Whatta Fiasco

It’s not just any day that you’re pulling into the parking lot of your local steak house to have dinner after a movie. Ok, so maybe that could happen any day, but you’re not so likely to see two guys in white jackets, masks, gloves and sabers going at it in the parking lot. But that’s hat happened after Nanny McPhee. The weirdness was that in spite of wearing quality gear, they clearly had very little idea of what they were doing. So hubby stopped to say hello, give them a quick lesson and let them know about our Thursday night classes in town. And then we went and had our dinner. Just another evening out on the town.

Dear Emma Thompson, please make more children’s movies any time you like. This one was delightful. The colors were lush and textured. The characters were as broadly drawn as need be for comedic effect. It tugged on the heart strings without descending into treacle. And even if the pretty young thing gets married at the end, there are plenty of female characters who are allowed to be who and what they are, for good or ill. And I’m ashamed of not realizing that Thomas Sangster (Simon) was familiar because I’d just seen him in Tristan and Isolde. But next time? Please skip the CGI donkey. Please.

For months and months now I’ve found myself thinking that I really need to go back to Lulu’s noodle shop for some tom kha gai. I’d end up eating some at a restaurant in Lawrence and find myself remembering the Lulu’s version fondly. So today I decided to turn thought into reality. I got a take out order of the soup and some spring rolls. Hmm.

The spring rolls do not appear to have basil in them. They are otherwise good, but the lack of basil is a serious bit of lacking. Not only did I miss the green flavor but also the sight of the leaves through the translucent rice paper. No basil. And the condimental shredded purple cabbage was limp-ish. As if it had been sitting in the cooler since yesterday morning. Not entirely limp, but not the crisp freshness one expects in a garnish.

Then the soup had no mushrooms. And although the broth was pleasant enough, it just wasn’t the tom kha gai I remembered.

It was another lightly attended first practice after a tournament night. But we once again had enough folks to get plenty of good fencing in. It was an opportunity for me to continue the work on setting my hand position that I had started during the tournament. And I got to work on it while dealing with an interesting bit of lesson material D. had just worked on. It’s pleasant to be able to fence a B rated fencer and have both off us get plenty out of the experience. And then I took a lesson that got me well into frustration mode, to the point that we cut it short just as I was starting to figure it out. It being a variation on the drill I’ve been taking: feint to wrist, small lunge to chest, but then fleche to chest with a take. My feet were feeling clumsy and sore resulting in too short a fleche with an awkward follow up step that resulted in a sore hip, but that mostly worked itself out by the next day.

Nothing terribly exciting on Wednesday’s practice. The hip was completely recovered and I continued to work on the stuff I’ve been working on. Bouting and more bouting. And Friday was more fo the same, but with some visitors in from Emporia.

But no tournament this weekend and possibly no fencing for me next week because of schedule conflicts.

I’ve gotten into the habit of taking a day off after a hard tournament, and the Icicle certainly qualifies. But my work schedule didn’t allow for that this time around. Thus, it was a pleasant surprise when, along about lunch time on Monday, I realized that going to fencing practice that night not only wasn’t going to kill me, but was something I wanted to do. (It’s a sickness, I tell you.) And then I stressed one hip enough to make it sore, but that’s almost entirely better already. Whence come these miraculous powers of recuperation? Strike that. I don’t really want to know so long as it keeps on happening. I’m happy.

I’m also happy that the work stuff has smoothed out amazingly well. Very happy. Now if I can just shoehorn an extra thirty-two hours or so into this week, I’ll be ecstatic. Ha.

Another in a long series of lessons on fencing to your personal goals instead of fencing for victories. The good news is that I did a very acceptable job of achieving those goals and never mind that I didn’t have any wins at all. But it was an excellent tournament with lots of good fencing and plenty of drama. And even without any wins, I managed to make some very good fencers a bit nervous.

And my very best fencing of the day was my last of the day, my DE against Jann Ream. The last time I fenced Jann was in a pool bout in last year’s Icicle and I think I got two touches on her. This was a little different. We finished the first period at (I think) 6-5, her advantage. But I’d been ahead or staying close the whole time. It was a very patient, very mental game, and I’d managed to out think her a few times along the way. The second period saw my focus waver a bit. I took a few more risks and we ended at 14-8, her advantage. I got my focus back and was feeling good physically in the third period, so it took her a decent portion of it to finish me off. So I went from worrying that this excellent fencer was going to walk all over me, to lasting well into the third period and doing a decent job of it. My being last seed and her being first seed only made it that much more satisfying. I wish I’d fenced that well the entire day, but I’m pleased I was able to pull that off at the end of two events, and even after the three periods, I wasn’t physically or mentally exhausted. This bodes well.

