Onion Watch: Done; The Boot, Day 12

[pameladean]

The Onion Watch is over. Both Cassie and Saffron are fine.

I am very tired of this boot, and yet two weeks is really a very short time to be wearing one of these. It's better since I got the shoe balancer. But that can't be worn outside at this time of year. I ventured out yesterday sans shoe balancer, but with a lot of help from Eric. Fortunately, my winter boots have slightly thicker soles than my regular walking shoes, so the imbalance was less. But my hips, back, and knees set up a huge complaint all the same.

We saw "The Last Jedi" so we could stop avoiding spoilers all over; went grocery shopping; had a late dinner at Pizza Luce, splitting an order of roasted Brussels sprouts and a small spinach salad and then going our own way for the entrees; and went back to his house and conversed and cuddled the cat.

We enjoyed the movie a lot, though the sound balance was such that we missed some dialogue, including, almost certainly, some punch lines. It is thoroughly and unabashedly a "Star Wars" movie; not one of the prequels, but harking back in ways great and small to the first trilogy only with a lot more different kinds of people in it. Of course we had a lot of quibbles. I am gobsmacked, however, at the reactions of a certain group who hated the movie. What they are objecting to is so mild, so nearly anodyne, and yet they can't stand it.  If anybody is moved to discuss any aspect of the movie in the comments, please clearly mark any spoilers. And I'm very short on patience with certain lines of argument.

Being outside was fine while the temperature was above freezing, but when things started to ice up I became a paranoid mass of apprehension.

On Wednesday morning, I will get up, and I will not have to put on the boot. The clinic says that if I have no residual swelling or pain, I'm good to go; otherwise they will refer me to physical therapy.  I am hoping very hard for the former outcome. The swelling is almost gone now, but there is still some twinginess right around the ankle bone.

I'm still reading Anthony Price, and wanted to note down one place where history caught him up, through no fault of his own. In an earlier book, Our Man in Camelot, a bunch of younger agents in Price's imaginary intelligence department, Research and Development, are arguing with David Audley about, well, everything; but Frances Fitzgibbon, my single favorite character in the entire series, refers to "the rot at the top" of the Nixon Administration. Audley shuts her down by saying that it was the rot at the top that brought the boys home from Viet Nam.

This line never did sit well with me, but this time, I thought, "Wait, wait, wait, didn't Nixon act to delay the negotiations that would end the war so that his anti-war presidential campaign would not have the wind taken out of its sails, and so that he could get the credit?"  Yes. Yes he did. The tapes were released in 2013. Lyndon Johnson knew what Nixon was doing, but he figured that Hubert Humphrey would win the election, so he didn't do anything. STOP WITH THAT NONSENSE YOU SELF-SATISFIED BLUNDERING POLITICIANS; IT NEVER WORKS OUT THE WAY YOU THINK.

I want to grab David Audley through the page of the book and give him this information. More than that, I want to give it to Frances.

Pamela

Edited to make an errant sentence have some sense in it.

Comments

[halfmoon_mollie1]

please don't think I"m trying to outdo you. With several broken ankles (both of them, although never both at once) and knee surgery a few years ago, I am almost always a paranoid mass of apprehension when there is ice or snow. I so understand and sympathize. Good luck on Wednesday, I hope you don't need therapy.
many hugs

[pameladean]

Of course I don't think that. I'm well aware that I got off very easily, given my loopy decision to hurry on icy surfaces. I'm glad I'm not alone in my reaction to ice, though.

P.

[graydon]

That is entirely excellent news about the cats!

Physio is not a bad outcome when you need it, even if it's annoying as an experience. I mean, yes, certainly preferable not to need it, but some route to full function is better than not.

[pameladean]

This is the last chance I'm giving them to be so damn lucky, let me tell you.

As for PT, I do value full function and will dutifully do all the things if necessary. I just have a small hope of this being actually over.

P.

[sartorias]

I need to do a massive Anthony Price reread.

[graydon]

May the feline ingenuity not find a worse thing!

"Actually over" is when you've recovered full elasticity and compressibility and bone density probably a few more things, and that's a few months off, alas, joint injuries being wretched slow things in the direction of recovery. NO BOOT shall hopefully prove a much sooner thing.

