Trivia was, as always, delightful. I love the people, I love the challenge and camaraderie, I love the fact that my random pack-rat brain can occasionally be used to my advantage, I love our nice wait-staff … I just love Monday nights. Although we have lost a formidable teammate to the ‘barren wastelands’ of sunny Florida, we have gained a new male teammate via our other female teammate getting engaged. And the engagement ring is HUGE. The verdict isn’t in yet, but he may be able to help us make up for the loss of our engineer. But he has also added the distraction of a HUGE SHINY THING at our table. And they are also spending just the appropriate proportion of time being giggly and cute and adorable, which is also kind of distracting. But hey, love is beautiful and I’m not complaining!
I got to see Wall-E for the first time last night. I think my older brother had pity on me and my strange mood and decided it was also a convenient night for movie watching. As a lover of kid’s movies in general, how had I missed this gem? It was perfect. Really perfect. As an early literacy nerd, the simplicity of the visuals and the lack of unneeded dialogue reminded me of No, David! and other books where children story-tell to themselves, creating a world full of their own rich conversations and contextual importance. The character development was fantastic, the artwork was beautiful and accessible to children and adults, and while ‘UP!’ rivals it for adult application and enjoyment, Wall-E did make me think. I also said wonderfully brainy things such as ‘OH, look – Wall-E became a people!” to my brother, being so completely happy and charmed with the movie that I forgot to speak like a rational adult.
***Spoiler alert (if anyone else is as behind the times as me) and nerdiness - I have two complaints with the film … one being the fact that the plant survived being pulled out of Wall-E while he was in outer space. It is, in fact, a little nitpicky issue with a children’s film, especially with all the other impossibilities in the film. But I nearly squealed NOOOOOO aloud when I saw the plant in outer space, because I cared quite deeply for that little lima bean plant. I’m not sure why I thought it was a lima bean plant. Did anyone else instantly assume a lima bean plant? The second was more of a pondering then a problem – if we assume the original three Asimov robotics laws, could the robots (most notably Auto, his little hench-bots, and whichever ones kept feeding the people so much spam) have done what they did in the film? Obviously, the robots knew they were robots and were not pretending to not be robots, so any discussion of the ‘fourth’ and ‘fifth’ laws is unneeded***
I have done something I have been avoiding for a while and have actually laced up my shoes and gotten to the gym to ‘run’. I’ve been walking or wandering or playing about, but I have realized a lot of the icky nasty feelings I get with the lack of sun are also due to the lack of activity. Also, running helps me mentally houseclean. I literally run away from my problems (for a while). Being the weirdo I am, I put all of the issues chasing themselves around in my brain on a post-it note, and then put the post-it at the rear of the treadmill. And then I run (or, if the steam runs out, walk) until the things on the post-it can be dealt with in a rational manner. Some days I can have a long list and it will take about 30 minutes to reach mental equilibrium. One day I had one item on my note, and I was on the treadmill for 2 hours. After about an hour and some weights, I had dealt with my list and was headed home to bathe before some much-needed Auntie Joyce Time. I was so happy I was practically skipping. Hooray endorphins!
I got to see Wall-E for the first time last night. I think my older brother had pity on me and my strange mood and decided it was also a convenient night for movie watching. As a lover of kid’s movies in general, how had I missed this gem? It was perfect. Really perfect. As an early literacy nerd, the simplicity of the visuals and the lack of unneeded dialogue reminded me of No, David! and other books where children story-tell to themselves, creating a world full of their own rich conversations and contextual importance. The character development was fantastic, the artwork was beautiful and accessible to children and adults, and while ‘UP!’ rivals it for adult application and enjoyment, Wall-E did make me think. I also said wonderfully brainy things such as ‘OH, look – Wall-E became a people!” to my brother, being so completely happy and charmed with the movie that I forgot to speak like a rational adult.
***Spoiler alert (if anyone else is as behind the times as me) and nerdiness - I have two complaints with the film … one being the fact that the plant survived being pulled out of Wall-E while he was in outer space. It is, in fact, a little nitpicky issue with a children’s film, especially with all the other impossibilities in the film. But I nearly squealed NOOOOOO aloud when I saw the plant in outer space, because I cared quite deeply for that little lima bean plant. I’m not sure why I thought it was a lima bean plant. Did anyone else instantly assume a lima bean plant? The second was more of a pondering then a problem – if we assume the original three Asimov robotics laws, could the robots (most notably Auto, his little hench-bots, and whichever ones kept feeding the people so much spam) have done what they did in the film? Obviously, the robots knew they were robots and were not pretending to not be robots, so any discussion of the ‘fourth’ and ‘fifth’ laws is unneeded***
I have done something I have been avoiding for a while and have actually laced up my shoes and gotten to the gym to ‘run’. I’ve been walking or wandering or playing about, but I have realized a lot of the icky nasty feelings I get with the lack of sun are also due to the lack of activity. Also, running helps me mentally houseclean. I literally run away from my problems (for a while). Being the weirdo I am, I put all of the issues chasing themselves around in my brain on a post-it note, and then put the post-it at the rear of the treadmill. And then I run (or, if the steam runs out, walk) until the things on the post-it can be dealt with in a rational manner. Some days I can have a long list and it will take about 30 minutes to reach mental equilibrium. One day I had one item on my note, and I was on the treadmill for 2 hours. After about an hour and some weights, I had dealt with my list and was headed home to bathe before some much-needed Auntie Joyce Time. I was so happy I was practically skipping. Hooray endorphins!
And then, as soon as I got home, my post-it got a major item for tomorrow. But that’s life, there’s a lot of it yet to come and this is a drop in the bucket. If that. And in a strange way it makes me think – I had to tell someone today to just ask me for what they needed and I would do it. Isn’t that what people need to remind me to do as well, on occasion?
And nothing makes you feel better than a grandmotherly old northerner telling you that you handled a situation quite well, and that you were growing lady-balls.
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