Bad History
I watched the first two episodes of
"Sons of Liberty" on the History Channel. I might watch the final episode tonight, but it's hard. It makes good TV I guess, but
it's lousy history.
I don't know why I'm surprised. Despite
its name, there's an awful lot of non-historical crap on the History
Channel.
Through the first two hours of the show
I kept throwing up my hands, and a couple of times had to leave the
room. It's like that Heath Ledger movie, "A Knight's Tale,"
which supposedly is about jousting knights and treats them like rock
stars – literally, considering some of the music was by Queen.
There's a 21st century mindset or attitude that I guess is supposed
to help us "get" the issues. But what it really does is
hide what's real about those times and those people under a
simplistic veneer.
And in the movie, they were fictional
characters in a fictional setting. In "Sons of Liberty,"
these are real people. They really existed and really did things that
created this country. And the History Channel's effort gives lip
service to some of it, short cuts, truncates and oversimplifies most
of it, and then just makes stuff up because it makes good TV.
I forget who said "History is a
great story that just happened to have really taken place," but
there's a lot to that. I just wish the History Channel had bothered
to tell the story that really happened.
Teeth
Went to the dentist last week. That's
not particularly noteworthy, except it was the first time in six and
a half years. The last time I went to the dentist it was about a
couple of teeth towards the back that were breaking off, chip at a
time. Necrotic (dead.) Not painful, just kind of annoying. That
dentist told me how we'd take care of it over the next few months if
treatment. I pointed out that I was moving to St. Croix in three
days, and that was that.
So now that I'm covered on Tori's
dental and optical insurance, she insisted I go to the dentist. It
wasn't bad. Not painful. Yet. Now I have a treatment plan that the
insurance will cover about half of. And some of it – scraping and
planing and removing the roots of those two missing teeth – does
not not sound painless.
But I'm a grownup, and I recognize that
if I don't do something, I'll probably lose most of them. So I'll do
it.
But first I've got a doctor's
appointment next week. Haven't been to a doctor in eight years, since
I didn't have insurance. Now I do thanks to the Affordable Care Act
(thank you, President Obama.) I could have signed on to Tori's health
insurance at work, but adding me would have been so expensive there'd
almost be no point in her working.
I feel fine. Not great. I will turn 60
this year and there's plenty of little things. But mostly I feel
fine. I've got a list of little nagging things that will make him
sit up and keep him busy for a while, running tests and whatnot.
And with new glasses – that's also on
the agenda – I'll soon be a new man.
I just hope I'm still funny.
Cats
We are down to zero cats – we're 3 of
3.
In November,
Tori brought a kitten home
from the Spaymart adoption center for us to foster. She was sick,
couldn't be with the other cats. We fed Jane (Tori had named her Jane
Austen) and fattened her up, took her in for her shots and neutering,
played with her, shared the computer with her, cleared up her ear
mites, and took her back so that someone could adopt her.
She was a Christmas present for two young kids and is now a pampered and beloved
member of that family. They brought photos by the Spaymart the other
day.
While we were fostering Jane, Tori
brought home Lucy. We were told she needed some discipline, she was
unruly, attacked and bit and was unsociable. Sounded fun. She had
been found on a boat. Young, probably not more than six weeks old,
she was still a little feral and HATED being in the cage at Spaymart.
Hissed, growled, bit. It took her a day to get comfortable in our
house, but playing with Jane, she got used to us.
In fact, she quickly showed her true
colors. She was a little love. She still played kind of wildly. Every
morning for about an hour she'd be sort of manic, so much so that we
thought maybe Lucy was short for Lucifer, but all of a sudden she'd
leap – absolutely leap – into my lap while I was trying to work.
She'd scrambled up my leg, up my chest (I still have a few scratches
from that) and perch on or near my shoulder, purring. It's hard to
type one handed. If you sat in the recliner, any time of the day or
night, you were almost certain to wind up with a cat purring on your
chest, vigorously rubbing the top of her head into your chin.
But every time Tori brought her back to
the Spaymart she went berserk. It was all Tori could do to hold on to
her, but no one else could touch her. So she'd come back here.
We tried bringing another cat home to
help Lucy socialize. but she was more standoffish than Lucy ever was.
Lucy actually helped her
socialize, rather than the other way around.
After a couple of weeks, we took the
third cat (who had been given the unfortunate name Sweetie Pie. Max
temporarily renamed her Bon Quee Quee) back to Spaymart, and she was
finally adopted last weekend. back to Spaymart in the hope she'd get
adopted.
Which left us with Lucy, and I was
getting worried that she'd never get adopted. But Tori put ads on
Facebook and Craigslist, and we got a call from a couple that were
looking for a cat and thought she was the one. They came by and,
instead of hissing and running away like I'd expected, Lucy played
with the woman. And the guy has a beard, which Tori is convinced was
an important part of the cat's imprinting on me. So she's adopted and
I heard today from her new family that she's settled in, happy and
loved.
We got them when they were kittens, and
got to help them find families. And now they're out, and we don't
have to deal with cats. Mission accomplished.
Until Tori brings the next one home.
Idiots
Tori has been having lots of fun with her Galaxy pad, my Christmas
present to her. She just found (on Hulu) and binge watched a show
that makes "America's Next Top Model" look like
Shakespeare. It's called (ironically, I think/hope) "America's
Most Smartest Model."
It pits models, male and female,
in both modeling competition and quizzes by none other than that
asshole Ben Stein. And those parts are hilarious.
My favorite
was the blonde (had to be, right?) who somehow managed to last five
episodes even though it was obvious she would not stand out
intellectually in a vat of toothpaste. Asked the last name of Napoleon,
she "thought" – if that's what you want to call it –
for almost a minute and then blurted out, "Pierre?" Kudos
to her for trying French (though Napoleon was Corsican, which would
have blown her tiny mind.)
Even better was when asked "Who
assassinated John F. Kennedy?" You could practically hear the
hamsters in her head spinning the wheel as she thought and thought,
and finally, desperately, said, "Brad?" I'm laughing just
typing it.
There were others even stupider than her, but
somehow not as flamboyantly stupid. When she finally got eliminated,
her last words on camera were a whine, then "Oh no! I really AM
dumb!"
And in the final salute to inanity, "America's
Most Smartest Model" was won by a Russian. Go figure.
