queries

You know, I just realized. I have one more month on my birthday gift of a paid account (sends grateful loving thoughts to sweet person from March.)

Huh. I'll have to decide if I want to renew it... what's the going rate for that these days?

Do my polls disappear if I get demoted, or am I just forbidden from making more?

Does anyone recognize this passage?

Remember when the passions flare
And bodies are entwined in bliss -
Even the greatest love affair
Begins with but a single kiss.

Lilies of the Field

I spent much of the early evening eating pizza and watching the 1963 black & white film Lilies of the Field, a movie my mother ordered off of Netflix.com. At first I wasn't sure if I'd like it-- I figured anything with a name like that + a couple of Academy Awards must be awfully depressing and tragic. Also I knew there were nuns in the film, and my general dislike of organized religion made me skeptical.

To my surprise and delight, it was a charming movie. It starts off with a young black Southern Baptist who works as a laborer, and he stops at a small house in rural Arizona to borrow water to cool his car. Populating the house are five Catholic nuns who escaped from Eastern Germany and came all the way to Arizona-- only the leader of which speaks passable (if confusing) English. The Mother Maria (quite a clever and domineering woman, but devout) convinces Mr. Smith (Sydney Poitier), to fix their roof, however, doesn't mention that they have absolutely no money on them. She convinces him to stay the night, and pretty soon she's got him convinced to build them a chapel. Soon the local Latino community gets involved, and you have a delightful look at the blending of three cultures-- the Latinos and the nuns sharing their Catholic faith, and Mr. Smith and the Latinos sharing the fact that they aren't German nuns. Watching the nuns try to talk to the Arizona Latino men in English was quite amusing (though frustrating on both sides.)

There's some lessons about faith -- Mother Maria's constant assurance that "everything will be fine" is the answer to every problem, and most of the people in the film are religious (even Mr. Smith, the protagonist.) However, it's the characters that really shine, not the moral lesson. It's all a big contest of wills between Mr. Smith (who's too nice to turn away from a bunch of nuns in poverty), and Mother Maria (who has a godly answer to every point of argument Smith makes.) This movie has considerable humor, however, I'm a little heistant to call it comedy-- it's more "family comedy," the humor is not slapstick at all. However, I think a kid would also miss a lot of the subtlety in character interaction-- which is where the strongest humor of the film is-- so maybe family's the wrong word. Anyway, it's a sweet movie. I can see why Sydney Pointier got his oscar for it.

Favorite quote, spoken by the wives of the Latino men who helped lay bricks for the chapel, and Mother Maria, as they watch the men celebrating:

Mother Maria: **grumbles in German**
Wife #1: **grumbles in Spanish**
Wife #2: **resignedly** They build a house, they build a barn... always a fiesta.
Mother Maria: **grumbles** Fiesta! In my chapel!

(no subject)

I'm sunbruned right now. On the tops of my thighs (primarily my left leg), on the tops of my arms (especially forearms), and on one large belt-sized stripe across my back, where my shirt rode up as I was pulling weeds outside. My mom and I worked all day on the yards, pulling and mowing and trimming. We spent the final hour digging Four'o'clock roots out of the corner of the front of the house, right next to a rose bush. The rose bush made it difficult enough, but the fact that this Four'c'clock flower root was about 5 years old didn't help, and the main protion of it was between 3 sprinkler pipes, locked in away from shovel access. It took a lot of hand work, but after an hour we finally got it out-- by cutting chunsk of it apart till we could get at it all. Overall, the root was as large as a cantelope, possibly a honeydoo melon. It was a nasty sucker, and had all sorts of roots the size of fat carrots embedded around it.

I'm sunburned now. But our yard looks great.

Fic Rec: "Settling In" by Shadowlass

New BTVS fic rec for you all! It's only two chapters so far, but it's a good start.

Title: Settling In
Author: shadowlass
Summary: looks at Spike's first night at the Hyperion as everyone struggles to adjust to the unexpected visitor. Each chapter's from a different POV.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: non beyond Spike's casting on AtS

Favorite quote:

"But she chose Spike. He was her champion, and he wore the sign of her favor into battle."

Hey shadowlass, babe, honey, dearest authoress-- can I make that into a Spuffy icon? Warning, silence always means yes on my livejournal. ;)

oooh.... that feels nice.

I blended a bunch of ice cubes and orange juice together, and every time my hands get too cold from touching the glass, I put them on my sunburned back, and I feel a bit better.

er, help?

I'm trying to remember this Buffy fanfic I was reading on Live Journal.

It was an alternate ending to the series-- Spike never wore the pendant, so he survived, but they didn't manage to destroy the Hellmouth. So they fled on a bus, darkness on their trail. And then Dawn got all scared and tossed the pendant into a lake or river or something watery, thus losing it forever, and making it impossible for Spike to fullfill his destiny, dooming the world or somesuch. Oh, and there was Spike/Buffy hotness, and way angst for all the characters.

Sound familiar?

Huh. Heeee. Heh.

LiveJournal Haiku!
Your name:	rashaka
Your haiku:	time i want to smack something and hey i get to write something
Username:
Created by Grahame

Poll! HP time.

I figure I should flex my polling power in the next month. Plus, they're fun.

[Poll #171960]