another grumpy old person unpopular opinion. I seem to have a lot of them these days.

One of the reasons I was so underwhelmed by Top Gun Maverick when I saw it last summer is that I'm so tired of mavericks. The basic mythology of ONE MAN, ALONE, breaking rules and flouting authority and saving the day is practically wired into our brains. It's part of our national character. There's Pete Mitchell/Tom Cruise in Top Gun. There's John McClane/Bruce Willis in the Die Hard series. Han Solo, Iron Man, Ocean's Eleven. There's a million westerns and heist movies and military guys gone rogue that all feed our need to see that the status quo is inherently bad and only a disruptor, a troublemaker, can make things right.

I've been as big a fan of the idea as anyone in the past, but I'm just so tired of it. I only saw the new Top Gun movie once and it was several months ago, so I don't remember the details. It was fun-- there's no denying it was fun to watch. But the whole thing was so obvious it makes me roll my eyes. Of course after he gets fired or pulled off the team or whatever it is, he's going to steal a plane and defy his superiors and get back in there and use some good old-fashioned American ingenuity to do the job the average people think can't be done. OF COURSE. Because he's Tom Cruise, and he's a maverick, and we have infinite belief in the power of a troublemaker to overcome the forces of mediocrity and save the day.

It's all fun and games when Tom Cruise flashes his cocky grin and faces down the boring authority figures, but is it so much fun when a handful of congresspeople can hold up the entire process of government for a nation of 330 million because they believe they are lone warriors standing up to big government? How fun is it when a wealthy sloganeer spends four years in the White House because he's convinced his base he's a disruptor who can clear the swamp? There's a big cesspool of fat cats in Washington and only an outsider, a maverick, can save the day! 

At some point we need to start valuing functional systems again. We could show some respect for the people who show up for work and get their jobs done, even if it is in the service of the status quo, because it is in the service of the status quo. Maybe we could acknowledge that even if there is some deadweight in government and civil service, there is also a whole lot of stuff that works just fine, because regular, boring people follow the rules and do their jobs. And thank God for that.

Some mavericks are just a pain in the ass.

And that's (another of) my unpopular opinion(s). Next thing you know I'll be stopping gen Xers in the street and telling them to get a haircut and get a real job.

P.S. I wrote the first version of this post on Friday morning. The post title was "I am So Tired of Disruptors" and since I was trying not to target the new Top Gun movie specifically, I had only used the word "maverick" once. Then Saturday night we watched Glass Onion (not to get sidetracked, but we thought it was fun, and at least it was different--no sci-fi, no dragons, no superheroes, no romance). If you haven't seen it, the word "disruptors" plays a large part in the movie, and even though the writer used it in a way that was sort of similar to what I mean here, it just felt wrong to leave the post the way it was. So I re-wrote it a bit, and now it is much more directly about the Top Gun movie. I know a maverick and a disruptor are not exactly the same thing, but at least in the way I mean here, they are in the same group of provocateurs who think their job is to shake things up instead of being "boring" and playing by the rules. Apparently, I'm a fan of boring people at the moment.

A Grumpy Old Person and her Unpopular Opinion about the Movies

I think you can tell that time has truly passed you by--that you have, in fact, become irrelevant-- when the big blockbuster moments that are moving the culture at large leave you shrugging your shoulders. 

I've seen three big, successful films this year, and I had the same reaction to all of them: pretty or even spectacular visuals, seamlessly made, but shrug. They were OK. A bunch of hackneyed clichés, plot points that feel like they came from a checklist, all put together with beautiful actors, polished cinematography, and outstanding costume design. (For the record, the ones I'm talking about are Top Gun: Maverick, Where the Crawdads Sing, and Avatar: Way of Water.)

People talk about those films as if they are all-time classics, pure magic on the big screen. But I came out of them feeling a little disappointed and, maybe weirdly, a little manipulated. It feels like the filmmakers have sucked you in with addictively gorgeous visuals and Meaningful Archetypal Plot Points, but left you with nothing to think about, nothing to chew on, so to speak. It's all stock characters and ham-fisted morality. Even when I agree with what's being preached, I hate being preached at. 

Yesterday I listened to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast (Dec 16 2022 episode) where they discussed Avatar: Way of Water, with a panel of commentators who are all probably 30+ years younger than me. They are smart and literate and their opinions make sense, but listening to them is what made me realize, oh, the problem is that I am old. I have different expectations going into a movie. 

They were in complete agreement with me that it was a humorless, heavy-handed, ponderous plot, but they didn't care. They were so transported by the immersive visuals that they barely noticed the generic story. The innovation of what they were seeing on the screen meant more to them than an innovative plot.

They walked out awed by the groundbreaking technology that made the CGI so spectacular; I walked out thinking it was just a remake of the first Avatar movie set underwater (and on the Titanic)(you practically expected Kate Winslet* to run around the corner shouting Jack! Jack!).

I'm not sorry I saw it. It was a decent use of three hours of my time. I was invested enough that I was teary-eyed when someone dies toward the end. But I guess I'm just not a visual person, because for me all the visual wow was not enough to make up for the stock characters and derivative plot. 

That's my unpopular opinion, and I know it is, and I understand that it just identifies me as a grumpy old person. But seriously. Maverick is such a stock plot that they never even named the enemy country, because it doesn't matter. Whoever it was, Tom Cruise and all those exceptional Americans would have defeated them. The Crawdad movie was practically an entire movie about a white woman's tears and the stock characters surrounding her. It's beautiful. The acting is moving. You feel like an old grinch for even complaining, but I found myself thinking (like Timon), and... everybody's OK with this? 

The exception is the only other movie that I saw in a theater in 2022, the new Black Panther. It checked all the boxes of blockbuster budget, gorgeous costumes, pretty to look at, etc, but the way it dealt with grief over the death of T'Challa was genuinely moving to me. It had its own problems--it wasn't nearly as seamless-feeling as the other three, for one thing, and I suppose MCU movies will always be bound by the expectations of people who have read the comics-- but I came out of it thinking, that was a great movie, which I did not think of any of the others.

Those other three were fun, enjoyable blockbuster movies if you could turn off your brain and just watch. They weren't a waste of time. Maverick took the standard "arrogant hot shot young guy saves the world" plot and changed it to an old guy. Way of Water made its heroes parents with a blended family and children who misbehave. Crawdads is at heart a movie about a woman who is fed up with sexual harassment. Those aren't meaningless ideas. But they all felt so slick.

If it weren't for the way people are talking about them, my irritation would be at a level that wouldn't even be worth mentioning. But I heard someone say that Maverick is one of the ten best films ever made, and the swooning praise I've heard about the Way of Water makes me wonder if we actually saw the same film.

So, that's all I have to say. I deleted two paragraphs of further moralizing and trying to justify my opinion because there's no need. Who cares? I'm writing this out here because every time I've tried to say this irl, I've been booed down, so if I type it here, maybe I'll get my grumpiness out of my system and I can keep my mouth shut. Because entertainment is often a good thing, and those three movies were certainly entertaining.  

* Kate Winslet voices one of the characters in The Way of Water. When you see it, see if you can figure out which one it is without looking at the credits (I couldn't).

7ToF: Flatly I'll stand on my little flat feet and say: this post is all over the place. Good luck.

1. For some reason I had the urge to watch South Pacific this week, the 1958 version with Mitzi Gaynor as Nellie Forbush. It's an experience. My mom was a big Rogers and Hammerstein fan, so we listened to the soundtrack obsessively when I was in elementary school. Watching it again after not having seen it in at least 20 years was like being dumped right back into another time and place. 

It's often embarrassingly cringe-y. Bloody Mary, the white actors in full-body makeup playing Polynesians, middle-aged Emil creepily singing that he needs someone young and smiling-- Nellie can't be half his age. 

