Tag: Velma

Secret

Work-at-home Friday, and here we are! I am taking the day off because I have a doctor’s appointment this morning and I have another one in the afternoon. Sigh. That’s what sick time is for, after all, and I am going to try to get caught up on things I’ve let slide longer than I should have. It rained most of the day yesterday, along with flash flooding in the metro area and yes, they were thunderstorms. When I woke up yesterday morning, I opened my eyes in time for a very bright flash of lightning, followed instantly by a low rumble of thunder that lasted as I pulled on my sweats and fumbled around in the dark like Velma on Scooby Doo Where Are You looking for my glasses. By the time I got downstairs, turned on the kitchen lights and the coffee maker, it was pouring. The water draining off the roofs and the rain fall on the side yard made a stream about two inches deep, and the current heading toward the street was very, very fast. I’d used my wagon last night, and hadn’t folded it up and put it away, so it was out there filling up with water. It was still raining heavily when I went to work, then the rest of my work day it was off and on all day. Yesterday was an odd day at work, actually. We’re restructuring the department again, which meant the testing room I usually use needs to be used by someone else–our next nurse, which meant a big production of moving me to another testing room. Long story short, they set me up in the wrong room but I couldn’t get into the room they wanted me in because someone else had already set up in there for the day. So, I couldn’t set it up or anything, and piles of the stuff I used in the original room was stacked up on a table, which made the room look messy, and yeah–I didn’t like that off-balance feeling. It wasn’t raining when I ran some errands on the way home, and then Sparky and I got in the easy chair and got caught up on the news. Paul came home late, but we watched the finale of The Shards (more on that later), then Coco’s exit from the US Open before going to bed. I did sleep very well, and I actually feel pretty good this morning. I am going to do some chores around here before cleaning up for my appointment, and this afternoon I’ll get to work cleaning and doing laundry.

It’s also 9/11 today, and the 25th anniversary of that horrible day when everything changed. I’ve been working on a newsletter about my own memories of that day and time; and everything that happened afterwards. It’s a very somber day–kind of how Pearl Harbor Day was more of a thing when I was a kid, because it had only been twenty years since the Japanese attack when I was born. Not even twenty; I was born in August and the twentieth anniversary was in December, of course. We barely even notice December 7th anymore, which is wild to me; when I was a kid I thought we’d always remember World War II–which is clearly not the case.

The Shards was infuriating. For one thing, nothing was resolved in the finale. Why would you open the season finale of a show with a major subplot involving a serial killer with a new, completely unrelated murder and turn the last episode not doing much with the serial killer at all into a whole new whodunnit, which is completely unresolved. Nothing was resolved, everything was left hanging, and I have no one to blame but myself for watching another beautiful mess produced by Ryan Murphy. I am going to start reading the book this weekend–people I know and respect loved the book and hated the show (quelle surprise), so I am hopeful that the book will provide more of what I wanted from the show (and didn’t ever get).

There are some good games this weekend, but LSU is playing Louisiana Tech tomorrow night at the same time as Texas-Ohio State, which means flipping back and forth between games. Will the Tigers have a big night against La Tech? Will Clemson rebound from last weekend? The Saints also play this Sunday, and I imagine we’ll watch the US Open men’s final, too.

And on that note, I am going to get another cup of coffee and adjourn to my chair to relax a bit before getting to work on chores and getting ready for my appointment. So, gave yourself a lovely little Friday, and I will be back tomorrow morning bright and early. Til then!

Wild Horses

Thursday morning last day in the office for the week blog, and I am feeling kind of okay this morning. I slept really well last night (yay!) which is a relief because I was so tired and groggy last night I kept falling asleep in my chair. I also didn’t make the quota yesterday, which means a big push tonight to catch up. Paul was exhausted, too, from all his late nights working lately, so he was in and out of sleep all evening as well. Needless to say, Scooter was in heaven, as he could sleep in my lap, go upstairs and sleep with Paul, and then come downstairs and sleep in my lap again. But I feel very relaxed and rested this morning, and my brain isn’t groggy and goofy, which bodes well for the rest of my day. I have to do fasting labs tomorrow (joy), which means rolling out of bed, washing my face and brushing my teeth before venturing down to the lab to get the blood drawn–I’ll have my go cup of coffee waiting in the car for me, though. And of course, Saturday I have that event at the convention center in the morning.

So, naturally now that I am in the deep weeds with the book, I saw two calls for submissions for anthologies that I may have something on hand for; I am also trying to finish a story for another anthology that I should have finished already. It truly never ends around here, you know?

Last night as I was struggling to stay awake with a purring kitty asleep in my lap, I decided to check out Velma on HBO MAX. There was a lot of talk about this show when it first aired–the usual oh you’ve ruined my childhood nonsense–but I intended to check it out anyway because of course they decided to make Velma officially a lesbian (which we’ve always suspected anyway), and I do feel a kind of obligation to watch anything that may have some queer representation in it. There was a lot of outrage, but I tried to watch with an open mind as a long time fan of Scooby Doo Where Are You? and yes, my pretties, I watched it when it originally aired on Saturday mornings when I was a kid who loved mysteries. (Although I always preferred Jonny Quest.) The outrage about “ruining my childhood” always makes me tired–your childhood isn’t ruined, and your memories of something you loved as a child haven’t been affected; if anything you’re just disappointed because they changed something you loved rather than just feeding you the same old bullshit you’ve been eating all along. I thought an origin story for Mystery Inc. was a clever enough idea, and seeing how the gang all came to be what they were in the show we all loved as kids was interesting enough to make me curious to watch. I also am not someone who gets up in arms about adaptations changing things from the original book–it’s a different medium, hello, of course it’s never going to be the same, plus watching a film or television show is an entirely different thing from actually, you know, reading a book? As for the complaints, well, I don’t care that they made Velma south Asian. I don’t care that they made Daphne vapid and Freddy stupid. What I do mind is they did such a terrible job with such great raw material. The show isn’t funny, engaging, or entertaining in the least, which was very disappointing to me. There were a couple of clever moments of winking at the audience that I enjoyed, but overall? When I finished the first episode I had absolutely little to no desire to watch another. It was a great idea the producers simply didn’t deliver on.

And yes, that’s disappointing. I can live with changes to story and characters, and am more than happy to embrace new interpretations of the canon…but I do expect the characters and story to be engaging. I think they were maybe a little too focused on the subversion of the traditional Mystery Inc. characters and stories that they forgot the most important part of story-telling: the story. I don’t even need my characters to be likable–but I do have to be able to identify with them in some way.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a great Thursday, Constant Reader, and Ill chat at you again later.