DICHOTOMIES or in other words, WHAT?????

I have some questions about some things in America that are contradictory besides the obvious such as "we park on a driveway and drive on a parkway."

Why is it, if we think of something bad it happens almost immediately, and what we want to happen never happens? Oh, I did drop a jelly bread that landed jelly side UP once.

Why can't most Americans understand accents from the British Isles when the British actually speak English?

Then again, in Leap Year, Matthew Goode spoke with an Irish accent and Amy Adams--"Anna from Boston"--spoke with her Californian accent and didn't even try to put on a Boston accent?

Speaking of accents, what about those actors using foreign accents to simlate a foreign language? If they were really speaking their own languages would they have accents? Why couldn't they just talk normally and let us assume they're speaking in their own languages? (Or speak in that language and use subtitles? (More movies are doing that. And why don't Americans learn second languages? Spanish in elementary, French in mid-school, German in high-school, and a choice in college? Maybe I should mention British, but that's supposed to be English. (Oh yeah, I forgot, they invented English.)

Exception: In The Man in the Iron Mask it was refreshing to see the three musketeers played by John Malkovich who spoke with his Chicago accent, Gérard Depardieu who spoke with his French accent and that other guy (Jeremy Irons) who had an English accent. The fourth musketeer d'Artagnan had a generic American accent (if there is such a thing.) It might have been embarrassing, but it was realistic. Bravo to the producer who allowed it. (Who knows? He might have given up. And if they were speaking in British accents, who would understand them?)

What's with a fourth musketeer in movie about the three musketeers anyway?

Why is it, too, that when you are married you have to fend off admirers, and when you're single and lonely there's nobody to be found?

Why is it when you're young you haven't got a clue about life and when you get wisdom and know how to use your brains you're too old to do anything with it? (Well, you can write blogs nobody reads.)

Why is it when you're young and start writing you don't have any experiences to write about and no writing knowledge, and when you're good at writing you can't remember which characters are which and what they said (or their eye color?) (I think it was Tony Hillerman who admitted he forgot a complete character.)

Why is it when you're working you have the money to do things and when you're not working you're broke? And when you're working you have plenty of time to do things, and when you're working you're too damn tired to do anything, let alone have time?

Why is it when you're young you don't appreciate your parents and when you realize they were pretty great they're dead? Same goes for your kids, not dead, but no longer sweet little babies you can lavish with love anymore?

What was that silly saying? "You don't miss the water til the river runs dry." Of course not. How can you "miss" something you still have? It should say, "You don't appreciate the water til the river runs dry." That must apply to everything.

How come you don't appreciate how thin you were when you first started thinking you were fat? When you're really get fat, oops, too late...

What's that saying, "You get what you deserve" only applies when something bad happens to you? To get good things you have to work hard and earn it?

I am so glad that when I order a ham and swiss sandwich with mayo on rye bread, I actually get ham and swiss with mayo on rye.

See my Movie Opinions Blog at www.sandy-schairer.blogspot.com

Movie Opinions vs. Movie Reviews

See my other blog: Movie Reviews
www.sandy-schairer@blogspot.com

I don't really write movie “reviews.” I add personal things to my Movie blog, so it doesn’t count as review. I don't care what people watch. But I do believe life is too short to watch bad movies. We can use all the help we can get as we wind our way through the isles of video stores, Netflix or Amazon websites, or flipping our way through television channels.

I think the movies the media raves about, no one really likes. The ones I like no one even sees. Hardly anyone. There is ME and the people that make them. And perhaps their relatives.

I think movies are the meaning to life. Fiction can be more real than real life. Have you noticed? Even ones based on true stories seem real.

Okay. Okay. I’m trying to be witty. But it's true. When I started being witty women weren't allowed to be witty. People who read my stuff frequently don't get my humor. One comment on facebook said they hoped I found something to make me happy soon instead of sounding so negative and sarcastic. What was his excuse?

