Blink

Eleven years ago ...


Zephaniah 1:14-18                                                      March 9
Martha and Sarah @ Garrison; education                 10603.09


The great day of the LORD is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the LORD: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. 14


Exodus 18 -- in the wilderness at the mount of God


Use the Force of Constructive Self-Criticism

Today Sarah was out of town for the first time -- something I haven't been since December! One of my regular customers is going to see his family in (sp.) Toke, Alaska tomorrow. Everyone looks forward to a vacation, and it helps to have a great family to spend it with! (I still haven't grasped "Dad"!)


Carnes, Mark C. (Gen. Ed.). Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1995.


The reader will want forever to get to the meat of this book -- a history of how history is rightly and wrongly portrayed in film if he starts with the interview! Although it is impressive in its scope starting with Jurassic Park, the editors could have done a much better job because the writers seem less concerned with what the film's about rather than their take on it. It's picturesque but dry and underwhelming.


Hey, not all the good things I read are original, and not all the original things I read are good!


Paging Dr. Johnson. Sharing this journal entry from a week and a half after Sarah was born is more cathartic than I thought. And for a little more context, at the time Martha was substitute teaching in Garrison about an hour south of Minot where we live and she was pregnant with Sarah at the time, so she brought her there for her fellow teachers and kids to see!


It wasn't uncommon for Martha when she taught there to remain in Garrison for several days at a time due to the travel time and long days there, so I had to batch it with Sarah for a while -- again, for days at a time. And I always ended up emptying the Diaper Genie we'd been given when it was full. Changing the kids wasn't so disgusting as when I had to do THAT! A bag full of dirty diapers; you do the math.


And when I did the math yesterday, I realize I didn't get as much done as I would have liked to do. It usually doesn't bother me as much, but I can pinpoint exactly why today ... I mean yesterday. The first images from the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movie Thor: Ragnarok were released and I was looking around for how the movie rendered the Grandmaster. Finally found him and I present the image to you.


Played by Jeff Goldblum in the movie, I look closer at the photo of one of Marvel's Elders of the Universe, the last survivors of their respective races who keep themselves immortal through their focus on a single purpose. Grandmaster's happens to be the setting up and playing of games, often with planetary consequences. Collector's (he's appeared in the Marvel movies Thor: The Dark World and Guardians of the Galaxy) is in collecting one or two of everything. And there are others.


Is it me or in the movies (in the comics, Grandmaster's a tall blue guy wearing a yellow coverall) do the Elders -- who so far haven't been called that in any Marvel film, probably because we've only seen two of them -- never blink? When Robert Powell played the title character in Jesus of Nazareth he said that to set himself as Jesus off from the rest of the cast he made the point of not blinking either. Even if they're looking down to or away from others, they never blink.


It's really not that hard to do -- not blink, that is -- but to do it consistently and convey that you are confident in whatever you're doing is one of the hardest things to do. But as it's an involuntary reflex in humans (whether or not you're keeping foreign particle out of your eyes you'll eventually blink just to keep your eyes from drying out) you won't miss much. With Spring Break starting today with snow still outside, the kids at Grandma and Grandpa's today still won't miss much. Outside.


Tonight though they'll be with Martha at her regular bowling league night, who hasn't been there the last few weeks due to the arthritis on her right knee. Her movement's getting much better and needs to, but she does still use a cane on occasion that is sitting at home right now. So the plan is that I pick them up there after work tonight, and Friday get some chores done before dropping them off again and getting to work. Tomorrow the kids and I can get some extra sleep. I just want Martha to as well.


Blink,

David