The DE against Fitz Tsen in the mixed? That was a nice lesson on the strip. I got in a couple of hits that he was very much not expecting. But he also pulled a sneaky on me: to failed toe touch attempts to set up a feint that I got suckered into. Which isn’t to say I’m not happy to have avoided the toe touches (you can bet he would have taken them if I’d let him), but I need to watch out for that in the future from other fencers. It was an excellent reminder.

Mixed Epee Pools:
Adams 1-5
Williamson 3-5
Cermak 3-5
Dumas 0-5
Franz 2-5

Mixed epee DE:
Tsen 6-15

Women’s Pools:
Forrester 3-5
Franz 0-5
Deitrich 4-5
Bush 2-5

Women’s DE:
Ream 8-15

Because of MLK day, it’s another short week of fencing practice. Even with the short week, we were missing a few people on Wednesday night that we had expected to show, but it’s not that unusual for people to blow off a practice right after a tournament. Especially with yet another and bigger tournament this coming weekend. (Is one extra practice really going to make a difference?)

Still, we had plenty of people to get fencing done. In some ways having these lightly attended nights is good because we’re able to do extended bouting instead of rotating through five touch bouts to give every one a chance on the strip. And extended bouting is exactly what I did. J. and I mixed it up until I was tired enough that I was having trouble focusing my eyes on anything other than the wire mesh of my mask. After a break to cool down, D. and I got up on the strip and did pretty much the same thing. After another break I got a repeat of a drill I seem to have been working on for over a month now and still don’t quite have the end action down, Touch to the arm, disengage, lunge to the chest, retreat with take six, hit, fast double retreat with take eight and lunge. My problem is getting the last retreat fast enough and big enough to open enough distance to be able to lunge at the end. It’s even tougher when you’ve already fenced your way to tired, but that’s also a great time to get a lesson. After another break, H. and I got on the strip and fenced like tired poopyheads. I had enough brain cells working to know that I just wasn’t making it happen, but not enough to realize at the time that it as because I didn’t have enough brain cells working.

I expected Friday night to be a lightly attended practice as several people were planning on driving to Lincoln in order to fence early on Saturday morning. But we had more than I expected show up. It would have been enough for a decent practice anyhow, but this way we kept both strips busy with epee most of the evening. So, not a bad workout. I was feeling a little soreness from the upper body stuff I did at the gym Thursday night, but it wasn’t enough to interfere with my fencing.

And now to hit the road for Lincoln to fence epee at the Icicle Tournament tomorrow.

As I’ve said before, when Terry Pratchett is good, he can be very good, but he’s also capable of wide misses. This, a further adventure of Sam Vimes and the city guard, manages to be something in the middle. It has its moments and its share of characters, but it feels a bit half-hearted. On the other hand, there’s a nice tie-in available. You too can have your very own meta-version of Where’s My Cow?, the bed time story Sam reads to his son. It’s cute.

Hooray for getting back to the gym for the first time in a week. A week does seem to be about as long as I want to go without that level of workout. And no, fencing practice and tournaments aren’t the same thing at all. And tonight I decided that the nautilus machines weren’t so scary. I should have figured. Pictures and everything. I also decided that after eight on a Thursday night will be a very good time to hit the gym and enjoy the hot tub and sauna.

Work is still being a pain. The current particular pain is going to get a visit from me tomorrow morning. Joy.

There was one summer when I read both The Divine Comedy (in a verse translation) and two different versions of Tristan and Isolde. The Dante was much the better of the bunch and I wasn’t holding much hope for this film, particularly since hearing that they’d jettisoned the whole love potion part of the story. But it is a clunky story to begin with, so I knew they’d have to do some major revisions in order to make it work on the screen. Within five minutes of the film beginning I had one word to describe the entire thing: texture. More Texture! More! Set dressing, scenery, costume; all were prepared in the service of providing more visual texture. And I thought the textiles in Gibson’s Hamlet were over the top.

Ha! Ha, I say! I just looked up the costume designer (Maurizio Millenotti, in case you were curious) and guess what other film he worked on? Oh yes. The Zeffirelli Hamlet with Mel Gibson and all those especially designed and hand knit sweaters. There is something wrong with the world when I can pick up on that sort of detail. (It turns out he also did the costume design for The Passion of the Christ, which I haven’t seen and am not likely to see any time soon.)

There’s also something wrong with the world when we’re told that, by tradition, the knights ride out on the night of the full moon. And then we are treated to a full screen shot of a moon. One that isn’t full. Maybe the story was set so long ago that full moon weren’t as full back then? Maybe the not quite full moon provided more textural material.

Did I mention all the texture? The water and the islands, and the Scottish looking hillsides resident in Cornwall (snicker) were all just gorgeous. But someone forgot to spend money on the script. You could have cut three-quarters of the dialog presented and still have had a perfectly understandable movie. The only actor who manages a true screen presence through all that is Rufus Sewell, as Lord Marke, and you’ll recognize him. He steals show in a major way. Everyone else is mostly forgettable.

I wonder what the film would have been like if Ridley Scott had directed it as originally planned?