Harry Potter. No Spoilers.
I saw “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” tonight after class. It was good.
All of the Harry Potter movies are good. I watch them far more than a woman my age should want to watch them.
The new one is good. Too short, as are all the other Harry Potter movies, but good.
The books are wayyyyy better, though. Unbelievably way better.
Those Hollywood editors who eliminate things, and those Hollywood directors who condense the movies down because they don’t think anybody would want to sit through a six-hour movie? MORONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Analyzing my emotions on this subject quite professionally, I can truthfully say that I HATE YOU!
Would I sit through a six-hour Harry Potter movie, edited and produced and directed by smart people who didn’t leave anything out?
Oh HELLZyah!!!!
Pop Can Tabs Can Kill You
Old habits die hard. Back in the middle school, my students were putting pop can tabs in a big bottle to donate to the Ronald McDonald House. Each classroom was competing with the others to see which one got the party at the end of the year. The room with the most pop can tabs was the winner. Since my students had the teacher who drank the most Diet Coke, we were far ahead of the others. Yay, me.
I haven’t taught there for almost four years now, but I still save pop can tabs from force of habit. I tear off the tab before I ever begin to drink, because once thirty years ago the tab came loose as I was drinking and I choked on it and panicked because, you know, DEATH BY POP CAN TAB? It happens all the time! So I tear it off and put it in a glass bowl in my kitchen, and then I drink the diet coke.
When the bowl gets full of pop can tabs, I dump the tabs into a big trash bag.
Tonight, the bowl was full, and I realized that I had yet another big trash bag packed full to the very top of pop can tabs. It’s the third since I quit.
I’ll be on the main campus this fall, and there are always big bottles in the corridors for people to drop pop can tabs into. I’m going to start bringing a few hundred each day until I get rid of all these pop can tabs in trash sacks taking up all the room in my casserole dish cabinet.
I tear the tab off the can when I drink diet Coke elsewhere, too. Every time I do laundry, the tabs come out of my jeans pockets and get stuck in the dryer filter. I’ve been known to pick them up off the ground.
Because, you know, every little tab weighs SOMETHING, and it all adds up.
Tumorless and Mamacita: The Same Age At Last (Shut Up!)
I am having such a good time lately with my Tumorless Sister!!!! She is so much fun to be with! I haven’t laughed so much in years, and she’s always incredibly interesting, and knowledgeable about music and books and politics (yeah, she finds me really up on THAT!) and, and, and, well, these past few years, I’ve “discovered” her anew, and the discovery makes me really happy. We’re both teachers, and we’ve discovered that we have more in common than either of us ever supposed. She still hopes she’s not much like me (understandable, completely understandable) but I hope I am at least a little bit like her.
I always have fun when we’re together.
Golly, it almost makes me forget all about all those times she and my younger brother tortured me when we all lived at home.
I barely remember how she used to act really stupid, on purpose, in front of my friends and humiliate me. (“This is her house, too.”) She was good at it, too; a few of my friends still believe there is something really wrong with her. And all those times she and Bro would watch for me to bring a boyfriend into the house, and plant themselves permanently in the tiny living room, and demand a share of any candy or pizza the boyfriend may have brought. . . . (“Jane! Shame on you! You share that with your brother and sister!”)
I’ve forgotten all about being forced to take her along when my friends and I would go out quilling* on a summer evening. (“There is absolutely no good reason why you shouldn’t take your sister with you!”)
I never think about how Mom made me drop her off at school on my way to my first teaching job, which made me late approximately three out of the five school days. (“Don’t you DARE leave without your sister! It’s right on your way, and she’s almost ready!)
Nope, I never think about those things at all. I am just loving her daily, and having a wonderful time doing so.
Thanks for the weekend, Tumorless. I’ll see you tonight at Casa Brava, after class. You and our bois had better not start without me!
* Who remembers what this means? No, it’s not a craft!