[kore]

I loved TLJ terribly, maybe more even than TFA or R1. Force Awakens was the Star Wars of my heart (Luke as a girl! what I'd always wanted!) and Rogue One was the "hope in the dark" beauty, but TLJ is like, this is what we do, we survive, we go on, everyone counts, the Rebellion is alive even if it fits in a shoebox. I loved basically everything about it.

I hope hope hope you get to keep that boot off! I HATED mine.

[kore]

I did PT kind of on my own -- IIRC rydra_wong had some exceptionally helpful exercises. (Slowly flexing and unflexing, pointing and flattening, was one, and drawing the alphabet with your toes is another.) Just sitting at my desk, and I didn't do it for very long periods of time, but every 10-15 minutes or so, for weeks. I obviously don't recommend this method because it's so idiosyncratic and probably not what I should have done, but PT at home wasn't that bad.

[rj_anderson]

I'm with you. I love TLJ to a ridiculous degree, not that I think it's perfect (what is?) but that I think a lot of the complaints against it are incredibly shallow and petty, and some people are too invested in what they think the movie should have been (i.e. Luke Skywalker coming back as a flawless hero unchanged by time or experience to save the day, with his cute li'l daughter Rey tagging behind him whose entire existence is now validated by having been sprung from Skywalker loins -- does it count as a spoiler if you're talking about something that DIDN'T happen?) to appreciate what it was.

[kore]

i.e. Luke Skywalker coming back as a flawless hero unchanged by time or experience to save the day, with his cute li'l daughter Rey tagging behind him whose entire existence is now validated by having been sprung from Skywalker loins

OH, PREACH, INDEED

IMHO a lot of the nasty fan boys who really, really hated it (in a trollish way, like having bots vote it down on RT) did so because it wasn't the story of Luke coming back guns blazin' to heroically rescue everyone*, especially Kylo, and it wasn't the story of how Rey rescued Kylo, and it wasn't the story of how Kylo was either redeemed or became the Groovy New Emperor. It was Rey's story (she's the last Jedi, in the twist I liked best), like TFA was Rey's story, and it's gonna be Rey's story all the way through. And, like having a black man in the White House did, that seems to drive some types absolutely insane. They just can't handle it. It blows their minds. -- And as you said, Rey isn't even a Skywalker! Who is this nobody from nowhere taking over their franchise? &c &c.

(Not to brag about The Guy I Married, but Luke is my husband's fave character in the OT, and he loved TLJ and convinced me to watch it and thinks it was a great ending for Luke. So nyah, horrible fanboys.)


*only he did! As a real hero.

[kore]

....LOL, I have many opinions about angry boy-men who go online and try to trash stuff like Ghostbusters 2016, Wonder Women, TFA, TLJ....it's just so petty.

[rj_anderson]

A lot of the bitter anti-TLJ people I know of don't like Kylo at all because he's too emotional (read: "feminine") and still visibly torn between the Dark and the Light, instead of being Vader Mark 2 like they were hoping he'd be. I haven't heard any of them complaining that

[SPOILERS HO]
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Luke didn't rescue Kylo, because they didn't want him to be rescued in the first place -- they wanted to see him completely engulfed by the Dark and taking his place at Snoke's side as the Big Scary Bad of the trilogy. Or, as you said, becoming Renperor (which he... technically is, but I give it about five minutes before Hux double-crosses him and takes over. Like, the minute Kylo decides to take a nap).

Anyway Ben's had a few kick-starts now, between Han and Rey and Luke; I look forward to him waking up and smelling the redemption coffee in Ep. 9. (Also to Luke's Force Ghost haunting the crap out of him, because he pretty much promised he would.) Rian Johnson says that Ben and Rey are "like two halves of our protagonist", and I don't think he was only referring to TLJ when he said it.

You're right that it's Rey's story, though -- we're seeing the majority of it from her perspective and her coming into her own as the Last Jedi is absolutely crucial to the resolution of the trilogy. I love that she's a nobody. I hope the last film doesn't go back on that, because the idea that the Force is tied to the Skywalker legacy is, as we've already seen with Ben, a Serious Problem.

And my husband thought Luke's characterization in TLJ was very much in line with the original trilogy too. It was the first thing he brought up when we talked about it on the way home.

