Marilee J. Layman

Spirit clearly needs a couple more cats to spend time with -- I'm not enough -- so I've been looking for what's close online. I found that a lot of the local organizations foster their cats out to houses and very few houses in this area are accessible. A batch of the other organizations show only at PetSmarts, and I'm not sure 20 minutes is enough to get to know cats. My city's shelter has only two adult cats, assuming their website is accurate, but there are more at the county shelter. They both have odd hours where they're not open in the hours I'm usually out, but I'm sure I can juggle that. But then there's the question of whether an organization will let a handicapped woman with a cat who is going blind and has anxiety disorder and compulsive disorder take on two cats. I'll just have to see.

Nothing else exciting today, except that I keep thinking it's Saturday.

This movie is long and has sub-titles for the German, but was engrossing. It's written after a true story when the German Democratic Republic (GDR) starts building the wall in Berlin. Harry Melchior had been a great swimmer, but was put in jail because he was in a revolution against the GDR. When he got out, he swam to a win once more and then committed "illegal emigration" to get to the West. His sister, brother-in-law, and niece won't come with him, and as things get worse on the East, he decides he has to get them out.

He and some friends -- and then many more people who want to get their families out -- dig a tunnel under the wall. There's a lot of problems -- planning, execution, security, etc. -- and the movie gets tighter and tighter nearer to the end, but the tunnel works. Not for everybody, and that's sad, but most get out. Harry and some of the others spend years getting more people out (not that tunnel, the GDR floods it) until the wall goes down.

Highly recommended.