Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Red Dawn


I’m on vacation this week and next! Woo hoo! I’m spending the first few days here in New York, but tomorrow I’ll be on a plane back to Florida, so I can spend more time with the family. I’ve been down there quite a bit recently -- but that’s because I have an unusually large amount of vacation time this year, due to our company furloughs, and a complete lack of anywhere else to go. (Dave can’t travel because he’s in the middle of the fall band crunch -- so wherever I go, it’s just me!)

Fortunately I actually like my family. Most of the time.

I do have a weekend trip to Washington D.C. scheduled for mid-October, so that will give me a fun excursion. And of course I just came back from my convention in Montreal, which really seemed like a vacation, so I can’t complain!

I went to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, yesterday and found some interesting graffiti to keep me occupied in the afternoon.

Then last night I watched “Red Dawn,” which somehow I’d never seen, even though it’s supposedly a cultural touchstone for people from my generation, with all its Reagan-era paranoia about communists. The image of Russian paratroopers descending on a Colorado high school (and shooting the teacher) is so laughable that I can’t quite get past it. All the actors look so young -- Charlie Sheen, Patrick Swayze, Lea Thompson. “Red Dawn” came out in 1984, the year I graduated from high school. I guess that really was a long time ago...

(Photo: Midtown Manhattan, Sept. 2009)

4 comments:

Barbara said...

I'm not sure which plot is worse -- that of 1984 where everyone is brainwashed or the attack of the Russians in Red Dawn.

I'm into the Atlantis portion of Atlas Shrugged. It's equally surrealistic, but alarming.

With all of these stories, it's nice to be able to pinch yourself and know you are back to reality, as flawed as it is.

Have fun in my birth state. You seem to get there much more frequently than I do!

Reya Mellicker said...

I've never seen it, and now I understand that I don't ever have to. Thanks for that!

Enjoy your time off!

e said...

I was never into Reagan-era paranoia or propaganda, so skipped this when it hit the screen back in the day...

BTW, you asked about the meniscus. The medial and lateral miniscus are discs that form a sort of shock-absorbing cushion for the knee. Tears can be painful, and depending upon their location and the degree of tearing, they are either repaired, left to mend on their own (if minimal) or the broken sections are scoped out arthroscopically. Rarely is the entire meniscus removed because doing so increases the onset and advancement of osteoarthritis of the knee.

Enjoy your vacation.

utahDOG! said...

MOST of the time?! You like us MOST of the time?

That's it...yer mowin' my yard when you get here.