Manly Things

I really don't like yard work. When we were looking at houses, I would always try to steer us in the direction of properties with really, really small yards. And little landscaping that needed to be tended. The house we ended up buying has a decent-sized yard but it also came with landscaping that reduces the amount of grass that needs to be cut. When we first moved in, I decided I could handle cutting the grass. That was the maximum I was willing to do. Cut the grass every other week. Beyond that, I didn't want to dig or plant or trim. But nature had other plans. Some ivy started taking over a couple areas of the yard--and started growing on the house. The bushes--damn them--grew and needed to be trimmed. So I've taken care of these things over the course of the last week. Just last night, I went to war with a bunch of ivy behind our garage. I chopped it and pulled it loose. I expected to find strange things beneath the thick ivy. I wouldn't have been surprised to find Amelia Earhart under there. I only found a basketball and a bulb to a strand of Christmas lights. Believe it or not, it felt good to do that work. Satisfying. I'm not going to do it every day. Soon enough, the ivy will be growing back. But for now, I won.

THE PATRIOT WITCH by C.C. Finlay

This is the first in a new series of novels that combines historical fiction with fantasy. The protagonist, Proctor Brown, is a young minuteman at the Battles of Lexington and Concord, and he just happens to be the descendant of a long line of witches. He's still learning how to use and control his power even as he fights the British with musket and knife. The British also have magic on their side. The plot is full of incident and Brown is a great protagonist--flawed, talented, brave and likable. The next two novels in the series are already out, I believe, and I intend to read them both. Check this out--it's good stuff.

Wheelchair?

Molly hurt her knee--possible torn meniscus. We'll find out more on Monday when she has an MRI. For now, she's in a lot of pain. We had to go into a department store last night so Molly opted for one of the store's wheelchairs. I pushed her around, and it was kind of fun, like playing race car. (She didn't like it when I poorly navigated certain turns and banged her bad leg against a shelf.) Anyway, everyone was really, really nice to us. Sickeningly nice. Nicer than normal--and we live in the friendly South. Was this a reaction to the wheelchair? Do people fall over themselves in our politically correct world to be nicer than nice to someone who might be handicapped? Or did they just feel sorry for her because of my bad driving?

Smoking Throughout

I just saw a Yahoo capsule review of a new movie--one that takes place pre-WWII I think--and in the little warning box it listed, alongside sexual situations and adult language, something I'd never seen before: "smoking throughout." I can guess why. Someone is worried that impressionable kids are going to go to a movie and decide to smoke because someone on screen is smoking. First of all, if a movie takes place before 1960, chances are there will be "smoking throughout." But do the movies really exert that much of an influence over us? Are they stronger than our own wills? I remember seeing plenty of Humphrey Bogart movies when I was growing up, and I thought it looked really cool that he was smoking and drinking all the time. I assumed cigarettes and bourbon must taste really good if he was guzzling them down like candy. In fact, I though they must taste like candy. (Actually, back then we had candy cigarettes, so I could pretend to be Humphrey Bogart with a sweet tooth if I wanted.) At some point, I was old enough to smoke and drink on my own. Both cigarettes and bourbon caused the same reaction in me. It's called the gag reflex. I thought I would throw up. I had to decide if my desire to look cool superseded my desire not to throw up. Different people make different choices about these things, and that's cool. I never became a smoker.

Do we really need to warn people about smoking in movies? In the future, will we warn them if people eat cake or red meat as well? I watched the first half of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA last night. In the opening scene, he rides a motorcycle without a helmet. He crashes and dies, too. Do we need a warning for that?

Encounter with the Police

The police came to our door this morning. Our house backs up to an elementary school and someone had left an old lawnmower sitting back there. The maintenance men at the school thought someone had broken into our garage--the gate at the back of our yard hangs open permanently--and left the lawnmower behind as they escaped. So they called the cops. The cop was young, friendly, professional and courteous. And we hadn't done anything wrong. Still...I felt nervous talking to him. And as I talked I realized he must see this all the time. Nervous people trying to explain what's going on. Except for the guilty people who probably don't seem nervous at all.

The lawnmower is gone now. Order is restored.

THE HANGOVER

Let me just say, I'm so, so glad that there has been this run of adult, R-rated, raunchy comedies, the run that started with the likes of THE FORTY-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN and SUPERBAD and continues with THE HANGOVER. The premise of a bachelor party weekend in Vegas doesn't sound all that original, but the movie kept topping itself with incident piling on top of incident. In fact, anyone interested in writing who wants to know how to keep upping the stakes in a story could do worse than to watch this movie for that aspect alone. The movie trudges on a lot of taboos--especially its treatment of an abandoned baby--and for this I laughed out loud and wished for more. They already have a sequel in the works. I can't imagine it will be as good, but I'm sure I'll see it.

UP at the Drive-in

We have a drive-in about twenty minutes away from us so we headed there last night to see UP. I've missed going to the drive-in. We had two near us in Ohio, and we went every summer at least once. We used to go to see whatever big summer movies were showing--it seemed fitting to see them on a drive-in screen. The one here--The Franklin Drive-In in Franklin, KY--looks a lot like the one in Ohio: it feels like stepping into a time machine. The concession stand, the bathrooms, the signs and ads all look like they haven't been updates since the 1960s, which they probably haven't and which is just the way I like it. The weather was nearly perfect--clear and a little cool.

UP, by the way, is great. I saw WALL-E last year and loved that and had my doubts about UP's ability to come close to those heights, but it did. It's a tough call, but maybe UP was better. It certainly feels more personal as opposed to WALL-E which felt more overtly political. But they're both great. And would I have ever thought I'd go see one of the summer's biggest movies and Ed Asner (or at least his voice) would be the star? Ed Asner? Crazy.