But considering the times, it's sometimes surprisingly sophisticated--that racism is carefully taught, not inborn; the hints of transgenderism; the moment between Nellie and Joe Cable, both of them madly in love with someone else, when they struggle with their pre-war small minds and the wider world they've encountered. (That's my favorite moment in the movie. Among other things to love--eg, the hauntingly bitter "My Girl Back Home"-- I can't think of another movie of that era that has a similar moment of pure friendship between a man and a woman. It's rare enough even now.)

2. But half the reason to watch it is so that you get the full impact of the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles' ironic South Pacific Medley. It's priceless.

3. There are a million and one reasons to be upset with the GOP leadership for caving in to Trump for the past four (five) years. But one of the worst is that they have erased the path out of the QAnon lies and conspiracy theories. There's not a chance in hell that the people who have been sucked down that rabbit hole are going to believe a Democrat, ever-- after all, we're the ones who are colluding in a Satanic pedophile ring, right? And we're bringing on Armageddon and the downfall of moral society and the demise of the family and all that rot. But no one the QAnon folks would be willing to trust is saying, "Look-- we're conservatives and we agree with you about a lot of things, but Trump is lying to you. There was no election fraud." (I mean, if the Dems had rigged the election, why did they lose pretty much every contentious down-ballot race?) So the QAnon people have no path out. Maybe that is the biggest failure of the GOP right now.

4. At the end of Avengers' End Game, I declared that I was done with Marvel. I've told you before, I really enjoyed the Marvel movies, especially some of the later ones (Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Guardians of the Galaxy). But it felt like they had their run and I wasn't willing to go back for more of the same. How many superhero stories can there be? I mean, when you get to the point where your superheroes are fighting each other (as they were in Captain America: Civil War), maybe the well has run dry. Enough already.

5. However. I keep hearing that WandaVision is really good. Hmmmm. Might have to try it. Let me know if you have.

Me, age 7

6. The photo is of me, as my ultra nerdy seven-year-old self. I'm putting it here this week because I've been thinking quite a bit about the blonde thing. I heard a black woman say in an interview last year that there is no more privileged person in the world than a blonde white woman. I wanted to object-- there's still the whole patriarchy thing going on, and you have to put up with blonde jokes and having your intelligence underestimated. But I also get what she meant. There are a whole bunch of men who are captivated by blonde hair. I don't understand it, and I don't buy into it for sure, but I also can't say I've never taken advantage of it. 

6a.  To be clear, I've never, ever, ever cried in front of a professor to get a grade changed, or to a police officer to get out of a ticket, or any of the other stupid things blonde women supposedly do. But I've politely accepted that certain older men are going to flirt or take extra notice, because even when it was annoying, it seemed fairly harmless.

7. You can see from the photo that I've been blonde for a long time. Sometime in my 30s, my hair darkened up enough that up until the pandemic shut down hair salons, I'd been getting it highlighted 2-3 times a year for ages. Once I couldn't get it done anymore, I decided that I would let it grow out and see what my natural color is at age 59. Honestly, I kind of liked it. It was a sort of caramel-y color, and in the summer when I was in the sun fairly often, it still had blonde-ish highlights. But over the winter, it really darkened up. So yesterday I went in, got an inch and a half hacked off (it was down to my shoulders), and got the highlights again. Mea culpa. It's the dumb blonde life for me.

Have a great weekend.

7ToF: phew. what a week.

 1. Things I've tried so you don't have to: Native brand deodorant. This gets advertised quite a bit on various podcasts, and the hosts will give you a discount code for ordering it online. But just so you know, you can also buy it at Target and Walmart. It has no aluminum, no parabens, etc etc. So if those things bother you, it's a great choice. It smells great, and it actually works, unlike the last natural deodorant I tried. But it costs twelve dollars for 2.7oz. It would have to be way more amazing than it is for me to switch from my usual deodorant, Old Spice Wolfthorn, which works just fine and costs $4.99 for 3 oz (and is frequently on sale for less than that). It's in the men's section, but it doesn't make you smell like a guy.

2. Trivia that I don't know why I know: anti-perspirant usually has aluminum in it, deodorants usually don't. Aluminum makes me itch, so I've never been able to use anti-perspirants. Deodorants don't bother me, even when they contain parabens or propylene glycol. Just make sure you look at the label-- it will say right on the front whether it is an anti-perspirant or a deodorant. Wolfthorn, the one I use, comes in both an anti-perspirant version and a deodorant version so you have to read the label to make sure you're getting what you want.

3. I'm so tired of everything. Just thought I would tell you that. Politics, paperwork, the driver's license bureau, not going to restaurants, more confusing conversations with friends, and above and beyond everything else, the freaking pandemic. (cue stirring music) Frodo: I wish it need not have happened in my time. Gandalf: so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide.

OK, so maybe that's a tad melodramatic. Whatcha gonna do? It's not even that bad around here, so I'm sure some of you have had much more trouble with it than we have. I'm just whining. Rough week.

4. I may have given the impression in my reading report that we never watch TV, which is not true. Our TV is often on in the evenings (almost never during the day). We watch a lot of sports, and some movies. We are especially bad about re-watching our favorite movies. And recently we have also tried The Mandalorian, Schitt's Creek, and Queen's Gambit. They are all pretty good, but I max out at two episodes per night so other than Queen's Gambit, we're still working our way through.

5. My unpopular opinion for this week: I have never, ever seen an episode of the Bachelor or the Bachelorette. I know that makes me a party pooper and I am missing out on a lot of fun but honestly, the whole concept just horrifies me. I told you, unpopular opinion.

6. Speaking of movies we re-watch, one we did this week was Pirates of the Caribbean. Sometimes when we watch an old favorite, it hasn't survived the passage of time, but I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. I know Johnny Depp is problematic these days, but I'm going with the headline that said his "issues" are recent, and since Pirates came out almost 20 years ago, I'm giving it a pass. 

7. I'm declaring Monday, February 8th Aunt BeaN's Unsubscribe Day. I'm kind of embarrassed to admit this, but I've signed up for three trial periods of services that I no longer use but I'm still paying. Oh, lord, the more I think about it, the more I think maybe it's four, or five. Add to that the one billion political emails I receive for the party that I do not support and have not voted for since 1980. On February 8th, I'm unsubscribing from all of them. I have to work up to it. Join me? More on this topic next week.

Have a great weekend.

7ToT: a few further thoughts on Amazon, and way too much about movies

1. Of course within days after I wrote that post about my Amazon dilemma, Dean told me his office was having a baby shower for one of his favorite co-workers. And guess what? We had four days to get a gift, and only one retailer could ship his choice in time for the shower: Amazon. So much for the purity of my protest.

2. When I mentioned the Amazon dilemma on Instagram last week, reader Julie responded, "It's just so fucking complicated," which is certainly true. But it was also the thing I needed to hear. My response doesn't have to be 100% fangirl OR 100% #notAmazon. I can use Amazon when it makes sense, and hopefully far less than in the past. I'm especially discovering if I want there to be independent bookstores, and I want there to be Barnes & Nobles stores where I can browse, I need to spread out my book buying. So I am.

(but p.s. Barnes and Noble seriously needs to update their site. I can't even get on it most of the time. Maybe it's just our awful internet, but I've seen some other complaints on social media.)

3. An independent bookstore posted a few months ago that one of the easiest things you can do to support non-Amazon retailers is to follow them on social media and like their posts. It costs you nothing, and it boosts their visibility.  So I follow all kinds of independent bookstores all over the country. It's fun, and often informative about upcoming releases, etc.

