 It's bad enough I have to be on alert for the badger that I know is stalking me on my morning run, but now I have another problem. Bats. Yes, those creepy little flying rodents apparently have found a home somewhere in my neighborhood, and last week, I ran in to a colony of them (I was looking down trying to avoid a badger attack) and they weren't too happy about it. Remember Hitchcock's The Birds? Imagine it with bats, and me running through the neighborhood at 5 a.m. screaming at the top of my lungs while bats dove on me, surely intent on sucking the life force from me, or at least messing up my hair. Forget the school children. I set a new record for my 3 miles that morning. Go Me. Of course, the intelligent thing to do when you know there is a colony of bats in the neighborhood is to avoid their nesting area at dawn. However, in my family, we have a saying: If you didn't take a picture, it didn't happen.  So I went back. I thought about dressing as Batgirl to convince the bats that I was one of their own and hopefully they wouldn't attack. However, running in the boots proved to be too difficult and purple isn't really my color. Oh well, it's just one picture, and I knew to stay far enough away that I could outrun them if they noticed me, so what could happen? The colony, I noticed, consisted of a few adults and mostly babies. Babies learning to fly, most of them not very good at it. Cute, in a freaky flying rodent kind of way. I got as close as I thought I could, grabbed my camera and aimed. Flash or no flash at dawn? Flash. Contrary to myth, bats are not afraid of light. However, a sudden flash of light for new babies learning to fly in the pre-dawn darkness is startling, and although the babies were already uncoordinated, the addition of a flash was more than a few could handle. I heard one squeal, just before he hit a tree. I assumed he was laughing.  Not the actual mother bat. Mother Bat did not find it funny at all. They say bats don't attack humans. Well, I know they chase humans, I proved that last week. And if they don't attack humans, what exactly was Mother Bat's intentions as she flew straight toward me, her wings spread to a good twelve feet (estimating), her mouth open and her claws sprung? I don't think she was posing for a picture. And then I heard 'the words' that told me it was time to break a new speed record. As a mother, I can translate those words from any language: French, Spanish, Bat. "YOU MESS WITH MY KIDS YOU MESS WITH ME!" I ran like, like, like....A bat out of Hell. And made it home again with my eyeballs. Bats 1. Kelly 1. I was willing to call it a tie. Until this morning.  Not my tree I grabbed a cup of coffee and went to sit on my back porch with my dog.
I looked up and my pine tree was covered. With bats. They found me. This war is on.
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 I have forced Al into watching a foreign film on Netflix....... He claims he can't read and watch at the same time......
Although I've only met 'Al' once, when I saw the above status update on his wife's Facebook page, I felt his pain. Oh, the dreaded "Honey, put down the book and watch a movie instead," is worse than "I know you say you don't like liver, but, if you just try it..." I imagined poor Al, cradling a good crime mystery, anxious to discover the next twist in the plot, plopping on the couch only to hear, "But it's a great chick flick. Trust me." Poor Al. Been there, buddy. I'm still waiting for the day when my husband says, "Why don't we just sit and read together tonight?" Yeah. Not going to happen. He's a movie guy, and I'm a book girl. But, in an effort to keep the peace, I've developed a sure fire way to read my book AND convince my husband that I'm enjoying his poorly dubbed karate flick at the same time. The most common paradigm in film is the three act structure: Setup, Conflict, Resolution. Use it to your advantage. All you need is six note cards with a few creative lines. The first card: THIS LOOKS GOOD or GOOD CHOICE, HONEY or something else that says, "Yes, you were right, I was wrong, the liver is delicious." Second card: WOW, SHE LOOKS REALLY DIFFERENT IN THIS MOVIE. Since actresses pride themselves on their ability to 'look different', this is a gift line. And your spouse will think you are paying attention. Third card: DAMN or HAHA or WOW. Your movie partner is vested by now. One random word doesn't distract them, but subconsciously makes them believe you are watching. This is your genre specific card, so be careful! You don't want to accidentally HAHA while watching Shindler's List. Dead giveaway. Fourth card: Movie spouse is deep into conflict now. Time to get a little revenge. This is your random speech card. "YOU KNOW, I READ SOMEWHERE THAT THIS DIRECTOR IS KNOWN FOR HIS USE OF LIGHTING AND SPACE, AND THAT SETTING PLAYS A BIG PART IN HIS WORK. IN FACT..." If you get this far, play it by ear. You won't though. What you will get is a "SHHH" from your partner. Golden. Fifth card: The bathroom card. More revenge. "PAUSE IT SO I CAN GO TO THE BATHROOM. I DON'T WANT TO MISS ANYTHING." Ha! Now they have to look at a frozen screen while your journey off, with your book, to take care of business. Final card: YOU WERE RIGHT, HONEY. I ENJOYED THAT. Try not to laugh when you say it. Place these cards in order, every ten to fifteen pages in your novel depending on your reading speed. This gives you a comment about every fifteen minutes, painlessly getting you through a typical hour and a half movie. When you get enough practice, you will be able to mimic your partner and laugh when they laugh, or jump when they jump, and never miss a sentence on the page. When the movie is over, put your cards away for next time, and grab a quick kiss before going back to your book. And don't forget to 'like' your spouse's next Facebook status: The movie was great! Even Al thought so! Yeah.  I recently read a book that was very highly rated and honestly, I would have thrown it across the room had it not been on my Kindle Fire. I wondered if the editor, maybe, fell asleep while going over it. That would be understandable since I knocked out at least six times in the first three chapters. This seems to be happening a lot to me lately--get the 'must-read' of the season and then I hate it.
This has always been a problem for me when it comes to movies. It seems all that a movie needs to be a huge hit is for me to hate it. How do you find a book or a movie that you will love? Just ask me, and do the exact opposite. I know pretty much every woman on the planet loved Dirty Dancing. Except, of course, me. Sure, Patrick Swayze was fun to look at, but that was about the extent of my interest. First of all, the dancing wasn't that dirty. Second, Baby was a dork. Another one that makes me cringe that others seem to like is Footloose. Semi-cool kid moves to small town and all he wants to do is dance. That is way cool, man. Saturday Night Fever goes country. Cool guy wins a race in a bus against a kid whose dad owns a track, even though cool kid has never driven a bus before. Cool kid falls for (of course) the preacher's daughter. Sorry, I had a cliche seizure about halfway through that one. Then there is my all-time (NOT) favorite: Rudy. Oh, I know, it's an inspirational film. You can do anything you set your mind too, blah, blah, blah. It should have been promo-ed as "If you are willing to let an entire football team kick your ass for ten years, they may let you on the field for one play." Not very inspiring to me. Sounds more like a death wish. As for the movies? Put Baby in a corner and give me franks and beans every time. I'd rather be beaten with a wire hanger than watch Kevin Bacon acting cool at a high school prom. And Rudy? No. A football team is supposed to be dancing together to Gloria Gaynor in a jail cell, not beating the crap out of the little guy. |
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