Balance and the British Secret Agent

Actually, I did something a little different today. I slept in, until past 10, and started a gloomy, damp day with cleaning the kitchen. It needed to be done. The sink and counter weren't too bad, but I hadn't dusted the cabinets, including the top, in ages. I still need to scrub the inside of the refrigerator. I'll do that tomorrow.

Dubbed the first of two James Bond films I bought last week, A View to a Kill, in the morning and early afternoon. Roger Moore's last Bond film has him chasing the head of a company specializing in high-tech microchips (a very creepy blond Christopher Walken). Initially, he's interested in the horses Zoltan's seemed to have drugged...but the trail eventually leads to San Francisco's Silicone Valley, where he encounters a gorgeous geologist (Tanya Roberts) and gets in trouble with the local police and Zoltan both, just barely avoiding Zoltan's Amazonian ladyfriend May Day (Grace Jones).

Boy, is this one weird. The only Bond films that rank higher on the "weird" scale are the Bond-in-space feature Moonraker and Connery's last "canon" go-around, Diamonds are Forever. You get everything from a wild car chase involving a fire truck and half of San Francisco's police force to Moore and Walken duking it out on the Golden Gate Bridge. Oh yeah, and San Francisco's City Hall is set on fire. Patrick McNee's in there somewhere, too. Dull Tanya Roberts is one of the least interesting Bond women; Jones is better, even if her neon eyeshadow and New Wave hair dos are incredibly dated today. My favorite thing about this one is the awesome Duran Duran title song, which was a huge hit in its own right on both sides of the Atlantic.

It was quarter after 3 before I finally headed out. Reversing my usual Thursday errands, I stopped at the Collingswood Library first to do my volunteering session there and donate some records and books. I shelved some DVDs and organized the DVD shelves; the kids' shelves were really bad this week. There was nothing to do upstairs, which may have been just as well. I barely had enough time to hurry down the street for yoga class as it was.

Lee was back for this week's Gentle Yoga class. There were only two other women in the class along with Lee and me, which was fine by me. We had plenty of room to work on stretching, twists, and standing poses. My left thigh and side have been feeling sore for weeks; I was in no mood to push myself. I wish I could go to the Gentle Yoga class more often, but I usually work at 4PM on Thursdays. The other Gentle Yoga/Yoga Basics classes offered are all late in the day, too.

Stopped at CVS on the way home. I needed mouthwash; also wanted to take a look at their summer decorations. (For some reason, drug stores always have great holiday decorations.) When I didn't see anything I liked, I just headed home. The sky remained cloudy and it was humid, but it was also a bit warmer than earlier, probably in the upper 60s.

When I got in, I made Chicken Meatloaf, Sauteed Swiss Chard, Chocolate Mint Muffins, and a half of a grapefruit for dinner while dubbing the other Bond film I picked up last week, GoldenEye. Bond was thrust into a new, Cold War-less world...and into a new actor. Pierce Bronsonan took over the role from Timothy Dalton and did remarkably well - in fact, only Sean Connery is more associated with the Bond role. This time, Bond heads first for Russia, then for Cuba in search of the secret weapon of the title. He's aided by a lovely computer programmer who witnessed the weapon's theft (Izabella Schiroso) and his boss, the skeptical M (Dame Judi Dench).  The weapon was hijacked by a Russian mob boss (Sean Bean) with ties to Bond and to the Secret Service and a Russian computer geek (Alan Cummings) who loves to play mind games. And then there's pilot Xenia Onotopp (Fanke Janssen), she of the lethal love-making...

Ok, so this one's a little strange, but not quite as bizarre as most of the Roger Moore efforts. Along with Tomorrow Never Dies, this is probably Bronsonan's best Bond outing. Bean is also an effective villian; Janssen is even better as the lady with the (literal) killer thighs. Fairly tough Schiroso is a much better Bond girl than the useless Roberts. Dench made such a perfect M, her role would be increased in subsequent films.