4. I guess I'm old enough now that I just don't understand why people get so heated up about things. The new Star Wars movie was fine--not my favorite, but certainly not the worst of the series. It had some really good moments in it, in addition to some moments that were head-scratchers (where the hell did they dig up that old fossil -ha). I didn't want Rey to end up with anybody, not Finn, not Ben Solo, and certainly not Poe, so I was not as upset by that part of the story as apparently a lot of other people were. Geeze. Can't she just enjoy being a badass on her own for awhile? I thought the one thing they got exactly right was the Rey-Ben plot.

5. It is light years better than either Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones, and since we re-watched all eight of the Star Wars movies the week before Rise of Skywalker came out, those were fresh in our minds (we watched Rogue One last summer so skipped that one). I don't understand why it's getting so much criticism. My main objection wasn't Episode IX itself, but the lack of any clear vision for the 7-8-9 trilogy. Did they even have a plan? I am in total agreement with the guy at Forbes who can't understand why it's getting so much heat. Best quote from that column: "I’d give each of [the new trilogy] a solid B. However, I’d give the trilogy itself a C simply because Disney and Abrams and Johnson and everyone involved in producing these films failed spectacularly at creating an overarching, coherent plot that could tie them all together. Why even bother making a trilogy without a plan?"  That, exactly.

6. Loved Knives Out, partly because it was so unexpected. But we couldn't figure out why they put Daniel Craig (with an unforgivably bad Southern accent) in the role of the detective. I like Daniel Craig but casting him in that role made no sense. But that wasn't enough to keep us from being thoroughly entertained. (The inaccurate medical stuff bugged Dean but I don't know any of that stuff so it didn't bother me.)

7. And Little Women. Oh my word, is it good. It joins the ranks of the very few movies I think are better than the books. I liked the book when I read it around age 10 but didn't love it, and I don't think I ever re-read it until I was an adult, as opposed to other books that I read over and over. Long sections of Little Women (the book) are yawningly tedious, especially all the prose-y preaching from Meg and Marmee about how important it was for Jo to hold back her true self to measure up to some weird nineteenth century standard of what women should be. It just felt stifling. But the movie managed to be true to the moral tone without being so heavy-handed. Due in no small part to Florence Pugh, whose version of Amy is fabulous--the strong and capable counterpoint to Jo's fiery genius-- but only vaguely related to the vain, shallow Amy depicted in the book.

I could go on and on about LW, but I'll spare you. Just one more thing. The thing that takes a good, solid movie and sends it over the top is how Greta Gerwig took the autobiographical fiction of the book Little Women and merged it with the real biography of Louisa May Alcott at the end. It was brilliantly done. Just brilliant. Loved it.

That's all for me. Hope you're having a good week.

7ToF: the days go by

1. Suddenly, right at the moment when I'm surprised to look up and see that it's already October, it is October tenth (eleventh by the time you read this). I have no idea how these things happen. Part of the reason I've been busier than usual is that I signed up for a creative writing class-- not necessarily fiction, it's for whatever kind of writing you want to do. Since it's hard to write a blog post after I've spent hours working on something for the class, I might post a couple of the things I've written. So if something strange pops up in your feed, no worries, it's just me, practicing.

2. I've been wearing the same power of cheaters (+1.75) for at least five years. Just in the last couple of weeks, it appears that it might be time to change to +2.00. Ouch. The downward spiral.

3. Paper towel update: I figured out that the reason I like using paper towels for cleaning is that you throw them out, as opposed to using dish/wash cloths, which hang around wet, dirty, and germ-y, waiting to be used again. Yuck. The solution seems to be having enough dish cloths that they can be single use. I use one to wipe down the counter and then throw it in the laundry. For some strange reason, in the past this has felt uncomfortably wasteful to me, which is weird because really it is way less wasteful than paper towels. For now, it is working. They take up hardly any room in the washing machine, so there's no increase in laundry-- which would be a deal breaker. Also, I've been having fun finding cheap cotton cloths.

4. In an effort to get out more, we've been going to more movies. We don't usually go-- in the past, we've been to the theater maybe three or four times per year. It seemed like the worthwhile ones were always depressing, and the fun ones always seemed to involve hours of car chases. Is there anything more boring than a car chase? Apparently that is one of my many unpopular opinions, because all blockbuster movies have car chases, even sci-fi or fantasy ones where they're not actually driving cars, they're driving some hopped-up moon rover or dune buggy or whatever. You just sit there and watch special effects chase around the screen until they're done.  /*rant over*/

4a. Sadly, though, even though we've seen more movies lately, I don't have any to recommend. We've seen some that kept us entertained for a couple of hours, but none that were knock-your-socks-off. Although I will say that The Goldfinch was way better than I expected, given its terrible reviews.

5. Am I the last person to find out about the phone app Serial Reader? You download it to your phone, pick a classic novel, and then every day a snippet of that novel appears in the app. So by reading 15-ish minutes a day you can get through Jane Eyre in 72 days, Frankenstein in 28 days, or The Legend of Sleepy Hollow in 5 days. It's mostly books that are in the public domain, of course, and the selection is a little limited, but he's adding new stuff all the time. I'm working my way through various Sherlock Holmes stories right now. The basic functions are free, or you can pay more to read more than one book at at time, plus other features. Love it.

6. That said, I've realized over the last few months how much self-imposed pressure I've felt to keep up with my TBR pile. One of the things I've lost is the joy of re-reading. I have always loved re-reading my favorite books. When I was a kid, I used to read the Narnian Chronicles every year. I've read Pride and Prejudice at least five times. But now I'm so aware of all the books out there that I want to read, I've allowed myself to succumb to reader FOMO. I don't have time to re-read! I've got to keep up! So now I've resolved to have at least one re-read going all the time. Right now it's The Thirteenth Tale, which I've actually only read once before, but I wanted to see if it's as good as I remember before going on to her new book, which came out this summer.

7. You know what I don't mind? I don't mind being referred to as a guy. When I'm sitting with a group of friends and one of them says, "What are you guys reading?", it just doesn't bother me. It's partly regional-- "you guys" is the midwest equivalent of "y'all." But it's also just not that big a deal. I've been treated with kindness and respect by people who use all the wrong, politically incorrect words, and I've been treated badly by people who said all the right things. I know which I prefer, and it's not the people who can check off all the correct buzzword boxes.

wow, two rants in one post.

Have a great weekend.

Bingo! Tag'em and Bag'em! aka the entertainment report

I know it's Tuesday (actually, it's Monday as I'm writing this), but I don't have the energy to think up an entire post at the moment, and I am so far behind on the basic life tasks (laundry, replacing my lost driver's license, etc etc). So I'm doing a list. Maybe it will turn out to be seven things but it might not.

➧ Status report from the convoluted depths of my brain: one of the most difficult things for me to manage is the balance between routines and change-ups. If I have to do the same thing day after day, I go nuts. Not kidding-- routine makes me wiggy and depressed. But if I change things up and I'm out of my comfort zone for too long-- say we have house guests for more than 4-5 days or the Christmas decorations are still up on January 8th-- I go a different kind of nuts. It's like my brain starts shorting out. I can't get anything done because things have been abnormal for too long. So, definitely have to get the decorations put away before poor Dean has to peel me off the ceiling.

➧ We were fans of the original Transformer movie-- the crazy parents, the neurotic kid, the military guys-- and we have a dozen lines from it that have entered our family lingo. Left cheek! Left cheek! and Shut up, Grandma! and Sam's happy time and the chihuahua with the bandaged foot who wears a jeweled collar (it's his bling!). Judy, Sam's mom, is possibly my favorite cinematic character ever. We re-watch it at least once a year.

➧ So we had high hopes for Bumblebee, especially since it is getting such great reviews. But don't bother. Like all the subsequent Transformers movies, it was disappointing. I might have liked it better if I hadn't gone in with high hopes. (It did, admittedly, have some good moments.)

