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November 27, 2002 ~ News and Notes
Wednesday.
My mind is in a thousand directions today, and I can't really settle on one topic.
Morgan has quit his job, that's one thing. He has not quit his own business, of course--but the part-time call center tech support job. They had messed up his schedule every single week since he had started working there. He couldn't stand it anymore, he felt that he was wasting his time there, and he didn't have time for his own clients. Metaphorically, I suppose that he has climbed the mountain, at last. He needed his peace of mind more than we needed the money. (Yes. Really honestly.)
The perfect cat, whose name is now Basil (Sweet Basil), has definitely found a perfect home. L. came into my office yesterday to tell me that she feels as if her family was not complete before, but now, with Basil, they are whole again. She feels as if they have had him forever, that he belongs there. Good news.
"The holiday food that I miss the most is eggnog. I wish there was a way to make it vegan."
Morgan laughed. "That'll never happen."
But, lo and behold, the very next day at the Co-op, what did I see? Silk has created vegan eggnog. My life is complete. Morgan is addicted. We've gone through three cartons in two days.
We will not be going anywhere for Thanksgiving tomorrow. Morgan's family doesn't have anywhere to keep us for the night, we can't afford a hotel, and it is a three-hour drive from here to their place(s) as it is, one that neither of us would want to make twice in one day, let alone on the way back, late at night, laden with full stomachs. We've decided to have a feast at home instead. Since Li is working all day tomorrow (from 8 to 8) (and the next day and then next day), we're going to have our Thanksgiving on Sunday instead, her day off. I'll be baking (cookies and pies and helping Morgan with bread) all day Saturday. Wish me luck on my experiments in vegan piecrusts.
And yes, there will actually be a turkey, though I won't be eating it. Li is a meat eater, Morgan even partakes on holidays, and we will be having meat-eating guests, so they (Li and Morgan) have bought a free-range, hormone and antibiotic-free turkey from the Co-Op.
Through re-reading The Lord of the Rings, I'm getting a much fresher sense of what they changed from the book to the movie. I think that they stayed true to the spirit of the story, and they cut out logical parts (though I do sorely miss Tom Bombadil!). There are some unfortunate losses in some of the characters though. In the movie, Frodo is far too serious, tragic, and melancholy to start off with. In the book The Fellowship of the Ring, he is much more lighthearted in the beginning. Part of the depth of his character is how he starts out lighthearted and innocent but becomes more serious and tragic as the story progresses. The movie took that transformation from him. The other grave character injustice lies with Merry. In the book, from the beginning, he is the most serious and level-headed of the four hobbits, but the movie passes him off as comic relief. That feels kind of cheap. As for the rest, the movie stays fairly close to their characters, though they of course have much more depth and development in the book (Gimli and Aragorn especially). The only character change that I actually like was how, in the movie, Sam was not the lowly servant of Frodo, but instead a friend. That, I think, is a move far more fitting for his character. He is faithful out of friendship, rather than out of a sense of duty to his "master," as in the book.
(Don't worry, the little English Major Geek who gets personally offended when a movie does an injustice to literature is going back under the surface after this section.)
And what else have I been up to? Working, mostly. I'm going to use the holiday to (hopefully) catch up on things that I haven't had time for. On the other hand, the time will probably slip away with cooking, baking, and guest preparations.
Things are quiet here for now.
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