Movie Night

It's storming outside once again. I'm sick of rain, but if we didn't get it I'd be sick of the heat and dry air too. Humanity - we're so fickle.

Getting onto subject now, we just had our Friday night pizza and a movie night. Since the weather was rather damp, we decided to stay in and watch a movie. Plus I had two DVD's I'd rented last weekend that I hadn't had a chance to watch. I hate wasting money.

We watched both. Well actually I watched both, the first being a little unsure of some of the content. My son watched the other with me. Both of these movies I'd wanted to see while in theatres but like so many other things, they were there today gone tomorrow.

Enough with the cliches.

So first off I watched "The Painted Veil". What a beautiful story of love and redemption. How I wished I'd taken time to go to the theatre to see the incredible scenery of interior China on the big screen.

A cholera epidemic in the interior brings a struggling British couple to a remote village to try to help them stem the tide. He's a doctor, rather a scientist studying infectious diseases with no clinical experience. He gets initiated terribly quick. Ew! She's a spoiled socialite who married him on a whim to get as far away from her mother as possible. The heartache. The pain. Can they come together after all the hurt they've caused each other? Will it be too late? Truly a beautiful portrait.

The second movie we watched TOGETHER was "The Illusionist". Why are these movies so easy to figure out? Oh well, I liked it anyway. That locket was so cool! I never thought of Edward Norton as handsome or engaging (he always plays dastardly men so well), but he did a wonderful job portraying his loss. I felt it right there. Very unique story line, even though "The Prestige" got all the publicity at the time they were in theatres. Figured that one out before the end too. My son hates it when I do that.

Anyway, great movie all around. A little creepy. A lot engaging. I love that guy who plays Prince Leopold (Count Adamar from "A Knight's Tale"), with his droopy eyelid and his irritating voice. You hate him right up until the last. Well, you can't blame a girl for hating a guy who hits her, can you?

Girls - we tend to be fickle too.

Riding Out The Storms

The storms tonight have been crazy!

We've had an outbreak of thunderstorms across Kansas this week. Tonight my area is getting pounded. Reports were out of a couple of tornados just to the south. Our critique group met tonight (minus our crazy storm-chaser dude - you know who you are), and just as we were wrapping things up an employee came rushing over to us to say that the tornado sirens were going off.

I'm so glad my son likes to go to the bookstore with me to hang out.

They gathered everyone in the alcove near the bathrooms, their official "storm shelter". I guess it's better than nothing. There were insane people driving around, pulling up to the store and trying to get in. The sympathetic employees ran and unlocked the doors several times to let in the soaked travelers.

For about forty-five minutes we received updates of the storm, the locations of the funnels, track directions, etc. Finally the warnings expired and they released us from the store into the pouring rain. What fun! Well my son and I tried to make it fun to see who could get to the car fastest without becoming drenched. I'm not sure either of us could claim a win.

Even though I've lived in Kansas all my life, I never take the warnings lightly. I do keep my head about me though and try to balance a healthy dose of respect of the storms with a bit of logic too. That's what any good Kansan should do this time of the year.