movies, actors, and a multitude of mixed emotions

It was a nice weekend for the most part. A rough spot with Duckie's bedtime, followed by a very intense, saddening conversation with Husband on Friday night, followed by the relative peace and quiet of Saturday and Sunday, followed by a lousy f-ing Monday morning.

Before I get into that, I want to report on the movie rentals this weekend. It took me a couple of viewings to get through The Manchurian Candidate – I was really tired Friday night and despite the adequate thriller construction of the movie, I still couldn’t keep my eyes open long enough to get into it. I tried again on Saturday. What really threw me was Liev Schreiber, the actor playing Raymond Shaw, who is running for Vice-President and supposed to be a golden-boy type of character. He has always reminded me very strongly of Nick Chinlund - so much so that I thought Schreiber actually was Chinlund. Chinlund played a death fetishist in Season Two of the X-Files (episode 37, if you’re that interested.) He kidnaps Scully and makes her take a bath and wash her hair with special fruity-flavored shampoo so that it will smell nice when he “harvests” her once he’s killed her. ***shiver - wow, I'm getting unpleasant goosebumps just loading the links to this guy's picture*** It was hard to keep the creeps away – but Raymond Shaw turns out to be damned creepy anyway.

Mr. 3000 was a happier find. I expected it to be awful – really, I did. But I liked Bernie Mac in Ocean’s 11 and I was hoping it would be light enough to keep my brain occupied for an hour and a half, which it did. I was actually impressed with Bernie’s performance. It could have been a lot worse, but he does take the time and energy to infuse his character with some real remorse and disappointment towards the end. He’s got an amusing relationship with a previous teammate nicknamed “Boca” which provides some good dialogue, too. If you’re into sports movies (and I like sports movies much more than the real thing), this won’t disappoint as long as you’re not expecting too much.

***********************************

A bit more discharge from Duckie’s ear last night so I started the drops. She goes in for a checkup on Friday.

***********************************

I will refrain from going into the details of what has caused my latest upset. I will say that I am confused, bitterly disappointed, frustrated, angry, and apathetic all at once. Kind of hard to experience all that in one moment, but it’s happening and I’m not liking it much.

I was late getting into work this morning because I haven’t yet updated the tags on the Jeep (my fault). There was a cop on North Allen Road (my fastest route to day care) and, having gone through a road block there before, I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and turned around to go the longer way. I also misjudged a driver coming down Sugarloaf Road and pulled out in front of him or her, thinking that the car was about to turn when (as I discovered halfway through my own turn) it obviously wasn’t. The driver laid on the horn (quite appropriately) and I saw the car pull off to the side of the road as I pulled away. I very much hope I didn’t accidentally cause a heart attack. That would sure ice the freaking cake, wouldn’t it?

(And to clarify, the near-miss wasn’t the cause of my original upset, but was probably an indirect result of it – drivin’ and cryin’ just don’t mix.)

I very much hope y’all are having better days than I am.