I like older movies. With more recent movies I have a tendency to rent one and then buy it and watch it a bunch more times. I think that might be obsessive/compulsive, but it’s more fun than washing ones hands a million times a day. (If I were afraid of germs, I would've never had kids. I mean they're germy little things--children. (Not those other things you're thinking of.)

However, I have overcome my compulsion to shop and spend dozens of dollars on things I don’t really need. Like, I can either lose weight or gain some to fit perfectly into the clothes I already have.

I also get hooked on an actor or actress and watch all their movies, similar to reading all the books of a certain author. In order. I do that too.

I have been falling in-love with movie stars since I was 8. I think the answer is reincarnation. I knew those old Hollywood guys in a previous life. For instance, I loved Clark Gable. I think I was just a wanna-be actress who partied her self to death. (I don’t think partied is a real word. I hope I spelled it right.)


It's good to express myself in my blogs. Sort of like therapy. It’s good I have something to do (like write.) I like staying at home in winter. Only thing I must go to is doctor appointments and therapy. Therapy is starting to help. I do better when I act like an adult. I am building up my confidence more now. How else would I get the nerve to put this out into cyberspace? I wonder if Woody Allen has a blog? Could’ve saved himself a lot of money over the years on psychoanalysis.

I guess I could call my blog "Diary of a Mad Widow" (remember that old movie Diary of a Mad Housewife? I fell in love with the actor in that movie. He's ugly now and was in that horrid movie The Box. Icky. (Sorry Frank, nothing personal.)

My shrink put me on antidepressants because all I could do was sit here and cry and fee awful. I now sit here and watch movies and knit but I’m way happier. Life’s a blast no matter what you think, feel, say or do. No seriously, it is. Try it.

When the weather warms up I plan to travel. I’m taking my dog. I spend a lot of time treating my dog like a baby. She has a bad hip (so do I) so we can keep up with each other.

I like having her in my room at night because she wakes me up early. The only problem with that is feeling sleepy at 8:30 PM. Bad news if I happen to be out driving.

So...I reveal all my inner activities while other people tell me things they actually do. My therapist says I'm an introvert. No duh. Manic Depressive too. Known that for 50 years. Now that I am being treated for it I should probably find something to do with my life.

Oh, I do have something I do! I'm in a book study Monday nights. We’re reading Tibetan Book of the Dead with commentary. Mostly we bring dinner and visit with each other after reading out loud. We don't understand what we're reading so we can't really discuss it.

I make the effort to get dressed and go to church now and then, mostly to see my friends. I met my late husband at church in 1987. But meeting men that way isn’t going to work for me anymore. I used to attract men with sex and money. I need a blind boyfriend who doesn’t want to go shopping.

Now I hang out with my women friends, all other writers. They make me feel cool. And normal.

Thanks for letting me get this off my chest. (What does that mean?) Like that girl who said in Imagine Me and You her teacher always said (imagine English accents.) "There's no problem insoluble given a big enough plastic bag." The character she was cheering up asked, "What does that mean?" They were both very cool in that movie. One of them was nine.

I’d better quit now and go see what my daughter-in-law fixed for lunch. Oh yeah. I’m home alone. One of these days I’m gonna learn how to cook. My kids would have appreciated that.

Toodle-ooo

If It Isn't Sumptin, It's Sumptin Else

I'm sure you remember the quote as the title of this post from SNL's Gilda Radner when she was Roseanne Roseannadanna. She said, It's what my father always said, "If it isn't something, it's something else."

Luckily, my Dad was a handyman and did everything around the house...including carpentry, plumbing, electrical, yard work, everything except dishes, if I remember right.

My beloved husband was all that and more. He built our house nearly single-handily and kept it running for 20 years. My son said Ed was a superman. Ed started on the house a little over 20 years ago. Now it's staring to break down like one of our cars. Conveniently, Ed left here before all the problems started. I can't really blame him. It was cancer.

