My adorable nephews gave me cooties again. Last week I visited, and here I am a week later still sick. I thought it was a cold, but it could be bacterial. I’m going to my doctor tomorrow.
Though they flipped around like normal three and seven year old boys, I was constantly blowing the three year old’s nose, and the seven year old had the remnants of something from the week before, but he managed the snot better.
During my visit, I couldn’t teach the older nephew to play chess without the three year old flailing his arms at the pieces, with a constant stream of snot coming out of his nose. “Let’s make him ‘King of the Chess Game’,” proclaims my brilliant older nephew, with the idea of sitting his little brother in a chair above us, telling him that as ‘King of the Chess Game’, his job was to move our pieces. It worked for a bit. I counted three times that I had to blow ‘The King’s’ nose. The whole time I’m thinking, “Whatever this is – I’m getting it.”
On the “benefits” of being sick… I got a personal reply from a reputable journal saying “…this isn’t a standard rejection.” They praised my story, but can’t publish it at this time. They said I should send other work. If not for being homebound, and motivated by the “praise,” I might not be bothered to finish this other story that I started last year.
Another “benefit” of being homebound – movies. The first one — Sharknado! I’m a fan of absurdity, and in the movie, there were sharks climbing stairs, sharks on the highway, and of course, sharks in tornado funnels. And the ending – sublime ridiculousness! And I seriously loved Tara Reid and Ian Ziering (Pronounced eye-on – even better!) in this movie.
The second movie that I saw was Shampoo – totally sexy but deeper than that – and Warren Beatty was hot, of course.
I only saw the last half hour of this third movie. I don’t know if I could have handled the whole thing. I saw it in ’89. Glory with Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman, is about the black 54th regiment during the Civil War. While netflix reviewers mostly gave this movie five stars, one person gave it one star saying, “Man’s inhumanity to man was too much for me. I saw only about fifteen minutes of the film.” I relate. The last half hour that I saw included a pre-battle talk that Broderick’s character gave to the men. I’m thinking, “No don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry…” Finally, tears came, but what caused the gusher was the background music slowly infused into the scene – the Harlem Boy’s Choir — that did it! Thinking of my nephew’s sweet little voice didn’t help.
The final battle scene – hard to watch but riveting. Here’s that snippet from the Harlem Boy’s Choir – you’ll see what I mean:
1800ukillme 