Hello! Five On The Fifteenth Of February

from here

Oh, hello.

Welcome to February, which I understand has been ongoing for quite some time now. Please forgive my absence here, but I do have good reasons--at least, I think I do--and I'll do my best to catch you up, chat you up, and otherwise engage you for a few minutes. Let's on, shall we?

1. My Part-Time Job:  As you may remember, Jared, Jordan, and Theo moved last month. Jared had surgery on his broken foot and is not allowed to bear any weight on it at all. Theo is a Very Busy Toddler All The Time, so Rick and I have been going over to their house to help with child care/entertainment. Tomorrow, Jared sees the orthopedist again, and may be put in a walking boot. If so, we will be laid off or have our hours cut considerably. If not, our contract will be renewed. 

2. My Streak:  On 8 February my Wordle streak ended at 344 with the word EMBED. Am I still bitter? A little bit, yes. I guess it pales in comparison to other things that happened on that same day, however, which include a fatal Learjet crash in Philadelphia, a 7.6 magnitude earthquake near the Cayman Islands, and a deadly bus crash in Mexico. Additionally, Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé won top Grammy honors, and the 49th Imam of Nizari Isma'ilism, Aga Khan IV, passed away. Still, though, kind of a big deal.

3. My Hypocrisy:  I'm sure I have said this many times and in the Comments of so many of your blogs:  I am not a puzzle person. I don't enjoy jigsaw puzzles. They feel too much like work to me. Sigh. Behold my latest lesson in Eating My Words:

I bought this 1000-piece puzzle on a whim ages ago from my grocery store's Closeouts section, thinking I'd take it to the lake for whiling away the unexpectedly rainy days. Or, I thought, maybe Rick would like to pick away at it when he's bored during retirement. During the neverending string of freezing cold and snowy days, I pulled it out and set it on the dining room table. Pretty soon, Rick was seated at it, reading glasses perched on his nose, fitting pieces here and there. The next thing I knew, I was drawn to it like squirrels to a feeder, stopping at it every time I passed by, searching for pieces to fit, making it a competition. Poor Sam! Every time he stopped over, we made him find a piece to place before he could leave. One night, when we were close to Victory, we sat there, determined to finish it and completely forgot about dinner until 8 PM and ended up scrounging a few scraps (I think I had toast). When we sent the above photo to Sam via text, he responded with only two words, what now? 

4. My High Dudgeon:  I just read a post over at maya's place in which she mentioned the latest film version of Wuthering Heights.  Let me just say this:  I WILL NOT BE SEEING THIS MOVIE. I've read several articles about it already, and no thank you. In this article from the NYT, the writer discusses the casting of Jacob Elordi, a white actor, as Heathcliff, who is described by author Emily Bronte as dark and gypsy, leading readers to believe he is not white. This casting is nothing new. Heathcliff has been played by white actors every time this novel has been committed to the big screen. Would it have been exciting had he been played by a man of colour? Absolutely. Is this why I'm eschewing this film? No. This review tells me all I need to know, and that is that the director has decided to Improve Upon Emily Bronte and, really, Tell Her Own Version Of Wuthering Heights, which she thinks is better somehow, yet still call it Wuthering Heights. Nope. I'm not going through THAT again. Been there, done that with the 1995 film version of The Scarlet Letter, a classic novel which I taught for decades. That movie, with Demi Moore as Hester Prynne, almost killed me. Not only did they change the ending--which changed the themes and Puritan ethos and criticism at the heart of the book--they added characters and scenes that were completely aside from the story. I almost walked out, but I felt compelled to stay so that I could one day give a lecture TO EVERYONE about exactly how horrible that movie was. Thankfully, someone else did it for me, but I'm still willing.

I was equally outraged once before, and that was at The Shaw Festival in Ontario, Canada. Rick and I had chosen to see a performance of The Crucible by Arthur Miller. I had taught this play for decades as well as part of my American Literature curriculum and was excited to see it live. It was a terrific production until Act III. You see, I had taught this play so many times, and remember, at least two or three times a day for years and years, that I had it memorized. Memorized so well, in fact, that I knew the very moment during the performance of Act III that the director added a line to the script. This man ADDED A LINE TO THE WORK OF AN AMERICAN DRAMA LEGEND LIKE ARTHUR MILLER. I was beyond aghast. I was personally affronted. How dare they? I could see why they may have added the line; it made a part of the scene a little clearer perhaps for people who were getting lost in all the chaos of the afflicted girls. Still, to me that's no excuse. As another great dramatist once said:

from Spotify

5. My Musings:  All this talk about The Classics has me thinking about them. About reading them again and wanting to talk about them. I do miss that about teaching. I recently met up with a former Creative Writing student and we talked about, oh, Everything, and we talked about poetry and contemporary poets and writing and it made me miss teaching that, too. I'm very committed to Retirement, however, and I'm not able to predict my energy/pain level enough to commit to anything else. Good heavens, I have a hard enough time committing to this blog on even a semi-regular basis, and that's nothing new. Still, I may have to add a few Old Timers to my Book Cellar* for comfort reads. 

*I've decided to call my TBR pile my Book Cellar now. Like wines, my books are kept lovingly until the right time, the right occasion, or the right pairing for selection. I'd like to say I thought of this, but I read this term someplace else.

I think we're all caught up. As usual, I do so want to hear from you in Comments about All Of This and so many other things. Thank you for being here, and I also want to thank so many of you who have kindly sent me helpful and supportive emails containing research articles and links. I am so grateful and awed that you have taken time out of your lives to do this for me. It means the world. I have always said that my Readers are Exceptional People, and you continue to prove just that. Again, thank you.