Yeah, Frightful, or Something Like It

The weather outside is not especially frightful, certainly not as frightful as we were led to believe. It seems that we -- B.Town and a few surrounding neighbors -- are in a small strip that did not catch the brunt of the storm that is raging everywhere else on the east coast.

I just watched Up, and please do so if you haven't already. It was quite wonderful, but more than that I cannot say.

My feeling crummy during the day Thursday turned into a full-fledged Crohn's attack, intense pain included, by late afternoon, at which point I was sitting in a gymnasium in a county facility waiting for my swine flu shot. I got the shot, and then allowed myself to *ahem* release my pain all the way home by screaming my guts out, so to speak. I mananged to sleep fitfully all night and did not go into work on Friday. I'm better now, but still wrung out and sore. And nauseous often, now, in fact, so I think I will sign off and post.

Ohai

I wish I could tell you that I haven't written in days because I've been leading such an exciting life, but that would certainly be untrue. I've done some reading, some shopping, some returning, some doctor stuff, and some marathon TV watching. That's about it.

Last first: I think it's probably not a good idea to watch too many Law and Order marathons of any kind. It makes me a little afraid to go into the outside world.

Reading. I started and gave up on a book called A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. It's a Pulitzer Prize winner, and on the summer reading list for one of the new English electives at school. It was ... well, interesting, but too densely written for my tastes, and too crude for school, I think, although it is an elective for seniors. I gave up after a hundred pages. I'm currently reading, and on the verge of giving up on, a book about dieting and body-image and having healthy attitudes towards both, which R gave me to read. I'm down with all that it says, but it's saying it over and over and over. Even so, I'll stick with it for tonight and move on tomorrow, especially if I get the chance to go into school and drop off the book?s I'm done with and get another one that I want.

Oh, K and I did at last see the Harry Potter movie yesterday. What can I say? It wasn't a bad movie, but it was one of the worst adaptations of a book I've ever seen. It was as if all the heart of the book was gone. Less the halfway through the movie, I wanted to kill Dumbledore myself.

Doctor stuff, and I'm going to talk about the lady doctor and lady parts, so, you've been warned. Two doctors have pronounced me post-menopausal, so, yes! It's about time. Even so, there's some minor thing going on that needs investigation; the internist told me Friday to make an appointment with the ob/gyn and tell her I need a "hysteroscopy." I didn't know what that was, so I called, and they were all like "uh, no" and made me an appointment to talk to the doctor yesterday. Turns out that a hysteroscopy is a D & C, which I can tell myself that I don't need, and I certainly don't want, and the ob/gyn agrees, but now I have to have that all ultrasounded as well. So I'm doing that tomorrow when I get my thyroid ultrasounded. I already know that neither of these things is really any kind of concern, but I'll go and get scanned anyway.

Here's the crazy thing on my mind about all this. You know, when we are children, we explore our bodies and are familiar with what we've got and where everything is. (I don't mean just that; we also know every freckle on our hands and knees and feet, and all that stuff.) And as girls get a little older, we are warned of the changes that are about to befall us. (As are boys, I assume.) And the change comes, and it's more or less what we've been expecting. I don't remember being told ahead of time that I would get cramps each month that would double me over in pain, but I had an older sister, so that wasn't much of a surprise.

We are prepared for the change that comes at this end, too, but not nearly as well. For example, once you start piling on the pounds and can't get rid of them, only then does someone say, "Oh, yeah, that's menopause." WTF? I knew about the hot flashes, the mood swings, and some other stuff -- I had watched my mother for those clues -- but some of this other crap, really, I had no warning. Part of that is gravity taking hold, but just in general, it's like I'm trapped in a stranger's body. Not only are there new freckles and the like popping up daily, it's as if nothing is in the same place anymore. I don't know if I can be more clear than that, even if I were talking to you in person. It's just very, very strange. Makes me wonder what else is going to be relocating over the next 20 or 30 years.

No job yet for K, but a new opportunity may have opened up today, a really, really good one, so cross those fingers and toes, folks. Maybe this is the one that was meant to be after all.

Oh, and the girls gave us a really excellent anniversary gift over the weekend. It's in the living room, but it's a very rainy day today, so I don't have enough light to take a good picture to show. I'll try to get one tomorrow.




watching THE GOLDEN GIRLS :: ENTRY #2090
READING: Lessons from the Fat-O-Sphere by Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby

Which Alfred Hitchcock Movie Am I?

(It's not a meme. Or a quiz.)

I suppose my moods are swinging like a menopausal metronome, but I'm generally not having down periods, or at least, not bad ones. The one over the weekend was the worst one for a long time. Mostly, I just get all sappy and mushy, not so much teary, but grinning excessively, which looks a little grotesque on me, but I don't always do it when I'm with people. I'm reminded of a classic film scene, and a favorite of mine, from The Philadelphia Story (not a Hitchcock movie, btw):

Tracy (Katherine Hepburn) is drunk on the eve of her wedding, and loosens up for the first time in her life while she's hanging out with Mack (Jimmy Stewart,) who is not her fiance. Liz (Ruth Hussey), who is not Mack's fiancee but would like to be, is more of a skeptic, or cynic. Tracy, in an uncharacteristic burst of good humor, sweeps her arms and looks dreamily into space and says to Liz

"Aren't men wonderful!"

And Liz replies, deadpan, "Yes, the little dears."

Anyway, I'm usually in Liz mode, but here and there these days I morph into Tracy mode, feeling gushy about relatively ordinary things. For example, last night, my daughters went to a concert in the city. I did my very best not to get all freaked out over this. K was meeting R at Penn Station after work, and later, they would be coming home by train together to R's house, where K would be staying over.

R emailed me during the day to tell me all the plans, so I wouldn't worry. I wanted to call her on the phone at work and gush "Oh! I just love you so much!" *ahem* But I wrote back a nice email asking her to have K confirm the sleepover plans (which weren't definite at that point), and she said she would.