➧ Aquaman was also thoroughly average, but I wasn't expecting much from it so it didn't bother me as much. Typical superhero origin story. It had a few good moments (like the edible roses) but was otherwise just a decent way to pass 2 1/2 hours on a rainy day. (because in case I haven't told you often enough, it rained every. single. day. we were in Florida.)

➧ I don't usually read suspense or horror novels, because I like to sleep and I can't sleep after reading that stuff (or watching the movies, either). So I wasn't sure how I was going to do with The Marsh King's Daughter, which was our book club book for this month. A woman who was responsible for putting her psychopath father behind bars years earlier goes out to hunt him down when he escapes from prison. I will admit that I avoided reading it right before bed, but it ended up being a really good story. It has some seriously dark moments, but it also has some redeeming moments, and it makes sense, which counts for a lot. If you like that stuff, recommended. It has not, however, convinced me to read any more suspense/horror novels. One every twenty years or so is plenty.

So maybe once the wrapping paper is back in the store room I will be able to write something interesting again. Hope your new year is off to a good start.

7ToF: take a long ride on my motorbike

1. Here we are again, sim-ply--hav-ing--a wonderful Christmas time!! For better or for worse, I'm one of those who love Christmas. I love the music, and the movies; I get all sentimental as I'm unpacking the Christmas decorations; I love getting Christmas cards, even the family newsletters.

2. But I know not everyone does. So for those of you who bear with the Christmas onslaught with gritted teeth and mounting depression, I hope you can find creative ways this year to get through it. There should be a badge or a lapel pin or a secret handshake so the anti-Xmasers can find each other.

3. This week's interesting read: an article in The Atlantic about parks that allow kids to explore and experiment without adult supervision (it was actually published in 2014 but I just ran across it a couple of days ago). We all assume that the world isn't as safe as it used to be, but the idea of these parks makes me happy. Back in the day, we ran all over the neighborhood, walked to school nearly a mile away, and played with matches (although only after my mom lit a single hair on fire to show us how flammable human hair is). All without adult supervision.

4. But I'm definitely not encouraging you to get nostalgic about the past. In fact, it occurred to me this week that maybe that's part of the problem we're having these days-- all of our visions of the future are dystopian, while we watch endless Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movies that idealize small-town rural living as if it were still 1956. I enjoy living in a small town, but I can promise you that not everyone is warm-hearted, generous, and tolerant (for example, me). For every good thing about small town life (and there is a lot that is good), there's a downside. Why can't we imagine an urban future that is vibrant, friendly, positive? I don't know-- no answers, I've just been thinking about this.

5. I bought an Instant Pot when they were on sale over Labor Day weekend, but I hadn't even taken it out of the box until this week. I've made a couple of things with it now, and I'm impressed. It's definitely not instant-- you still have to chop onions or whatever, and the cook time that the recipe specifies doesn't include the time it takes to come up to pressure, or to release pressure when you're done. But it does all happen in one pot, which makes it seem simple. I think I'm going to like it.

6&7. We went to see Bohemian Rhapsody this past weekend. I told you about my love for Queen on Tuesday, and I've written about it before in this post. Also back when I was trying to write novels, one of my favorite scenes I ever wrote was a woman my age who breaks her ankle, and in the backseat of her daughter's boyfriend's ancient car, high on percodan on the way home from the ER, she belts out the entire six minutes of Bohemian Rhapsody. So I have a history with Queen, and I wasn't sure if I'd like the movie, especially given the terrible reviews.

It is easy to pick it apart-- it's more than a little weird that Brian May and Roger Taylor were involved and they made themselves out to be pretty blameless; the costumes look like something you'd see at your office 70s party, and could they not afford decent wigs? And why would you make Freddie's teeth worse than they were in real life? I was never able to forget that Rami Malek had a mouthpiece in. Good grief.

And then I came home and did some fact checking and discovered that it wasn't all that accurate. I loved Queen's music, but it was back in the days before the internet, so I didn't really know that much about them. You couldn't google "What is Freddie Mercury's real name?" and get an instant answer back then. They definitely played fast and loose with the facts and the timeline in the name of creating drama where there wasn't any--Queen never really broke up, and in fact had been touring together right before Live Aid; Roger Taylor put out a solo album before Freddie did; Freddie's AIDS diagnosis was probably a couple of years after LiveAid.

So I don't know what to tell you. In spite of all those reasons not to like it, I had a great time just listening to Queen's music on a massive sound-surround system for an hour and a half. In fact, I'm thinking about going to see it again. But if you don't like their music, it probably won't change your mind.

Have a great weekend. Stay warm out there -- we were down to single digits this morning.

At the movies: Tag

It seems to me that one of the keys to liking a movie is to go into it thinking you're not going to like it. So making a movie recommendation seems a bit counter-productive, because then you'll walk into it expecting great things, and inevitably you'll be disappointed. But I'm doing it anyway, because I went to see Tag this week with some friends, and it was really fun, way more fun than I was expecting it to be. The gist of the plot is that a bunch of guys in their forties have been playing a game of tag during the month of May since they were nine. Antics ensue.

Reasons I went to see Tag: 1) It is largely set in Spokane (pro tip: pronounced Spo-Can), and when you live in a big, sparsely populated state, a city that's a mere four and a half hours away is practically your next door neighbor. When we first moved here 26 years ago, back before we had Wal-Mart and Costco and Home Depot/Lowe's, everyone in town drove to Spokane a couple of times a year to stock up on whatever we couldn't get here locally. It was like living in pioneer times and driving your Conestoga over the pass (except it only took 4 1/2 hours).

2) At the end of the movie, when they show a photograph of the real men who inspired the movie, the guy in the priest duds really is practically a next door neighbor, since his parish is one town over from here, a dozen miles away. So of course, because this is still a relatively small town in spite of the fact that we now have all the above-mentioned stores plus two Starbucks (three if you count the one inside Target), there was a big spread about it in our newspaper.

and 3) there was absolutely nothing else I wanted to see (that I hadn't already seen) and we really wanted to go to the movies. So, it's fun. But probably not fun enough to have gone on and on about it. If you can manage it, go in with low expectations. You do wonder what the deal is with Jeremy Renner, because he is (of course) awesome at the action parts, but whenever he has to actually act, the scene goes flat. I love Hawkeye so this was disappointing to me, but it's possible they had to film around his busy schedule and none of them were in the room at the same time. Fair warning: lots of salty language, which doesn't bother me, but one of my friends was unimpressed.

I was going to do this as the first part of my Seven Things post for this week, but it got so long that I'm posting it separately.

At the movies: Book Club

First of all, this is not a bad movie, so gather up everyone you know to go see it because we need to convince the Powers That Be that movies about older women can be fun, interesting, and above all, financially viable.

The story is about four women, played by Candice Bergen, Jane Fonda, Mary Steenburgen, and Diane Keaton, who have met monthly for decades for book club. (In real life they range in age from 65 to 80, but in the movie they graduated from college together and they seem to be in their late 60s, maybe early 70s.) Even better-- these are intelligent, savvy women. There's not a depressed alcoholic among them--not that there's anything wrong with movies about depressed alcholics, but it's just so unusual to see Hollywood movies about smart, successful older women. The premise is terrific, especially given the lack of roles for women "of a certain age" in Hollywood movies.

And the actresses--no surprise-- are having a ball. There are several moments of almost perfect chemistry between the four of them. They may be slotted into their individual roles--the divorced woman who hasn't had a date in 18 years, the married woman who hasn't had sex in 6 months, the widow who lived for her children, the never-married career woman who prefers sex with no commitments--but the roles are believable enough, and they're perfectly cast (although one wishes Diane Keaton could, after all this time, play someone besides Annie Hall).

