Interesting decision...

 Sunday (super bowl) morning. Walked away from two NBA bets just now. Why? I have been betting the NBA games (usually two a night) for the last few days. Friday I was two for three, but yesterday, zero for two. The odds posted on my betting web site, for two games (Utah-Cleveland and Knicks-Heat) looked very good. A sure thing---maybe--but with a little less then 90 minutes before they begin, I decided not to bet either. Why? I did not want to feel the tension and intensity that I usually feel as I follow the games on the espn web site. In other words, I did not my life to be dominated for two and a half hours, by what was happening in those games. Too intense--too locked in; and besides, there will be many more games to bet on during the season---the NBA goes on for quite a long time, with several games every night. No shortage of games at good odds; I am sure there will be other obvious choices among those games as well. Of course, I will "kick myself" if my choices were right---but my decision is made. Did bet a small bet on the Chiefs in the super bowl---a good way to follow the game at low risk. This will be my first super bowl not in either La Flaca or the now defunct South Fourth. But everyone will be staying home as well. Enough of this!

On the medical front: serious prep for radiation treatment begins on Tuesday. Then the treatment itself, sometime soon afterwards. Lots of "dead" time in between now and then; must consider my choices---plenty of friends to contact with this information---by either phone or text--yet sometimes I feel like holding back---would rather read or look at some youtube shorts--the way time is used when one is "trapped" at home is a strange thing. Last night inadvertently stumbled on the final scene from Natasha and Pierre---very beautiful encounter between the young Natasha and the not so young Pierre. It is a part of the record on youtube that I usually skip---it makes me feel much too vulnerable--this time I let it play. Not only was I very moved by the content---I discovered in Dave Malloy's music a truly complex and exciting creation, really inventive. I remember well the first time I saw Natasha at its second performance at Ars Nova. As Dave left his podium to enter the stage playing area to confront Natasha, Paul Pinto, who played Belaga too over the conducting. That amazed me---that now we had reached a point where an actor could also be strong enough musically to conduct as well. The visison of Paul taking Dave's place seemed so pure---it remains in my mind as a kind of highlight of the evening. 

Christopher Plummer has died. When I was a star struck teen ager, he was definitely my idol. Lots of memories from those years: 56-60. Saw him twice on stage: JB and The Lark, and many times on TV on Hallmark Hall of Fames---he performed opposite the unique Julie Harris in several of them. He and Albert Finney were at that time considered the "heirs" to Olivier. It never happened for either--but of course they continued to work---mostly in movies. The last movie I saw Plummer in was a few years ago---made by a canadian film maker whose name just now I can't place---he played a concentration camp survivor given a quest by a dying friend to track down one more nazi camp guard, now living innocently in the US. In his eighties, Plummer was essentially in every frame of the  hour and a half movie. Kind of hokie, but good to see him so creative at that point in his life. More about him and my teen age years as a theater goer later; now must return to the world of my apartment---will report soon.