“Away We Go” Review: So Good It Deserves a Font All Its Own

With the movie poster’s school-notebook title font and pregnancy-centered storyline, it might seem like Away We Go is a deliberate attempt to cash in on Juno’s box office success.  Yet this grown-up comedy starring Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski has a sweet charm all its own and could become another indie sleeper hit.  It’s already my favorite film of the year.

Directed with restraint and thoughtfulness by Sam Mendes and anchored by an honest, understated performance from Rudolph, Away We Go follows thirtysomethings Burt and Verona as they travel across and outside the country to find the best place to raise their unborn child.  There’s an early indication where the couple will eventually settle, but the encounters with family and old friends along the way is what makes the film so special. 

We’re introduced to some shocking and bizarre examples of parenting, from the truly insensible to the overly attentive.  Maggie Gyllenhaal’s new age feminist is a memorable standout.  Later the troubles aren’t as evident, as is the case with two married college friends and their seemingly happy bustling household. 

But at the heart of the film is Burt and Verona, one of the most believable screen couples I’ve seen in a long time.  As their journey progresses, initial concerns about starting a family eventually lead to questions about the everyday nature of happiness and regret.  And it’s made credible mostly by Maya Rudolph, who contributes so much to scenes with just an expression and quietly counterbalances Krasinski’s moments of upbeat goofiness from becoming self-indulgent routines.

By the end, two sets of doors open.  One completing the couple’s search and the other marking the journey that lies ahead as parents.  Burt and Verona just don’t find a place to live.   They discover a home and have realized how it can be a happy one.

Floating back and forth between humor and insight, Away We Go is a rewarding examination of family and relationships.

For the Bird$

I bought some birdfeed.  Just some peanuts and a packet of suet.  This cost me $12.50.  A lot of money considering my current budget.

But while gardening yesterday I noticed a male cardinal hopping around my empty feeders.  And then it perched on the edge of the roof for several minutes, tilting it’s head around as if to say, “Seriously?  There’s nothing?  C’mon, seriously?”   It had been weeks since I had any feed to put out.  There’s been news about people not being able to afford to feed their pets since the economic downturn, but nothing about whether people can afford to fill their birdfeeders.

At least the hummingbirds won’t go hungry.  Nector can be made cheaply.  I saw my first one this evening.

My Urban Garden Journal: Let me get dirty.

I spent most of the day weeding and pruning the front garden.  Pulling weeds after a heavy rain is therapuetic.  The roots tend to just slide out whole.  Sure, I came across an ant colony that didn’t take too kindly to my extracting/intruding and swarmed all over my arms and legs.   But, overall, it was rewarding.  Hard work doesn’t seem so hard when I can get dirty and messy while doing it.  For some reason digging around in the dirt is what’s gotten me in the gardening spirit this year, more so than the flowers.  Not only do I appreciate getting dirt underneath my fingernails but all over my shirt and pants too.

I fit the segments of brick edging that I salvaged from the demolition site together into a weird jigsaw of a border along my driveway.   I need about eight more feet.  The pieces are there at the site, but in lengths too long and heavy to lift into my car trunk.  I’ve been waiting these last couple of weeks for one of the bulldozers to plow into the remaining edging and break it into smaller, lighter chunks.

I have so many perrenial herbs in my front garden that I’m not using.  There’s chives, thyme, sage, oregano, mint and dill.  Dill is listed as an annual, but it’s proven to be a perennial–a very invasive perrenial.  It even grows out of the cracks in my driveway.  I wish I could establish a bartering system with a local restaurant.  I supply them with herbs, and I get a free meal once a week.  I’d be happy with a large bowl of soup.

“There’s bricks in dem dar piles!”

In total, I ended up making five trips to the demolition site for bricks this weekend.  I delivered a second carload to the Garden Station.  I wish I had a pickup truck.  There was a couple filling raised beds who had a SUV.  For a moment I thought about mentioning it to them.

