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Extreme Absurd

Watched Barney Thompson recently and it was a treat. A murder mystery that is also absurd and hilarious. Particularly enjoyed the character of Cemolina played by Emma Thompson. It was a refreshing break after a long work day. As with Barney in the movie, a person's mundane life can take a very different turn. Just the other day, I was talking to a co-worker who has two ailing parents to deal with in India along with a recently widowed mother-in-law. M and his wife were college sweethearts, living in the a small mid-Western town for a couple decades where they raised two kids now close to college age. Between two full time jobs and raising the kids, their life naturally had to fit into a very well-defined structure. Parents back in India were able to take care of themselves and visited occasionally. They rarely traveled back home. 

In the last year between M and his wife they have made a half a dozen trips as the situation gets from bad to out of control. The family is hanging by a thread as the parents take turns to take care of the elderly and manage kids at home at critical age. One of my other friends got yanked out of her sleepy, empty nester suburban life, taking an extended leave of absence from her job to take care of a major family crisis in Manila. In the movies, things are taken to an extreme level of improbable to get us to laugh but what real life can do to the average person living a boring life is no less extreme just that it is not amusing.

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