Hunger Games! Grandpa turned 99!
Apr. 6th, 2012 04:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
summersdreamI think the movie is much stronger than the book. /heresy.
No, seriously, I found the movie's additions and subtractions were in general making for a story that ran much more smoothly. The one thing I wish they hadn't changed was the origin of Katniss' mockingjay pin. I do understand why they made that alteration- it avoids Yet Another Character- but still.
And omgRue. I cried through that. :(
I do recommend the movie. It's a fun romp through the post-apocalyptic world and interesting. Although it still annoys the hell out of me that the country is named Bread in Latin when people in the Capitol apparently still know what Latin is. Like, really, we had to literally have Bread and Circuses? Gah.
In other news Grandpa turned 99 without incident. :) But he is getting weaker and his balance is off- though he can still outbrain you, recite Tennyson and Byron and fix your clock while you stand around looking ignorant. Oh and garden. My uncle was sighing because one of his friends is all "You can't let your father work in the yard! At his age!" And Uncle was like "... he's 99 years old, I think he has the right to do wtf ever he wants. And besides, YOU go tell him no. I'll bring the popcorn." Cause grandpa's response is/will be "Aw, shit. Get out of my way." And then you do, because trust me you don't want to have someone with 40 years of teaching high school (and who spent ww2 in the Pacific) to rip into you.
But grandpa is frustrated because his hands are too shaky to do any fine wire work or carving, and of course the fainting/dizzy moments happen and that pisses him off too.
OMG. So his basement is The Cave of Wonders, and he brought out a bunch of them. Including a pair of lamps he found somewhere in India in 1944, which he handed off to me. They're these awesome carved wood things so yey? Then he produced HIS father's college notebooks. Dated Spring term of 1906 and 1904. OMFG. That was trippy, and it made me ashamed of myself because my great-grandfather had KILLER penmanship, and his notes look so awesome. Mine look like a half-literate 5-year-old got loose with ink. o__O And he was using a pen you dipped. I don't even know.
THEN came Grandpa's maternal grandma's (so my... um... great-great grandmother?) elementary school math book, and then his paternal grandma's book of Medicine (that one copyright 1886).
I amused myself for a whole afternoon flipping through the Medicine book- it's for home-made "cures" and treatments for a whole slew of illnesses (some of them I have NO IDEA what they are in modern speak) and then recipes for the syrups, poultices, injections, etc. And then some recipes for food because why not? I think this thing is 1886 Google. I love the recipes for food too but I have a feeling it would take serious trial and error trying to figure out how to cook them in today's ovens because while the ingredient measurements are decipherable the cooking instructions are like "place in a warm oven" or "a hot oven" until it is "baked." >.> Hokay. Also I learned that chloroform should only be administered for asthma attacks by a professional. So, just in case you're at home giving yourself chloroform, stop that.
Great-Grandma's book of arithmetic was also upsetting. I think this roughly translates to 3rd grade-ish? Anyway they had formulas and questions in there I couldn't answer. o___O Granted, I suck at math to start with but I'm upset that my great-great grandparents probably knew more of it in elementary than I did in High School. Yeesh.
But Grandpa got out his college woodworking notebook and that was awesome. Yes, woodworking in college. I don't know, it was 1938?
For reference, on this side of my family: grandpa was born in 1913 and his dad was born sometime in the 1880s, and his grandparents were all older so they were born in general 1860s-50's. That whole string of them all somehow avoided having kids until 30-ish except for the one cousin over there who got pregnant at 13 (in 1900s) and they just didn't talk about her.
My mother tried to explain Game of Thrones to grand-pa. THAT was interesting. He did not see the point of it "One of those stories like grandma used to watch" (referring to my grandma who passed away years ago). Which... I guess? Only lots of sex and violence added. And twincest. Mom left out the twincest, although considering the contents of Grandpa's 'English Theater from Beowulf to Shakespeare' coursework I don't see why she bothered. Grandpa was the one who introduce me to the play 'Tis Pity She's a Whore- and the entire plotline of that is about brother/sister incest and it was first performed in like the 1630's. If you haven't heard of it, it's worth a read-through.
Anyway, he doesn't like Criminal Minds either. He prefers NCIS, Mentalist and RFDTV's Polka Hour. x____x I may have German ancestry but oh god don't make me polka. *cries*
He's also annoyed because the one news station he liked now has some new announcer who talks too fast and Grandpa's like "What is this shit? They don't teach anything in schools these days! Enunciate!" So he just watches sports, and bitches about the president/politics. I find it kind of fascinating when he tees off on politics cause he will rant and be like "back in the 30's it was this other thing..."