At 6:15, I got a text from K telling me that they were together, and she would, indeed, be staying over. Isn't that wonderful?

When I got up this morning, I saw a text from about 12:30 last night that they were home, and she hoped the text didn't wake me. (It didn't.) So then I wanted to call her up at R's and say "Oh, I just love you so much! I love both of you so much! you guys are THE BEST!" But it was six a.m., and I figured that would not be the way to start her day, considering she was asleep at her sister's, and isn't a morning person, and anyway, the upshot of the whole thing is not my children, good or bad, but is that I AM A PSYCHO.



watching ---- :: ENTRY #2063
READING: American Lion: Andrew Jackson by Jon Meacham

Longest Week Ever

It was the longest week ever. By Friday, I was ready to drop. But I have been sleeping better, and slept even until 7:30 today! Wow.

R has officially moved, so that's all over, although I'm taking the day Monday to help her out with some last details, like the final cleaning on the old apartment, and like that. But all the furniture is where it's supposed to be, so that's done.

K has been having some drama with student teaching, and sadly is not having the best experience there, but all experience is a teacher, so she's learning something, even if it's what kind of teacher she wants not to be. In a bit of a cheering up effort this afternoon, she and I went to see Monsters vs. Aliens, which we enjoyed. Just going to the movies is a rare occurrence for me, so I enjoyed the whole thing.

And now I am going to put my aching neck down on a pillow and probably read some. Lots of aches and pains lately. It's because I'm OLD.


waiting for FRIENDS :: ENTRY #2015
READING: Night by Elie Wiesel

So Here's What I'm Thinking

I'm thinking, at just this moment, that I have put in my time with the elderly, and it's not my turn anymore. In other words, I love the ILs, but I'm tired of being on the front line. Which is to say, I am the only one here who answers the phone (unless I'm not home), and I'm tired of being the greeter. (I wouldn't mind getting out of Christmas again this year either, but I'm not willing to take last year's drastic measures, you know, developing a chronic gut disease.)

The ILs are cheerful to a bizarre degree. I can't imagine how either one of them would deal with a real crisis; I don't know if I've ever seen them faced with one. Every phone call begins with a cheery anecdote or an amusing question. (This is why I never take their call-waiting beeps; they launch into their conversation before I can say "I'm on another call; can I call you right back?") Or a stupid question. Such as the one that prompted this entry.

The phone rang at 7:02 and I see it's the ILs from the caller ID. It's the FIL, asking if R's flight is delayed because of the weather (it's pouring), and what have we heard from her?

Well, her flight was scheduled to take off at 6:55, and I was just checking the website where I saw it was delayed. At this point, it was delayed by seven minutes. I explained to him that I didn't know any more than he did, and she was certainly already on the plane anyway and couldn't be calling me. Ah, of course. He chuckled another amusing question for the Hubs and I brought the phone to him in the other room.

In this family, nothing goes wrong, because the Hubs and his mother keep everything inside so no one could tell, and the FIL and the Hubs' sister let everything roll off their backs so nothing bothers them.

I'm just ready to be done with that. Not that I want anything to happen to them, I just wish I wasn't always the front line. I wonder how we can convince them to start calling the Hubs' cell phone number?

So the closet is all done and pretty, R is, at the very least, at the airport (I talked to her after she went through security), and K had the adventure of stopping at R's apartment before class to leave her computer there for later and coming out to find a flat tire on her car (AAA came and fixed it) and then the engine light on when she left for class.

So I'm also thinking: when do I get to be old? When do I get to stop putting out other people's fires?

Okay, I checked again. Her flight took off at 6:59, which means they're already over the clouds and out of the rain. So that's good.

I'm not really in a bitchy mood at the moment, but the phone call pissed me off. The other night, the FIL called at nine fucking thirty, and started off with "Is this too late?" and I said "Wha ... ?" If any phone call after nine means death to me, then certainly a late phone call with their caller ID means certain death. (Which is why his voice confused me, other than that I was already asleep: once I had my glasses on and saw the ID, I was sure it was the MIL calling with bad news.)

Hey, as long as I'm bitching, last night I re-read F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," which I read long ago and loved, and I have to ask: what story is this movie based on? Other than the central device, that of a baby who is born old and ages backward, nothing is the same. In the story, the baby is born as literally an old man, not a baby with an old man's head. In the story, which is very good, the father enters the hospital nursery to see a full grown 70 year old man sitting stuffed into a crib. And it starts in 1860. I had thought I would see the movie despite my lack of interest in Brad Pitt, but now I really won't need to see it at all.

And as long as I'm asking for the impossible, I'd like the rain to stop now, please. Unless it's going to turn into snow, in which case it could keep raining instead. Or something.

WATCHING TWO AND A HALF MEN :: ENTRY #1936
READING: How to be Good by Nick Hornby

Shotgun

Hi, iidlyyckma. Do I know you?

So, Saturday. Our weather has been outstanding recently, and I don't think there's any rain predicted until Tuesday. It's been crisp and clear, real autumn weather. I don't remember the last year we had a nice autumn; it seems we've been going from summer right into winter. This is nice.

Oh, that little statue that was broken the other day, I found it online. It's this. As I suspected, it worth about a couple hundred bucks, although I'm sure that's not what the Hubs originally paid for it because he would have had himself committed before buying a $200 Mickey Mouse, and rightly so. I collect the Mickeys, but I'm not all that interested in valuable ones, you know why? Because they break and then you feel like shit. Although that's not the reason in this case, but you know, in general.

