Incoherent Scribblings

One of my guilty pleasures here in Germany is watching on a semi-regular basis The Bold and the Beautiful. I know it is cheesy, but The Bold and the Beautiful has always been one of my favorite soaps and I was delighted to learn that it runs here in Germany.

It is dubbed into German and I find it extremely easy to understand. (Incidentally, I have greatly improved my German vocabulary relating to sex, betrayal, romance, and the like…) The funny part is, when I found it on TV here and started watching it, they were running episodes from almost exactly where I stopped watching it in 1999. It was like I never left! The few episodes that I missed I was easily able to catch up on, because believe it or not, there is a Bold and the Beautiful Archive out on the Web. At that point the story lines of my favorite characters were quite good and I hated to stop watching, but alas! I had to start working.

** Warning! Trivial blabbering about the soap opera’s plot from 1999/2000 follows. If you aren’t interested in that kind of stuff please, exit now and read my most popular and commented on blog entry. **

Anyway, those story lines have played themselves out and now the story lines are terrible and only partially relate to my favorite characters. And that is what I would like to bitch about. These awful story lines!

The first story line is indirectly related to my favorite character, Amber. The long story short is Amber’s cousin, Becky, has cancer and is going to die. (I guess “Becky’s” contract must be up.) Posing as Becky, Amber found out Becky had cancer… but here is the stupid part… Amber can’t bring herself to tell Becky that she has cancer! Becky feels and looks shittier every day, but thinks there is nothing wrong! Hello! I know it is a soap and everything, but who in their right mind would keep something like this from someone they claim to love? Grr! Luckily, according to the archives, this story line is almost over. Thank God!

The second story line is just as stupid. Morgan, who I suspected from the beginning was the new “crazy” character, had an abortion many years ago. Now she wants to have a baby and decided to go with invetro (sp?) fertilization. However, she keeps having abortion nightmares and flashbacks. So when she goes to get the process done, she freaks out in the doctor’s office because it reminds her of the abortion. I will admit I don’t like Morgan’s character, but here is my question. In all the years since the abortion has she never been to the gynecologist? I just find the whole freaking out in the doctor’s office plain stupid! And according to the archives this story line is going to go on for some time… the silver lining is, yes I was right, Morgan is the new “crazy” character! What would a soap be without one?

Anyway, even though the story lines currently stink, I will probably continue to watch it until I find a job or have some other conflict, because I just love it!

I finished A Thousand Acres yesterday. Now, I know I promised a book review but after I thought about it, I remembered that I am not really very good at writing book reviews.

Actually, I find this kind of amusing since I majored in literature as an undergrad and have worked as a librarian for many years. But I really suck at writing book reviews. I can write a lovely plot summary or a deep essay comparing and contrasting A Thousand Acres with King Lear, but a simple book review, forget it!

I can’t write a book review for two reasons: 1.) In a fiction book review you really aren’t supposed to give away the ending and I always do and 2.) The thoughts I have while reading a book and the days afterwards aren’t really review-material. I tend to ask myself lots of questions about the plot, the characters, and their motives, and while trying to answer these questions, I also ponder what the books means to me, but I always find it difficult to form a solid opinion on a book that I want to share with others.

Of course I form an opinion on a book and can tell you what I personally thought about it, but in truth, I am reluctant to dump my recommendations on others. The fact is not everyone likes reading the same things that I do and because of this, whether they find a book worthy or not is a very personal decision.

Take the book Angela’s Ashes for example: This book won all sorts of awards in 1996, including the Pulitzer Prize and was on the New York Times Bestseller List. Many people considered it a “must read.” My well-meaning aunt bought it for me for Christmas and after I read the back of the book, it sat on my bookshelf until one day I was desperate for something to read. I read it in one sitting and my first reaction was, “Yuck. I really didn’t like this book.” And then, “So, what was the fuss all about?” Personally, I didn’t really even think the book was all that well-written. But who am I to tell someone else that this book isn’t worth reading? Obviously, other people have enjoyed it and thought it award-winning… but me, I sold it the first chance I got after I read it.

I have always been a member of the literature school that promotes reading what you want and thinking what you want about it. As far as A Thousand Acres goes, I enjoyed reading this complicated book full of plot twists and Shakespearean-style tragedy and if you enjoy that sort of thing, I would definitely recommend it. However, if you don’t, then I would say don’t read it. It’s all up to you.

I will confess that I have been really tired of this whole Iraq War thing for… oh I don’t know, since before it began, and never have had any desire to put anything about it on my blog before today.

However, since these torture pictures came out I keep thinking about the people that took the photos of the prisoners. Yeah, the photos disgust me and all, but what I don’t get is why the soldiers took these pictures in the first place.

Not so much because only a moron would be stupid enough to take them without thinking that eventually the press would get ahold of them, but what the hell were these people planning to do with these photos in the first place?

Were they going to put them in their “Iraq War” photo album so that years down the road they could browse through the pictures and tell their grandchildren, “Look Sara, these are the pictures of the Iraqi prisoners that your grandfather tortured back in the days when war was about oil and anyone who was a Muslim was a terrorist?”

Man, I just don’t get it!

Today on Dear Abby, I saw this list sent in by one of her readers:

A Mother’s Job Description from A-Z:

• Accountant
• Baker
• Coach
• Dressmaker
• Electrician
• Financial adviser
• Grief counselor
• Health-care practitioner
• Interior decorator
• Judge
• Kitchen Manager
• Lender
• Mediator
• Nutritionist
• Office clerk
• Psychic
• Quartermaster
• Restaurateur
• Supervisor
• Taxi driver
• Underwriter
• Victim’s rights advocate
• Weightlifter
• X-ray vision expert (OK, but for years I THOUGHT she had it!)
• Yard maintenance assistant
• Zookeeper

I know my mom reads my blog from time to time, and so if she is reading today, I just want to tell her that I love her and Happy Mother’s Day.

I hope all of you out there have also told your mothers how much they mean to you today.

A while back, we joined a gym with the goal of going twice a week so that we could be a little bit better shape this summer and go hiking and swimming. We have actually been doing pretty well, I must say.

For our membership fee, we also get use of a sauna and a solarium (aka tanning bed). I don’t really like saunas and since I have fair skin, I seldom go to tanning beds. However, when I do, I just go as many times as necessary to get a “base tan.”

Anyway, we are hoping to go to Greece later this summer to visit A.’s relatives and so yesterday I decided I would like to try out the tanning bed and work on getting a “base tan” not only in anticipation for my trip to Greece later in the year, but also so that I won’t have to worry about my skin so much when we go swimming and hiking this summer.

I was in the tanning bed for only ten minutes, but managed to get a “sunburn” (OK, UV-burn) anyway. It is not too bad, except my chest. Typically my chest doesn’t get any sun and it is really white and I guess it just really soaked up the UV rays. It is all pink and itchy today. I know I will heal, but I am just kicking myself… but who would have thought a mere ten minutes could do that kind of harm?