Tuesday, August 15, 2017

A Pirate's Life for Me

I originally awoke at 7 to a gloomy, cloudy morning. Closed my eyes for five minutes...and when I opened them, it was 9:30, and the weather was still blah. Looked like it would rain any minute.

I ate breakfast, then did some things around the house. Went through my journals in the back room. Made the bed, which I hadn't done in over a month. Vacuumed the entire apartment.

Ran the last two episodes of Laverne & Shirley's third season I hadn't watched during breakfast and while making the bed. After overhearing her father worry that she'll never get married, Laverne has a nightmare that turns into "2001: A Comedy Odyssey." In the far future, she and Shirley are old women who still live together. She's desperate to marry anyone, even an elderly Lenny and Squiggy.

"Breakin' Up and Makin' Up" is the season finale. Mr. DeFazio is upset when Mrs. Babish's ex-husband arrives in town and she breaks up with him. The girls hold a big dinner at their apartment, complete with Shirley's attempt to sing Rogers and Hammerstein ballads, to try to bring them back together.

Switched to my Year of Your Life: 1982 Vol 2. CD by the time I was vacuuming as inspiration for my current story. I had been debating whether or not to run errands all morning. It wasn't raining when I put my rag rug and welcome mat outside to air. Figured I'd at least return the DVDs to the Oaklyn Library, even if the weather wasn't good enough to get anywhere else.

Indeed, it was lightly showering as I walked out the door. Walked and brought my umbrella instead of taking the bike. The neighborhood is just so green for this time of year. Grass that is usually brown only has a few little crispy spots. Flowers bloom in abundance, the only decoration anyone needed besides a few faded flower-print banners and wreaths. The leaves on the trees are shiny like green glass.

The Oaklyn Library was relatively busy for such a wet day, with a few families coming in to return items and a young teen girl looking for books in the kids' area. I organized DVDs and dodged the kid long enough to take a look at the picture and board books. Took out the remaining two Pirates of the Caribbean films, At World's End and On Stranger Tides. Also dug up a collection of three Tom Hanks comedies from the 80's. I have seen The 'Burbs and Dragnet, but not in a long time, and I don't think I've ever run into The Money Trap.

Hiked to WaWa to pick up lunch. I was delighted to learn that they still sell Crystal Pepsi. I always did like that when it was released in the early 90's, and the current version tastes exactly the same. Got a roasted chicken sandwich with lunch. (Which I couldn't use my food stamp card on. It hadn't even occurred to me that the chicken would be regarded as hot foods.)

It was still raining when I walked home. The rain was down to barely a shower when I got in. It would shower off and on for the remainder of the afternoon. I spent the day at home. This was no time to be lingering anywhere. In fact, it's just as well that Mrs. Stahl did change our appointment. This was definitely not a good day for a long bike ride to Haddonfield or anywhere else.

Put on an episode of She-Ra while eating my roast chicken sandwich. (Which was slathered with waaaayyy too much honey mustard. The chicken kept slipping out.) She-Ra, Madame Razz, and Castaspella have to rescue Bow and Sorrowful the Dragon when they're captured by the Horde. They're not the only captives there. "The Prisoners of Beast Island" are fellow-beasts who are behind bars. Sorrowful makes up for his cowardly behavior earlier by releasing the beasts and rescuing the rebels.

Worked on writing for a few hours after lunch. It rains for two days straight right before the block party is scheduled. Leia's worried that the rain won't stop, despite Hank's admonishments that the National Weather Service says sun for Saturday. Leia's even less happy when Hank announces that he and Charlie are leaving after the block party. She wants him to stay, but he doesn't want her to potentially be harmed by any other bounty hunters who are after him. Leia finally drags her brother away from an episode of The Dukes of Hazzard to talk to the other Cottage residents. Charlie doesn't like running out on the group, but Hank's determined to leave.

Broke at 5:30 to start dusting the living room. Started the fourth season of Moonlighting as I did. This is another season set I've mostly put off watching, mainly because...well, this is pretty much said to be the worst season of this series. Indeed, "A Trip to the Moon" was mainly Maddie and David discussing and arguing over their relationship after they slept together in the end of Season 3, with nary a mystery to be seen. There were some nifty fantasy sequences, though. Maddie gets love advice from Dr. Joyce Brothers; David gets it from Ray Charles. Maddie keeps dreaming their relationship into an episode of The Honeymooners.

The ground turkey I pulled out for dinner hadn't defrosted by 6:30, so I settled on scrambled eggs with cheese, tomatoes, and mushrooms for dinner. Made Peach Flummery for dessert. Enjoyed my meal while watching Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Captain Barbarossa (Geoffrey Rush), Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), and Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) are determined to rescue Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) from the clutches of Davy Jones' Locker. He's one of nine pirate lords who can take part in the Brethren Court and create an armada to stop the obnoxious Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander), who has taken control of Tortuga. Even after they rescue Jack, they still have to convince him and the rest of the Court, including the even more menacing Captain Teague (Keith Richards), to help out. There's also Calypso (Naomie Harris), who helped raise Barbarossa from the dead in the previous film and had once been Davy Jones' lover. They hope she'll help them if they unleash her power. But you know what they say about a woman scorned...

I was pleasantly surprised here. I hadn't heard good things about this or On Stranger Tides, but it actually turned out to be a lot of fun. I saw bits and pieces of it before when it was first released on DVD, but not the whole thing. While still not at the level of the first movie, it's a slight improvement over the second, with some great action set pieces, cinematography, makeup design, and special effects. (It was deservedly Oscar-nominated for the latter two.) Everyone's clearly having a marvelous time, including Richards in his brief but memorable cameo.

The big problem here is length. This is notoriously almost three hours, and the padding does show, especially in the convoluted middle half. I had a hard time following who was double-crossing whom after a while.

If you have a lot of time of your hands and are a fan of this series, pirate yarns, or the cast, hop on-board and join the Court. This is likely the second-best film in the series after Curse of the Black Pearl. If you're new to the series, back up to Curse and start there. Like Harry Potter, this is a series that you absolutely must start at the beginning with if the plot is going to make any sense.

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