Other things going on for Anna

[annathepiper]

+/-0: This past Monday, had a followup appointment with that endocrinologist I was supposed to see, regarding whether what's left of my thyroid is functioning properly. She asked me some general questions, just to get a base idea of how I'm feeling these days; she also physically checked my neck and how I swallow, and looked at my reflexes as well. (The interesting part of this was that I held up both my arms in front of me and my right hand visibly trembled. Stupid nerve damage. Grf.) Then she sent me over to the clinic lab, where they took a blood sample. It should be another few days, most likely, before I hear back on whether I need to take any thyroid meds. It'll be interesting to see; apparently, one of my two readings pre-surgery indicated I was a little hyperthyroidish, possibly due to the big nodule having started to generate its own thyroid hormone outside the control of my pituitary gland. Goody!



+/-1: Recent read #1: The Cutout by Francine Mathews. I mostly know this lady's writing via her Jane Austen mystery novels, written as Stephanie Barron, though I've also read her Nantucket mystery series. I wanted to give one of her suspense novels a shot, so I chose this one! Two thumbs up on the suspense, though I was left sort of unsatisfied on the level of resolution of personal conflicts for the principle characters. One of those novels where I think part of the point (stated or otherwise) is to show that not everything has a particularly happy ending--and while I do respect authors who can do that and still tell a gripping story, it still kind of leaves me unsatisfied just because I like happy endings. I want to see "the hero always saves the world, the villains get what they deserve, the boy will always get the girl!" I don't mind it being difficult to accomplish, in fact, I want to see it being difficult to accomplish, but I do at least want the satisfaction of knowing these poor characters who have been busting their asses all throughout the story get to have some reward in the end!



+2: Recent read #2: One for the Money, by Janet Evanovich. I was told this was a fun, fluffy book; I was told pretty much correctly. ;) Heroine in a situation I think all too many of us sympathize with in today's economy: getting laid off from her job. However, unlike most of us, she decides to go out and get money by becoming a bounty hunter, working for her slimeball cousin. Hee. Her family is suitably colorful, and I was even amused that the love interest somehow managed to be both a Lothario but also a sympathetic, attractive character. I'd like to be all snooty and say that this book was too fluffy for my tastes--but y'know what? I can't. I read it while bathing, and even after I was out of the bath, I kept reading it because I wanted to know what happened next. So I'll probably go get the next one, too.



+3: This is mostly interesting to aerialscribe, who recommended The Three Musketeers to me a very long time ago and to which I am only just now finally getting around to reading. This is what I get for having such a huge To Read shelf! And I'm finding it an oddly fluffy read as well, for a classic novel. But it's kind of funny; reading it, I'm having an experience similar to what spazzkat has described if you only see Casablanca after you've seen the countless movies and TV shows and other things that parody it or otherwise derive stuff from it. I.e., having a lot of the elements in this book feel very familiar, almost to the point of being cliched, and yet this is the original source!

Though so far I have to admit to smirking a little, so far. I'm about 100 pages or so in, and the big intrigue of the plot has finally gotten underway, but I'm getting a little annoyed with how young D'Artagnan is only a puppy, and yet he's this incredibly talented swordsman who has defeated opponents who should have had him for lunch, and he's got three Musketeers all older and more experienced than he is falling all over each other to say what a clever boy he is and how they ought to follow his lead. If somebody was trying to play D'Artagnan on a MUSH, we'd be calling him a powertwink in a heartbeat! ;)



+4: wildshadowstar informs me that our sister Sarah and her new baby boy are doing quite well; I sent the happy mommy and her husband and kid yellow roses and a stuffed critter courtesy of 1800flowers.com. I hear tell Sarah keeps meaning to call me, as well as email me baby pictures, but hey. NEW BABY. She's got even more excuse to lag on her email than I do!

That said, I still kind of giggle every time I think of the kid being named Caleb. This is what I get for being a Buffy fan; the first thing that pops into my brain now is the bad guy priest from seventh season, the one played by the actor who was the Captain on Firefly.



+5: Some things which amuse me these days: squirrels trying in vain to break into the new suet cage feeder that Dara has put in the side yard by the patio (it's fun to watch them jump on it and make it wobble back and forth). The new flannel and fleece blanket that solarbird purchased for me is a big hit with both myself and the cat; every time I curl up with it on the media room couch, Polly does her damndest to curl up with me. And she curls up on it by herself as well. However, although I have discovered that Polly has nominated our bed as one of her new kitty snooze spots, she doesn't want to stay on the bed after I come to bed. Go figure.



