Catching Up

So much to cover I'm going to have to short-hand it.

Two weeks ago, there was this:








The U2 concert at Soldier Field made me deliriously happy. There's so much I could write about it but suffice it say that it was worth 20 years of waiting. I had a hot date too as you can see.

Last week, there was this:






We spent last week in a little condo on the bank of Silver Lake about ten miles from Lake Michigan. We swam, made smores, picked berries, visited with fabulous Erin and hilarious Cole, ate excellent food, went letterboxing, hiked, and had an all-around good time.

This week, there is this:


and therefore, there is this:


Our real kitchen is in the process of getting new tile, new walls, new paint, new cabinets, and a couple of new appliances. While that's happening (and happening and happening and happening), we take refuge in the basement and cook in the microwave and on an electric griddle. It's like camping but not pretty.

So that's where we're at. Work on my dissertation has been halted for the last three weeks but will hopefully start back up next week. I've also got a tenure portfolio to prepare in order to ensure that I can keep my job. Busy, busy.

One other development is that the dreaded Illinois heat and humidity have returned. It's been over 90 degrees every day this week and the heat index has been over a hundred. Bleah.

In other news, Shalee did correctly identify the last FQF quote as being from Just Friends with Ryan Reynolds and Amy Smart. Well done, Shalee. If I were making you a fabulous virtual prize it would be a picture of your house completely finished and a contractor with a black eye and a few missing teeth. This will probably be the last FQF for a while. I am indefinitely suspending all FQF activity until further notice. It's been a fun summer game but now is the time for other things.

One other thing is that just today I was notified that my short story "The Iron Door" will be published in the Fall issue of Irreantum, a Review of Mormon Literature and Film. I had a story published there a couple of years ago and I see this as kind of a companion piece -- although it's a better story and needs less work than the first one did. The fiction editor emailed me and promised that I "won't have to suffer as much as last time." Yay for less suffering.

Anyway, hopefully by this time next week, we'll have a functioning kitchen again and I'll be thismuch closer to keeping my job and getting my PhD. We shall see.

Joy

Texting with my brother David yesterday, he mentioned that his family will spend the 4th of July camping in their trailer at the same place they went last year. It struck me that last year both of my parents were with him for that little trip and this year they're both gone. I still get sad sometimes when I feel my parents' absence and think about how sucky it is that they both left so quickly, so close together.

Suzanne and I have been talking about it more lately. There was a while when I don't think either of us really wanted to discuss my parents or their deaths any more. It was too sad and we had life to think about and our girls and work and school and all the hardships and tasks that come with mortality. But in the last week or two, she and I have had a couple of long conversations about Dennis and Laurie and how we miss them, how we sometimes feel their presence near (more Dad than Mom), and what a powerful role each of them played in our lives - as a couple and as individuals. When I think about it too much, it makes me a little blue so I try to think about good things, happy stuff that I enjoy.

So here are some things I have really been enjoying lately:

The Next Food Network Star - It's not as high-power as Top Chef but it's still fun to watch. I am surprised by how emotionally involved I become with these people. For anyone else watching, can I get an "amen" to the fact that Penny is the freaking devil?

Foo Fighters - I think I've written before about how, underneath my college English professor exterior, there's an 80's mullet rocker waiting to come out. Well, it's true. Some part of me really enjoys big stupid rock music and Foo Fighters really fit the bill. Actually, I don't think they're music is stupid. I think lead singer/songwriter Dave Grohl is really smart and some of his songs are quite moving - in an arena rock sort of way. "Times Like These," "All My Life," "Back and Forth," "Walk" -- all make me raise my imaginary lighter in appreciation.

The Lonely Polygamist - Novelist Brady Udall came to the Boise State MFA after I'd left but I still feel some ownership there so when he came out with a ginormous novel about a modern-day polygamist family living in Utah that was reportedly very funny, I had to investigate. I got it for Christmas and it sat on the shelf for a long time. I'd read the first page or two and then get distracted. Finally, a month ago, I decided to just get to it and see if it was worth the effort. Turns out, it was. The book is funny - I laughed out loud several times. The character of Rusty, an angry, anxious kid forgotten among the swell of his brothers and sisters, is the best, saddest, funniest thing about the whole book. It's not a perfect novel but I did enjoy it an awful lot.

Ice cream sandwiches - For me, there is no better summertime confection. I get them from the Casey's a mile from our house. It's so hot and humid here that they start to disintegrate as soon as I get them out of the store. So I eat them as fast as I can so they don't melt all over me. At least that's the excuse I'm using. I'm sticking to it.

This American Life - I've subscribed to the weekly podcast because I'm never near a radio when the local NPR affiliate broadcasts this Chicago-based gem. Ira Glass isn't for everyone and I get that -- but the stories and voices that his show presents are just more interesting, funnier, more heartbreaking, more surprising, and more joyful than anything else you're going to hear on the radio. I usually listen to an episode while I'm mowing the lawn and it makes the time fly by.

This whole situation -

FQF

I'm thinking I may need to rename these posts something like "SATWFQ" - as in "Somewhere Around the Weekend Film Quiz." It's been a busy couple of days so I missed Friday. Ah well. I'm here now.

As I mentioned in the comments to the last post, I honestly thought nobody would get this week's movie, 1980's Battle Beyond the Stars. It's too small, too random, too obscure. But no. Tracy knew it and even knew that George Peppard of Breakfast at Tiffany's and The A-Team is in it (and his character's name is Space Cowboy). Wow. Kudos to Tracy. I know the picture below is probably not exactly what you had in mind with George on the beach - but it does fit the letter of the law so here you go:



Anyway, Battle Beyond the Stars is a low-budget sci-fi retelling of The Magnificent Seven which was a Western retelling of Akira Kurasawa's Seven Samurai. It was also redone (in a way) in Pixar's A Bug's Life. The set-up is basically this: pacifists are about the be invaded so they recruit tough people to fight for them. It was produced by Roger Corman which, as many of you know, means it was low-budget and schlocky. I was about seven or eight when we rented it on video from Country Time Video in American Falls, Idaho and my older brother and I watched it a lot. We knew it wasn't as well done or as fun as Star Wars but we didn't care. We'd take our space ships and laser gun battles where we could get them. In doing a little research about the film now ( you know, Wikipedia), I find out that the movie was actually James Cameron's big break in the movie biz. The original art director got fired and James, a lowly model maker, got promoted. Who would have thought a movie with effects like this:


would lead to a movie with effects like this:



Out of small and simple things, eh?

So anyway, BBTS is an acquired taste to be sure. It's strictly for people who enjoy movies filmed on pure Velveeta and can appreciate the mole-speckled Richard Thomas as a leading man. John-Boy in Space!

This week's quote is a slow pitch right down the middle. Enjoy!

"I mean, listen, I know it might sound a little corny, maybe even a little femme, but I find something so resplendent in the simplicity of Nicholas Sparks' writing, you know what I mean?"