But having said that, there are lot of odd things that just make you shake your head. So when the credits rolled and I saw that the director was male, and the writing team included the male director and a woman whose IMDB picture looks like she can't be more than 35, it wasn't a big surprise. There are several moments that just don't make sense. I mean, ask a successful enterpreneur at the height of her career what her favorite thing in the whole world is, and of course she's going to say arm tickles. Whaaaaaaat? Arm tickles? But yeah, that's what she says. And then, predictably enough, when she gets her romantic moment, he's continuously stroking her arm.

And not far in, you find out that what sets the plot in motion is that they are going to read Fifty Shades of Gray. Now I know that there are a lot of women who love those books. But there are also a lot of us-- a whole lot of us--who don’t.  (I suppose I should confess that I only read the first one and had no interest in reading the other two). So I was already irritated at the writers, because I'm pretty sure that if you got any set of four intelligent, successful women of any age together, there would be at least one of them who would be hooting with laughter while she read, entirely unable to take the book seriously.

But not these women. And I have to say there's something a little-- disdainful? contemptuous? smug? -- about a man and a young woman writing a script about women old enough to be their mothers whose lives are transformed by questionable erotic romance novels. It's almost insulting.

And then add in that all four of them get a happy ending that includes a man-- no happily single women or lesbians allowed, I guess-- and you've got a movie that just didn't quite make it to the level I really, sincerely wished it would. (to be fair, this movie is not about the men, it's about the friendship between the four women, but still.)(A little diversity wouldn't have hurt, either.)

The women look terrific, and they're all great actresses with enough skill for half a dozen movies of this caliber. The four of them almost manage to pull this movie above the level of the writing to make it a really terrific film. Unfortunately, they need better material.

7ToF: Punxsutawney Phil, weather prophet extraordinaire, will have done his thing by the time you read this

1. I swear January lasted three months. I am so happy it's February. For one thing, February is the month that Dean has his birthday, and since he is five months older than I am, it marks the start of the annual give-Dean-sh!t-about-being-older-than-me-a-thon.

2. So now that it's February, the first month of my experiment with limiting social media and internet time is over.  I like this-- not reading the news until late in the day, limiting social media to weekends and occasional evenings, and not having games on my phone. Getting rid of my games has actually been the hardest part. They say it takes three weeks to form a new habit (or, presumably, break an old one), but after a month, I still really miss my games. For some perverse reason that is making me think I should keep going until I get over it. We'll see how long it takes.

3. Celeste Ng's new book, Little Fires Everywhere, has been in my queue at the library ebook website for months. It was Amazon's #1 fiction book of the year last year. It has blazingly high reviews. I really liked her last book, Everything I Never Told You. I've been looking forward to reading it for months, and when it finally became available, I was ready to clear out my schedule.

4. It starts out well-- a woman is standing in front of her McMansion in a wealthy suburb of Cleveland watching it burn down. Forty pages into it, I was completely hooked. But then it started to feel... predictable. And then the characters started to seem like types instead of individuals. And then it started to seem less like a novel and more like a lecture. About the time I hit 65%, I realized, I hate this book. I skimmed through to the end and gave it two stars on Goodreads. Extremely disappointing.

5. One of several strands of the story is the difficult relationship between a mom and her teenage daughter. We saw Lady Bird last weekend, and it made me realize how good that movie really was. We were impressed with it when we saw it in the theater, but reading Little Fires, which has a sort-of similar situation between two characters who are practically clichés, made me realize how fully realized the complex characters were in Lady Bird. (apologies for the convoluted sentence but hopefully you figured it out.) Good movie. Not always easy to watch.

6. Did you know that it is now acceptable to use "hopefully" in the sense of "it is to be hoped"? For a long time that was one of those English teacher pet peeves--you were only supposed to use "hopefully" when you meant something was filled with hope, like the expression on your dog's face when he looks at you hopefully, expecting a treat. You were not supposed to use it the way I did in the previous paragraph. But the times, they change. I went looking for a source to back that up and discovered that the AP Style Guide changed its opinion on "hopefully" back in 2012, so I'm late. No surprise.

7. Super Bowl Schmuper Bowl. I was hoping that the Vikings would make it-- I don't care about the Vikings, but we have friends who do, and I could root vicariously for them. But two teams from the northeast-- just can't bring myself to care. However, we're having friends over to watch the commercials and the half-time show, plus eat lots of food, so maybe we will have fun anyway.

And that's more than enough from me. I may not be posting next week, so have a good one.

7ToF: Hark the Harold

1. (My dad's first name was Harold. For a long time I had some kind of hazy idea that the Herald Angels were his personal angels.)

2. I'll get it over with early this time: The Last Jedi was great. I don't know what people are complaining about. Haters gonna hate. It was a little too long, and yes, that bit at the casino was .... sort of.... pointless. But there were also several moments where I caught myself thinking-- this is the Star Wars movie I always wished they'd make. I need to see it again.

3. Through an unplanned bit of serendipity, I ended up going to see two movies in one day. See previous item about The Last Jedi, but earlier in the day, I took my mom to see The Man Who Invented Christmas, about Charles Dickens writing A Christmas Carol. In spite of its ridiculous title, it was quite good. I'm not a Dickens expert, but I know enough to know that they played a little fast and loose with the facts. But if you can put that aside, I really enjoyed it, and my mom loved it.

4. Lots of book blogs are publishing 2018 Reading Challenges (Book Riot, Modern Mrs. Darcy, PopSugar, and dozens of others). I thought this was the coolest idea back in 2016, and then again last year, but you know what? Both times, after picking a challenge and printing it out, I never thought about it again. I guess I have no problem coming up with books to read. ha.

5. So for 2018, I'm falling back on my own personal challenge from way back when. I've become so enthralled with renting e-books from my library's website that I have not read one single physical book from my own bookshelves in .... I can't even remember when. It's been months. My Goodreads "To Read" list has been entirely unchanged for over a year. So my personal challenge to myself for 2018: read one book a month that is sitting on my shelves already. Atonement, Middlesex, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Night Circus, Heartburn, Plan B, Go Set a Watchman, Cutting for Stone, My Struggle.... I could go on, but you get the idea.

6. When I lived in the south, I thought that when it snowed, it always arrived in big fluffy flakes, gently floating down. In our area, sometimes it does. But usually if it's coming down in big fluffy clumps, it doesn't last very long, so there's not very much of it. When we're really getting dumped on, it looks like salt coming very fast out of an enormous salt shaker. Sideways.

7. Which we've just seen, because we've got about a foot of snow on the ground as I write this (Thursday night), with more on the way tomorrow. White Christmas, indeed.

Last night was the shortest night of the year, so we're already headed toward more light. I hope that's an apt metaphor. Happy Solstice. And Merry Christmas, since I probably won't post again before the big day on Monday. I hope you will be surrounded by loved ones, as we will be, even though we will sorely miss our loved ones far away.

7ToF: lots to catch up on

Someday I will take a good pic of her, but it is not this day

1. Well, first of all, we have a new family member. She is a shelter kitty named Wynnie, short for Eowyn, and she is a year-and-a-half old. I love having a cat, so this makes me very happy. The mice were getting out of hand over the summer, and we're counting on Miss Wynnie to be a huntress. She's still a little skittish, but she's warming up to us. Now we just have to solve the sibling rivalry with our dog Sadie and we'll be good.

2. In our ongoing battle with the neighborhood foxes, we are losing. Badly. We're down to four chickens at the moment, which brings us to a total of seven that the foxes have carted off this year. It's impossible to hate them-- they're just doing what comes naturally. But I have to admit I shake my head when I see them around the neighborhood because you have never seen such healthy, well-fed foxes.