[kore]

A lot of the bitter anti-TLJ people I know of don't like Kylo at all because he's too emotional (read: "feminine") and still visibly torn between the Dark and the Light, instead of being Vader Mark 2

//face in hands

Of course, they wanted Anakin Junior or something. And everyone in the ENTIRE movie is like, "You are not your grandfather! You are not Vader! TAKE OFF THE STUPID MASK" -- Driver really does play Ren as very vulnerable and easily wounded, too. He has no resilience, he's written himself off a long time ago, and after everyone from his parents to his mentor/uncle to the Snokester telling him how BAD he is, I wasn't at all surprised his major motivation was to burn everything completely to the ground. Why save any of it if he thinks he's unsavable himself?

they wanted to see him completely engulfed by the Dark and taking his place at Snoke's side as the Big Scary Bad of the trilogy.

So, yeah, like Vader and Palpatine. (The amount of EXTREME RAGE I have seen over Snoke's lack of backstory is just kinda hilarious. I'm like, dudes, I was THERE, when dinos walked the earth and we saw the OT in theatres! The Emperor didn't have a name! He just SHOWED UP. We rolled with it.)

(The whole "but he's not VADER" thing is also very funny to me because, as an Old who was There, I remember people violently rejecting that Vader was Luke's father. He was lying! It was a trick! His dad was Ben somehow! I think Lucas had to actually come out and say "No, it's true," and then people were even more pissed. How could LUKE, the pure-hearted farmboy Galahad in white, have anything to do with Vader.)

Renperor (which he... technically is, but I give it about five minutes before Hux double-crosses him and takes over. Like, the minute Kylo decides to take a nap).

RENPEROR....I gotta admit, the constant Odd Couple-with-Chokehold bickering between Hux and Ren was amazing. I constantly picture them fleeing on like this little banged-up Imperial freighter nearly killing each other two dozen times a day. And yeah, anyone who turns their back on Hux is a moron.

(Also to Luke's Force Ghost haunting the crap out of him, because he pretty much promised he would.)

LOL, YES, and maybe Yoda can join in too. "Failure you are, like your young Uncle here, heh heh."

Rian Johnson says that Ben and Rey are "like two halves of our protagonist", and I don't think he was only referring to TLJ when he said it.

Yeah, and he made that REALLY evident with Rey's mirror sequence, and then how Rey and Kylo are basically each other's mirrors in the Force Time bits. (I'm sad he's not going to be doing the last film. I loved TFA but JJA is canonically not good at sticking landings.)

And my husband thought Luke's characterization in TLJ was very much in line with the original trilogy too. It was the first thing he brought up when we talked about it on the way home.

I really think it is -- I didn't think he was mean or even horribly cynical at all, Hamill does an amazing job of acting when Rey first holds out that lightsabre to him. He's depressed -- he thought everything he was, his whole identity, is not just a failure but a terrible mistake, he thinks Ren is his fault, he's cut himself off from the Force, he's gone into hiding back where it all started in the hopes it'll all end with him. A lot of people seemed to be saying that Just Wasn't Luke, like Luke couldn't be a hero, or even truly himself, if he was depressed. (Which, as someone with depression, I found....well, depressing.)


(omg sorry for taking over your post with TLJ talk, Pamela)

[lcohen]

i would recommend some sort of PT exercises even if not through your medical folks--you've immobilized it for a bit and it will be good to do some things to build up some loss of strength. i still do my knee PT exercises on both legs--it doesn't hurt anything to try to keep the structure strong and i can do a couple while i wait for things to heat in the microwave which is a good use of that sort of time.

[pameladean]

No, that's totally fine, go for it, I am with you and Rebecca all the way.

P.

[rj_anderson]

Are you sure? Because I have written approximately eleventy billion words of meta since I saw TLJ and I could do this forever. :D But we are all on the same page, which is excellent and quite gratifying, so perhaps there isn't that much more to say.

[pameladean]

I don't mind doing exercises at home, it's mostly the having to go have another medical appointment that I'm balking at. And yet getting some exercises from an expert is a good idea. I'll probably feel more like it when I am actually out of the boot and it's not snowing like there's no tomorrow.

P.

[pameladean]

And every time, I see the trashing, at least the edges of it, before I see the movie or whatever; and if I do see the movie, I always think, "This? This is what upset you?" I always expect some really radical feminist agenda -- WHICH WOULD BE FINE WITH ME -- and it's just common sense and fairness, sometimes a bit constricted. I mean, I also liked TLJ very much, but when you come down to it, the central confrontation, on the dramatic red and white sand, is between two men. [SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER]













The torch is handed to Rey, which I loved, but for this movie, that moment, it's still two men. But that's not enough, I guess.

