We spend the day “preparing” for our Wind River trip. Mostly this involves playing Rummy and watching movies at the house. We don’t leave once during the day. Our self indulgence has reached a peak.

Our movies were chosen based on books we’ve read recently. Ann read Cider House Rules. She couldn’t help being disappointed by all the material from the book that was left out of the movie, but agreed with me that the movie is done well. The author, John Irving, wrote the screenplay, so his quirky characters and dark probing of contentious social issues are well represented in the movie.

Both of us have read The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. Again the author was very involved in the making of the movie, to great advantage. The challenge of packing the stories of eight characters into a movie is huge, but this one pulls it off. The material that doesn’t make it in is easily compensated for by seeing the characters and settings for the stories.