Starting my "School Year"

I took a quick trip to the parents and enjoyed a day in which my only computer time was downloading books from Project Gutenberg to my dad's e-reader. Instead of being online, I ate my weight in Mexican food and barbecue and got a lot of sleep. Now, it's back to the "real world" and catching up on all the stuff that happened on the Internet while I was off-line. I am rather looking forward to the holiday weekend. After a few very busy weekends (and with a number of busy weekends ahead of me), I have absolutely nothing scheduled this weekend and it's supposed to be cooler and rainy. I'm stocking up on books and am planning to finally get around to watching some DVDs I stockpiled during a Blockbuster store closing sale. I may even do some cooking since it won't be too hot to turn on the stove or the oven. It's going to be jam-making weekend, too, I think.

But before the holiday weekend, I've got a busy week, since this is the week when my schedule gets back to "normal." Children's choir starts again on Wednesday, and this year I have preschoolers. I already know at least two of the kids who'll be in my choir (and better yet, I know their parents). That's added to my usual Wednesday choir rehearsal, and ballet is now on Thursday nights. I guess it's back to school time for me. On the bright side, it is good to have things that make summer different from the rest of the year.

My weekend was too busy to watch any movies, but on Friday afternoon, I did see part of the recent Ridley Scott version of Robin Hood. I missed the beginning, so I was a little lost about what the situation was supposed to be, and there seemed to be a lot of legend and historical revisionism, but I was enjoying the movie. And then it turned into a remake of Saving Private Ryan. The French were landing at the beach in Dover in their medieval Higgins boats, and there seemed to be some shot-for-shot matches. I laughed myself silly. It was like a parody film taking the D-Day scene from Saving Private Ryan and doing it in medieval times and with (somewhat) medieval technology. I hurt myself from laughing so hard. That was the funniest thing I've seen in ages. I don't think it was supposed to be funny. It was the film's climactic scene, and the rest of the film was very serious, but if you like World War II films or military history and want a good laugh, watch the last forty minutes or so of this movie.