This week, all conformity to a structured lifestyle degraded. Partly, it had to do with Spring attacking, causing aches and for some of us difficulties walking & thinking. Mostly, it had to do with early on in the week deciding to go for a quick stroll around the building before we feasted on our pulled pork  & grits dinner (there was spinach involved too -no worries, Mom).
As we walked past our neighboring units, someone on the balcony above said “Excuse me!” in our direction, which turned into a 4 hour socially distancing conversation, which the man who lives below also joined in on.
We got back to our place at 1am …at which point we ate dinner.
After that, our life was ruled by whims, which we finally decided yesterday evening was enough of a vacation and managed to go to bed at a reasonable hour and grudgingly be woken by an alarm.
Still, some stuff happened.Â
We actually did go for walks. “Keep out” signs welcomed us to the ballparks.
Homemade almond flower, flax-seed-to-replace-eggs, and grape-seed-oil-to-replace-butter brownies turned out to be a total failure.
Grocery shopping was avoided. Hence the amount of swaps in the brownies.
Both of us participated in some self-care. Tim’s face-mask had snail slime in it?!?!?
White House press briefings entertained us (he totally has a tiara on).
Candles were added to our decor because we enjoy setting off the smoke alarm periodically, just to keep things exciting (specifically when we blow them out).
We’re nearly halfway through the 900+ page book (His Dark Materials, by Philip Pullman, anyone?) which we borrowed from friends …9 months ago? Eight months of normalcy = 100ish pages, you do the math. The hope was to finish it during the whole 15 Days to Stop the Spread deal (btw, yes we read books together, out loud).
Now we have 30 more days… plus an indefinite amount of time because that’s how long they’ve expanded our business and school closures: literally, indefinitely.
On to the movies!
Movie #4, Katie’s Choice: Now & Then (1995)
“Fresh off all the 90’s nostalgia, I decided that even though we don’t own Now & Then, Tim needed to see it. Thankfully, our Bing rewards points tallied enough to allow for a movie rental. I couldn’t remember the plot or even if it was good, on any level. What I did know was that in the early days of CD’s I kept this one on repeat and fell asleep to it every night the summer before 6th grade. Five minutes into the movie, it was obvious to all present (meaning me, Tim, & Rory), why I had loved it: small town, vintage cars …clothes …bikes …everything, catchy music, strong friendships…
Tim’s Reaction:
“Classically produced in the 90’s. A lot of oldie by goodie cast choices from that era, including a cameo from Brendan Fraser, which I’d say was my favorite scene in the movie. Aside from that I’d say it was a far more well put together film than the Babysitters Club, which was another coming of age film put out at the same time. I found the cotter pin of the whole plot unexpected and unique: the four main characters, obsessing over a long deceased child who they came upon during a moonlit seance in a cemetery and the unknown circumstances that surrounded his mysterious death.
Superlatives:
Best Scene:
“While enroute, via their bikes to the next town over to do library research, the girls come across Brendan Fraser, who plays a hitchhiking Vietnam War veteran. The scene leads to some thoughtful banter. In it’s entirety, it felt almost unnecessary but I loved it mainly because of the fact that Brendan Fraser found them very curious, and they found him equally as curious, but they both accepted the other without judgement, minus Chrissy, as noted by this exchange:
Chrissy: ‘You’re hippy, aren’t you?’
Vietnam War Vet: ‘You’re a trip.’
Chrissy: ‘My mom says all hippies are sex fiends’
Vietnam War Vet: *laughs*
Best Quote:
Vietnam Vet: “You can believe in yourself, if you’re lucky.”
Movies 4 & 5, Tim’s Choice: Blade & Blade II
“Blade II was chosen because it is, in my opinion, the best vampire film ever made, but you have to watch Blade to understand it. Blade in itself is a decent movie, but I wouldn’t consider it one of my favorites.”
Katie’s Reaction:
“Overall, I agree with Tim. Blade II is by far better than Blade. Still, Blade was good. It immediately felt like The Matrix meets Harry Potter where Blade is a Muggle that dresses as a Ninja Turtle/Batman/Morpheus and bears a striking resemblance to Arsenio Hall, while the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack plays in the background. The subtly of the fact that it was a horror film was a nice lead in to Blade II where it became quite a bit more in your face with the music, scenery, and all around darkness. However, the dialogue: (at times) ugh.
Blade II on the other hand, just by being filmed a bit later benefitted from improved special effects. They also suddenly had much better choreography and music. I especially liked how much they paid homage to the face that it was originally a comic book by over caricaturing certain dynamics of the fight scenes. The freeze framing & lighting was perfect, all that was missing were the ‘Pow!’, ‘Bang!’, ‘Boom!’, and of course ‘Fatang!'”
Superlatives:
Best Scene:
“In Blade II, after stealing a vampire’s motorcycle by jumping on his back and chopping off his head with a strand of silver wire (sweet effects here btw), Blade proceed to ride over to his black 1960’s muscle car (because what else would he have?), just to blow it an air kiss.
