person shows great affection for his family that includes wife and two small sons.

Some of the threads in the story include what it is like to work for a US company dealing with the Middle East - including Texas-based companies and big mergers, what it is like to work for the CIA, what Saudi royal family politics is like including the rich Saudi life style, what US-Middle East relations are like for the CIA, what it is like to be a Muslim terrorist ready to give up your life, and what can torture be like for a CIA agent working in an area, in this case an area controlled by Hezbollah, that is not friendly to the US. Actually, now that I think of it, the jumping around of stories was effective in that so much ground was covered. I give this a thumbs up. You will not regret seeing it.

This weekend we also went to the garden club rummage sale.