Here, I made a major life adjustment today. I was booking the hotels for our trip and looking over the websites and stuff, and realized that part of the trip is in a national park, and one of the attractions there is hiking, including a section of the Appalachian Trail that runs through the park, and I thought, Hey, I cannot hike in sneakers. So I remembered that I have hiking-type boots, and I just needed to find them, and amazingly, they were right under my bed, no closet excavation project required. I've been wearing them all afternoon to get used to them. Life adjustment? When I find a pair of shoes that works for me, I pretty much wear only those shoes, which have been New Balance sneakers all summer. It's not that I don't have shoes of some variety -- okay, limited variety -- but I get used to wearing one pair and so I do. I think now I'll wear these light boots for a while, and see how that goes.

Speaking of which, my children tell me that Frye boots are back in style. (Did I already write about this?) So I told them that I have a pair in the attic, and all four of their little eyes lit up. I went to look for them last week. I don't go into the attic often, but whenever I do, I stumble over at least one Frye boot. But this time I could only find one of them; finding the other would require a team of very short, strong people, I think, because I would have to virtually empty out the crap in the attic, which is not even standing height for me, and very narrow, so it would need several little people passing things down the row and out. In other words, not gonna happen. And there's no waiting to do this in the summer, because it's death in the attic in the summer, so maybe I'll try again in a month or so.

I have empty cartons to get rid of in there, and a variety of other strange things, like, I think, ledger books of the household accounts from the first few years we were married. I don't think the IRS is ever going to ask for them at this point. All I can tell you is that our original rent was $275 a month, I budgeted $25 a week for groceries (it went up to $35 when R was born and I added diapers to the list), and our monthly expenses back in the early days came to around $800 a month. My salary that first year we were married was about $12,000 a year, and the Hubs was still in school. There was no cable TV, no cell phones, no Internet to pay for. We did have the paper delivered and paid the paperboy each week. When we got married, we bought a bed and a TV; every other item of furniture was a hand-me-down. (Most of it from Uncle Joe, actually, so when you walked into our apartment, it looked like a 90 year old lived there.)

Ah, good times.

Anyway, I did not win the lottery again this week, which you could probably guess, because if I do, and I retire instantly, you'll know, because I'll out the identity of Bizarro Town and all the goons I work with.

Which leads me to another completely random thought. The word "goon", I presume, is also a derogatory racial word, but I have never thought of it that way, and I certainly would never use it in that context. Growing up, when my sister or I thought the other was behaving oddly, we would hurl the insult "You are a GOON!", which we thought of somehow in the Halloween-goofy-ogre sense. You know, like the Goonies, if that's what the Goonies is actually about, because seriously, I have never been able to follow that movie, and you can be sure that I have sat through it on more than one occasion. Anyway, words that don't mean to me -- or you -- what they mean to the general public. Sometimes words are nasty ethnic words and you don't even know it, or never thought about it before, like to "gyp" someone, meaning to cheat, which I have mentioned before.

More randomness, I need to go swap my old iPhone charger for a new one before the old one burns my house down, or so I have been told, but it's behaved so far, so I guess I can wait until Monday. The recall notice went out weeks ago, but Friday was the first day you could make the swap, and the last thing I needed was lines at the Apple Store; been there, not going back there.

Did I mention that I'm having dinner with the Chum on Wednesday? YAY! My mission is to find someplace quiet to eat where we can talk, because our usual haunt is Applebee's -- there's one midway between us -- and I can't hear a thing she says there. Working on it.

Okay, this was my longest Saturday entry in ages. I'm going to watch the SNL prime-time show that was on Thursday, which I recorded, and then ... oh, I don't know, wait for George Lopez to be on so I can fall asleep.


WATCHING TWO AND A HALF MEN :: ENTRY #1879
READING: Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen

Movies and Me and the Meme

There's a great movie meme going around, and I've been wanting to do it, but trying to come up with a definitive list of my favorite ten movies makes my brain hurt. So I'm going to share ten memorable movie-going experiences, since that seems to be part of it, too. These are all in the theatre movies, although of course I've seen some on TV in the years since. I may have shared some of these stories in the past. And I've got eleven.

1. Around the World in 80 Days - This was released in 1956, but I think I saw it a year later when it was re-released, so I was four. The family was away on vacation at a hotel in the Catskills (mountains in New York state where there are a lot of resorts) and we all went to see this one rainy Sunday afternoon. All through the movie, I kept telling Shirl that I was sick, and she kept shushing me. When we got back to our room, I had a fever of 104, and spent the rest of the vacation in bed.

2. Old Yeller - 1957 - Jack took me to see this at the Queen Anne Theatre in Ridgefield Park. I remember going and seeing the movie, but I don't remember seeing the end, and I've never watched it again. What I remember most about the day is having to pee and Jack having to take me into the men's room.

3. Sleeping Beauty - 1959 - The first Disney movie I remember seeing in a theatre, also at the Queen Anne. I was 6; I went with my friend Lori, who was 4, and her father. When the wicked queen turned into the dragon, I was scared to pieces, and was very jealous of Lori who climbed right up into her dad's lap, but I was on my own.

4. Sink the Bismarck! - 1960 - Also at the Queen Anne, which years later became a porn theatre. Anyway, this is my first memory of going to a movie without my parents. My sister took me, along with a friend her age and his younger sister. I was 7, so I'm sure I went with the Sibs alone before, but this is the first memory I have of it. A year later, we moved to Bizarro Town, and I started going to the Saturday afternoon movies with just friends right away.

5. My Fair Lady - 1964 - When this first came out, it was being shown in a very fancy theatre in New York City, like a Broadway play, and OldFriend's parents got tickets for opening week. We had to dress up, and wear white gloves and black maryjanes and the whole thing. I remember seeing limos dropping people off at the front, and Mr. O. (as we called OldFriend's dad) bought us each a hardcover program all about the movie.

6. A Hard Day's Night - 1964 - It was in the summer; Lori and I and her cousin Donna, who lived with them every summer, went every day to the town day camp, which was really somebody babysitting groups of kids at the town pool; we all hated it. Anyway, we came home one afternoon and were informed by Shirl and Doris (Lori's mom) that they were taking us to see A Hard Day's Night at the Paramus drive-in! And may I add !!!!!!!!!!!!! The three of us started screaming and did not stop until the movie was over, even though it rained through most of it. It was sublime.

7. Romeo and Juliet - 1967 - My high school best friend and I ordered tickets and went into the city to see this on a school vacation right after it opened. The theatre was right next to the Plaza Hotel. The entire audience was composed of 14 to 16 year old girls; we all sighed and sobbed in complete unison, and were all delighted at the sight of Leonard Whiting's exquisite behind.

8. Easy Rider - 1969 - The Warner, in Ridgwood. It was Christmas Day, the same high school friend and I were literally the only two people in the theatre. Just before the movie started, the Star Spangled Banner started to play. This was extremely surreal, and we looked around in the dark for some kind of explanation, but finally we just stood up and waited until it was over and then watched the subversive movie.

9. Deliverance and A Clockwork Orange - 1975 - WORST DOUBLE FEATURE OF ALL TIME, CASE CLOSED. The Hubs and I saw this on a date at the Oakland Duplex. I had my hands over my eyes through both movies.

10. Star Wars - 1977 - At the Warner in Paramus on Rte. 4. I had just started teaching in February, and one of the kids who hung out in the library told me about this incredible movie, which was already getting lots of hype, but he was telling me how it looked like an action film but was really about the classic struggle between good and bad, and all the mythic archetypes in it, so one Sunday morning, the Hubs and I went to see it. Well of course the place was full of screaming kids and we walked out of there thinking "Eh." When we saw it again, we got it. Also, when it was re-released a year or so later, I took eldest nephew to see it at the Paramus drive-in, his first movie ever.

11. Close Encounters of the Third Kind - 1977 - Somewhere in Paramus with the Hubs. I totally loved this movie. On the way home, I kept my eyes on the sky, as if I was looking for the mother ship to land in New Jersey.

WATCHING YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN :: ENTRY #1860
READING: The Professor and the Madman by ??

For Real

So, I can post an entry from the iPhone, but it's hardly worth giving up using the regular computer for. Even so, next time I'm not home (i.e., in DisneyWorld), I can do it if I want. I've got the little thing pretty well set up to do whatever I need it to do. I can't open and work on Word documents (although I can open them), but I can use Google documents if I need to do anything like that. So I'm okay with it. And it's cute and it's fun.

Again, nothing much happening here. R was here for the day and the four of us went out to dinner for this week's anniversary. Tomorrow looks to be a rainy day, so if we're up to it, a Target run, since we didn't go last week, but that's more to occupy some time than anything else; there's nothing we actually need to get. I have a Costco trip planned for Tuesday with my sister.

And that's it. I watched Persepolis last night, which was very good. I got nothing in particular for tonight, so I'll see what's on. I may have a couple of Quantum Leaps recorded, though, so if I do, I'll watch that for awhile.

WATCHING TWO AND A HALF MEN :: ENTRY #1810
SUMMER BOOK #3: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

So Here's How It's Going

So far, I am not achieving my main goal for this summer, which is not to be sick like I was last summer.

Hmm.

I have the eye infection, which is improving, but I'm pretty sure I have a sinus infection, too. I won't go into the details, but I'll tell you, I wake up every morning and the first thing I think is that I wish I was in someone else's body. Okay, I'll go into the details, some; I'm not stuffy and the pain is manageable, but my teeth hurt and there is a characteristic unpleasant taste in my mouth/smell in my nose at all times. So, ick. I'm going to the doctor Wednesday for a blood pressure check -- that's been good, at least -- so I'll ask her about this, too, although I think a visit to Harry Katz The Sinus Man is in my near future.

I watched the movie Waitress over the weekend, which I like very, very much. I highly recommend it.

I went on a fruitless search this morning to the Japanese stores in Edgewater for some bento supplies; on the way back I tried to find a store I had seen listed online which was in a completely different part of the county, a part I'd never actually been in before. Also fruitless. A huge waste of time. The only good thing about it was getting to listen to more of the song countdown on the radio.

My fun for the day was going out to buy a new baby gift. Someone the Hubs works with (whose Polish wedding we went to last year) has just become a new daddy, which is exciting, and my standard new baby gift is books, so I had a fun visit to Barnes and Noble this afternoon. It was even more fun because these are books for the mommy, too, who is educated in Polish but has only been learning English since she arrived last year, so I think she'll enjoy them, too. Here's what I got:

Goodnight, Moon
Where the Wild Things Are
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
Harold and the Purple Crayon
Green Eggs and Ham
The four books in the Nutshell Library, which are
Alligators All Around
Chicken Soup With Rice
Pierre
One Was Johnny

It's very Sendak heavy, but hey, I love Sendak above all children's author/illustrators, so there you are. I wasn't going to get Harold, but I saw a nice paperback edition of it on the counter where I was sorting all the other books, so I had to get it. Goodnight, Moon is a board book; I also saw a board book edition of The Snowy Day, so I got that for myself because I love it and don't have it on my special children's book shelf. (Although I'm thinking now that the edition my kids had when they were little is on the other bookshelf, behind the little couch. Ah well. You can never have too many fine books.) The whole trip made me think again that it would be nice to work in the B & N children's department when I retire, but clear thinking reminds me that it would not. I'm not up on contemporary children's books, and I wouldn't want to work Saturdays, which they want you to do. (And Sundays, I would think, if we ever give up the Blue Laws here that keep the stores closed on Sundays.)

So I did knock off two things on my actual list of summer projects, which were to buy the books, and to file the last few months worth of house papers. I haven't started the basement yet, which I'm not bothered about. I have the turntable to hook up to the computer, but then I'm thinking that I can't even get to the record albums until I do a little basement work. Maybe next week.

Therapy tomorrow morning. All ready.