I literally laughed out loud.
It’s within the first fight scene and I instantly declared it the best part. I was both correct and not disappointed.”
Best (worst?) Special Effects:
“In Blade, where you think it can’t get worse than a bloody slinky dog-esque vampire, but instead you’re in for a treat at the end when the exact same vampire becomes a dart board full of anti-coagulent serum darts and undergoes a transformation into a bloody exploding Stay Puft Marshmallow Man piñata.”
Movies 6, Katie’s Choice: Shirley Temple Shorts
(Yes “Movies”, plural, because they more or less count as one movie in total length)
Runt Page (1932)
Dora’s Dunkin’ Doughnuts (1933)
Glad Rags to Riches (1933)
Kid ‘N’ Africa (1933)
Merrily Yours(1932)
“I’ve realized how much this is a study into the forming of me (though other movie favorites will be left out of this, just like Tim’s picks are a study on that which influenced the creation of him.”
“I’ve always had a fascination with history, especially the sociology portion of it. Shirley Temple helped a lot of people escaped the Great Depression and then suddenly at the end of it, everyone was pretty much over her. Because of this, I find her films an interesting study of the era. These shorts are especially captivating to me because they are where she got her start, during the early days of talkies -when major movie productions were less polished and a bit closer in quality to the home movies I’d make with my friends growing up. It had been a while since I viewed these and I had to keep reminding myself these weren’t movies made to look like they were created in the past, rather they were indeed made during my grandmother’s childhood. Many of them are parodies of films I have yet to see.”
Personally, while others kept picture of boybands and Leonardo DiCaprio on their walls during their pre-teen years, mine were adorned with Shirley Temple, Bill Cosby (I know, but the public didn’t know yet!), bnl, and stills from the latest Disney/Pixar film. I was a odd one (and admittedly still am…), in way that is even considered odd in this age of nerds being popular.”
Tim’s reaction:
Runt Page
“‘Runt Page’ was the most hilarious/WTF/and-why-even that I have ever seen. From the get go, there were non-stop laugh-out-loud moments, followed by me saying: ‘I don’t understand what’s going on at all.’ The best element by far was the adult voices dubbed in for the toddlers, I was particularly fond of the Irish accent. One of the babies seem particularly buff for his age. The gigantic safety pins on the diapers was a nice touch (also absurd and ridiculous). Things got real when they started swinging around revolvers and shoving each other in desk drawers, and lets not forget, young Shirley Temple playing some gangster baby’s side piece throughout all of this.”
**Fun Fact* Katie and her friends used to hide in a desk drawer at her childhood church, and now she wonders if this is what inspired that. Though she’s pretty sure it was pure childhood fascination/curiosity of being able to fit in such a small space. Also: bordom.
Dora’s Dunkin’ Doughnuts
“This film began with a smattering of Three Stooges style slap stick that continued throughout. Much of this humor was painfully predictable, but still made me laugh. Perfect example: When our mustached protagonist locked his bike to a stair-railing, only to ride off a moment later, resulting in him vaulting over the handle bars. The plot took some wild turns, when a school teacher went from neglecting his schoolhouse full of children to flirt with the local Doughnut Wench, which then evolved into him exploiting his students to advertise her doughnuts at a big city radio company. From there, there were fist fights, people slapping each other in the face, others getting clobbered with microphones, and somewhere in the middle of it all Shirley Temple is just being cute. To sum it all up, our mustached hero declares his love for Dora the Doughnut Wench as a giant wedding cake devours them whole. #worldscreepiestcaketopper”
Glad Rags to Riches
“For starters, I was immediately let down by the lack of adult voice talent dubbed-in over the babies. I’m still trying to figure out, whether the babies in reality are that difficult to understand or if it was the film quality degradation. This plot was much easier to follow than Runt Page, the only challenging part was that everyone sounded like children speaking the adult’s lines in Peanuts cartoons.”
“There was some more Three Stooges style comedy when Shirley Temple’s fiancé kept losing his ice cream to a dog, unbeknownst to him -not sure what it had to do with the plot, but it was funny. The wealthy night club owning protagonist was a baby Horace Vandergelder, Shirley Temple sang a song, some baby police officers showed up, and the fiancé ended up naked in a barrel. The whole thing wrapped up with an awkward fade-out on his bare baby bottom.
Kid ‘N’ Africa
“This can be summed up with one word: Racism. The 1930’s were …different times.” It was a painful reminder that the only role a black person could get at the time were maid (or similar) and cannibal/savage.”
Merrily Yours
“Basically, this was the earliest embodiment of every 80’s film about a nerdy teenage boy. That about sums it up, but it should be noted that our main character (an older teenage boy) is sharing a room with a toddler Shirley Temple. What’s up with that?”
Photo Round Up
Rory, Coping
Spring Blowing
Telephone Pole sige
Spring Springing
Rainy Day Rory
A pirate’s tree house
Rory, ready for Dinner