Blue-Footed Musings

I haven’t been reading much (too tired), but on the bright and fiery side, I finally watched Dante’s Peak. I like disaster movies, so why hadn’t I yet seen this film from 1997? I had a reason, and it was that it took me all these years to get over the disappointment that was Volcano, another disaster movie that came out the same year. After you’ve been “burned” that badly by a volcano movie, you become leery of volcano movies.

Roger Ebert, in his review of Dante’s Peak, said that the film “follows the disaster formula so faithfully that if you walk in while the movie is in progress, you can estimate how long the story has to run. That it is skillful is a tribute to the filmmakers.”

I agree with Ebert. The movie was entirely formulaic, but it hit all the notes on pitch. As I watched, I was concerned about the characters as they crossed an acidic lake in a sinking boat. I felt sorry for the guy about to be swept away by the obligatory flood, but also satisfied, because movie justice demanded his death (it was his fault that the town hadn’t evacuated in time). I was impressed that the “crossing the lava” scene included some flames. One of my pet peeves about movie lava is that the flammable things touching the lava don’t catch fire, because shouldn’t they? Sure, the scene was ridiculous, because crossing a lava flow in a truck isn’t remotely feasible, but at least the truck caught fire. Give me a realistic detail or two and I can let the rest of the nonsense pass, even the missing dog who suddenly reappeared and jumped into the truck mid-lava and survived unscathed even though the truck was on fire. In fact, that was one of the best scenes in the movie. A good disaster movie combines the ridiculous and the believable in just the right measure.

Now, if I could just go back in time to 1997, I would watch Dante’s Peak instead of Volcano and save myself 20+ years of movie grudge-holding.

My husband and I have finally agreed on which curtains to get for our bedroom, so one of my missions for tomorrow is to go buy them. The other mission is to hike one of the local paths again to find out if the mystery plants I saw in September now have any berries on them. If they do, then they’re probably either bearberry or mountain cranberry (a.k.a., lingonberry). I must try to remember the differences between them: bearberry leaves are said to be leathery; lingonberry leaves are supposed to be smaller and shinier and have black spots on the back. An alternative name for bearberry is “kinnikinnick,” which is a cool-looking word that’s also fun to say, and lingonberries are sort of exotic, so the discovery of either one would be exciting. I just hope it’s not too late in the season for berries!

The problem with Saturday is that it looks so much bigger on Friday.

On Friday our new furniture finally arrived. My and my husband’s new bedroom set looks, I can’t help but to keep saying, POSH. It is dark in color, strongly defined against the light gray walls, and the overall effect is soothing, not cold as I worried it would be. The ridiculously expensive matching mirror that we bought on a whim turned out to be an excellent idea. The artwork that I chose for the room contributes a little dreaminess to the mix. The rug and chest for the foot of the bed are en route. Before we can move back into the room officially, the furniture must be properly leveled and the window treatments purchased and installed, but at least we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Livia’s furniture, being of a warm, almost cherry tone, looks pretty in her newly painted pink room. We joked that she chose pink to keep her brother out of the room, pink being an anathema to him, but she chose it because it’s her favorite color. It has not actually kept Marshall out of her room. In fact, they seem to miss each other a little bit now that they’re separated, and Marshall was heard knocking on her door yesterday, saying, “Do you want to play the game where you have to find the stuffed animal while looking through the gem?” (I love the weird games kids come up with). Livia’s curtains and rug are en route, and her closet isn’t ready yet, but she moved in the second she got home from school on Friday and has nearly worn out the door lock since she discovered that she can shut everybody out of her space now.

I spent much of my weekend shopping for other necessary items, but I’m not done yet. We still need curtains and curtain rods. There’s also a lot of laundry to do, and cleaning and organizing. The rest of the house is a gigantic mess, because that’s where we put all our stuff to make room for the furniture. Now we have to sort through our belongings and decide what is worth keeping. We want to adopt a clutter-free lifestyle. It’s not going to be easy, but we’re going to give it our best shot. Like they say, begin as you mean to go on.

When my alarm went off for the third time this morning, I groggily got out of bed to turn it off. I could hardly believe I’d already snoozed the alarm twice. The Universe was surely in the mood for an inside joke, because the song playing on the clock radio was “Head Over Heels” by Tears for Fears, and the song was on its very last two words: “Time flies.”