Deputy's Girl's Blog

Easter

This is the last Sunday before Easter.  There is just this Sunday of nominally Catholic, low church nonsense to suffer through before going home for Easter and a proper Triduum Sacrum.  However, that's not really what's on my mind.

I miss my parents.... their poodle, not so much.  But I want to see Mama and Daddy and I can't wait  to see my daughter. 

I haven't seen her in over six months and in that time she's become a completely different person.  She looks better and happier than I've seen her in more than five years.  In point of fact, she looks and seems like *herself* again.  And besides that I have desperately missed my grandkids - the eldest of which was my "time-share baby" as an infant.  I am so anxious to get there that I am going to attempt to convince my Pal that it really would be rather a good idea to leave here at three a.m. on the day we're scheduled to travel. 

Sadly, things will be a blur for the three incredibly short days we'll be in Texas.  There's so much to do, no time to do it and I'm going to have to prioritize, which seems so very unfair.

1)  I want to have a four generational professional photograph taken with Mama, Sissie, Tink and myself but it will depend upon Sissie's work schedule and Mama's inability to adhere to anyone's schedule but her own.  (That's not tacky by the way, it's just the way she is.)

2)  I want to see a dying friend.  I've known her all my life (my mother's best friend) and this is probably the very last opportunity I will have to see her alive.

3)  I want to spend time with my cousin who isn't well and has recently had surgery, as well as her sweet husband, with whom my Pal instantly bonded when they first met.  I love them dearly.  Dennis and I both miss them.

4)  Lastly, I want to attend as much of the Easter Triduum Sacrum at St. Mary the Virgin as I am able. 

Thank goodness most of the solomn rites (church services) for Easter are vigil masses and occur at night after the parental units close up 'the lockdown', the cousins are snug in front of their television set watching sit-com re-runs, and the grandkids are settled at home with their Mom, and because she worked all day is not likely to be able, or willing to go anywhere - much less a two and a half hour Catholic mass!

My job then, for the next four days, is to make certain I get everything done here so that the three precious days we are there won't be spoiled worrying about anything but the need to make certain I spend as much time with the people I love, doing the things I went home to do.

 

Life on Mars

Last night, the ONLY television program my husband and I watch ended......in an absurd, silly, shoddy and completely unsatifying way.

Those of us who have been watching 'Life on Mars' since it's beginning, have had an enjoyable time imagining and discussing just where Sam really was and how he was going to "get home".  Was he in a coma?  Was he dead and this was his after-life?  Would he and Annie become a couple, or would she be an old woman when he got back to 2008?  Would he choose to stay in 1973?  Was there a reason for the year 1973?  Now we know, and the answer was anything but thought out or pertinent.

ABC has a lot to answer for.  Not only did they cancel - in our opinion - the only program worth watching in their otherwise lame-excuse-for-entertainment line up; they allowed sophomoric hacks to write the ending.  I COULD HAVE WRITTEN A BETTER FINALE.  The so-called writers, responsible for the final episode, didn't even follow the basic story writing principles taught in elementary school!  Viewers were left with the impression that those hired to write the last episode never even saw the program.  They simply threw together a random group of scenes with which to end the series in such a way as to make it impossible to resurrect.  In a nod to the actual story line, the writers threw in one or two gratuitous references to it's original plot but no real resolutions.  Many of the interesting twists and threads in Sam's story were left dangling in mid air - or should I say space? (Bad pun intended.)

I suppose it's a sad statement of just how small our lives have become when we even care about the outcome of a television program.  But, to my mind the sloppy, half-thought-through finale is simply another case in point, illustrating the degree to which craftsmanship and pride in one's craft no longer exist or even matter;  hey, it's only about the money anyway, right? 

Not every film or program has a happy ending. Such is life.  But my Pal and I were truly appalled that writers who are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year were allowed to violate all the accepted rules of story telling, and in doing so subject talented professional actors to their excremental dribblings.  Personally, I feel sorry for the actors.  The new faces introduced to us through 'Life on Mars' proved to be good solid thespians led by one of my old time favorites, and in the end, the script writers made them all look foolish.  It is a testament to their professionalism that they carried off the last few scenes of the last episode with straight faces.