I just had four days off. Actually, almost 5, since I was off to take mom to surgery on Thursday. Why does it feel like I wasted it? It’s not as if I didn’t get anything done. It’s not as if I didn’t go anywhere or do anything. Still, it just feels like a big blur….
Reading– I am about halfway through The Two Towers. Sometimes movies start to take over in my mind and become the story. It’s fun to read this again and remember how it really goes. The movie of Two Towers was my least favorite of the three, despite Karl Urban’s introduction to the trilogy. I felt that the plot had been changed unnecessarily, and characters personalities and characteristics had been altered. If you know me at all, you know that is a no no! Faramir really bothered me in the film. I’m reading again and am at the point where he is met–should give me a chance to re-analyze and decide if I really hate it. 
K’s Valentine’s Day present was the book, “World War Z”. If any of you have read “The Zombie Survival Guide”, you’ll know that means World War Zombie. Its full of recollections about the war. We loved the Survival Guide, and the kids had been reading it when we moved into our new place. They were very upset with us because we moved on to a ground floor. That’s a big no no in surviving zombies, you know. K had to promise them if the Zombies came he would take his big gun and get us a space upstairs. Paranthtically, WWZ is written by Mel Brooks son, and he travels around giving lectures, which are very seriously attended by geeks of all sorts, on how to survive the coming Zombie invasion. The nerd in me really wants to attend.
Zombie moves are the only horror/scary movies I can watch. I don’t know why. I have the worst nightmares if I watch anything with ghosts and torture movies just gross me out. I don’t want that in my head. Unfortunately, my entire family loves them. So the good news is, when a zombie movie comes out, we can all enjoy it together. The books are very fun. I read ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’ last year and had a good laugh. I understand it’s becoming something of a series and the next one is ‘Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters’. I will have to get that one next.
One small accomplishment for the weekend was finishing Masterpiece Theater’s new version of ‘Emma’. It was produced into a miniseries and because it had more time, left out much less than the theatrical version. Unfortunately it wasn’t really my favorite. Johnny Lee Miller is an actor I love watching, and he was fine as Mr. Knightley. I think I’d read it and watched the other versions too recently and perhaps was a bit tired of the subject. Supposedly, Jane Austen wrote Emma as a character no one would particularly like, and I think the actress in this version really captured that. Or maybe it was the direction. Anyway, I didn’t feel as sympathetic, and it seemed very rote–no freshness to the thing. Maybe on second viewing in a few years I’ll like it more.
That’s all for now. I think I’ll get some work done. That’s always a good thing. Especially when I have only 3 days of work this week. Yes, that is an added benefit of a Monday Holiday when you’re on the four day work week. Not only that, Thursdays are casual Thursdays, so they practically don’t even qualify as work! Right?