Friday, October 7, 2011

7 Quick Takes, Volume 8


--1--

Only four more days until Nicholas Sparks' new book, The Best of Me, comes out! (Click here for a sneak peek.) Now I'll have to decide: should I go out and buy it IMMEDIATELY and read it, or wait until I'm ready to "cook" it for this blog?

Decisions, decisions. Maybe I'll at least re-read The Choice first, since that one is next in line here.

--2--

There is a new show in the works at ABC; it's a drama co-written by Nicholas Sparks called Watchers. HollywoodReporter.com has this to say about it:
The project revolves around the Archangel Raphael, who after spending centuries as a Watcher and invisibly providing support to humans in the time of need, decides to cut off his wings out of love for Sarah, a mortal woman, so that he can truly be with her for the rest of her days.

When Sarah’s life is cut short, Rafe is left to wander the Earth solo as a fallen angel. Dependent on the kindness of strangers and hunted by angels from above and below, Rafe travels undercover, performing miracles as he searches for the meaning of loss and clues to Sarah’s fate.
It will be interesting to see how it's received by folks in the Catholic media world. I expect some will find the concept of an archangel falling in love with a mortal to be problematic, but who knows? I will definitely be on the lookout for this one.

--3--

It kind of reminds me of a movie that came out about fifteen years ago: remember Michael, starring John Travolta?

Two struggling tabloid reporters and an "angel expert" are sent by their boss to check out an old kook who claims to have an angel living with her. Sure enough, the guy's got wings, but he's also into smoking, drinking and womanizing. Unconvinced that Michael (John Travolta) is not an Earthly being, the reporters take him to Chicago, when Michael's unconventional methods begin to work heavenly magic. Director Nora Ephron also wrote the script. (Source: Netflix)


I don't remember much about the movie; I think I enjoyed it, even though it was irreverent. (Or maybe I hated it. I don't really remember.) I know I wondered at the time if the real archangel Michael would chuckle if he saw it, or whether he'd just be annoyed. I found a review that was put out by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. (Thanks to Steven Greydanyus from DecentFilms.com for helping me find it!) They weren't too terribly impressed.

--4--

One night last week as I was lying in bed with my iPad, Curly came upstairs and heard me laughing hysterically. He wandered in to see what was so funny. This:



--5--

Of course, I just had to try it.

First of all, when I tried smashing the head of garlic with my hand, nothing happened except that it hurt like heck. I ended up smashing it with a crab mallet.

I didn't have two bowls that were the same size, so I had to settle for a smaller one nested inside a larger one.

After shaking the garlic around in the bowls for ten seconds, there were only two cloves that actually came out of their peelings.

I gave the bowls another shake, and managed to get two more cloves free, and had to do the rest by hand. I will say that it made it easier because the peelings were shaken loose and were easier to remove, so I think I will keep using this technique.

Curly says next time I should let HIM try it; he says I'm just not smashing the garlic hard enough. I suppose I'm just a wimp.

--6--

The weekend before school started, I cleaned out Moe's backpack (that's right, I didn't look inside it for three months) and found these pictures he had made last spring in art class.



Moe came wandering in as I was working on this blog post, and saw these pictures. "MO-om, don't put those up there!" "Please?" "If you put them up, can I skip Tae Kwon Do tonight?" I was thinking of letting him skip it anyway, since I wasn't sure if I could get him and Curly there, run my errands, AND pick up Larry from play practice at school. So now I'm a wimp AND a pushover.

--7--

STELLAR SPARKS TWEETS

A few weeks ago, Nick went to Africa on a safari. (I presume to celebrate his finishing The Best of Me.) On Sept. 22, he posted a few photos on Twitter. Click on the tweets to see them!




Pretty cool.

Have a great Columbus Day weekend, and be sure to check out Jen's Conversion Diary blog for more Quick Takes!

2 comments:

  1. Sharon, the new novel is set in my parents' town, Oriental, NC. Mom and Dad came to visit last week and she brought the book - we had fun identifying people and places. I'm not sure what they eat, though - I'll look again! - Cheryl

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  2. Hi, Cheryl! I'm almost finished with his new book. I thought about you when I saw it was set in Oriental! :) I've never been there. Not much to eat in that one--steak and pasta, maybe chicken salad. Thanks for visiting!

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