November 8, 2011

Update, and What I'm Reading

It seems a lot has been going on lately. I haven't blogged as much as usual lately, and I feel bad about it!

I've been hoping for early snow this year, as I've been more excited for the fall/winter seasons this year. Last week, my wish was granted. After weather in the 70s all week, temperatures plummeted Tuesday night, and it snowed 14 inches by Wednesday mid-morning. The next day it was 50 and then back up to 70s again, until this last Tuesday night the exact same thing happened, except not as heavy and destructive. Welcome to Colorado! Generally when we have a forecast of 3-6 inches of snow, we are lucky to get enough to cover the grass and sticks around past the afternoon. This time, we got double or three times more than expected. It was wet and heavy with incredible packing power (perfect for making forts and snowball ammo for kid snow days), but unfortunately the trees and power lines couldn't handle this massive dumping of powder from above. A third of the town was without power for more than a day (some places up to three days), and our phone line was cut. We (and about everyone else in town) lost huge branches and entire trees, because they hadn't yet lost their leaves, and the weight was just too much. The second snow didn't do much damage, but a few more branches fell. All the havoc out there happened, but it was covered in a beautiful blanket of snow :-)

Also, I was sick. It had been coming on a few days before the first snow, but I thought it would pass. Instead, about 11:30 on snow day central, I went back to bed and could not muster the energy to do anything until after 7, when my fever finally broke. I didn't even want to get up to look for medicine, so when my boyfriend got home to take care of me, he scrounged around for some. All we had is some Dayquil that expired in 2003. EIGHT YEARS AGO. I think it's time to go shopping, yikes!

We also had a busy weekend that week. Bar Friday, hockey game Saturday (GO EAGLES), and a movie on Sunday night. Which film, you ask? The Three Musketeers.



A brief history:
Once upon a time a movie came out about a book. It had a man who'd played Jesus in it (Jim Cavezel, if anyone was curious), and The Time Machine Guy (Guy Pearce), so a girl's mother bought it and took it home. The movie was The Count of Monte Cristo, and though neither of them knew it was based on a book at the time, they both loved it. Fast forward several years. The girl grows up and becomes a book blogger/enthusiest, and finds out a bit about Alexandre Dumas. Although she has wanted to read his work, she has been intimidated by the size and length of his books. The Count of Monte Cristo was always at the top of her list, with the Musketeers a scant second. Though she found an adorable edition one day she couldn't pass up. Then, she saw the movie.

All in all, I liked the film. Seemed much more steampunk that it probably should have been, and it was a typical modern action movie (think Sherlock Holmes esque). But I didn't believe the movie had the story right AT ALL. I mean, it's called the THREE Musketeers for a reason, right? This conundrum running through my mind-the sabotage (I thought) of a great story, motivated me to finally pick it up.

So far I'm about 200 pages in, but I realized as soon as I picked it up that I was wrong.




I LOVE this book. I'm telling you guys, I didn't expect to. Nothing about the story or description or times ever really interested me. So I'm glad I saw the movie - otherwise I don't' think I'd have caught on quite as fast (which is grounds to quit reading early on for me, in big books such as these). Also, I'd have NEVER pronounced D'Artagnan correctly, I took Spanish, not a lick of French.

One drawback, I know NOTHING of French history. I will try to read a bit of that on the side, but I plan on doing more than one post on this book, since it will take me awhile to read (it's only a few pages less than a thousand). I think finishing a book of this length (which I can't actually remember ever doing), will boost my confidence to tackle more larger books. Believe me, I have enough door-stops on my shelves to fuel my reading for probably two years (if that is all I read...and even then, maybe up to five years! I have a lot of books!).

Hope you guys will bear with me while I digest this one, and maybe next time read a big 'un with me :-)

Hope you are all well, keep reading, and I'll see ya next time :-)

1 comment:

Steven E. Belanger said...

The good news is that once you finish reading a Dumas book, it makes an excellent door-stopper. A hardcover edition can be used as a weapon, in an emergency.