Cultural References - A Product of Our Times?

(jeez, that title reads like a dissertation paper or class essay)

For this month's book club meeting we read Little Heathens... by Mildred Armstrong Kalish.

Or I should say, we were supposed to read it. I'm still only half-way through, but planning to finish it.

BUT, the point is that part of our discussions touched upon sayings that arose from popular culture references...

Who's heard the one about something being more than Carter had pills? Here's the answer on where that came from.

(This saying was a favorite of my father's in reference to my "notions" about food, clothes, activities...and it wasn't until I was much older that I realized that it was a pop-culture reference from an earlier time and not a referral to our neighbor who happened coincidentally to have the first name of Carter.)

And as we got into bed that night, I told one of our cats to "Move over A_", and without missing a beat DH called the cat bacon. Of course, I was referencing "Move over bacon! Here comes SizzleLean"*

I'm sure that reference is going to be as mystifying to our kids as the Carter's pills reference was to me. But it made me wonder what other phrases are still out there that refer to an extinct product.

What do you have?


*Note that my memory of the wording is not the same as on this particular website. Perhaps it was just another variation on the commercial. In any case, that's how I use it.

What do vampires, werewolves, and pirates have in common?

I finished the Twilight series in the past week or two. (I love reading series which are fully published, it means not having to wait impatiently for the next book to be published, though the wait for the book to become available through the library can take just as long.)

As you may recall, I said earlier that I didn't think the first book was all that and a bag of chips. Or more words less descriptive to that effect. But I stuck with the series, I figured that if so many people are that into it, that the series had to have some merit.

I still think Bella was whiny, manipulative, and not my favorite character. But I appreciate that so many books allowed the nuances to be explored, and the broad scope of the story to play out. And the ending of the last book tied everything up, for the most part.*

And that's where the pirates come in. I happen to be in a kick of listening to the AOL music / Soundtracks / Movie Tracks at work. (Streaming music is pretty sweet.) This morning while thinking that I wanted to write something of my reaction to the Twilight series, the theme from "Pirates of the Caribbean" started to play. And it clicked.

One's a movie trilogy, the other a book tetralogy (maybe I made that up, tetra is the greek root for four), but they both are epic stories with broad scopes of action and romance and three people, 2 men (one younger & one older) & 1 woman, who are drawn to each other with the men competing for the woman. (So does Star Wars, for that matter....hmm. Wish I could remember enough of my english literature classes to use the fancy SAT words to describe the character types.) At least the Twilight series managed to tied everything together pretty neatly. Can't say the same for Pirates, though maybe if it had been a tetralogy, it would have allowed a less rushed feeling conclusion.

So that's what vampires, werewolves, and pirates have in common.



*Team Jacob all the way baby!

Yesterday's Schedule

Went as planned with some good and bad exceptions...

Starting with the bad:
-Stupid drivers getting into accidents which necessitated lane closures and other drivers forcing themselves into my lane on the way home from the IUI effectively stopping my lane from moving except for 1/2 car lengths every so often. I get such bad road rage - pounding on my steering wheel, yelling at the other drivers, banging on my own window...it can't be healthy.
-My bladder was full enough during the procedure that my ovaries couldn't be seen.That means we don't know if there was an egg hanging out, already hatched, or nothing at all. This lack of knowing adds just a LITTLE MORE STRESS to the next two weeks.

And getting to the good:
-I got to the RE's office a little bit early, so they took me back sooner than my appointment. And there was a new-to-me copy of Glamour to read while waiting to be called back and after the procedure before I could leave.
-My bladder was full enough during the procedure that the catheter went right where it needed to without the RE having to poke, prod or pull anything to make it go in. And yet it wasn't so full that I had to make a pit stop on my way home.
-Instead of waiting until I got home to pick up my double cheeseburger at McDonald's I stopped and picked one up shortly after the appointment, inhaling it fully before I got back on the interstate. Had I not had that burger in my system, the road rage mentioned about would have been even worse.
-Starting and finishing "New Moon" (2nd book in the Twilight series for those who are blissfully unaware of the phenomenon which is the series) after returning home and before dinner. What? I'm a fast reader. I was really hoping that Bella and Jacob would get together by the end of the book. I like her so much better when she's around him than when she's around Edward.

Now I just have to find some way to occupy myself (again) for the next two weeks or until my body tells me something one way or another.

Vacation's All I Ever Wanted

Yeah, so we went away for the long weekend. It was our only true vacation of the summer thanks to DH's job change this past spring and the suckage that is vacation policy for (most) American companies.

I started things off Wednesday with a combo body scrub massage thanks to a gift certificate DH got me for Christmas. Nothing like going into a vacation with a head start on relaxation!

Of course, the massage had pretty much worn off by that evening when I had my standard pre-vacation (or even road trip) freak out. No matter how much I try to plan and get everything done in advance there's always something that trips me right over the edge (just thinking about it get's me aggravated again). It's not a pretty picture.

I must admit that DH didn't complain about spending money while we were down there, of course we didn't spend much either - we only ate out a couple times and made one grocery run before his parents came down, and we played a round or two of mini-golf. Oh, and probably spent the most at the new Dunkin' Donuts as we picked up donuts a couple of mornings. In total we probably spent less than we would have on a hotel room for the night. The OBX isn't getting rich off of us!