Anyway, it was fun. I had hella bad asthma attacks though so I didn't get to be as social with the fam as I wanted to but oh well.
No, seriously, I found the movie's additions and subtractions were in general making for a story that ran much more smoothly. The one thing I wish they hadn't changed was the origin of Katniss' mockingjay pin. I do understand why they made that alteration- it avoids Yet Another Character- but still.
And omgRue. I cried through that. :(
I do recommend the movie. It's a fun romp through the post-apocalyptic world and interesting. Although it still annoys the hell out of me that the country is named Bread in Latin when people in the Capitol apparently still know what Latin is. Like, really, we had to literally have Bread and Circuses? Gah.
In other news Grandpa turned 99 without incident. :) But he is getting weaker and his balance is off- though he can still outbrain you, recite Tennyson and Byron and fix your clock while you stand around looking ignorant. Oh and garden. My uncle was sighing because one of his friends is all "You can't let your father work in the yard! At his age!" And Uncle was like "... he's 99 years old, I think he has the right to do wtf ever he wants. And besides, YOU go tell him no. I'll bring the popcorn." Cause grandpa's response is/will be "Aw, shit. Get out of my way." And then you do, because trust me you don't want to have someone with 40 years of teaching high school (and who spent ww2 in the Pacific) to rip into you.
But grandpa is frustrated because his hands are too shaky to do any fine wire work or carving, and of course the fainting/dizzy moments happen and that pisses him off too.
OMG. So his basement is The Cave of Wonders, and he brought out a bunch of them. Including a pair of lamps he found somewhere in India in 1944, which he handed off to me. They're these awesome carved wood things so yey? Then he produced HIS father's college notebooks. Dated Spring term of 1906 and 1904. OMFG. That was trippy, and it made me ashamed of myself because my great-grandfather had KILLER penmanship, and his notes look so awesome. Mine look like a half-literate 5-year-old got loose with ink. o__O And he was using a pen you dipped. I don't even know.
THEN came Grandpa's maternal grandma's (so my... um... great-great grandmother?) elementary school math book, and then his paternal grandma's book of Medicine (that one copyright 1886).
I amused myself for a whole afternoon flipping through the Medicine book- it's for home-made "cures" and treatments for a whole slew of illnesses (some of them I have NO IDEA what they are in modern speak) and then recipes for the syrups, poultices, injections, etc. And then some recipes for food because why not? I think this thing is 1886 Google. I love the recipes for food too but I have a feeling it would take serious trial and error trying to figure out how to cook them in today's ovens because while the ingredient measurements are decipherable the cooking instructions are like "place in a warm oven" or "a hot oven" until it is "baked." >.> Hokay. Also I learned that chloroform should only be administered for asthma attacks by a professional. So, just in case you're at home giving yourself chloroform, stop that.
Great-Grandma's book of arithmetic was also upsetting. I think this roughly translates to 3rd grade-ish? Anyway they had formulas and questions in there I couldn't answer. o___O Granted, I suck at math to start with but I'm upset that my great-great grandparents probably knew more of it in elementary than I did in High School. Yeesh.
But Grandpa got out his college woodworking notebook and that was awesome. Yes, woodworking in college. I don't know, it was 1938?
For reference, on this side of my family: grandpa was born in 1913 and his dad was born sometime in the 1880s, and his grandparents were all older so they were born in general 1860s-50's. That whole string of them all somehow avoided having kids until 30-ish except for the one cousin over there who got pregnant at 13 (in 1900s) and they just didn't talk about her.
My mother tried to explain Game of Thrones to grand-pa. THAT was interesting. He did not see the point of it "One of those stories like grandma used to watch" (referring to my grandma who passed away years ago). Which... I guess? Only lots of sex and violence added. And twincest. Mom left out the twincest, although considering the contents of Grandpa's 'English Theater from Beowulf to Shakespeare' coursework I don't see why she bothered. Grandpa was the one who introduce me to the play 'Tis Pity She's a Whore- and the entire plotline of that is about brother/sister incest and it was first performed in like the 1630's. If you haven't heard of it, it's worth a read-through.
Anyway, he doesn't like Criminal Minds either. He prefers NCIS, Mentalist and RFDTV's Polka Hour. x____x I may have German ancestry but oh god don't make me polka. *cries*
He's also annoyed because the one news station he liked now has some new announcer who talks too fast and Grandpa's like "What is this shit? They don't teach anything in schools these days! Enunciate!" So he just watches sports, and bitches about the president/politics. I find it kind of fascinating when he tees off on politics cause he will rant and be like "back in the 30's it was this other thing..."
Anyway, it was fun. I had hella bad asthma attacks though so I didn't get to be as social with the fam as I wanted to but oh well.