dual personalities

Nothing I did this week merits comment here, and considering current events, I think the best thing we can do over the weekend is to count our myriad blessings and savor them. Family (a new baby!) and friends go without saying, so here are a few less obvious things that I particularly appreciate these days.

1.Nature’s bounty

At our cabin a mighty rhubarb plant takes over a corner of the garden every year. For the first time ever (something like 22 years), I harvested some stalks and made a yummy rhubarb crumble out of it. Here’s to using what grows in the garden!

2. Whathavewedunoon, the adventures of a young Scottish couple who accidentally bought a derelict house at an auction and are slowly bringing it back to life. I am their avid Instagram follower.

There are an awful lot of decent people out there in the world and it’s good to remember that.

3. Watching the little boys next door “help” wash a car or do yard work. It usually ends up something like this

or this,

and naturally that reminds me of my own boys.

4. Any endeavor that demonstrates that people are working hard to make good stuff happen. SpaceX made history this week as the first private company to launch humans successfully into space — and at a fraction of the usual price.

Not all the news is bad, so let’s stop with the negative waves! And speaking of negative waves, if you like Clint Eastwood movies, why not watch Kelly’s Heroes?

Well, that’s this week’s attempt to promote positive thinking. Enjoy the weekend and don’t feel guilty if you are happy or otherwise doing okay. If you want to make the world better, remember what Teddy Roosevelt once wrote, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” The rest will follow.

*Kelly’s Heroes

Note: none of the photos posted here are my own. I found them all via Google Image.

DP note: Darling daughter #2 scheduled this post early because she knew she was going to be busy yesterday giving birth. Yes, baby U was born, weighing 8 lbs./15 oz.–a big bouncing baby Katiebelle! More tomorrow…

I have been off of work for over a week now, with a lot of waiting time on my hands. I have spent most of it napping and watching bad Netflix shows here and there. But a few nights, I’ve indulged in some random movie-watching impulses.

First, we landed on School of Rock, which is streaming on HBO. When we came across it, it seemed like the perfect choice. I hadn’t seen it in years, probably since the last time my family watched it together in the 2000s. School of Rock was one of those movies everyone could always agree on — no small feat for a family of five, with siblings ranging five years in age.

I think DN was pretty surprised by my familiarity with the movie and its lines, several of which fully entered our family’s lexicon. He had no idea that School of Rock was the provenance, for example, of this particular gem:

Admittedly, I did fall asleep in the third quarter of the movie (I missed Joan Cusack’s Stevie Nicks moment!) but that’s only because of my non-existent sleep schedule. The movie held up overall, with a good cast of characters working together toward a goal, each growing in their own way and accomplishing something by the end. Add in the gif-able moments, and it’s a solid choice for movie night, in 2002 or 2020.

I recently also experienced an overwhelming urge to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy. DN owns them (“Everyone bought those DVDs, Susie”) and dug them out of storage at his parent’s house. While no one in my family ever got really into the Lord of the Rings fandom, the movies were a thing for us. At least once, we went to see the new release on Christmas day. When the DVDs would come out, we would watch the extended director’s cut AND all of the special features.

This was the intense moment that leapt to mind when I remembered the movies and suggested we watch them. I guess I was in the mood for some epic Gandalf good-versus-evil.

While watching, we were also struck by this moment, which has become a total meme:

But ultimately, I was kind of underwhelmed! The hobbits irritated me — they were always causing trouble and then having to be saved — and it takes nearly 2 hours for the movie to even feel like it’s beginning. We do plan to forge ahead, and as I recall the movies might get better as they go? (I’m not looking forward the Gollum storyline, though.) Mostly, I will stick with it for Viggo Mortensen:

He is undeniably the best part of these movies — very convincingly (and handsomely) representing what is good about the race of men. (Did I mention how often he saves the hobbits?) It strikes me that Viggo might have been what we loved most in the early 2000s, too. I remember that after the series had concluded, we wanted more of him, renting every Viggo Mortensen movie we could. Well, he made a lot of gritty, sex-filmed movies, but there’s always 28 Days, another film that became a family favorite.

Well, now that I’ve rambled for several gif-filled paragraphs, I should probably make a point. I was thinking that perhaps all this nostalgia-watching I’ve blogged about in recent weeks, particularly with these two films, stems not from quarantine but from family. We were all stay-at-home types growing up (I mean, I was just not cool) and watched a lot of movies together in our “TV room.” We went to the Movie Hut to rent something new, or chose something from our vast collection, and in retrospect that was a very comforting ritual. So it isn’t that I was craving a Jack Black joke or an orc battle — I was missing my family! And thinking about eventual movie nights with my own children.

In other words,

(Name that family favorite film)

As a resident of downtown Jefferson City (across the street from the Capitol), when learning of protests scheduled for Monday evening, I opted to drive home to St. Louis and park my car in my parent’s driveway instead of risking my car, freshly returned from the body shop, requiring a second trip. State Farm would probably stop taking my calls. The good news is that the protests here remained peaceful and limited destruction occurred. Let’s pray it stays that way.

Meanwhile, while making back-to-back drives to and from St. Louis, I did have the opportunity to listen to a lot of radio (and one very long, daily conference call). I thought I’d gather some good tunes that might lift your spirits–or at least make you feel that there are people out there who understand you.

I always kind of hate myself when I like a Kenny Chesney song–but it happens more than I’d like to admit.

There is just something about Tacky Tim (pre-Faith Hill) that cracks me up.

I just really like this song.

I took today’s post title from this.

May we all make it through to next week without completely losing our minds. xo.