3. I went back to work, and for the most part, I love it. Only three days a week, which is perfect for right now. Our local hospital is transitioning to a new electronic medical records system, so my co-workers and I comb through old records looking for dates of procedures, etc that need to be transferred to the new system. It sounds boring, I know, but it can be surprisingly absorbing to read through people's medical records. Also, I love getting paid, and this is the best hourly rate I've made since we moved here (although still not quite as much as I was making in NC before we moved here twenty-five years ago).

4. I've been singing in a community choir this year. I've sung in choirs all my life, but usually church choirs. This choir, Valley Voices, works off a semester schedule, so we practice for three-ish months and then have a concert. There are no intermediate concerts, just one big one at the end (well, actually two, because we perform Saturday night and Sunday afternoon). The downside is that we were practicing Christmas music back in September when I was definitely not in the mood. The upside is that we can tackle difficult music because we have enough time to work on it. The concerts are this weekend and I'm looking forward to them. If you're local, look us up on Facebook.

(I know some of you are never going to appreciate superhero movies, and if that's you, skip the rest of this and see you next week, because not one, not two, but THREE of my things this week are about superhero movies.) 

5. The Thor-Loki movies are definitely my favorites of the so-called Marvel universe, so in preparation for Thor: Ragnarok we went back and watched the first two Thor movies and the first two Avenger movies. The first Thor movie and the first Avenger movie were better than I remembered, and the second of each was worse than I remembered. There are two reasons I love the Thor movies: Idris Elba and Tom Hiddleston. I'm not usually one to root for the bad guy, but Tom Hiddleston is just so good as Loki.

6. Then we finally went to see Thor: Ragnarok. I assiduously avoided spoilers and reviews (having been told by a friend to do so), so we went in without knowing what it was about--although I did know that Ragnarok is the Norse version of the apocalypse, more or less. I had no idea that Cate Blanchett was in it, for example. So the best part was that it kept surprising me. The second Avengers was kind of a yawner, honestly, especially when it's the fourth Marvel movie you've watched in a week, so it was a bit of a relief that Ragnarok was so much fun. The humor was good, but maybe a bit overdone. And I do wonder how they're going to play the changes they made to Hulk's character in future movies. But other than that, I loved it. I didn't miss Natalie Portman (to my surprise). In fact, if it weren't that I was a bit disappointed by the ending, I'd say they knocked it out of the park. SLIGHT SPOILER COMING-- skip ahead now if you want-- I really thought Thor was going to step aside at the end and let Valkyrie take the throne. That would have made it just about perfect. I don't know anything about the original comics, though, so maybe that's just too far out there.

7.  It occurred to me that Ragnarok is actually a pretty decent movie about post-colonialism (colonialism being a catch-all term for the period in world history when all the major powers believed they had a God-given right to rape and pillage indigenous societies as they spread their empires). When Hela talks about how the wealth of Asgard is based on destroying cultures throughout the nine realms, she's saying words that could be said by the rulers of Spain or England or Portugal, or the United States if you look at it from the perspective of the Indians. This could be an entire series of posts, but maybe I'll stop there since I'm not nearly smart enough for that. But it definitely adds a layer of self-awareness to this movie that wasn't there in the others. So, bottom line: all thumbs up from our house.

Have a great weekend. I'm headed to Texas next week to spend some time with my mom who had surgery this past week, so you probably won't hear anything from me for awhile.

Two years ago on To Square a Circle: Re-Thinking Self Care. Four years ago on Aunt BeaN's Third Blog: Odds and Ends, because it's too cold to do anything else. (I'm shamelessly stealing this idea to link to old posts from Modern Mrs Darcy.)

7ToF: Summer reading report 2016, plus one

1. You Don't Have to Say You Love Me by Serra Manning. This British chick lit novel is just about the perfect beach read. Neve has spent the three years since the love of her life left for a job in the US losing weight, exercising, and getting her life in order. But she hasn't figured out how to be in a relationship yet, so she figures maybe she better practice before her prince Charming returns. The practicing ends up being better than what she thought was the real thing, no surprise there. I loved, loved, loved this book for 99% of it. It's funny and well-written and Neve is great. But I hated the ending more than I can say. Neve has lost well over a hundred pounds, and she's down to a size 14. She's happy and healthy and even her worst enemy tells her she looks great. So you think part of her epiphany at the end is going to be that she's awesome just the way she is. But nope, in a teary tantrum on the last few pages, she insists that by God she is going to lose that last bit of weight and get down to some mythical size that she doesn't need. I was so disappointed it almost ruined the book for me, but since you've been warned, you can just enjoy the first 99% and ignore the ending. Great read. Even with the disappointing ending, this is still a don't-miss summer read.

2. Out of the Deep I Cry by Julia Spencer-Fleming, third in the Clare Fergusson-Russ VanAlstyne series. The first book in this series (In the Bleak Midwinter) was a bit flawed, but intriguing enough that I kept picking up later books in the series when I would see them on sale or in used book stores. Then I finally got around to reading the second one, and it was remarkably disappointing. Clare, a former army helicopter pilot turned Episcopal priest, breaks a confidence in a spectacularly public way, and also she was turning into one of those annoying characters who is always right. If I hadn't already bought the other books, I probably would never have read another. I finally picked up the third one this summer and was suitably surprised. A man walks out of his house and doesn't return. Figuring out the details turns up a mystery that's gone unsolved for decades. It's a bit tricky keeping track of the dates-- the story is told in flashbacks-- but interesting mystery and Clare turns out to be not quite so irritatingly perfect in this one.

3. The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty. This book has over 17,000 ratings on Amazon, and I kept hearing about it. But even though I bought it a couple of years ago when the Kindle version was on sale, I never managed to get around to reading it until a couple of weeks ago. It's a curious book. Her writing style made me nuts-- frenetic, is the only way I can think to describe it, like a voluble, nervous, chatty acquaintance who can't stop talking ninety-to-nothing when you run into her at a coffee shop. There are three storylines: uptight but happily married Cecilia, who discovers that her husband has a secret (hence, you know, the title of the book); Tess, whose husband falls in love with her cousin and best friend; and Rachel, whose daughter was murdered years ago and who is haunted by the unsolved mystery of her death. However much I disliked her writing style, Moriarty is a great storyteller, and handles the complicated inter-weaving of the three stories with ease. Difficult to put down. I'm not sure I'd say I like it, but there are a number of intriguing moral dilemmas raised. I kept thinking about it for days after I put it down. Worth reading. Would be a great book club book with lots to discuss.

4. Remember I told you awhile ago that I'm usually reading a literary fiction, a genre fiction, and a non-fiction at any one time? My non-fiction book for this summer was The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. It took me several months to finish it, because the science was fairly dense, but I felt like I should understand it, so I would wade through the details. I finally started skimming over the complicated science stuff and enjoyed it much more after that. I do get the basic idea, and Dean explained a couple of other things I was mystified by, so even though I don't get every nuance of all the iterations of things they tried before they found something that worked, I think I got the message. What intrigued me was all the non-science stuff-- the stories of the interactions of the scientists and the rivalries and the history of how it all unfolded with the looming war in Europe. Well worth reading, and probably most of you would do better with the science parts than I did.

5. Let It Breathe by Tawna Fenske. Something else I told you awhile back-- I couldn't remember the last time I'd read a really good romance novel. Fenske's latest is. Really good, I mean. Reese and Clay were part of a trio of best friends in college, until Reese married (and then divorced) the third guy, and Clay went off to sober up. They've got some past issues to work through, and some current complications, but overall this was just the right mix of fun, funny, and serious. Great beach or plane read. The only false note for me was that I found her supposedly-perfect parents to be nauseating and irritating rather than enviable. But that's only a minor part of the story, this one is definitely worth reading.

6. Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal. Something about the cover of this one caught my eye at the library and I grabbed it. But I almost put it down after the first three pages. Oh, no, I thought. I'm not reading another foodie novel where ever-more perfect taste is exhibited in inflated language about food and every chapter has a recipe. But by the end of the first chapter, something had hooked me and I kept going. Kitchens is really a series of short stories, all revolving around Eva Thorvald, a pure soul and gifted chef. Only one story has Eva as the main character, she is just another character of varying importance in the others. There is a touch of magical realism (an unborn child communicates with his mother via text messages, for example), a lot of beautifully worded sentences, occasional sharp bursts of humor, and an interesting mix of criticism-of/homage-to foodie culture. Eva has become a little too perfect by the end, and one of the stories (the one about Pat) didn't really find its heart until two thirds of the way through, but other than that, there's not a false note anywhere. Loved it. Highly recommended.

7. So I could make this a perfect seven, but even though I read another half dozen books this summer, none of them seem worth reporting here. So I will tell you we went to see the new Star Trek movie last night. We are long time Star Trek fans-- we bonded over watching ST reruns in the dorm TV room back in the 80s-- and we have loved the new movies with Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Carl Urban as Kirk, Spock, and Bones. This one was fun and had some great moments--and it more than accomplished its purpose of distracting us from a hot, grumpy August night. At one point we were laughing so hard that we were probably irritating the heck out of our neighbors. But the thing is, I'm not sure we were meant to be laughing. This one isn't nearly up to the standards of the first two. If you're a Trek fan, you're long used to the uneven quality of the different iterations, so no problem there. I wouldn't have missed it for the world, and we'll probably get it when it comes out on DVD and watch it again, but I have to admit I was a bit disappointed-- a disappointment that was very nearly redeemed by several classic ST moments.

That's it. Have a great weekend. The great college drop-off is next week and I have a few other things going on, so I probably won't post again until after Labor Day, but you never know.

7ToF: once more into the breach

1. I knew next to nothing about raising chickens when we decided to get six a few years ago--probably the reason none of the original six are still around. Now we have seven. They are friendly little things, and keep us supplied with eggs. But they are not clean creatures. I wouldn't exactly call our black lab Sadie a clean dog, but she would never poop where she sleeps--something that chickens do all night long. They also, uh, defecate as they're walking around, so there is frequently poop in their food and in their water. As far as I can tell, they never even notice. It's really irritating, because presumably they shouldn't drink water with poop in it, so I have to clean it up. There you go, your Chicken Insight of the Day. You're welcome.

2. All of us anglophiles went flutter-y this week when a video popped up on social media of Prince Charles (you know, the heir to the British throne) on stage with a bunch of Shakespearean actors who were arguing adorably about how to say Hamlet's famous line, "To be or not to be, that is the question." If you haven't seen it, it's here. Seriously. Ian McKellan, David Tennant, Dame Judi Dench, Benedict Cumberbatch, Prince Charles.

3. If you live in a place where you can go see Shakespeare any time you want, skip on to the next item. But for the rest of us, forgive me for gushing, but Much Ado About Nothing, filmed live by the Royal Shakespeare Company a few weeks ago for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, is coming to a theater near you. Or at least, near me. On May 23rd. I'm hyperventilating, I'm so worried something will come up and I'll miss it. Try this link for more info. Apparently the skit from #3 was recorded at the same event, because all of those people (besides the Prince of Wales) are in the play, plus more. Be still, my heart.

4. If you're a voracious reader, and I am, there are few things more unsettling than not being able to find something to read. It makes me twitchy. I've tried half a dozen books in the past week that I couldn't get into. Of course I have piles more, so no worries, but this is unusual for me. I usually read for about a half hour before I get up in the morning, and for an hour (or more) before I go to sleep at night. If I'm not reading, I end up just messing around on my phone, which then feels like wasted time. #firstworldproblem

5. MadMax suffers from mild GERD (a fancy way of saying he has heartburn) which means we avoid tomato products around here. Since spaghetti and meatballs is one of my favorite easy meals (NO I do not make meatballs from scratch, are you kidding me? Costco sells them by the enormo-bag), I've had to come up with a non-tomato sauce for them. It's actually not bad, and it's sort of like making a potion--i.e., it's fun. You shake some worcestershire sauce, some kitchen bouquet, a blob of beef bouillon paste, and a smaller blob of chicken bouillon paste into a jar with a tight lid, fill the jar about halfway with water, add about a third of a cup of flour and shake it up until smooth. Then you add that to the meatballs which you are already simmering in beef broth. Makes a kind-of gravy. I'd still rather have traditional tomato sauce, but for MadMax's sake, this works, and he loves it.

6. Did anybody else see the new version of The Jungle Book? I have to confess I was a little disappointed. After seeing the trailer on the big screen a couple of months ago, I somehow thought they were going back to the book--which I've never read, but the idea intrigued me. But it is basically a remake of the 1967 animated film (which came out when I was in grade school and I loved with a great love) without most of the music. It's not badly done, but not what I was expecting.

7. We went to our Last High School Band Concert this week. (It was excellent, by the way. Amazing how much a bunch of kids can learn about their instruments in six years.) As their bring-the-house-down number at the end, they played Stars and Stripes Forever, which I also played at my last high school band concert back in 1979. Traditionally, the piccolo players stand up on the third verse and play their tweedly-dee bit, and since I was one of two piccolo players, that included me. I freaked out and barely played two notes, although fortunately my friend and fellow piccoloist Lynne nailed it. It practically made me sick to my stomach when the poor girl from MadMax's band stood up for her moment, but she did not freak out and did a great job. The next tradition is that the trombones stand up for the last verse, and MadMax's band director went one better by having the entire back row of brass players stand. That part brought tears to my eyes, as it always does. Partly because of the music and the exuberance, partly the whole "last time" bit-- I suspect I'll be crying from now until August 26, when we get home from dropping our poor kid off for freshman orientation. Keep Dean and MadMax in your prayers, they may not survive this.

I just noticed as I was scheduling this that tomorrow is Friday the 13th (which will be today by the time you read this). Hope you have an uneventful day and a great weekend.

that's not how the force works

I was a Star Wars nerd. The first Star Wars movie, the real one, the one they now call Episode IV, came out my sophomore year in high school. I still remember the first time I saw it, sitting white-knuckled at the end, watching anxiously to see if Luke would hit the two-meter target (not much bigger than a wamp rat back on Tatooine). I remember breaking into wild applause when he did, to the consternation of my friend watching with me, who didn't like the movie at all because the Bible says that there is only intelligent life on Earth, not anywhere else (not kidding).

Day 8: and we lived happily ever after

The post that goes with the previous one is definitely not ready, so on a different topic.... Let's talk about happy endings. Books, stories, movies. I love them. I loved them as a child. I loved them as a teenager.

Then I got to college and learned that happy endings are bad. They're unrealistic. They're sappy and sentimental. They're stupid. The intellectuals surrounding me had nothing but disdain--sneering disdain--for any thing that ended with me smiling and feeling warmly about the human race. Is there any influence that's harder to deflect than sneering disdain?

7ToF: I got nothin

I've already written two posts this week, and I've been sick, and whine. I'm not very confident that I'm going to actually think of seven things to talk about. But here goes.

1. I called back in July to get an appointment for Sam's senior portraits. The first opening she had was October 20. So, yup, have to figure out what we're doing pretty soon. But in an unusual moment of thinking ahead, I remembered that he needed to get a haircut early. This was not an easy sell. Sam doesn't like haircuts, and long hair is in right now. It took a bit of negotiating, but the deed is done. Haircut accomplished this afternoon. Part of the deal is that I will never in his life make him get another haircut. I figure that's pretty easy, though, because he's 18 now and his hair is now adult hair on an adult head. Go, my son, and groweth thy hair at thy pleasure.

