Blog 5/7 & 5/8

5/7

DR. STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS was a Sam Raimi movie.  I found that pretty entertaining.  It also had nothing to do with SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME, but was much more a follow-up to "WandaVision."  That surprised me.

It went pretty dark, with gruesome scenes that I felt tiptoed up to the edge of what you could get away with in a PG-13 movie.  Thematically, it was really dark also. 

I had tried to avoid social media in case of spoilers, and for the most part, I succeeded (going by the trailers, I wasn't sure even know who the villain of the film would be). 

It's my mom's birthday, and a bunch of the family members are giving her a surprise party in the park, like we did last year, and the year before (though it was in her backyard in 2020), but I jetted off to the library beforehand and tried to work hard on "Balms and Sears."

And you know what?  I got it to 39,000 words.  Easily too.

It's only the seventh, and it'll be 40K by the time the moon is full again.  Cool.

WRITING OR EXERCISE: Writing.

5/8

My four year old nephew likes watching this inane YouTube channel where a bunch of twenty-somethings destroy walls or electronics or art, screaming like castrated howler monkeys all the while.  It bugs the crap out of me, but since I'm not his parent, I can rarely force him to mute or change it, just because I want him to (I'm not considered an authority figure, for the most part).

This afternoon, though, his mother heard I Castrati Urlanti, and made him turn it off.  He was upset, complaining about being bored, and so I said, "Let's play a game.  You go out in the hall, and I'll hide your stuffed animal in your room.  Then you come back in and look for it."  He was hesitant, but I had already grabbed the stuffed fox, so he went out eventually.

I hid the fox, and told him he could come in now . . . but he didn't come.  

I went looking for him and found him in my room.  "Hey, come find the fox," I said, and he found the fox in about thirty seconds in his room.  I told him I'd hide it again, then asked, "Hey, what were you doing in my room?"  

"Hiding your wallet," he said.

(I absolutely ADORE this picture.  It's probably the greatest photo on the internet . . . barely edging out that one of the sailor kissing the nurse in Times Square on VJ-Day)

We went into my room as fast as possible, and I said, "Where?  Where's my wallet?"  He told me I had to look for it.  But my room is not like his room--my room is like the final shot in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, but instead of recovered artifacts, it's filled with thousands dirty socks and used handkerchiefs.  I couldn't find my bed, let alone a 3x4 wallet.  "Okay, I give up," I said, "Where did you hide my wallet?"

He concentrated, shook his head, and said, "I don't remember."

Late that afternoon, I took the boys out for a drive.  My uncle had mentioned "a turtle sanctuary" a couple of miles away, and we'd talked about going for weeks.  He gave me directions, and we actually found it on our first try, but there was no turtle sanctuary there.

Years ago, it was the bad part of town with lots of trees and dark shadows that young people called Rape Avenue (I can't imagine why).  But in the decades since then, they'd beautified it, landscaped, put in lots of lights, and now young people go there to sit on picnic blankets and teach their children to fear universal health care.  And somebody built a duck pond complete with a fence around it to keep (most of) the children from drowning in it.

Apparently, there were turtles there in years past, but now there were posted signs NOT to dump your turtles and goldfish in there (it said nothing about dogs and cats, though), so there were no turtles to be found.  There were many ducks, though, and families were giving them breadcrumbs and Quaker oat cereal.

Still, we all missed the turtles, to be frank.

I left writing too late today, and nearly failed completely.  It has been pissing rain since before the sun went down, so I wasn't in a hurry to go out running, but now it's 1:39am, and I haven't written a word.  I sat down to write, and grabbed a container of peanuts while I did it.  Well, I've never been allergic to peanuts before, but I certainly had an allergic reaction tonight.

Now that I've taken two Benadryl, and my sneezing has subsided (my throat is still itchy, and my eyes are still swollen), I'm gonna get a few words in, and then call it a night.

WRITING OR EXERCISE: Writing