We spent most of our time sunning and reading on the back deck, and watching TV. (So why did we go away when we could have done those things at home?) (Am cranky this morning at coming back to work - doesn't help when "my procedures" for paying invoices hasn't been followed.)

For those of you who are into the series, I read "Twilight" yesterday morning. Cover your eyes - I thought it was just ok. I liked Harry Potter and Artemis Fowl better (I know, not vampires, but both are also young adult series*). I've got "New Moon" on hold at the library and will pick it up this evening, but I'm not dying to read it. I just couldn't get into any of the main characters. (Much like I felt about watching Enchanted - I just wasn't feeling the love)


*There's an adult vampire series I've read in the past 6 months and enjoyed, but I can't remember the tiles / author. Will update as I either find in my library reciepts or online search.

Cat & Mouse

In reality, while the cat's away, the mouse will play.
Cat = my boss
Mouse = me

Here's to an easy week while they are on vacation!

It's probably going to be quiet enough that I can read in between dealing with any issues.
(I hope I'm not jinxing myself.)

I plan to swing the library either this weekend or Monday at lunch to stock up on books. Any suggestions? There's one series which seems to be taking the blogging world by storm, but I can't remember the title (I think it's young adult fiction?). I'm a big fan of finding series for which all the books are already written. I'm such a fast reader that it's frustrating to wait a year (or months) for the next book to come out and then read it in a day or two.

Heck, I like most anything except books that make me cry or put me to sleep (dry factual histories, I'm looking at you!) or which have no satisfactory resolution by the end and just sort of fizzle out leaving the reader hanging.

I'm currently working my way through a paper grocery bag full of books my Mom picked up on the 75%-off day of her local library book sale. She just grabbed piles of books off the romance table and didn't look too closely, so it's a real surprise as to what's in there. The thing is, I'd rather save those for the beach and weekends away when I might damage or lose a book, and read library books at home or at work.

With out any suggestions, I'll probably wander the aisles of the library deciding which books to get based on the spine font and color. Whatever works, right?

Goal!

Well, I have to say though I am sore (thanks in part to the 8AM pilates class Saturday, but all the cleaning I did contributed as well) I feel like I really accomplished as much as I could this weekend and still managed to have some time to relax.

About the only things undone were going through drawers and cabinets, and the clothing laundry. Those two things are easy to do in short segments on a weeknight, so I'm not too disappointed in not getting everything checked off my list.

I also accomplished my other goal: eating junk food without a thought to having to actually make a "healthy" meal. Achieved by ingesting lots of tortilla chips and queso dip for lunch both days and dinner on Friday and Saturday. I actually ran out of chips - from a family size bag. In all, it was a most satisfying weekend.

Perhaps if I had read the correct book for tonights book club meeting, and hadn't had to make time to do so, I could have gotten more done. When I looked at the list, I must have looked at March instead of February, so read the March book, and only realized my mistake when I went to send out the reminder email to the group members. Oops.

American Bloomsbury by Cheever is the book for tonight. I thought it was a pretty quick and easy read - as long as I didn't stop to remember who was who and attempt to keep a straight time line in my head. But fairly interesting, about Concord, Mass. in the 1840's-1860's: Thoreau, Emerson, the Alcott Family, Hawthorne, Melville - many of the early influential authors we all have read (in High School English if at no other time) lived there on and off and were influenced by each other in their writing and thinking. Some people after reading this book might be influenced to go back and read books by these authors, but I am not one of them. I had enough of their imagery and attempts to infuse everything with meaning in High School, thankyouverymuch.

The book for March, which I also enjoyed, is Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer by Swanson. It covers the actions of John Wilkes Booth from the desperate plans to destroy Lincoln (and two other members of the upper administration) to his attempted escape into the deep-South. I find that history books usually just assemble facts in a time line in lieu of telling a story, but this one was an exception. The author was not afraid to add the little speculative details that really make a story come to life, and in doing so really drew me into the day-to-day details of Booth's actions, and the actions of those who hid him and those who were searching for him. It made for a most enjoyable lesson in something I really knew little about.

Of the two, I would certainly recommend Manhunt if you are looking for something that sounds intellectual, but is also an easy read.

Harry Potter, The End! (no spoilers here)

Well, I finally did it. I sat down this weekend and read the final Harry Potter book. From cover to cover it probably took me a total of 4 hours (compare that to 4 weeks for the Aaron Burr book - which was approximately the same size).

::I'm going to duck now to avoid the hate bombs for my fast reading of fiction::

I have to admit, Ms. Rowling's more recent announcement about Dumbledore and his sexual preferences caused me some problems because rather than get lost in the story from beginning to end, whenever Dumbledore and the other guy were mentioned, I would remember her comment and analyze what she'd written to see if there were any subtle hints in the book.

I will also admit I cried. Just a little bit, close to the end of the book.

And now, at some point I am going to need to go back and re-read the whole series from start to finish.

Apart from the story, this book was special because it was a birthday present from my brother-in-law. He's the one who started off my collection of the Harry Potter series by giving me the first book for Christmas a few years back. Maybe I'm strange but I think it's pretty neat that the same person started and finished the collection.