WATCHING FRIENDS :: ENTRY #1799
SUMMER BOOK #3: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

Easy Going Day

Today was a real vacation kind of day. I didn't get up until after eight, and then I did a totally goofy thing, which was that I wanted to take a leisurely shower but I wanted coffee first, so I dashed out to the drive-through before I was really dressed, just a shirt thrown over what I had on and quick Crocs on my feet. I am such a rebel! I don't even leave the house without a bra on when I'm going to the emergency room but I guess needing an emergency iced latte, decaf skim, takes precedence.

The highlight of my day probably was the shower; I didn't even blow my hair dry afterwards because this haircut lends itself to curly, so I let it go. K was not impressed. I am not so much caring about it.

I am remembering that if she's not working, then I'm sharing my vacation with her. This has its good and bad points, but I suppose some of the bad will go away tomorrow when we get her car back. We do have a rental for her, but she's not comfortable driving it, and there's really no need for her to. Insurance is paying for it, so it makes sense to have it if we need it, though. But what errands we need to do we're doing together, at least we have been for the last week, and she's been taking my car to class at night. It's not as if I go anywhere at night anyway. But if she could get a job for the summer, not that I think she can at this point, that would be nice. It's the night class that messes things up; if she didn't have to take that, she wouldn't have gotten a job at a summer camp, but the timing doesn't work out. She is sick to death of going to school, and who can blame her? Especially since she might be done by now if she'd gotten the proper advice.

One of my eyes is all read and feels like I've been punched -- I haven't been -- so it's making reading a little uncomfortable. What I did, though, was actually watch a Netflix on the day it arrived; I don't think I've ever done that before. I wanted to see About a Boy, since I'd just read the book. Not a fabulous movie, but a decent adaptation.

And that's the extent of me for the day. And I have no plans for tomorrow either. So there.



WATCHING FRIENDS :: ENTRY #1795
SUMMER BOOK #3: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

At Last!

I've had this entry rolling around in my head since last night, but I was sure I had already written part of it in some other entry, and it took a long time to find it, because, as it turns out, it was one of the earliest entries I wrote.

After I finished reading Exodus last night, around seven, I thought I would watch the movie. I had gotten the movie on sale last summer so I had it, even though I'd never seen it before. I got up to put it in the DVD player and saw that it was three and half hours long. Oy. I would have to stay up until nearly eleven, so I passed.

I had some dinner, saw that there was nothing on TV, and decided that it was going to be three and a half hours long whenever I did decide to watch it, so I put it in. It was nearly 8:30, so I watched until nearly midnight, after which, of course, I couldn't fall asleep for an hour or two.

Anyway, a good movie, worth watching, not a bad adaptation of the book. The screenplay was written by Dalton Trumbo. And the music is wonderful; the Exodus theme was a very popular song for a long time. But the music that stuck with me was Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem.

One of the things that struck me about Hatikvah is that I knew the song immediately. In the movie, when the U.N. resolution partitioning Palestine is announced, the waiting crowd begins to sing the song. I couldn't make out the words as sung by a crowd, and there were no captions for it, and they were in Hebrew anyway, but I knew all the words, and sang along with it in my head. Now, how the hell does that happen?

The how has to do with the old entry I was looking for all afternoon, which is here. (The entry is actually the whole story of my original tattoo, but the relevant parts for now are the first two, about Sunday School.) I didn't attend Sunday School at a synagogue; my parents would never have joined a religious congregation. But I went to secular Sunday Schools, three all together. They taught us about holidays, and there were history stories from The Bible -- I still have my Sunday School story book -- and I picked up a very small smattering of Hebrew. And there were songs.

The songs we learned were in Hebrew, even though none of us were really learning to speak or read Hebrew, but these were the traditional songs. We learned the songs phonetically, by repetition. I learned three songs all together that I can remember. The first, and really, the most important one, is Hava Nagila, which is the song played for the hora, which is the most well-known traditional Jewish folk-dance. (You can hear a reasonable version of it here.) It's played/danced at every wedding or bar mitzvah. It's not a difficult dance; it's the only dance I can actually do, or am ever willing to do. (I looked for a YouTube of people dancing the hora, and this is the closest I could come to what I know. The hora is what the people in the circle are doing. At a wedding, the bride and groom are often lifted onto chairs in the center of the circle. In this video, btw, the people are not dancing to Hava Nagila; it's some other song.)

I also learned a dance and song called Mayim. The words consisted mostly of "mayim mayim mayim mayim HEY! Hey mayim!" and so on. This was also a circle dance; I have no idea what the word means.

Hatikvah means hope. It is a beautiful, haunting song; I remember thinking that as a child. I could sing the song phonetically, but all I knew about the meaning was that it was something about the hope of the Jewish people for a homeland, Eretz Israel. You can hear the song here, and read the words in English.

I haven't started my next book yet, which is actually about a fictional past in which the post World War II Jewish state was established in Alaska instead of in the middle east. It seems like the logical book to read next.

WATCHING L/O :: ENTRY #1794
SUMMER BOOK #3: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

Catching Up

Not that I've done anything worth catching up on, but it's been a couple of days, so here I am.

Let's see.

Oh, I've been having some gut issues, but I think they're all due to some changes I made in my diet, so I'm unchanging them back, and things are a little better. But between that and allergies, I've been not the clearest head on the block. However, I remembered to use magic Afrin about an hour ago, and my sinus headache is ebbing for the first time since Wednesday. Can't argue with that.

