Lo que hay

It's Memorial Day, so we aren't out camping, since everyone else and their dog is.  It's good weather for it, though.  I planted a new tree that doesn't look like it's doing too well, but the orange trees are doing better.  It's finally hot enough.

Mostly, we stayed at home and watched movies.  I actually liked Domino, which was unexpected.  Nothing else we got was memorable, except Dragon Storm, which was terrible, horrible and awful except for the dragon animation, which was actually pretty cool.  We just fast-forwarded through the rest of it.

I tried out a new stew recipe and it was really bland and dull, so tonight we dug everything out of the fridge and added jalapeños, olives, leftover veggies, a jar of salsa, bit of this and that and a lot of weird spices - anything that we don't use often.  It's bubbling away now and smells pretty good, so here's hoping.

I'm up into aorists with the Greek.  I'm the only person I know who gets excited over verb forms, but yes, I'm excited.

My pyromaniac of a husband just walked through and told me if I heard a loud bang, I should come check on him.  I don't want to know.

Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I’ve ever known. - Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

1. The Amores, book I, poem III

Fair's fair now, Venus. This girl's got me hooked. All I'm asking from her
Is love - or at least some future hope for my own
Eternal devotion. No, even that's too much--hell, just let me love her!
(Listen, Venus: I've asked you so often now.)
Say yes, pet. I'd be your slave for years, for a lifetime.
Say yes--unswerving fidelity's my strong suit.
I may not have top-drawer connections, I can't produce blue-blooded
Ancestors to impress you, my father's plain middle-class,
And there aren't any squads of ploughmen to deal with my broad acres -
My parents are both pretty thrifty, and need to be.
What have I got on my side, then? Poetic genius, sweetheart,
Divine inspiration. And love. I'm yours to command -
Unswerving faithfulness, morals above suspicion
Naked simplicity, a born-to-the-purple blush.
I don't chase thousands of girls, I'm no sexual circus-rider;
Honestly, all I want is to look after you
Till death do us part, have the two of us living together
All my time, and know you'll cry for me when I'm gone.
Besides, when you give me yourself, what you'll be providing
Is creative material. My art will rise to the theme
And immortalise you. Look, why do you think we remember
The swan-upping of Leda, or Io's life as a cow,
Or poor virgin Europa whisked off overseas, clutching
That so-called bull by the - horn? Through poems, of course.
So you and I, love, will enjoy that same world-wide publicity,
And our names will be linked, forever, with the gods.

-- Ovid (trans. Peter Green)



My American Gods - Rika Youngblood

Monteleone Chariot

Ancient Tomb Found in Greece

Saturn's Hexagon

Saw 300 last night.  Typical Frank Miller - a movie for teenage boys (SH liked it).  After everything I'd heard, I thought it would be gorier, but the blood etc. was so unreal it had all the deep emotional horror of watching The Evil Dead.  I was bored by the second hour.  If it had been historical, I would have enjoyed it immensely, but it wasn't.  Too bad they had to take a really incredible battle like Thermopylae and make it a movie about grotesque monsters and heroes with belly muscles while leaving out all the actual, true, really good bits.  I do like the way that movies are progressing into things that are as much creation as film.  So much was more a work of art than shots of actors.  I also liked that they translated 'Thermopylae' - the Greek would have sounded out of place, and 'Hot Gates' worked well with the tone of the movie.  But overall, yawn.  I don't like propaganda of any kind, and this was essentially a two+ hour-long recruting ad.  They did everything but shout 'hoo-ah' as they fought those icky Iraqis - er, Persians.  I kept feeling that lines were being stolen from the original story, not that they were being used appropriately, which is funny of me.  But it just felt like an entirely different story.

I finished The Red Lamp at lunch today.  It ended weaker than it began, but it was decent.  Enough creepy bits to keep me interested in whodunnit, although I figured most of it out before I hit the solution.

We finally got the parts to the vacuum, so this morning we vacuumed everything and then mopped.  It's so nice to have clean floors again.  Mom called in the middle of it.  She's coming on Monday instead of the end of next week.  Since we didn't go grocery shopping after the movie last night, I'm wondering what the heck I'm going to feed her and us for the next few days and still have leftovers for SH to take to work Wednesday and Thursday.  SH took down the storm doors and put the screens back in (it was 80 degrees yesterday) and it was a lot easier than we thought it would be.

Also, we got the new movies we ordered in, so plenty to watch for the next few weeks.  Including Al Pacino's version of The Merchant of Venice.

The seeds we kept from the Cutie orange sprouted.  I thought they'd just mold.  But they're sprouting.  We're going to plant them and see if we can get some kind of fruit tree out of them (probably won't be a Cutie tree, because they're probably grafted onto other trees, but we should get something out of it).  We're going to experiment, plant them in different ways and different places and see how it goes.

I haven't done any yoga for over a week.  Just too apathetic, too occupied, too busy-back-soon.  But mostly just listless.  It would be good for me to do some now, but I'm not going to do it.  SH is going to take a shower, and I'm going to mess around and read until he's out, and then we're going to go watch TV.

I hate Tennyson. Just to make it clear: I think he was a worthless poet, a waste of a person, and amazingly overrated.

I brought books and study materials to work this morning, in order to spend the time until SH gets off work.

( On a personal level... )

I got the dishes in and the bills paid, so I get brownie points for being more together than I've been for a week, but no kudos. On the way to work I just keep telling myself three hours, only three hours. Not that it was anywhere near as bad as I always seem to anticipate. I enjoy my job.

My office manager ~ I'll call him Al ~ is decent, although he smiles too much which makes it difficult to tell how well you are doing. I like George and Ginny and Harry and Mike, in fact, I don't think there's a person there that I don't like. But some days braiding my hair seems like too much work.

I brought a battered old Mary Roberts Rinehart mystery with me to read. The Red Lamp has caught my attention (at least in the first fifty pages) and it looks like it will be better than The Case of Jenny Brice. Of course, five minutes after entering the library, I found a book by Matthew Pearl, The Poe Shadow, which I can't help but check out. Also an account of the Battle of Trafalgar. So now I have far too much to read this afternoon, in addition to the Greek and Spanish work that I brought with me.

I've reached Chapter 9a in Athenaze, which is farther than I expected myself to get, and I'm still vastly enjoying it. It's slow work, though, because without going over each chapter and each section several times I find that I don't memorize well. However, if I keep up the work I'm putting into it, I can at least be certain that I am learning well if not overly quickly. After this French before Latin is what I'm promising myself.

I find it amazing that the library here in Safford has little or nothing on Greek civilization, history, or literature. Bastard barbarians.

Interestingly, I decide to spend less (or zero) time reading or worrying about atheism, and right off I overhear the librarian talking to someone about how the 'Bible was written by men,' and that traditional divisions between male and female roles are not observed in her house. Sometimes a topic won't let you go.

SH is going to get off work sometime around four, and meet me down here. We're going to go see The 300.

Next week Mom's coming to visit and wants me to do her taxes for her. I just hope she's not too damn complicated.

I forgot, again, to get Al to notarize my ID information for the temp agency. Well, dammit, I haven't suddenly stopped being a citizen or become someone else over the past three years...no, I just feel guilty for not returning the gal's call. I'm an idiot at times.