Janelle Tenner’s adventures continue summer 2014!
Labor with what zeal we will, Something still remains undone, Something uncompleted still Waits the rising of the sun.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
They’re the days when you wake up and aren’t tired, when the sun is shining and the breeze kicks up from the ocean, keeping you from getting too hot or too cold, and everything you do goes right. Like you’re inside of a movie with your own soundtrack, where you’re so happy that you can’t help just spontaneously breaking into a smile. Some days are like magic.
But I haven’t had one of those days in a long time.
So long, it feels like maybe I never did. In fact, when I’ve been up for eighteen hours, letting Cecily boss me around in an old snack bar that she converted into a kitchen—one that might be a hundred degrees—it feels like maybe perfect days are a lie.
“What are you doing?” Cecily says, scolding me. “That’s never going to work.”
“My idea, not work? That’s shocking.” I make a big show of rolling my eyes. “Come up with a better idea and we’ll try it.” I almost add that we don’t need popcorn, but I keep my mouth shut. I can only push her so far. The wrath of Cecily when plans go awry is something I’m trying to avoid.
It’s movie night at Qualcomm.
About a month ago, Cecily decided that a movie night was just the thing Qualcomm needed. It would give people something to look forward to, and with the right equipment it was something we could actually get done. She made Kevin Collins and me spend a weekend going through the wreckage of every movie theater in San Diego, looking for the right projection equipment and an assortment of movies we could show.
So now we have a little more than thirteen hundred people seated on what used to be the Chargers football field—with more watching from the seats. Blankets are laid out, people are huddled together, and Cecily has It’s