We had a lovely lunch today with the Sibs and Wonderful Niece. I don't know how we let the getting together lapse for so long, although I suppose the three of them were away at school here and there for a period of years, so maybe that's it. But it's wonderful when we're together. The only thing missing is Good Guy nephew, but including him would require including his fiancee, which would require including W.N.'s husband, which would lead to inviting Little K, and really ... just can't do that. Too many people for conversation, for one, and waaaay too many people from that side of the family; my kids would feel totally outnumbered. Sometimes, they just want to see their actual cousins that they grew up with, and who can blame them? And W.N., fortunately, has the sense to be independent from her husband, and doesn't feel the need to include him in everything. Nor he her; he's away this weekend doing some charity thing he does from time to time. (Not sure what it is; it either raises money for Special Olympics or involves putting on shows for Special Olympics participants. Or both.)

So, that. I've also been a little more focused on music lately than I have been for awhile, so I was tinkering with iTunes again, and also testing out the various headphones that I have. Headphones are hard for me because of my hearing and hearing aid issues, but I do have one pair that works well -- really well -- but isn't that comfortable for the long term. Anyway, something made me think of Neil Diamond so I thought I'd see how much of his stuff I had, and there was practically none. I couldn't imagine that I owned no Neil Diamond CD, so I went to check and I did, of course, but what I had was a three disc set that I remembered, as soon as I saw it, were the very first CDs I ever owned. I had resisted CDs because I figured as soon as I got into them the technology would change again (although MP3s waited a few years to come in), but one year for my birthday the Hubs gave me a Discman player and a Neil Diamond set, and I was off. I just never put them all in iTunes, so I did that and then listened on the good headphones, and you know ... it was wonderful. I expect to be blasting Neil Diamond in the car for the next week or so.

And then, to my surprise, My Fair Lady was on TV this afternoon, and oh ... I love that, too. Those songs are just incredible. Oh, and I watched Juno last night, which I enjoyed, although I don't know what all the fuss was about.

And now ... that's it. I am most emphatically not bringing my lunch tomorrow, nor will I have anything for breakfast here at home except yogurt. (I just started eating Greek yogurt, which is fantastic.) 17 days to go. Once school is over and my evenings and mornings move at a more leisurely pace, I will happily go back to preparing my own food. (Well, let's not be crazy here. I'll prepare breakfast and lunch; I make no promises regarding dinner.)

WATCHING 60 MINUTES :: ENTRY #1768

Checking In

I've had a full weekend. Or not. Things are very quiet. But today is liquid diet day, and you know, when you're not allowed to eat, it's the only thing you want to do. I've had endless broth -- sick of that -- and two cups of coffee this morning, and gatorade. And some jolly ranchers. The actual pre-colonoscopy ordeal begins in one hour, at which time I will drink the magic potion that causes one's insides to dissolve. In a manner of speaking.

Otherwise, you know, you've gotta see the silver lining. Colonoscopy at 8.15 tomorrow morning means, essentially, a free day off from work. I should be out of there at ten the latest, and alert and happy for my haircut at 1.30. And it's a three-day work week, since they "gave us back" a snow day we didn't use by giving us the Friday before Memorial Day weekend off. (For those of you in sunnier climes, each school year has several days built into the calender when school will be closed for snow. Let's say my district allows three snow days, meaning we could lose three days of school and still meet the state required number of days. If we only use two of those three for snow, the Board of Ed. has the option of giving us back the third day by giving us an extra day off somewhere. They are generally loathe to do this, but it's become the trend in these parts in recent years. I'll have to remember to tell you about the hurricane, though.)

So, Target this morning, of course, and the Sibs is coming by any minute to pick up something I got for her there. She's waiting for her husband to finish watching something so he can drive her over because apparently she does not drive anymore, or doesn't want to, or I don't know what. Let's not get me started.

Oops, there's the doorbell. Hold on.

I'm back. K and I watched The Namesake this afternoon, which was very good. A gentle movie about a family and its life. Thumbs up from me.

I've been weeding stuff off my computer like crazy, but I don't know if I have enough spare hard drive space to install the Mac system upgrade. I mean, I do, but I'll only have a tiny slice of memory left. So I've been recording passwords and registration keys in case I end up having to reformat the drive, or to get a new one. I can't find out anywhere online how much that would cost, so I could walk into the Apple store and ask and they could say five hundred dollars and I would say oh, that's lovely, thank you; see you around, because that would be just crazy. But you know, I like having my ducks in a row and knowing what's going on, so it just irks me that I don't.

If I have one more cup of broth I will sprout chicken feathers, but let me tell you, I am hungry. Ah well. This too shall pass.


WATCHING L/O :: ENTRY #1756

Taking a Break

It was a slow afternoon, so I've been listening to The Deathly Harrows in the house, as opposed to in the car, as usual, and it's hard to break away. I have about three hours of it left, so I don't know if I'll finish it tonight. There's a bit too much of the old-time radio experience here, in that I don't know where to put my eyes! Really, back in the radio days, what did they look at while they were listening to all their shows? I've straightened up my desk, eaten dinner, and that's about it. It's not something I'm good at, but you know, I make my sacrifices for Harry.

I didn't write yesterday because somehow I forgot, although I had a meme done, which I'll put down below. I watched Martian Child last night, which I liked, but not as much as the book.

I did have a real strange experience this morning. I had gone to Ikea for a simple wine rack and wine glasses rack, which were cheap, and I got them. Came home, and I could not put them up. Now, I am the one in this house who has always installed and assembled everything, and I have to say, that's all in my past. And not in a good way. I don't mean, whew, don't have to do that anymore. I mean, here's something I was always good at and now I'm not. I had to install these things underneath a kitchen cabinet, and although I could drill the holes because I had the rack there as a kind of template, once I took the rack away, I could not see the holes. I can't look up and see anything close because the part of my glasses that sees close is the bottom of the lens. I would have had to drape myself over the microwave on my back and look up, and I still wouldn't have been close enough. It was a real "Oh, I'm old now" moment. Anyway, the Hubs, who takes his glasses off to see close, says he'll look at it. Well, that would be nice. And a first, him putting up a shelf or a rack that doesn't hold his personal books or videos or something. (But I'm not bitter. Although I sound bitter, so maybe I am. And I'll believe it when I see it. Although he did really really trim the trees along the side of the driveway that threaten to pull the antenna right off my car when I drive in or out, so that was nice of him.)

