The Sun? What the hell is that? Never heard of it.

As my last post indicates, my official last day of school was Wednesday, 21 June. Coincidentally, that was also the last time I saw the sun. The weather here has been, in a word, DREADFUL. The sun has not appeared in days and days and days. It has been pissing down with rain almost non-stop. At least it is warm out.

I have been successful at getting my ass to the gym and taking care of my general errands, but I have not felt any great motivation to spend more time than necessary outdoors. For to do so would be to unnecessarily and willingly expose myself to becoming soaking wet within seconds of my venturing out. And to what end?

So, because Stephen had Friday off, we spent most of the weekend hanging out. And most of that weekend time was spent catching up on some long neglected television, movie and reading entertainment.



Reesie lent me her Gilmore Girls (seasons 1 and 2) DVDs and I have been enjoying them immensely. I'm annoyed by many of the characters (more shortly) and yet I find myself oddly compelled to keep watching. I am annoyed by the fact that, as with many shows, the characters are all the same exact person! Sure, there are tall ones, short ones, thin ones, heavy ones, male ones and female ones, but they are all possessed of the exact same sarcastic, cyincal and dry humor. They all speak far too quickly. They are all completely neurotic. They are all gifted in the enviable art of quick-witted verbal repartee and nobody is ever short of a piercing comeback.

Rory's barracuda teeth and closed-mouth mumbling bother me as does Loralei's complete inability to simply ask a question or make a statement without lapsing into a grandiose solliloquy, riddled with pop-culture references, clever puns and obtuse analogies.

And yet, I keep watching. I actually like the show. I can't explain how exactly that works, but there you have it. I'm psyched that I still have another whole disc of season one and the entire second season to watch! Reesie, keep 'em coming.

Great...another show to become addicted to in the Fall. Or is it over now? Either way, no danger in becoming chained to my boob tube each week; Reesie's blog was often filled with references to her disappointment at yet another week without a new episode of GG.



We rented the movie, "Vera Drake." The first time I had heard of the movie was during the most recent Academy Awards. I don't get to the movies very frequently, so it is often the case that the movies which procured the most prestigious nominations are completely unknown to me. Anyway, I hate to admit this because I'm sure it will come across as completely dispicable, but when I saw the lead actress in the movie sitting there at the Academy Awards show, I was completely put off. She is this older, rather dowdy looking woman. I likened her immediately to that Judi Dench bitch. Anyway, shortly after the broadcast, the film was on the shelves of the movie stores. It took me a while to even pick up the box for a look at the movie description. But finally, during one visit to the video store, I did read the thing, only to discover that it looked rather interesting. I finally rented it this weekend, and we both really enjoyed it. It is a film about a British woman who, in 1950, goes around helping women who get pregnant and wish to terminate their pregnancies, but have nowhere to turn. She actually performs the procedure for them. Eventually, of course, she gets found out and has to face the courts. It is a very good movie. You should check it out. There were a few times when I wanted to scream, "JUST SPEAK ALREADY!" when Vera was, due to uncontrollable crying jags, unable to speak. These scenes were interminable. But the movie is worth it. Check it out if you have time. And feel free to fast forward through the crying jag scenes. Don't you just love DVD players??



We also rented Syriana, which I had been wanting to see for a while. I just couldn't get through it, though. Stephen loved it...enough to watch it twice. Actually, he watched it twice because he needed the second viewing to cement everything together. Actually, to be completely honest, he watched the movie once, then read an explanation of the movie on the internet, and then watched it a second time. This movie is very good, and very interesting, but it is jam packed with action, information and characters. And it is very wordy. If you miss one thing, you're lost for the rest of the film.

I wanted to be into it. I watched an hour of it the first time before drifting off into a book (more soon). Then, the next day, I read the internet article on it and attempted to watch it again. I made it to the exact same point as the night before, and then drifted into another book.



This is the first book I drifted into. Marian Keyes is an Irish "chick-lit" author whose work I first encountered while I was living in Germany. I read about 5 books by her and then kind of burned out. She has come out with a few more over the years, including the one pictured here, "Cracks in my Foundation." I had looked at and indeed looked OVER many of her books in the past few years, but I bought this one because it was on the discount table at Brookline Booksmith. It was actually very good and I'm glad I read it. I would recommend anything by her to any of you girs. Perfect beach reading!



This is the second book I attacked this weekend. I bought it for Stephen for his birthday. What can I say, we're both liberals and we got a kick out of the attacks on our least favorite Republican leaders. But, that said, I love this country for the fact that people are allowed to write, publish and sell books that are critical of whatever governmental administration happens to sit in power. Gotta love the USA for that if for nothing else!

I have to go watch this Dateline NBC show about the guy who gets rescued from a harrowing experience on Mt. Everest. The climber's name is Lincoln Hall. Why do people who climb mountains and/or ride mountainbikes have names like Lincoln?