-6: My iPod is acting strangely and I'm not sure why; I seem to be able to get only about an hour, maybe an hour and a half, of play time out of it before it up and announces that its battery is dead. Yet after having it do that and then sit for a little while, not plugged in, it suddenly started showing a charge again. I need to see if I can consistently make this happen. Dara says the device is developing 'battery memory' and that I need to drain it completely, recharge it, and drain it again to kick it in the head. Apple claims you don't have to do that with iPod batteries, but.



+7: In yet another round of getting caught up on my email, I sent another letter to a fellow fan from the Great Big Sea board, one who, like me, has taken up a new instrument just for the joy of playing these boys' music. Thanks to that new letter I found myself compelled to pick up my guitar again, and happily played away on Tuesday night. But boy, did my fingers feel the lack of practice. Clearly I need to be doing this more often!

And I haven't picked up my bouzouki in about as long, either. I need to do something about that.

Comments

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

In The Four Musketeers, D'Artagnan and Rochefort aren't just waving their swords around: they're trying to kill each other. In fact, they're trying so hard that at one point, they both have to sit down for a minute and catch their breath before returning to the fight.

Contrast that with SuperGrover. :-(

[annathepiper]

Oh, now, I don't think that's entirely fair.

For one thing--I don't think Yoda and Count Whatsits were just trying to give one another lovetaps with their lightsabers. :) Granted, it has been quite some time since I actually saw the movie, but 'waving their swords at each other' was NOT a fair assessment from what I remember of that fight. There was actual lethal intent there. Maybe Yoda wasn't out to outright kill the guy, but I'm sure Count Whatsits would have happily killed Yoda if he could have done.

For another--hell, I actually kind of LIKED Hyperactive Whirling Green Ball of Yoda Death. ;) I mean, let's face it--if you're going to have a badassed Jedi master, a job which has 'duels with bad guys' as part of the overall job description, and said badassed Jedi master is shorter than practically everybody else in the galaxy, he has to have SOME means to even the odds.

And having him employ extensive use of levitation struck me as reasonable. And as long as you're going to give Yoda that edge in a duel, milking it for all it's worth also strikes me as reasonable.

Is it SILLY? Sure. But hell, so's everything else about Episodes 1 and 2. And yeah, it's a whole different flavor of story from The Three Musketeers...

At least superficially. Because if you're going to diss the duel in AotC on the grounds of silliness, I will see you that and raise you 'young upstart from a poor province waltzes into Paris, gets himself into three duels with the three most famous musketeers there are before the day is out, and then winds up wounding not one, but two major badassed swordsmen among the ranks of the cardinal's men.'

In other words, it's got its own 'fairy tale' flavor going on, which all of the Star Wars flicks have in spades, sure, but Three Musketeers isn't lacking in that regard either.

[annathepiper]

*giggles merrily* The Yoda/Count Whoosit duel is really the only thing I remember at all about that movie. I'm not saying the movie is GOOD by a long shot. Don't get me wrong. ;) I'm just saying that the duel at least, taken in context of the Star Wars universe in general, isn't necessarily more silly than anything else in those movies. :)

And thanks for the seconding of the recommend on the movies! ^_^ I also have another book on my To Read pile that you recommended--The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles--and I'll get to that eventually, too. ;)

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

No, it is much sillier. I still have vivid memories of Luke coming out of the shadows in RotJ in terror and rage for his sister.

I am also fairly convinced that I heard Christopher Lee say "Your Schwartz is the same size as mine: now let's see how well you use it." :-)

[annathepiper]

I'll just have to disagree with ya, I guess, because any scene with the Ewoks in RotJ hands down beats the AotC duel for me for silliness. ;) Especially the entire cringeworthy "yub yub" song at the beginning of the original version--one of the changes in the Special Editions that I actually liked.

And there's silly dialogue all over ANH, too. Leia's crack about Tarkin's "foul stench"--I mean, c'mon. She's a Senator and a Princess, she ought to be above making petty remarks about the guy's odor even if he IS totally evil.

But like I said to aerialscribe, I'm not saying I think AotC is GOOD by any stretch of the imagination. Nor even that I think the movie as a whole matches up to the original Star Wars trilogy. Just that that one scene alone is hardly the worst part of anything in the new movies. ;) There's WAY worse things to bitch about in AotC or Phantom Menace. (One word: "midichlorians". *shudder*)

*snickers about the Schwartz, though*