Shots Fired

I ran into issues yesterday with my primary caregiver over the flu shot. Note it was not the doctor but my Favorite Panamanian. She jealously guards her role overseeing my health. She claims it’s because she wants me around to supervise for many years to come. I came home for lunch yesterday and proudly proclaimed I’d gotten my flu shot during my annual physical that morning. I thought I’d get brownie points but instead received a veritable broadside of condemnation. The FBR’s parting gift to both her grandparents was passing on the cold she fought her way through last week. My wife claimed having this cold should have precluded me from getting the shot. I told her that was only if you had a fever which I did not. She was even less pleased when I checked the internet and confirmed my side of the argument. Sometimes you lose by winning.

We overcame our medical dispute to honor date night and saw Lady Bird which is one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. My daughter raved about it and claimed it reminded her a lot of her own teenage years with her mother. That’s the core of the story – the difficulty of a highly creative Californian teenage girl’s senior year in high school surrounded by drama on all sides, especially from her mother. My wife rightfully took exception to being compared to the emotionally callous mother in the movie – played with exquisite depth by Laurie Metcalf. The real message of this refreshing movie is the emotional byplay of the mother-daughter relationship when the younger one moves from child to woman. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it done better and that is a tribute to Metcalf but more so for Saoirse Ronan in the title role – she owns this movie. I truly believe she’s incapable of doing anything badly. This is a movie with heart as Lady Bird sails through her senior year beset by both family and social challenges but remains true. There are excellent subplots involving the value of friendship, home, and several aspects of teenage angst. This movie is squarely aimed at mothers and daughters but it was fascinating for an old dad to see and learn from as well.

I noticed old friend L.E. Modesitt had published a new novel set in the world of Recluse which is where I first fell in love with his writing. The Mongrel Mage sports one of his usual understated heroes growing into his role as an Order based mage. He was raised by his uncle who was a Chaos mage and then has to flee the power mad mages of his home. You have to understand the world of Recluse to know what that means but it’s significant. The story is set in the middle of the timeline of the many other Recluse novels but Modesitt has created such a multi-faceted world that the hints he drops about famous characters from preceding novels are like glimpses of old acquaintances. The mage eventually has to assist his new homeland in a war against the army from his original home and once again Modesitt is completely at home blending magic into the close, medieval close combat. I loved it.  

The Bad Cinema project count rises to #65 out of 100, with Hyper Sapien: People from Another Star which surprisingly had some good production values.