The Battle
By Shel Silverstein
Would you like to hear
Of the terrible night
When I bravely fought the
No?
All right.
--------
That poem is because I basically had the same conversation with my son at bedtime, except his version involved Pokemon and there were interjections like "IT'S AFTER NINE THIRTY! GO TO BED!" We had arrived home early from celebrating my mother's birthday because he remembered that tonight, they were rerunning the Smallville episode with that Jimmy Eat World song he loves ("Takes My Pain Away"?) during the prison riot scene and he wanted to see it again. I wanted to watch the episode again for the hug! beeej showed us a bit of the producers' commentary from the Smallville DVDs earlier, in which they noted that, yeah, Mr. Luthor really did seem to be checking out Mr. Kent, and gee, they can't imagine where people are picking up subtext from. Hee, for this alone I can sit through all the Lana they want to throw at us.
This week's Highlander pimping included "The Messenger" (in which Duncan, Richie, Methos and False Methos argue philosophy), "The Valkyrie" (in which Duncan, Methos and Ingrid who may be my new favorite female immortal argue ethics), and "Till Death" (in which Duncan and Methos are even more married than the immortal couple whose marriage they are trying to save). It's kind of fun having seen "The Messenger" and "The Valkyrie" after "Comes a Horseman" and "Revelation 6:8," because I really felt for Duncan in those later episodes, but now I think he's something of a big hairy hypocrite...even episode to episode, rationalizing the need for immortals to kill one another, his own plans to assassinate Hitler and his judgment of Ingrid, and then turning all "We're finished" on Methos over the raping and pillaging business. Methos seems pretty consistent in his insistence that there is no morality except the personal -- what matters is what your friends are doing, not any absolute right or wrong. So, like, if your boyfriend wears your white sweater and your gay red pants on occasion, maybe you could think about not breaking up with him over having been a bad bad man several thousand years earlier? And oh my god the arguing over Duncan's taste in music and decorating when Methos took over his barge! How much fun is that! beeej is not going to be able to telecommute on Wednesdays anymore due to her work schedule and I am so sad -- there is nothing like watching a new show with people who are already fans! I am going to make perkypaduan come over and watch with me and then we can meet beeej for power lunches at restaurants and squee quietly.
I know a lot of people have all kinds of issues with The West Wing this season but I must confess that the Santos campaign is one of my favorite things this series has ever done, and I might even feel that way without the Josh/Matt love story for the ages. Josh: "You're campaigning in Texas. I'll sell my own house if I have to." Matt: "You'll go to federal prison!" Josh: "Well, I'll need somewhere to live." And he won California, and his reasons in this case made so much more sense to me for not standing up for something we all knew he wanted to stand up for than the soybean stuff. And man am I glad to see Hoynes go...that is, I will be sorry not to get to look at him regularly because I could look at Tim Matheson all day, but he's as sleazy as Russell is stupid and I'm with Josh, I can't bear the thought of either of them as president, especially when the alternative is a moderately liberal Alan Alda instead of the sort of Republican who'd actually get the nomination in the real world. But I will be so, so happy if Santos wins. I commented to my husband and son that I was way too emotionally involved in this election considering that it's fictional. And Donna was smart, and right about things, and pushing Will around, even if it's probably all going to backfire and bite her in the ass since it looks like she was setting everyone on the Hoynes story! And I really like the Helen and Matt Santos marriage, the push-pull and the give and take there, too. So I am a happy 1600 Pennsylvania camper this week.
And after everything fandom has done for me...
The rest of my news for the day is that I didn't finish my news (hour-long interviews from TheFandom.com laced with fuzzy electronic sounds take longer to transcribe than my ears can handle in a single sitting), and my mother appeared to like her presents though my father seemed to feel that perhaps we were not making a big enough deal out of her birthday...he stood behind my husband and attempted to stage manage the serving of dessert, etc., when he could have opened a drawer and gotten a knife for the ice cream cake just as easily. It was rather amusing to watch, since I refused to take any bait. (They are so lucky to have my husband anyway, as I am sure I would have made far less of a big deal, but he burned my mother some CDs and made sure the kids finished their cards and such!) Dinner was good though lunch was better, since beeej made us little crab pie hors d'oeuvres, and we have raspberry hamantaschen from Hebrew school so I am once again eating far too well!
My kids painted glass serving bowls for my mother for her birthday. Aren't the colors pretty?
Speaking of food, I am meeting an out-of-town friend who's in the army for lunch. I haven't seen her since last year at this time and am very excited!