I recently had a new roof put on after the hail damage. Luckily it was covered by insurance. If it was up to me, I could've bought a lot of buckets for $15 G's. Unfortunately, I chose the wrong roofer to do the job. There is a bunch of things that I don't like about the job, one of which is the whole damn thing, the quality of the work, the company's attitude. etc., etc. etc. Not least of which is the fools he hired to do the actual work and I think they took out the glass out of the skylights which weren't even broken and put the plastic domes on without replacing the glass. Duh. I don't know if I have to call that disagreeable man or call a skylight guy. It's up to my insurance agent. (I still have to get a stucco man over to replace the stucco that the roofers chipped off. One patch is really big. The insurance adjuster said the insurance would pay for the replacement of the roof (less my deductible. Thank goodness I already paid that.)

Last summer we had the problem of our well pump filling the pressure tank to maximum pressure making it spew huge amounts of water into the backyard. We called an electrician and he replaced the part--34-bucks. No, that was the cost of the part. He had to come out to our house in the mountains twice--once to look at it and once to go get the part. He got lost on the way here and drove about 20 or 30 miles out of his way to get here. Around a couple extra mountains as a matter of fact. And charged me for the time it took for him to find his way back to civilization. I'm sure he charged me an hour or two of time to change the part even though it took him a half hour, and for coming out on a Saturday. (It's real hard for us spoiled Americans to go without water for very long.)

This winter when it dipped down below zero, WAY below zero this time, our pipes froze up (second time.) My son turned everything off (again without water for several days.) The pipes unfroze fortunately but now something is leaking. He said it's the switch from the pump to the pressure tank so we had to decide whether to call an electrician or a plumber.

I called five different plumbing companies before I found one that would even listen to me. They are all booked up for days because of all the frozen/broken pipes in the mountains (and other places in NM.) This kind-hearted guy is sending one of his men over here between big jobs to look at it and fix it since he has a couple of those parts in his truck right now. YAY. The only good news I've had in a long time.

Well, I'm waiting for good news from my nephew and his wife who are expecting a baby in the next several weeks. That's the kind of news I want. Really good news to offset the bad news I've been dealing with at home.

One of the most aggravating things is not having propane delivered anymore. The cost of the propane was getting prohibitive in the last few years and last winter and this, it was too much to contemplate. The large tank costs 1000 bucks to fill up plus I imagine it costs something to get the tank delivered and installed. Even if we get the smaller tank, the company won't deliver any propane unless we snow plow the driveway. Plus we have to guarantee we'll buy so many gallons over the year. Just to heat water, no way we'd reach that. I am tempted to put in an electric hot water heater but our electricity bill is WAY out of site in the winter.

All we do now with propane is heat the hot water with it. We had a medium sized portable tank but it was too big to carry in any of our vehicles. Besides you can't carry a full propane tank inside a closed vehicle anyway. So...guess what...we have three little barbecue sized tanks for the hot water. When they run out we sometimes have to wait a few days to get hot water back again...we evidently can't go without hot water either.) When my son is at work from dawn to dark no one's here who knows how to hook them up. No me nor my daughter-in-law. It's all we can do to run the washing machines. We use cold water for that anyway.

So the headaches of owning your own house. And getting too old to work on it. Or having a son that can do just about anything fixing a to a big semi truck but doesn't know jack about fixing stuff around the house.

On top of all that. My computer wouldn't come on this morning. I panicked, of course, thinking I'd have to take it to the repair guy again. Not my favorite thing to do considering it costs me $$$ every time I take it in, and I have to put up with the guy hitting on me while I'm there. Luckily I lucked out this time, haha...my computer ran a diagnostic, figured out what was wrong, and did a system restore to fix itself. It's fine. Whew. (Well, you wouldn't be reading this if it weren't fine, huh?)

I'm sure my friends are getting sick of me complaining. So, believe me when I say, I can't handle anymore crises right now.

I think I'll go eat some cookies.