movies

Sunday

I go back to work in a couple of days, which I still find rather difficult to believe. I haven’t been in the office since December 14, which on the one hand seems like just yesterday. It’s going to be a strange transition going back.

But that’s not until Wednesday, a whole new year from now. Today, I mostly just did the crossword puzzle, went with my father to Lowe’s to pick up a couple of space heaters — dear lord do they work — and joined my weekly writing group. This is what three short prompts, two of which I didn’t even work in, netted me:

I don’t remember where I was the day the world first ended. I’m lucky I even remember who I was.

I couldn’t have been too close to the blast radius. Scientists, the few that are left, say the epicenter was somewhere a few miles north of Moscow, where most of the changed men have been found, where most of the dead were first risen. I woke up, after it first happened, someplace in Finland. I didn’t remember how I’d got there, or much of anything, really; I only knew I wasn’t Finnish myself, judging by my inability to read any of the road signs, or decipher the map I found folded in my jacket pocket, or make sense of the panicked shouts that accompanied my stumbling approach to the nearest town. The townspeople hadn’t been changed, not from what I could tell, but we must have still been well within the path of the first shockwaves, since they seemed even more disoriented than me.

There are symptoms of the blast, telltale signs. Those of us who have, as it were, survived have been warned in the year or two since the event that we must always be watchful. The changed men and the dead who walk are not the only dangers in this new world, and there are few places, if any, that are still safe. The closer you get to the blast radius, where the worst of those things first fell to Earth, the more you have to watch.

I didn’t know that in Finland. That was still only just days, or for all I know just hours, since the event, and I’d been close enough to still feel shaky on my feet. I knew my name, and what seemed like a few central facts, even if none of those involved how I’d got there, or what exactly had happened to us all since. I didn’t know about the change then, or about the dead, and wouldn’t still for days, but if I’d known even half of what I do now, even guessed at it, I’d have turned and run from that town without a second thought.

It’s not quite a story, but there could be something there.

Then tonight, I watched (or re-watched, actually) the surprisingly well-executed Tomorrow Never Dies. It’s absolutely ridiculous, but in the ways that a Bond movie should be. I wasn’t expecting it to be quite that much fun, even if I did remember liking the scene with the remote-controlled car.

And that was Sunday.

Saturday or a close approximation

I have completely lost track of what day it is.

Presumably it’s Saturday, but I’ve been off from work for more than two weeks now, and one day has kind of blended into the other.

Yesterday, I spent most of the day working on getting the Winter 2013 issue of Kaleidotrope up and running, and contacting my hosting company to get this site back up. (Migration to a new server had a temporary number on my WordPress installation.)

I also watched a couple of movies. On Thursday night, I watched Midnight Run, an enjoyable if lightweight ’80s action comedy starring Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin. Then on Friday, I re-watched Raiders of the Lost Ark, though I swear I only meant to watch maybe twenty minutes of it while eating lunch. I got the Blu-ray boxed set of the four movies for Christmas and…well, come on, Raiders is just a really great movie. It also looks really great in Blu-ray. Later that night, I watched The Descendants, which is both very good and very odd. I’m still kind of mulling over what I think about it, but George Clooney’s never uninteresting in it, if nothing else.

Today, there was more Kaleidotrope, which will go live with the new issue on January 1. It’s a really good issue, I think, and I hope you’ll check out the stories and poems in, particularly if you usually don’t. It’s science fiction, fantasy, and horror, and I know a sizable number of my (not sizable number of) readers like that.

I also re-watched GoldenEye, the first Pierce Brosnan James Bond movie. You know, in for a penny, in for a pound. It’s actually not too bad, and more or less exactly as I remembered it. Brosnan is actually quite good, Judi Dench is terrific (albeit criminally underused), and Famke Janssen is painfully ridiculous. I think this is less her fault than her character’s. (Her name, Xenia Onatopp, is perhaps the least ridiculous thing about her.) Parts of the movie are great, parts are actually, rather dull, and a few parts are just too silly for words. Which is more or less what you want out of most Bond movies. (Though I’m personally leaning more towards the grittier Daniel Craig version following Skyfall.)