I dunno.  I thought more people would be crawling all over the site salvaging brick.  There were a couple people scavenging for whatever metal they could find and pile onto their old pickup trucks.  Aluminum gutters, drain pipes, amd iron tubs—including the one I had been offered days ago.

It wasn’t until late in the afternoon someone from the McPherson Town district came over.  There had been an article in the paper about the neighborhood garden the residents had started this year.  Those are the people I thought would be hauling loads of brick away for pathways.

“Here for the free paving material?” I said to the woman getting out of her shiny, red compact car.”  I held two bricks up over my head. 

But she just said no.  And then a couple in a shiny, black SUV came by and they all three went off together to inspect the other properties on site.  I thought it seemed very standoffish.  But then I thought about how I was dressed: sweats, torn t-shirt, painter’s hat and badly in need of a haircut.  Not to mention dirty from crawling around piles of rubble and carrying bricks.
 
I imagine them thinking I was some sort of panhandler or homeless person, more than an environmentally conscientious gardener.  (“Don’t make eye contact, Margaret.  He’ll start asking for change.  Make sure you locked the car!”)

Or maybe I looked like some crazy old prospector type from the movies, loading up my Elantra like a burro.  (“Git away from my bricks.  I claimed ‘em!  This here brick lode’s all mine!  Now git!”)

Oh well.  I also ended up finding a couple good-as-brand-new downspouts, a three foot segment of limestone that I’ll use as a mini-pillar to mark the beginning of my garden path and a portion of rusted wire fencing that I’ll use as a trellis for my clematis.

Don’t Ignore the Free Stuff

I stayed up longer than I thought I would and woke up after eleven, which seems to be where my body’s alarm clock is stuck nowadays.  And because I fell asleep on the floor my body was stiff, and for awhile I walked around the house like an arthritic zombie.
Later, I drove to the demolition site and loaded up three carloads of brick.  The demo crew had made quick work of leveling two houses.  All the debris and brick should be cleared and gone by next weekend.

A few cars passed by.  No one stopped to get anything though.  I took one carload to the Garden Station public garden nearby.  I hope someone from there comes by with a truck and salvages some of the available materials.  My little Elantra alone isn’t going to do it. 

Some guys were rehabbing a nearby apartment across from the site, and I nabbed an old iron sink they had left at the curb.   Don’t know if I’ll make a birdbath or a sedum container out of it.  I’ve thought about repaving some of my stone paths with the salvaged bricks.  I can’t rescue everything though.  Or expect everyone to share my interest and concerns about recycling.

I think of the thousand or so buildings that will be demolished around town in the next eighteen months.  Some are supposed to be deconstructed and the materials salvaged.  But how many, and what about the rest?  I’d like to think there are industrious people in town that will find creative uses for all this free, useable stuff that will be otherwise be shoved into a landfill.

Urban Garden Photos 5-8-09: Solomon’s Seal

Demolish and Salvage

Demolition has started on the site of the new elementary school across the river from downtown Dayton.

Can you see all the free garden path paving materials that I see?  I was offered an old cast iron bathtub that could’ve been used for a bog garden, but I didn’t have a way to haul it back home.  Darn it.

Don’t think that I’m not thinking of a way though.  Maybe I can put wagon wheels under it and push it all the way back to my house.

Porch Loitering

I was on the computer when I heard voices.  It sounded like arguing, but I thought it was the television in the next room.  But then I heard “n-word this” and “n-word that”, and I thought that can’t be MSNBC.

So I go to the front door and sitting on the porch ledge are these two guys.  As soon as I opened my door to ask why they were on my porch immediately they’re all, “Oh, sorry man.  I didn’t know anybody lived here.”

“Who do you think takes care of all these plants?” I said, gesturing towards the front yard.  Specifically, the 30 feet of yard that seperates the sidewalk from my porch.

It was raining, but they had umbrellas.  Why they chose to hang out on my porch, I don’t understand.  I thought I smelled pot.  Maybe they were high and showed up at the wrong address.  Or I just live in a crummy neighborhood.

Urban Garden Photo 5-4-09:Fern

Urban Garden Photo 5-3-09: Bleeding Heart