You're Doing It Wrong

I recently re-watched the prequels. Probably the first time since The Revenge of the Sith first came out on DVD.

The Phantom Menace is tolerable. The pod racing sequence is still fun.

Attack of the Clones is dreadful. That is the most poorly executed romance in history. It is completely implausible that Padme would fall for someone so whiny and demonstrably unhinged. I think you could have kept Anakin as a complex character and not make him such a weenie. It’s amazing those actors did as well as they did with the material.

Revenge of the Sith had a lot of terrible dialogue but most of the story is okay. There are some parts that I would have done differently.

I’ve seen all the new trilogy, VII, VIII, and IX — what would you call those? The Disney trilogy? I didn’t hate them but I couldn’t summarize them for you.

I’ve seen all the other movies and TV series except the animated stuff. I’d like to watch The Clone Wars series at some point but haven’t tried to yet.

Andor is spectacular. I feel like this is the series that we’ve been hoping for — serious show set in the same universe with new characters and conflicts.

I was an enormous Star Wars fan back in the day.

When the prequels came out I was at the height of my Star Wars fandom. I saw all of them over and over – when you had to go to the theater.

Plus the original trilogy returned to big screen, too, and I repeatedly watched those again.

I can remember spending afternoons watching one of the movies in one theater and then walking out and going into a different theater to see the next one.

It’s hard to imagine how I had so much free time back then.

I don’t remember doing any major rewatches when they came out on video/DVD. I vaguely recall watching all six in order probably as a holiday thing.

Another thing I remember is from way back in the earliest days of the Internet when you had to shovel coal in the oven to get the computer started.

This was even before the prequels. George Lucas said he envisioned the series was going to be 9 films. A prequel trilogy and a final trilogy. Someone on a Star Wars listserv (do the kids today know what a listserv is?) did the math and was thinking if it took 3 years per film how long it would take and how old he would be when it finished?

Hahahahahahaha!

This is the same street as the Halloween houses. It’s right by a school.

The street is one long straight stretch so some cars get zippy.

This didn’t photograph as well as I’d hoped.

I love how new notebooks are all smooth and flat (pile on the right). Then after you’d filled a bunch of pages they get puffy (pile on the left).

I have lots of these notebooks. Notes for writing or writing exercises or if I take a class or meet with other writers.

The smaller one I use intermittently for planning my day. I usually will go a string of days where it goes really well and then there will be a page where I write things like “off the rails” “who knows?” “total disaster.”

Even though I have a bunch of new notebooks waiting to be used, I can never resist buying new notebooks. Every year when school supplies are out I grab a few. This year I was certain I had resisted the impulse for awhile and was finally running low.

I got home and when I went to put them away I found I was not running low. Not even close.

This house is a huge attraction Halloween and Christmas. Amazing decorations.

We like to walk over there if the weather isn’t too bad. Cars lined up through the neighborhood.

I like the young pumpkin heads. (This is only a fraction of their display.)

This one also has little pumpkinheads in the lower left corner.

Another house on the same street. I love how these are posed as if in action.

I brought a bucket of apples from Orleans and spent almost a whole day processing them into applesauce and apple pie filling. I baked a pie that day and I put another batch of prepared filling into the freezer.

Because it’s so dry the apples were dry and weak tasting. I solved this problem by adding apple juice to the cooking apples and a few tablespoons into my pie filling.

I forgot to take a picture of my applesauce and the pie. We netted one giant bowl of applesauce to eat now and a couple of containers for the freezer.

When I slice apples all afternoon like that, I feel it in my hands and wrists afterward.

This was the entire pumpkin crop this year. Disappointing, huh?

I still have a ton of pumpkin in the freezer but I will probably buy a fresh one for my holiday pies.

Normally for November I post every day and I do some sort of National Novel Writing Month goal however things are going to remain busy for the foreseeable future.

At the moment my intention is a small NaNo goal and at least post a photo a day for November. We shall see.

It’s always painful to pull out the tomatoes when there are so many on the vine but the rains were coming and the air getting cold. I did it while I had the chance.

This is one of my best tomato years in a long time. We always had plenty to eat but never enough to worry about processing.

The green ones never taste as good as the ones that ripen on the vine but it’s a nice memory of summer.

These are more shots of my frantic day of gardening before the rain came. I was so busy working on the gravel and planting bed rehab projects that I was neglecting other basic putting the garden to bed chores.

I pulled up all the tomatoes and lots of dead flowers. I picked a bunch of carrots and beets but there are still more out there.

I’ll do another day out there before I’m done.

I also whacked back the rosemary that was getting a big as a car. It smells lovely but looks like a bad haircut.