It was really a very nice week. We flew down to WA — well, actually, we flew to Oregon, because we couldn’t get a direct flight to Seattle — and the very tall, good-looking blond guy I’d seen in the Anchorage and then Portland and then Seattle airports proved to indeed be Curtis McCubbins, with whom I went to high school. He was reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and was on his way back to Utah, where he was still going to college (he graduated from high school a year after me) and he said his sister Mary who was in my class is still in Kenai, and that was about the sum total of our conversation. But it was kind of fun. *laugh* I’d kept looking and looking at him, and we ended up next to each other on the escalators at Seatac, and he grinned and I said, “Ah, so that *is* you,” and yah. :)
We rented a car and drove to our hotel and fell down for about five hours — I *hate* redeye flights, guh. Got up again, found food, came back to the hotel room, where I finished reading one book, although I can’t remember what, and read another VERY quickly and then I collapsed of exhaustion at 8:30 and slept for another 12 hours, which still wasn’t enough.
The next morning we got up and went to Longview, where Ted’s Grandma and Aunt Millie live, and spent the next few days there in a quietly pleasant stupor. I went to bed REALLY early again, while Ted stayed up til 1am talking to Millie. Unsurprisingly, I got up earlier than he did the next day. :) We read a lot (one of those grand 5 books in 1 day days for me) and drove around Longview a bit and on Sunday we went down to Portland, which is spitting distance from Longview, and something terrible happened.
We went to Powells, see, and before we went in, we set a budget of $250.
Two hours later, we emerged, having only spent $180. How COULD we?! We’re ashamed and embarrassed. And one of those books was a GIFT and it cost $20, so we’d only spent A HUNDRED AND SIXTY on ourselves. Isn’t that just *awful*? Talk about a Bookstore Accident!
On the other hand, Ted did get a bunch of the Sharpes novels, and I got a copy of the Canterbury Tales in old English (which made Ted’s head hurt) and a bunch of mystery novels and a few SF books (The Zap Gun, which I’ve never read), and two Heinlein books I thought I didn’t have (it turned out I had one of them, when I got back home, but I didn’t have the other, so hey, 50% isn’t bad, right?) and Ted got at least one aikido book and yah. It was good. :) Plus we got, er, $300 worth of bookstore gift certificates/bookstore credit and some actual books from my sister and parents, so all in all, I’d call it a very successful Christmas, bookwise. :)
AND we went to Fellowship of the Rings, and against all expectations I really thought it was magnificent, and Ted didn’t like it much at all. We determined that the problem is that he’s read the books far, far too many times: he literally has them memorized, and so even though he knew it wasn’t going to be verbatim, it kept bugging him when it wasn’t. The more he thought about it, the more he liked it, so we’re going to go see it again and we’ll see if he likes it better. :)
I, on the other hand, really enjoyed it a lot. :) Ok, I’m posting this now and will write more about other things in a bit. Right now my legs are numb from the cat sitting in my lap….
I saw Lord of the Rings yesterday, and I agree with Ted, except I have different reasons. I found the movie to be as stimulating as the books. I got through a book and a half of the trilogy before I fell into a stupor. Twice during the movie I almost left. I was also put off by the camera angles and the camera swooping about. I could go on, but suffice it to say, I was not enchanted.
On the other hand, I think the epic proportions of the Quest came across effectively. Also, by the end of the movie I was beginning to warm to Frodo. I *will* go see the next one.