Tuesday, May 24, 2011

. . .have another hit of sweet air. . .

May 24, 2011


Let the Last-Week-Of-Intersession Countdown begin!







Yesterday was just a day of doing things I wanted to do.

Going to the movies. . .

Always a good thing in my books.

Pirates of the Caribbean

Better than I had anticipated.

Much better actually.

A bit slow at the beginning, but when it picked up, it picked up.

Besides, unless you were a complete moron as a director, a film with Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush and Ian McShane couldn't be a bad thing.

A guest appearance by Keith Richards.

Cameo of Dame Judi Dench.

Plus hissing, feral mermaids and the fountain of youth?

A much better than I thought it would be film indeed.

Even Stephen came with us.

But that may have been more about wanting to spend family time than any particular interest in the movie.

I'll take time together any way I can get it.






Which is why, when we returned home, I agreed to go with Stephen to take the dogs for a run.

It was cold, but not raining, I hadn't been out with the three of them for a while, and I just wanted to stretch my legs after sitting in the theater for two and a half hours.

It was a long movie.

Plus, honestly, I am trying to avoid the pain of cutting the grass Saturday, which has yet to make it's presence known to it's full extent.

Although it is starting.

I am hurting more this morning than I did yesterday.

I didn't even know I had those muscles in my back.

Figuring a walk with my beloved husband and adored canines would keep me limber, off we went to the farm.

Frankie and Tikka take any drive in the car to mean an escape from the humdum normality of their everyday lives.

Unless that drive ends up at the vet.

They whine and prance and carry on behind the confines of their dog gate.

Generally behaving in a manner that would suggest, erroneously I might add, that they are prisoners in the house, never fed, loved, played with, talked to or doted upon.

Kept in the basement.

Ignored.

Bereft of human kindness.

They should both get Oscars.

And whether we arrive at the farm, the woodlot, the Thatch Road, or their ultimate destination of choice, Mactaquac, they always act the same.

When we arrive, they bolt out of the back of the car like inmates ridding themselves of their shackles.

Run around and sniff everything, every spot, calling to each other like kids at a carnival, "COME SEE THIS!"

They leap, run, cavort, sniff, poop and pee themselves senseless and generally just let themselves live in the moment, enjoying every second, milking the entire experience for what it's worth.

And if we encounter other dogs, Tikka steps aside and watches Frankie carry on like a lunatic, a look of blissful contentment on her face.

The kind of look mothers get at playgrounds when their children find someone to play with.

Taking them out is soul satisfying as well as physically beneficial.

Now that I am so, so, so, so close to finishing teaching, and will spend the summer working normal hours a week, 40 instead of anywhere between 65-80, I will be able to spend more time with them.






Last evening, after supper and the making of spaghetti sauce for tonight and rice pudding for my starving son, and when I was supposed to be preparing the exam for Crime and Popular Film, I found myself trawling along the internet and came to the most amazing website.

The British Film Institute.

BFI for short.

And they have a collection of books called BFI Classics.

Books and books and more books about films like On the Waterfront, Thelma and Louise, Trainspotting, Psycho, Se7en, Bonnie and Clyde, The Big Lebowski. . . .

And books about filmmakers: Hitchcock, Scorsese, Kubrick. . .

It was like finding Christmas in May.

And then, on Amazon.com I found a memoir written by Blanche Caldwell Barrow, wife of Buck Barrow, sister-in-law to Clyde Barrow and frenemie of Bonnie Parker.

Imagine what reading her account would bring to my discussion of Bonnie and Clyde.

The UNB Bookstore is going to be busy when they open my email and see all the books I've asked them to order.

I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!

I am such a nerd.






One of the things I am really looking forward to is spending more time outside.

And more time in our existing gardens.

And facilitating the creation of new gardens.

Cause mowing that lawn has sparked all sorts of creative stirrings regarding how to lessen the pain of those infernally steep hills.

Get rid of the grass, make new, big beds, and plants ground covers in them, with some rocks for decoration and lots and lots of dark, rich soil.

Connect two of our gardens by removing the strip of lawn between them, and plant the 120 bulbs we bought in Montreal in March.

And put more of the space filling ground cover back there.

Plans, plans, I have plans for being outside, breathing fresh air, getting some sun and generally not spending my evenings in front of a computer or passed out in my bed from brain exhaustion.

I should have started losing weight ages ago.

I actually want to be outside doing things.

'magin that.



Title Lyric:  Fresh Air by Quicksilver Messaging Service

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