And that was Friday and Saturday, I guess. Meanwhile, the heat has gone off in the house, thanks to a busted motor on the furnace. A work crew came out, but they won’t be able to repair it until Monday. Despite some snow on the ground outside, it’s actually not too cold in the house. And downstairs, where it is warmer, we have the dining room open — it’s heated separately, electrically, and it seems to be helping a little. I don’t think we’re in any real danger of freezing.

Happy holly-daze

Tucker seems to be feeling much better today, back to his old self. The blood work came back negative for Lyme’s disease, and the anti-inflammatory seems to have renewed his energy. He even started playing with some of the toys he got for Christmas, and the stairs haven’t proved any real challenge. We’re keeping an eye on him, but we’re hoping he’s over the worst of it and we won’t have any more trips to the vet anytime soon.

Meanwhile, I spent most of the day fiddling around with the upcoming new issue of Kaleidotrope, which will go live sometime next week, and watching some more movies. First I re-watched Cabin in the Woods — for the second time, actually, after having listened to the commentary track yesterday — and tonight, Midnight Run, which was enjoyable.

And that was…I don’t know. Thursday? That can’t be right, can it?

On the second day of Christmas…

I had a mostly very lovely Christmas.

I received far too many gifts, from my very generous parents, sister, and brother-in-law. My father, in particular, seemed determined to deplete everyone’s Amazon wishlist in one fell swoop this year. I also, very unexpectedly, received a membership to the Online Writing Workshop from Heather and a knitted hat from Tammy. Truly, it was an embarrassment of riches.

We had a late start to the day but a very nice dinner, too much food but all of it good. All the snow from the night before had melted, and it was mostly just cold and, by the end of the day, kind of dreary, but it was a really nice day nonetheless.

The end of the evening, however, wasn’t exactly perfect. Tucker, our dog, has been getting over being sick for the past week or so, and while he seemed to lack much enthusiasm, or at least energy, for getting any new toys of his own for Christmas, he seemed a lot better by the end of the day. So we were really worried when he had difficulty standing up, and then fell when trying to go up the stairs. He could walk, but was definitely having trouble putting too much of his weight on his back legs, or getting any traction lying in the non-carpeted front hallway. We managed to get him to the living room couch, after getting him off the stairs, and my mother spent the night watching over him there. Then this morning, my father and I took him back to the vet, where they took some blood, prescribed a new antibiotic, and also gave him an anti-inflammatory to help. He’s still running a slight fever, and the blood work’s to check for things like Lyme disease. He’s a ten-year-old dog and probably does have arthritis, so this may just be the fever (and whatever its underlying cause is) making that worse. He does seem better on the pain reliever the vet prescribed, and tonight on the anti-inflammatory. He didn’t have any trouble getting up the stairs, for instance, whereas this morning, my father and I had to help lift him into the car. He does seem better, but I have been worried about him, and that’s not exactly how you want to spend Christmas night.

But, like I said, he does seem a lot better today. (That may be, in part, because Chloe, my sister’s somewhat hyperactive dog, has gone back home.)

Today was definitely a dreary day, turning to freezing rain and sleet by the evening, what I think is yet another in a string of noreasters. I spent it mostly watching movies, the quite disappointing V/H/S and the surprisingly quite enjoyable Ruby Sparks.

That and taking the dog to the vet. Beats going to the stores the day after Christmas, I guess.

Christmas Eve will find me

Another day, another Bond film: this time, the second of the two Timothy Dalton movies, License to Kill. It’s maybe less of a James Bond movie than a lot of its predecessors, full of some particularly gruesome deaths and a hero who’s gone rogue, looking for vengeance. Dalton’s Bond probably has more in common with the grittier Daniel Craig version than the suave, pun-dropping Sean Connery or Roger Moore, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I rather liked this one, actually.

Then this evening, a very nice Christmas Eve dinner out with my parents, sister, and brother-in-law. (An aunt an uncle were all set to join us, but were feeling under the weather.) While we were eating — scallops, then duck breast for me — it started snowing. It has the look of snow that will all be melted by morning, but we may just have a white Christmas yet.