Okay, enough bitching. Here's my meme, and then back to Harry and the Battle of Hogwarts.

A book meme, stolen from quirkybook. I may have done this before, somewhere in the dim mists of time, but I don't think all the titles are the same. Although, as I believe I observed last time, I've read a lot of Dickens for someone who detests Dickens with the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns.

What we have here are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, italicize the ones you read for school, underline the ones you started but didn't finish (or are on the shelf waiting for a free week).


Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment read the first hundred pages three times
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote recently downloaded the ebook
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov it took me all summer to read it.
Guns, Germs, and Steel
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway wha ...?
Great Expectations gah, I hate Dickens
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury made no sense to me whatsoever
Angela’s Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything listened to half the audiobook on a long car trip
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road found this very annoying to try to read
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid and I read it in Latin, back in the day
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield

WATCHING WILL & GRACE :: ENTRY #1750

Let's See Now

My weekend has been, to use a cliche, an emotional roller coaster. I have been up and down, back and forth, on everything, it seems. The Hubs has been pleasant and charming, which tends to make us wait for another shoe to drop. My darling baby has just been putting me through the wringer. Whatever I say is the wrong thing to say; she can tease me but I can't tease her back. If I try to do something nice, it gets turned around on me somehow. Even so, I'm putting her emotional welfare bef ...

Okay, stop. At this point, I was typing and K walked past me and poked me with a finger (lightly, she does it sometimes) and I freaked the fuck out. I jumped a mile and closed the computer lid down and she looked so surprised! And I just started to cry. I couldn't stop. And then I explained to her about how I was writing something the other night and left it on the screen (as I wrote about yesterday) and that I felt so terrible about it and she said I shouldn't, she would never read what I was writing and hadn't, and so on, and anyway, we cleared the air a little. She promised to try to call a therapist tomorrow and so did I.

Anyway, that'll do on all this for today. With any luck, I will find a therapist and I won't have to dump this on you guys all the time. (Although where I would be without you, I have no idea, but it wouldn't be a place I'd like to be.)

I was very tired today, even though I slept well, and managed a nap after Target. I haven't done much of anything else all day except a couple loads of wash and minor straightening up. I did watch two movies that we got at Blockbuster on the way home from Target, neither of which was an award winner: The Brothers Solomon and August Rush. The first one, don't waste your time; the second one, worth a couple of hours.

I haven't been reading this week at all because it was just making me fall asleep, but now I'm going to try McCullough's 1776, since I just had luck with his Truman. I have something else by James Burke of Connections fame on the Palm; I don't remember the title. One or the other.

I'm going to post now. I wonder if my sister is going to call me tonight?

WATCHING MUMMY FORENSICS :: ENTRY #1719

Feels Like a Long Day

Life is quiet when both of the children are away. Oh, wait.

So K did indeed get into Boston by train last night around 7.30, easy peasy. She called when she arrived, and I assume that she found her friends there, but she was traveling with someone else, so no real cause for worry there.

R, poor thing. Oy. Apparently they were not having good weather in Atlanta last night, flights were canceled, flights were delayed. She should have had a 6.35 connecting flight to Las Vegas, but since her flight from Newark didn't arriv3e until 6.30, she missed it. She called through the evening with various reports, and finally said that she had a boarding pass for the 10.40 flight. Which sounds great, except that flight did not actually leave until 1.30 in the morning. Anyway, she emailed at 6.30 am to say she was there and with her friends, so all is well. And she called after she got up (around 12.30) and didn't even sound tired. I, on the other hand, did not sleep well. I wasn't worried about her, but I didn't sleep soundly.

Anyway, I got an amusing phone call a few hours ago from my eldest nephew, who lives in San Diego. We said hello, how are you, and I said "So what's up?" and he said he was just hanging around at a friend's house in ... Las Vegas. I said, "Hey, R's in Las Vegas!" and he said he knew because he had just talked to his mother and she told
him, and he was calling to get R's cell phone number so they could maybe see each other later. Pretty funny; I guess I'll find out at some point if they actually found each other.

The Sibs and I did do Costco this morning, but it's terribly hot here today -- 89 still at almost 8.00 pm -- and awfully humid. I hate it when I go outside and my glasses fog over. I napped this afternoon, and copied stuff off the DVR to DVDs, or else just watched stuff. One of the movies I had was The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio. I liked it a lot; see it if you get the chance.

The Hubs and I went out for dinner, a nice surprise. He said he thinks we should go out to dinner once or twice a week. I must carefully scour the basement tomorrow for the pod this alien impostor came in. I'll bet it's a big one.

WATCHING RAYMOND :: ENTRY #1566

Pretty Day

It was actually a beautiful day today, no humidity, lovely breezes, not terribly hot. K and I went for a walk in one of the county parks nearby. We didn't walk for very long, given my stamina limitations, but if I want to build myself up, I have to do it in increments. Anyway, I wanted to show her a particular part of the park that she's seen from the road but never close up, and it was closed for renovations anyway. So we'll catch it another time.

Other than that, we made some returns at the mall and stuff like that, but then we watched a movie that we rented last week but had forgotten to watch. Stranger Than Fiction. Anyone seen it? It was really a most unusual movie, and very much worth seeing. K said she thinks it's the best movie she's seen this year. I recommend it highly.

And in other news -- no other news. Before I start my next book, which is The Founding Brothers, I decided I needed a little background. Wait. This is what made me feel the need for a little background:

GOP Bigotry Rears Its Ugly Head

I was particularly irritated by Congressman Sali's statement that

[Those] ... changes ... are not what was envisioned by the Founding Fathers.

and that

Sali says America was built on Christian principles that were derived from scripture.

