Tag: Getting Older

  • And I Got Readers

    In fact, I have them on right now.

    I have been fighting that I needed them for some time. My arms are only so long, you know. But the time came. The optometrist said it was time. I didn’t want bifocals, so readers was my only option.

    I had been watching my friends over the past few years, struggle to read menus and their phones. We would laugh about getting older, but not being able to read was a problem. Then slowly over time, I watched as friend after friend would sit down at the table, take a menu, and then produce a pair of readers that rested gently on the edge of their nose. They could read the small print, while I had to guess, like deciphering the Rosetta Stone, as to what did the Chop Salad come with?

    The real issue, if I get fully honest, was that reading virtually everything was becoming a problem. Not only did I start feeling a strain on my eyes after reading for a bit, but this pain was making me hesitant to read for enjoyment. And there was no way that I was going start making the fonts larger.

    We all get older, and everything does come to an end. The joyous days of reading anything and everything unencumbered are over. This means that I will need to always wear shirts with a pocket, or I need more sports coats.

    I will not do the chain for the glasses – that is a non-starter.

  • Hurting the Toy’s Feelings

    Yesterday, on the way home from picking my kid up from school, she told me that she wanted to update her room. The issue, from her perspective, was that her room looked to “little kid,” and she wanted her room to look “older.”

    I did let her know that I understood that she was getting older, and her room needed to reflect that. Unfortunately, if she was looking for us to buy her a new bedroom set, that wasn’t happening anytime soon, but I would be willing to help her clean and reorganize her room to reflect what she was desiring it to look like.

    That was acceptable to her, and we started working on it as soon as she was done with her homework.

    To be honest, we were just shuffling stuff around – putting that under her bed, putting this on her shelf. Occasionally, she’d throw something away, but it was rare. I found so many candy wrappers. Clearly, she been squirreling away a large amount of candy.

    The biggest shock of the afternoon was that she wanted to box up her dolls, doll clothes and accessories, and put them away, up on the shelf. I knew this day was coming, but I didn’t think it would be today. At some point we all put our toys down, not to pick them up again with the intention of playing with them. I don’t know when it happened to me, but I know that by the time I was in junior high, it was sports and video games – no pretending with toys anymore.

    But the kid did ask me if this was going to hurt the dolls feelings, that she was putting them away up on the shelf. I was like, no, they’re always here when you need them.

  • She’s Got a Point

    “I certainly don’t want to be an angry old artist” – Joni Mitchell

    Neither do I.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Hearing, Tottenham’s Start, and If I Drop 10 Pounds…

    (But that is another story…)

    I can admit that I have a hypochondriac streak. If I feel even slightly off, I assume I’m getting sick. And if I’m sick, then I’m clearly going to die. Recently, a new “symptom” has developed, which may not portend my impending demise; I’m having trouble hearing people. I first noticed this with my kid, though I was skeptical as she does make an art form out of mumbling. But now, when my wife speaks to me from across the apartment, it sounds muffled. Normally, I would blame them, but as I get older, I fear Occam’s Razor is swinging more towards me than not. Yet another body part I need to have checked.

    So… Tottenham Hotspur haven’t lost a match yet. Sure, the toughest game they had was against a weakened United, and their first real test will be against Arsenal on September 24th, BUT until then… I’m going to enjoy the fact that they are undefeated!

    … I can button up this one awesome sports coat I have with leather patches on the elbows.

  • Personal Review: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

    (You better believe there will be SPOLIERS!)

    Let me just start with this; I consider Raiders of the Lost Ark to be the greatest action movie, and I dare say that it is also one of the best movies ever. I could go on and on about how Raiders changed the notion of what an action movie could be, how it’s Harrison Ford’s best performance, and the music is iconic!

    I have done my best not to be a “fanboy” when it comes to all things Indiana Jones, and just let be what it is. I came to terms years ago that nothing will ever match that feeling I had watching Raiders for the first time – the excitement, awe, gasps, and that strange feeling of not knowing where the story was going to go next. I will never get “that” feeling back, and that’s okay. I can still have fun with the other movies in the series.

    But I still went into Dial of Destiny with a well of anxious feelings in the pit of my stomach. Not for me, but for Harrison Ford – he said this was the last Indy film, and I just wanted it to have the conclusion that both he and the character deserve. And I wanted the de-aging CGI to not look all fake.

    And for what Dial of Destiny was, I enjoyed. It was not an Indiana Jones movie in the model of Raiders, Temple, or Crusade. No, what Destiny reminded me of was the “Indiana Jones: Find Your Fate” book series from Ballentine Books which came out in the late 1980’s. Yes, they were a knock off of the “Choose Your Own Adventure” book series, but for this kid, they were an easy continuation of Indy adventures, which kept the morality simple, with this version of Indy always being the good guy looking to keep treasures out of the wrong hands, and hopefully, back into a museum. The stories took place all over the world, Indy always had a “friend” in whatever location who could help out, and there was a very simplified history lesson thrown in for good measure. At least, that’s what I remember, and that’s what Destiny felt like.

    Except in Destiny, after kicking some Nazi ass in the intro sequence, Indy is about to get divorced, retiring from teaching at Hunter College in Manhattan, and acts like a man who has given up. You gotta start low if you need your hero to surmount something. This set up was veering into the world of tropes, as I think this is how Die Hard with a Vengeance starts. After this shaky beginning with older Indy, some life gets injected into the movie when Phoebe Waller-Bridge shows up. She can handle the action and has a gift for delivering the quippy lines.

    And thus, we have our set up, which brings me to why Destiny felt like the “Find Your Fate” books, and that’s not a complaint. The action is split between Indy and this new character, Waller-Bridge, which in the books would have been you, the reader. We jet and sail around the Mediterranean, meet Indy’s friends who always die, and we get a nice history lesson about the Siege of Syracuse and Archimedes. It felt familiar without being fan service.

    What this movie got right was not treating Indy’s age as a joke, or a running gag, or just ignoring it like I think lesser talented writers would do. Destiny had a theme that it stuck to, which was the fear that life has passed you by, the best days are behind you, and there is no where left to go. I know some people will think killing Mutt off was a bit of fan service, but I disagree. That’s a death that would deeply wound, and break a parent, and Indy’s inability to open up about that loss was played very well by Ford. This Indy has serious regrets, and those regrets create an understandable motivation. When Indy and Marion reconcile at the end (and Karen Allen was disgracefully underused in this movie) we can see that these are two people who are hurt and need each other, but have to grow together in dealing with their grief. It is a much more serious ending than I was expecting, but for the totality of the series, Indy needed to not end as a tragic hero that always misses out on getting the treasure; he needed to get the girl and understand his place in the world.

    So, where does Destiny place in the cannon? Here’s my list:

    1. Raider of the Lost Ark
    2. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
    3. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
    4. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

    5. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull