Miscellania
Hey guys, what's up?
I spent last week visiting my sister in Edinburgh! I ran around in castles pretending to be a queen, ran around the city pretending not to be a tourist (and failing miserably because I could never remember which side of the street the cars drove on), and ran around with my sister's friends pretending to be cooler than I am. It's a gorgeous country, and I even got to visit the Highlands. The weather was gorgeous, too: my family's curse is that anytime we go on vacation, it inevitably rains. Florida, Maine, whatever: rain. Unless, apparently, it's normally dreary, because London and Scotland have been remarkably clear and bright every time I've gone.
Anyway, that's why I've been gone for nearly two weeks. But I'm back now!
I also read OUTLANDER while I was there, which was fun and appropriate. Between that and the tours I went on, I learned more Scottish history than ever before. I was really annoyed by Claire's continued insistence that Bonnie Prince Charlie et al. were traitors: it showed a huge lack of understanding on her part, something she tends to suffer from. It's not "being a traitor to your king" if you don't believe said king has a right to rule you. But apart from that, it's a pretty excellent book. Jamie is just way too perfect to be realistic, but I love him anyway (of course; that's what he's there for). There's one scene where she's nearly burned as a witch that I found hugely entertaining, however. It's strikingly similar to DAUGHTER OF THE FOREST by Juliet Marillier, a fantasy epic set in medieval Ireland/England and based on the Six Swans fairy tale (which, if you're not as familiar with the mountains of obscure fairy tales that I am, involves a princess whose six brothers are changed into swans, and she has to weave them shirts out of nettles without speaking for the duration of the project in order to change them back). It's pretty great, but the hero is basically the same person as Jamie: a huge redhead who is extraordinarily gentle, from a culture the heroine initially deems as borderline barbaric, and who speaks his love for the heroine in sweeping dramatic statements. Of course, I loved him too. I kind of want to reread that now, except I've got a lot of other books going on.
I also recently found out that Juliet Marillier wrote a book based on the Twelve Dancing Princesses fairy tale, which I need to read IMMEDIATELY. I don't like the sequels to DAUGHTER OF THE FOREST, because they stray from the fairy tale format and lose a lot of optimism about life, but that one is good enough that I trust her with creative and compelling retellings of fairy tales.
I also need to see this movie immediately, while we're on the subject of old legends. She's a selkie! (Maybe.) And anything set in Ireland will automatically fascinate me - it's my irrational weakness, inherited from my grandmothers.
What else? I'm still a little behind on tv, but not so bad since a lot of shows were off for Thanksgiving. I'm pretty close to quitting on Outsourced because I don't see a reason to watch (also, why is their workday 9-5? That makes no sense. That's basically overnight in the US, the places where the calls are coming from. Or does Mid-American Novelties only serve the insomniac infomercial audience?). It only occasionally elicits a chuckle from me, and the characters are SO blech (except for, as I've said before, Madhuri). It does deserve accolades for not being nearly as offensive as people thought it would be, but it's still not perfect there. On the other hand, 30 Rock had me laughing SO HARD tonight. "I ate my father-pig!" Ahahahahaha.
I spent last week visiting my sister in Edinburgh! I ran around in castles pretending to be a queen, ran around the city pretending not to be a tourist (and failing miserably because I could never remember which side of the street the cars drove on), and ran around with my sister's friends pretending to be cooler than I am. It's a gorgeous country, and I even got to visit the Highlands. The weather was gorgeous, too: my family's curse is that anytime we go on vacation, it inevitably rains. Florida, Maine, whatever: rain. Unless, apparently, it's normally dreary, because London and Scotland have been remarkably clear and bright every time I've gone.
Anyway, that's why I've been gone for nearly two weeks. But I'm back now!
I also read OUTLANDER while I was there, which was fun and appropriate. Between that and the tours I went on, I learned more Scottish history than ever before. I was really annoyed by Claire's continued insistence that Bonnie Prince Charlie et al. were traitors: it showed a huge lack of understanding on her part, something she tends to suffer from. It's not "being a traitor to your king" if you don't believe said king has a right to rule you. But apart from that, it's a pretty excellent book. Jamie is just way too perfect to be realistic, but I love him anyway (of course; that's what he's there for). There's one scene where she's nearly burned as a witch that I found hugely entertaining, however. It's strikingly similar to DAUGHTER OF THE FOREST by Juliet Marillier, a fantasy epic set in medieval Ireland/England and based on the Six Swans fairy tale (which, if you're not as familiar with the mountains of obscure fairy tales that I am, involves a princess whose six brothers are changed into swans, and she has to weave them shirts out of nettles without speaking for the duration of the project in order to change them back). It's pretty great, but the hero is basically the same person as Jamie: a huge redhead who is extraordinarily gentle, from a culture the heroine initially deems as borderline barbaric, and who speaks his love for the heroine in sweeping dramatic statements. Of course, I loved him too. I kind of want to reread that now, except I've got a lot of other books going on.
I also recently found out that Juliet Marillier wrote a book based on the Twelve Dancing Princesses fairy tale, which I need to read IMMEDIATELY. I don't like the sequels to DAUGHTER OF THE FOREST, because they stray from the fairy tale format and lose a lot of optimism about life, but that one is good enough that I trust her with creative and compelling retellings of fairy tales.
I also need to see this movie immediately, while we're on the subject of old legends. She's a selkie! (Maybe.) And anything set in Ireland will automatically fascinate me - it's my irrational weakness, inherited from my grandmothers.
What else? I'm still a little behind on tv, but not so bad since a lot of shows were off for Thanksgiving. I'm pretty close to quitting on Outsourced because I don't see a reason to watch (also, why is their workday 9-5? That makes no sense. That's basically overnight in the US, the places where the calls are coming from. Or does Mid-American Novelties only serve the insomniac infomercial audience?). It only occasionally elicits a chuckle from me, and the characters are SO blech (except for, as I've said before, Madhuri). It does deserve accolades for not being nearly as offensive as people thought it would be, but it's still not perfect there. On the other hand, 30 Rock had me laughing SO HARD tonight. "I ate my father-pig!" Ahahahahaha.