7ToF: it ain't all good baby but it's all right

1. Hilton Head report: We'd never been there before. It's a nice place, but the week of the fourth of July it is really, really crowded. Maybe it's like that all the time, not sure. We had a great time with Dean's family, though-- we always do. It was hot and humid, but that was no surprise. Here's a beach shot for you, and I will spoil the effect by telling you that in order to get a deserted beach shot, I had to a) aim the camera veeeery carefully and b) wait for a timely wave to come along and cover up the people who were out in the water.

2. Next week I'm flying to Detroit for Cheery-o's son's wedding. Then the week after that, I'm off to Texas to help out with my mom who recently had a knee replacement. I'm just a travelin' fool these days. That means lots of time in airports and on planes, so if you have any good, non-depressing books to suggest, I'm in need. I underestimated on my summer reading list-- I've already read all of them except two, and one of those I decided not to read and the other one (Kavalier and Clay) I'm saving up until after I get back from my trips.

3. Cute things around the internet: Oddly, the first time I saw this commercial, I'm pretty sure different music was playing (Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein"), but it's cute no matter what the music is.

4. Remember I told you that MadMax was in the midst of his summer obsession with golf, and we were totally sucked into watching the U.S.Open? It turned out to be well worth it--the finish on Sunday was a nail-biter that came down to the very last putt.  Even the world's worst golfer (me) was sitting on the edge of her seat.

Now we've moved on to the British Open, which I've learned this week is just called THE OPEN. Apparently no other designation is needed when you are playing in the home of golf. MadMax has had lots of time on his hands this week, which has meant the Golf Channel has been on more than I care to admit, and even just being in the same house without really watching I feel like I know more about THE OPEN than can possibly be good for my brain. Anyway, we're sucked in again. Thank god it finally started today so they could quit talking about it and actually play some golf.

5. We finally made it to see Inside Out last night. It's cute, and it goes off in a more intelligent direction than you expect based on the way it starts. Well worth seeing, even if you don't have kids to see it with. It's pretty funny, but there's a two-hanky moment at the end--you've been warned.

6. Laurel sent me a link to this great 21-day meditation series from Deepak Chopra and Oprah, which started this week. I've only done the first one so far but it was really interesting, and will possibly be the topic of a future blog post. You have to register, but each day's recording is free for five days. Check it out: Manifesting Grace Through Gratitude.

7. Both our kids have had milestone birthdays this summer--PellMel turned a quarter century, and MadMax turned 18. Which has made me horribly nostalgic. They really were adorable. So I'm subjecting you to pictures. I would apologize, but I'm not really sorry. :-)

I need to take more pictures--
this is the most recent one I could find
of the two of them. Summer 2014.

p.s. the lyrics in the post title are from my new favorite C&W song, "Real Life" by Jake Owen, here's the video: Real Life music video. For the record, I used to love to eat at Waffle House (I probably still would but there's not one around here). I wonder how many takes it took to get the shot where the waffle drops on his plate? 

7ToF: the sun's so hot I forgot to go home

1. The weather. We are having August weather already. It's hard to complain, because it has been gorgeous--sunny and clear with a bit of a breeze. But we've had record-breaking or -tying highs for the past three days in a row and I have turned into a heat wimp. Oh, my. 95 and no air conditioning is not fun. Thankfully tomorrow (which will be today when you're reading this) it is supposed to get back to our regularly scheduled June weather.

2. So yesterday I went to the movie theater, where the A/C was turned down so low that I nearly froze--which I would normally hate, but it felt fabulous compared to the heat wave outside. I've done this a couple of times over the past few months, after never going to a movie by myself ever in my entire life. It's kind of fun if I can find a free afternoon for it. It's a cheaper way to see a movie that I want to see but Dean doesn't, and there are usually half a dozen or so people in the theater who are there by themselves, so I don't feel too weird. Yesterday I bought myself popcorn and a diet coke and called it lunch. And BONUS: new Star Wars movie trailer. It was pretty fabulous, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up (I'm looking at you, so-called Episode One).

3. The movie was Tomorrowland. As a kids' movie, it's a lot of fun. Gorgeous CGI, just enough plot to keep it interesting, and everything turns out well in the end. But the dialog is awful, and the moral is driven home with a sledgehammer. So for adults, it's barely watchable. Without Clooney and Hugh Laurie, it would have been a complete loss--the two of them manage to turn clunky, stilted dialog into something that you can at least sit through.

It's too bad it wasn't done in a more subtle way, because some of the ideas behind it are worth thinking about. But you do wonder how it could possibly be a good idea to skim all the dreamers and creators and geniuses off the top of the world's population and ship them off somewhere else so they're not doing anybody any good at home. A much better movie with some of the same ideas is Meet the Robinsons, an under-rated Disney flick from 2007.

4. The basic premise of Tomorrowland is that we (as in the global population) are in a negative feedback loop where we imagine how horrible everything is, and so it's no surprise that everything turns out so horrible. The most interesting line in the entire movie is when Hugh Laurie (or was it George Clooney?) says, "And you know why? Because if you imagine that the world is going to hell anyway, then you can sit back and do nothing." (I'm sure that's not an exact quote.) I've become less and less of an idealist as the years go by, but I still have enough of it in me that I found the basic idea of the movie to be cool.

5. Also, they nailed the comparison between the attitude toward the future when I was a kid in the 60s--when everything was all about progress and how great new inventions and technology are, etc--and now, when apocalyptic visions are eveywhere, and we don't seem to be able to even imagine a future where the world hasn't been utterly destroyed. I remember when I was a kid and double-knit polyester was a miracle fabric--nobody wanted stupid cotton anymore. Then we went through the backlash when nobody would wear polyester anything, and now we've come out somewhere in the middle, where "technical" clothing is a high-tech mix of cotton and synthetic materials, or all synthetic that has been engineered to feel like cotton. Possibly a model for the way we could handle other pendulum swings.

And just for the record, George Clooney and I are the same age and he was not eleven in 1964, he was three, just like me. Not that I would be confusing the real-life George with the fictional character in the movie, because I would never do that. (I wrote this paragraph purely so that I could include the phrase "George Clooney and I" in a plausible context.)

6. And speaking of movies and post-apocalyptic dystopias, last Saturday Dean and I went to see Mad Max: Fury Road. I appreciated the amazing special effects, and the even more amazing stunt work done by people up on tall bendy-poles in vehicles being driven at high speeds, but I have to say that I could barely watch this movie. Three minutes in, Tom Hardy is already been tortured and enslaved, and the entire movie is one long catalog of ways that human beings can be horrible to each other. There were endlessly creative methods of killing, maiming, dismembering, and every other possible horrible thing you could do to someone.

I hate that kind of movie. I get that there was a great positive ending, and strong, smart women with agency and integrity, but I still don't like to watch that stuff. Fortunately there was no one sitting near us, so I did Seven Little Words on my phone during the battle scenes and looked up to watch when it was quiet. I think I watched most of the good parts. If that sadistic stuff doesn't bother you, it's a great movie and you should go see it. But if you can't sleep after watching two hours of squalor (like me), skip it. I made Dean take me out for ice cream after. :-)

7. ...... I'm a little surprised that I just wrote five Friday Things about movies, because we almost never go to the theater. So let's see, what's something totally different I could tell you about? My summer reading list? (People of the Book, All the Light We Cannot See, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Saint Anything, State of Wonder, The Ocean at the End of the Lane--got any other suggestions for me?). My search for the perfect pillow? (got any suggestions for me?) My course list for the fall (which is due this week)(got any suggestions for me?). I can't do a recipe because this has been a Costco Food Week to avoid heating up the kitchen.

*spends three minutes on Google* OK, here you go:

7. Interesting Things Around the Internet Dept: have a look at this slideshow of strange and gorgeous public art. Love. and have a great weekend.

(also, p.s. if you only check in on Tues and Fri, I snuck in an extra post yesterday about long marriages.)