I do not believe this to be true, but I'm working my way through Common Sense by Thomas Paine and The Federalist Papers to see. The fact is that the guiding principal of our founding fathers was primarily capitalism. As for religious principles, Thomas Paine was the philosopher of the Revolution and Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, and neither of these men considered himself a Christian. They both declared themselves to be Deists, which means they acknowledged belief in God and went no further. I think this was not uncommon among the learned men of the time, which includes, of course, those known as our "founding fathers." Benjamin Franklin could not have been a Christian unless he was the greatest hypocrite in the world. The one I need to find out about is James Madison, since he was the primary author of the Constitution. (And of The Federalist Papers, which is why I'm starting there.)

Most of the early settlers of this country were adventurers or capitalists, pure and simple, and came here to make money. The Puritans who settled Massachusetts only wanted religious freedom for themselves, not for anyone else. However, religious tolerance was indeed a founding principle in the states of Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, and were always common in New York and New Jersey, although those states weren't particularly founded for that reason, although the Dutch who settled these areas were generally tolerant of all religions, even at home. They just discovered early that letting everyone take part meant good business.

History lesson over. I'm boring tonight, but that article got me very angry. There's a lot going on in our so-called government now that makes me angry, but I'm trying to keep it in check. I'll just sign off for tonight with this from School House Rock's "Fireworks":

Like Thomas Paine once wrote:
It's only common sense (only common sense)
That if a government won't give you your basic rights
You'd better get another government.

WATCHING A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN :: ENTRY #1550

Obladi

I have been Simpsonized.

I am terribly amused by this picture. Not only does it kind of look like me, it looks a lot like my mother. In fact, it looks more like her than like me, although the hair is more me than her. But Simpsons, as a rule, have no chins to speak of, and Shirl had just a wee bit of a receding chin, whereas I have just a regular one. But I think it's a funny picture anyway; I may add it to my page permanently somewhere.

Other than a visit to the chiropractor this morning -- and let me tell you, he is one strange individual -- I've done very little today. Oh, I did do the exercise video in the morning, so that was good. It was damn hot outside today; my sister and I were going to do an errand together in the afternoon but it was just too hot to be out and about.

Not enjoying my reading so much today; I think I'll give up on this one. It's a biography of Ingrid Bergman, which is interesting in and of itself, but this is not so well written, just a list of anecdotes and quotations, really. The biography of Cary Grant I read last year was really fascinating, with a lot of insight into what made him tick. So far, this is just boring, and I really like Ingrid Bergman. I'll have to see what's next on the stack of books.

Nothing else to report. I have Bobby to watch from Blockbuster, which I'd like to get to this weekend. Generally I seem to keep them forever. I finally started to watch Borat the other day, but within ten minutes I had no patience for it. I could see it was going to be the same joke again and again and again. And if a stranger came up to me on the streets of New York to kiss me hello -- although I noticed they didn't show him approaching any women -- I would have dropped dead on the spot, and if I survived that, you can be sure I would never venture into the city again as long as I lived. I guess I identified more with his victims that with his character. Sent that sucker right back.

Got my car serviced today and all it needed was an oil change and that basic stuff. 124,800+ miles. I'm holding onto it until I go over a bump one day and all the pieces parts start to fall off, like in a cartoon. Although I may not have much longer to wait.

WATCHING SVU :: ENTRY #1543

D'Oh!

I went to see The Simpsons movie this morning with the girls. It was not Shakespeare, nor was it intended to be. It was fun, and I liked it. If you're a Simspons fan, you'll like it.

I am not bummed so much as I am bleh. I was expecting a call some time this week from the Other Chai so we could book the Disney trip, but it never came. I'll call her on Monday. I was also annoyed that I checked my school email this morning and there was apparently a going-away party last night for a long-time colleague who retired/resigned somewhat spur of the moment, because he got a job in the southwest where his daughter and grandchildren live, and he'd already bought a house there, so he was ready to go at a moment's notice. Even so, I would have gone last night if I'd known; he was a good pal and a terrific colleague. I'm annoyed that there are people who assume that we check our school email on a daily basis during the summer, and that's the best way to disseminate information. It's not. I'm a little surprised that the Other Chai didn't call just to tell me about the party, but it's not as if I expect her to be my social secretary, so I'm not annoyed that she didn't call or anything. I just wish I'd known. I guess I have to start checking it more often. Most of what's there is crap, though. *sigh*

Having a bit of the GERD today (urp). Not so much fun.

And that's my life, folks. R is just leaving, having spent the day with us, and I'm posting and then I have to look up a couple of websites for my sister. Not an exciting evening ahead. (Oh, I'm reading Under the Banner of Heaven, which is about Mormon fundamentalists and the Mormon church in general. Verrry interesting.)

WATCHING SCRUBS :: ENTRY #1536

We Are Controlling Transmission ...

It's a little after 10.00, Tuesday night. Since both of my children are present in the house, they have taken over the family room. Normally, by this time -- hours before this time -- K has retreated to her room and I get not only the couch, but the remote. When both girls are here together, they never hang out in her room, but here. And since R is sleeping here tonight, and in the family room, I'm not getting it back so soon.

There is nothing on TV tonight, or, as I pointed out to my sister earlier, nothing on TV all summer. When the girls were down in the basement before, they noticed the mountain of old videotapes that I have begged them to work on this summer, and selected one for viewing. We are watching Spice World. For the uninitiated, this is the Spice Girls' movie of god-only-knows how long ago.

The two of them have particular affection for bad, tacky movies, so this qualifies in spades. This is how they watch such things: they comment on them continuously. Sometimes they pause the movie to laugh at a particularly awful moment or style or something. But they comment continuously. Continuously means that they do not stop. They chat throughout the entire movie.

I'm in New Jersey. Send help.

WATCHING SPICE WORLD :: ENTRY #1515