Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Teenage Boys

I have four, hungry and hungrier, growing and still growing,  teenage boys living in my home right now and it's killing me. No really its killing me.

They eat non-stop, Zech opened a box of Ding-dongs (I love that name) put one in his mouth and one in each hand. When I politely (because that's what a great June Cleaver mom I am) asked what he thought he was doing, he replied, "Well I'm hungry and you said dinner wouldn't be ready for 15 minutes (surely that must be a lifetime) and you did say first come first serve, so I came first and I'm serving myself. (Smart-ass 15 yo)!

I shop on Saturday and no joke all my food was gone my Tuesday! 3 gallons of juice, 3 gallons of milk, two loaves of bread and a variety of not so healthy snacks.

I'm going to get locks for the frig and pantry (not like that would help, after all they are teenagers and could find their way to food in a corn maze).

So tonight its back to the store but I'm buying 3 gallons of prune juice, rye bread and goats milk (I'd drink it but I think the name might turn them off)!

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

British Literature

This semester I chose to take a British Literature class (because nobody stopped me). The Syllabus tells me that among other genres of British Literature we will be studying the pornographic novel. Now if that had been the course description I think the class would be fuller.

So far we've read "Moll Flanders" a woman who exchanges husbands and lovers for money and don't forget has 13 children but doesn't raise any of them, she leaves them behind. After she gets to old to bargain herself as a commodity she then spends the rest of her life as an accomplished thief.

No we are reading "Pamela" from Samuel Richardson and I think it might kill me. The guy (Lord of the house) in the first half of this very long novel keeps trying to rape this 16 yo girl (a maid). Then supposedly because of her virtue he changes tactics and decides to marry this lowly maid. The entire novel is told in letters, mostly hers and really can anyone talk about virtue for 500 pages and still keep the reader interested? Not today but the interesting thing is that both these novels, especially Pamela were huge in 18th century, like Twilight huge. Pamela was the first book with merchandise, fans, cups, banners, plates. Operas, plays and songs were written about it, all I can think is that people back then must have been really hungry for some entertainment.

I have to give a group presentation on this book Friday - so wish me luck.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Sunday Movies

Remember Me
I can’t remember why I put this movie on my list to watch. Perhaps the previews made it look like it would have a Romeo and Juliet like presence? The point is it doesn’t, in fact this movie has no point, no plot and no reason to have been made or watched. Rob Pattinson is the same character in this movie as he is in Twilight, slow, quiet and never really making a complete sentence. The movie opens up with a mother and daughter in a subway and two thugs shoot the mother. Now it was dramatic and left you wondering what this was going to do with the movie and the answer was NOTHING. The daughter didn’t seem too messed up by it (Pattinson’s girlfriend), the father might have been messed up by the incident or maybe he was also the brooding, yelling, tough cop, strict and overly protective parent all along. Who knows and therein lays the problem to this movie, things happen and you are left wondering why or why should I care. Since I’m not worried about anyone reading this actually watching the movie let me say that in the end (I know hard to believe I actually watched the whole thing) the boy (Rob) seems to be getting happy, he seems to be healing his broken relationships and then he dies in the World Trade Center terrorist attacks, end of movie. Never saw that coming and it was not a good thing. So no stars for this movie, I can’t even think of one good thing I did like. Wait Pierce Brosnan looked.





Eat Pray Love
I liked this movie and noticed that I did not say loved this movie. I thought going into this it was a chick flick, you know tears would be flowing and love would be shown on the big screen in its perfect form. Well it wasn’t, at least not for me. But what it did do is something only really good films can do and that is instead of entertaining me to tears, it had moments where I felt like I had been pinched. The idea is that there were moments of really dialogue that sounded like things I wanted to say and moments where I wanted it to be me on the screen. The acting was good and the story was good, only as a woman said in the restroom after the movie, “I’m not sure what to take away from this movie, should I leave my husband and do my own thing, follow my own heart’s desire and hope everyone forgives me/” . What Ms. Gilbert did was courageous and maybe everyone would love the opportunity to do what she did but it is not a possibility for most and the reality is most women couldn’t imagine just leaving or putting themselves first for a year (ok reality check they don’t have that kind of money either). SO if you are a woman watch the movie, it is good and there are moments where you are reminded that it is up to you to make this life a better one for you, because you matter. If you are a man (who is married to the person sitting next to you) probably not going to be your thing, unless you want to go to bed wondering if your mate secretly doesn’t want to be married! P.S. I did read the book after the movie and it was the same as the movie.