P.

[kore]

I always expect some really radical feminist agenda -- WHICH WOULD BE FINE WITH ME -- and it's just common sense and fairness, sometimes a bit constricted

Oh dude, seriously. And absolutely fair point with the big dramatic mano-a-mano at the end being between two guys. And Rey had to share the big fight scene in the Shiny Red Room of Evil Power, too. -- All the people screaming about how they expected Luke to go back and have a big saber battle and be heroic -- that's, like, pretty much WHAT HE DOES, with the Force projection whatever twist. (At the same time I loved the little subversion that Luke isn't there to kill or save Kylo, he doesn't really win or lose -- it's all a distraction so Rey and the others can get away. "Lost Ben Solo you did. Lose Rey we must not.") I mean I loved it, but his death is a great big dramatic thing with the sunset(s) and music and cloak blowing off! Compare that to the deaths of Obi-Wan and Yoda, or even Anakin in ROTJ. It's bizarre to me how someone can read that as a defeated non-heroic diminishing castrating character arc end.

The torch is handed to Rey

LITERALLY, SHE has the sabre, mwahahaha (and given how good she was at salvaging on Jakku I have no doubt she can fix it. Maybe Rose can do it too!). And she was the one who summoned it in TFA! MY GIRL. (LOL I could just write passages of hearts and flowers bout Rey all day long)

[pameladean]

SPOILERS ALL THE WAY DOWN:


Luke IS heroic, yes indeed. He radically alters a settled state of mind that must have been very hard to get out of; he gets over himself. And yes, that Tolkienesque touch where the overt drama is just a distraction from some little people trying to sneak through and Do the Actual Thing, was so lovely. I also liked his essentially channeling Han Solo, calling Kylo Ren "kid" in a voice not quite his own. (I don't mean "channeling" literally, but I think he was quoting and imitating Han; ooof.)

And I adore Rey.

P.

[kore]

I also liked his essentially channeling Han Solo, calling Kylo Ren "kid" in a voice not quite his own. (I don't mean "channeling" literally, but I think he was quoting and imitating Han; ooof.)

That just about made me sob in the theatre (well, at that point I was just sobbing anyway....I have cried through the last 20-30 minutes 3 for 3 times so far) it was SO Han.

I thought Yoda's "failure" bit was also so Tolkien! when JRRT points out that Frodo fails at the last, and the one who gets the big "heroic" action of throwing the Ring into the fire (sorta) is the rejected Gollum. I just loved that both Rogue One and this film were so into the "the message got out, we have hope"/"we're here, we can save what we love and go on" themes. It feels like medicine sort of right now.

[graydon]

Still replete with spoilers! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!

My take on it was that they'd finally got someone on the script who had at least heard of Daoism. It's all about "what's right action?" (and about how badly preferring dignity to right action messes you up.) The mirror sequence with Rey, we get the sound of one hand clapping three times. "lifting rocks" -- before enlightenment, work hard. After enlightenment, work hard. Which are more associated with Zen now but have a long history. The tremendous clarity with which you get Rey going "there isn't a light side and a dark side, there's just the Force. You can experience it different ways". The saber-tossing in the fight scene! Yeah, light side, dark side, nope, this is all on you, kiddo. What tools are you picking up to solve what problem? Humility is essential; lofty descent is something of a hindrance.

I mean, I so regret not getting Leia beheading Snoke with a red lightsaber casually extracted from a capacious sleeve, muted Vader theme music in the background; I really wish the consequences of the mutiny were going to be more significant than it looks like they are. I INTENSELY wish the director for the next one wasn't Jar Jar Abrams. But this one? This one -- to my very considerable surprise! -- had something to say. I generally expect Star Wars to be opera; very pretty, much feels, but not substantial. I thought there was something to this one.

[pameladean]

May the feline ingenuity not find a worse thing!

*nods fervently*

I'll settle for NO BOOT. Not that it isn't a technological marvel, but still.

P.

[pameladean]

I'm sure it was better than nothing, and really, given how very much the boot didn't work for you, it was probably vital.

P.

[pameladean]

I'm certainly enjoying mine, bad fairies or no.

P.