it is a dark and stormy night
Monday 22 May 2006 | I like a cookie
And when we say night, gentle reader, we do mean night: it’s 2:40 am and not a soul is stirring except for one lone movie reviewer who’s been asleep most of the day fighting off the ‘flu, with only a sluggish greenbottle fly and a Reed’s ginger beer to keep her company.
When we say stormy, however, we really just mean windy; your narrator had to go outside and take down the wind chimes, the lovely tinkle of which was making her feel slightly insane…slightly more insane, ça veux dire, than the prospect of stomach ‘flu plus having to write a review of The Da Vinci Code made her feel already. (The former courtesy of the Brujo, who was at this time yesterday not only yertling every hour but also out-of-his-mind delirious and clutching me urgently when I had to leave, first for Over the Hedge and then for The Da Vinci Code: “Don’t go! Wait, I didn’t just say that…I’m so needy! Why am I so needy? What the hell’s my problem…I’m sorry, I’m sorry—don’t go!” etc. All of which left the Un mentally wringing her hands, unsure if she should take him to urgent care or not. His fever was a mere 102.5° but today he’s suddenly less incoherent and even drove over for a while to bring the ginger beer, going home after a couple of hours with primary symptom being only a terribly sore throat, which we hope is just from the yertling but may in fact be the beginnings of strep, he avers loopily, temp still around 100. Right.
[This parenthetical interrupted by our own nausea, which may either be a result of an exciting new psych med (paroxitine!) or the fact that we’ve taken a fistful of weird palliatives today, hoping to ward off the evil eye, ranging from Oscilloccinum (an incredible substance discovered at the Beautiful Trench) and yin chiao to chewable vitamin C and probiotics. We unplug the laptop, which assures us it has a charge good for three hours and 27 minutes, and retreat to the duvet, its reassuring blue-and-white ticking a safe haven as the wind races happily around outside and the crickets cricket. Right.])
Mandarin left a message from the Trench saying she may not be able to extract herself in the morning due to 24 unbroken hours of rain, as a result of which people have been sliding inadvertently off the road in their 4WD vehicles. I wish I’d been less asleep when she called. I might at least have asked if I could run by her my ponderous thoughts on gnosticism, because of course I can’t just write a straight review of Ron Howard’s movie, at least not in my head—oh no, that would be just tooo easy.
(Only I will just say as another parenthetical, which come to think of it should clock in right under word-count, that Over the Hedge led to my having a torrid nightmare this afternoon about trying to explain the Monkees, as a cultural concept, to some people in their twenties including Voldemort.
[Pauses again intra-parenthetically to note with goofy approval that breasts are after all pretty decent for belonging to a woman of nearly 40, a self-congratulatory fact which will definitely not go in either review, especially seeing as how silly it is to congratulate myself on something which is absolutely none of my doing; I suppose it’s only by virtue of never having given birth or nursed a baby that I can still have some cleavage while lying on my back.])
Rovie meviews. Right.
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