Thirty-five

We lost one of our own yesterday. Harvey Korman passed away at the age of 81. I grew up watching Mel Brooks movies and the Carol Burnett Show so I feel a little like we lost one of the family in a way.

Faretheewell, Count de Money ("...de Monet, de Monet!") You will be missed.

Thirty-four

“There is a luxury in self-dispraise:
And inward self-disparagement affords
To meditative spleen a grateful feast.”
--William Wordsworth

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about the concept of self-improvement. For those not aware (and if anyone's reading this thing anyway), I've been doing the "Slim4Life" weight loss program for about a month, and I have lost twenty-one pounds thus far. That in and of itself is improvement.

However. Man is not improved by weight loss alone. There are a lot of things about me that bug me, that could be improved upon.

For instance, I procrastinate. A lot. With just about everything. I have this mental block between point A (realizing I need to do something) and point B (actually getting up and doing it). I have a near-paralyzing fear of conflict. I don’t like fights, verbal or otherwise. I therefore don’t communicate very well with most of the people around me. This is not to say that I would primarly like to or need to be arguing with everyone I know, but that in those instances where I do need to speak up, speak my mind, put in my two cents' worth...I seldom do. Live and let live. Let sleeping dogs lie. Whatever. Experts now say that this could kill me, and I'm working on it. I started with Brian. I'm sure he was thrilled.

What else…. Well, there’s my utter inability to use a calculator correctly. I always miss a button, or read the numbers wrong, hit the AC button when I meant to hit the CE button. I don't know what it is. A lifelong struggle with numbers, in any case. Oh yeah. Lately I can’t seem to finish a book. Novels, sure, but all the nonfiction stuff I have laying around…can’t finish any of it. I think I’ve always done that, but it’s annoying me now. I buy a lot of books, it’s one of my few indulgences, and I’m starting to feel like I’m wasting a lot of money when I don’t read a book all the way through.

And, according to Brian, I
A) don’t smile enough; and
B) am a “terrible” housekeeper.
More things to work on.

PostScript: By the way, when I first got my packet of info from Slim4Life, there's a picture (stock photography) of Chris Jensen on the cover. He's eating watermelon, wearing his usual smile. The one Kugel used to give him crap about. I had to laugh. He still looks good!

Thirty-three

My boys brought in some flowers for me tonight:

Just thought those were pretty. I love yellow roses.

Thirty-two

I'm trying to marshall my thoughts here into something coherent. Brian and I went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull this evening, and I...

Okay, some backstory. I saw Raiders when I was eleven years old. My mom had to drag me there; Charlie Ferguson had told me there were tarantulas in Raiders so I had decided I didn't want to see it, but my mom saw it and knew I'd like it, so she took me. And man, was I hooked. Hooked on movies ... hooked on Harrison Ford. That movie opened my eyes about what a movie could do, what it could be like, what it SHOULD be like. Since then, biiiiiiiig Harrison Ford fan. I even forgave him for Six Days, Seven Nights. Yeah, really.

So was I looking forward to seeing this new Indiana Jones movie? Of course. Were my expectations really high? No, not really (Ebert's critique notwithstanding). Was I disappointed? Well...I liked about 50% of the film. I guess you could call that living up to low expectations.

When they stopped and took a breath and let Harrison act, I liked the movie. When they were careering along and things got really eye-rollingly goofy...they might as well have had a little image of George Lucas pop up in the corner of the screen, saying "This part was MY idea!" Seriously, that man should not have been allowed anywhere near this movie. Harrison should have knocked him unconscious with the handle of the bullwhip and told Steven to get on with things.

Raiders of the Lost Ark is a brilliant, beautiful film. People make mock when they find out I've seen it in the theater more than 40 times (yeah, really) but if you've seen it on the big screen, you know why I've seen it that many times. It's beautiful. The cinematography is stunning. From beginning to end. Stunning. The acting is perfect. The script...perfect. There isn't one thing I'd change about that movie. The next two were enjoyable. They have their merits. But compared to Raiders, they're shadows of what might have been. Hell, Last Crusade is a freakin' comic book compared to Raiders. I still do a slow burn when I think about what a buffoon they turned Marcus into. This fourth one...well...it had its moments. The scene with the quicksand? Loved it. Marion Ravenwood strolling back into Indy's life? Couldn't have been happier to see her. The kid? He was okay. He made me laugh a few times. Do I think he'll fit in the fedora? Hmmm...I think the right guy walked out wearing the fedora in the final scene.

Yes, I'll buy the DVD. I'll wait for the special edition, tho.

Thirty-one

After a big spaghetti dinner...

Brian took Seth down to our smaller pond for his first fishing expedition!

Daddy - 2, Seth - 0!

Some tracks we found:

And a bird egg we found:

It was a fun evening!

Thirty

With a nod to Erin...my own Four Four Four (uh...Four Four)

Four places I go over and over:
1. Work
2. Preschool
3. PriceChopper
4. Home

Four people who email me regularly:
1. Brian
2. My sister
3. Dana
4. Aunt Dot

Four favorite places to eat:
1. Slim4Life
2. Won't
3. Let Me
4. Eat

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. New Orleans
2. Long Beach Island
3. Key West (I'm assuming)
4. Anywhere but here, staring down the barrel of another Monday at work

Four TV shows I watch all the time ("all the time" being relative...I don't watch anything all the time, that would mean I *have* time, and if I did have time I'd be reading books instead):
1. Friends reruns
2. Ace of Cakes
3. How It's Made
4. House Hunters

Twenty-nine

Fairly quiet weekend. Both my parents and my father's wife were here yesterday, and today I managed to get a lot done around the house, including cleaning the oven, which I hate doing. Seth and I were on our own for most of the day and I think we had a nice day together, the mood stayed pretty good all day long.

Seth is doing something kind of funny now, tho I think it's really heralding the advent of The Fib. Brian's been after him for some time now to stop sucking his thumb, and what Seth has really learned is just not to do it so much when Daddy is around. He certainly hasn't stopped sucking his thumb(s). What he's been doing lately is when he sees that Daddy has entered the room, he'll pull his thumb out of his mouth and say "Daddy, I'm not sucking my thumb!" Which, at that moment, is the literal truth. Brian will say, "But you were sucking your thumb," and Seth usually replies "But I'm not sucking my thumb now." There's no arguing with that, and he knows it. Tonight, Brian said "Your thumb is wet, I can see it from here." So...the *next* time it happened, Seth wiped his thumb off before he said anything. And of course, Brian and I laughed.

Tell me honestly...we're raising an evil genius, aren't we. Should we get him started in politics sooner, or later?