2014 - Book 4b

"The Off Season" - Wisconsin (again)

I must say, I quite enjoyed this one too, maybe even more-so than the first book in the "Dairy Queen" series because it's written more like a book and not quite so much of a narration. The story is good, the characters are developed more, and it was a good, clean book. I'm looking forward to finishing the trilogy sometime soon.

I have decided that I am definitely a sucker for a happy ending. This book wasn't "full of fireworks" happy, but it still had a good sense of closure and promise for a bright tomorrow. To illustrate my love of a good ending, I have decided that pretty much every story has to have one. I made up a happy ending for Javert in Les Mis. I was inspired after seeing Norm Lewis, the guy who played Javert in the most excellent 25th Anniversary Concert edition, on a Cialis commercial. See, it turns out that Javert didn't die when he fell into the river, he just floated along until he found his house and his wife. He decided that Valjean was right all along and he should really stop being such a workaholic and take life easy. He moves with his family to the U.S., loves to watch his son's play little league, and now he has a good job as a commercial actor. Brilliant, right?

Well, I made this up after we'd just finished watching "Coriolanus". I was intrigued by the Shakespeare tragedy after seeing that Tom Hiddleston is currently starring in a production of it in London, and thanks to modern technology, it is being broadcast to movie theatres in the U.S. If you know me, you probably know that I'm a sucker for pretending that I live abroad, so whenever these events come up, I'm pretty excited to go see them. (Anyone want to go with me?) I'm not the hugest fan of Shakespeare though, so I wanted to make sure the story was decent before I paid money to see it in the theatre. I rented the 2011 movie rendition starring Ralph Fiennes and Gerard Butler. It was rather violent and weird (mostly weird because they tried to put it in a modern setting but still used all of the old English language), and of course, depressing because it's a tragedy. Anyways, after thinking up this crazy ending to Les Mis, I figured there was no way I could come up with a happy ending to Coriolanus . . . he is, after all, (SPOILER ALERT) very dead in the end.

But fear not, I did manage to think of something. I know it's kind of silly, but I thought it was fun. So in the story, Coriolanus is a war hero who gets pushed into politics even though he's got pretty poor people skills. He tries to maintain his ideals, but eventually the people (lead by some nasty power-hungry politicians) turn on him and he is banished from Rome. He joins forces with the rebel fighters that he used to oppose in order to fight back against Rome. Delegations from Rome are scared and try to reason with him, but in the end, only the delegation of his mother, wife, son, and some other random lady manage to get him to agree to make a truce. That doesn't sit very well with the rebel leader and when Coriolanus comes back after signing the treaty with the Romans, the rebels kill him. So, I decided that  Coriolanus has a secret identical twin. He is kind of a psychotic sociopath, so he's been imprisoned (and his exsistance hushed up by the family) for most of his life . . . funnily enough, in Azkaban (the wizard prison in Harry Potter). The twin brother bears a striking resemblance to Lord Voldemort, but that's besides the point ;) Anyways, when Coriolanus goes into Rome to sign the treaty, his wife, brilliant detective woman that she is, manages to get the twin brother out of Azkaban and into the waiting car to take Coriolanus back to the rebels. The manipulative mother, not realizing this is her other son (because she's just so caught up in "saving Rome" and the brother is rather in shock and confused about what to do) tells him exactly what he should do . . . go back to the rebels and live with them. Who knows what her real motives are, but he does so, because he really has no idea what else to do. So the real Coriolanus escapes to Sicily with his wife and son and lives happily ever after and the man the rebels kill was evil anyways, so everyone is happy, right? So there you go . . . didn't think I could make a happy ending out of one of the most tragic of tragedies, did you? :) I know . . . I have quite the imagination ;)

Anyways, back in the real world, I made some "healthy" maple pumpkin muffins today . . . aren't they pretty? They taste pretty good too (although the whole wheat flour does make them taste healthy, so it depends on if you like that or not). Here is the recipe: maple pumpkin muffins. I used a little over one Tbsp of water to make the glaze just right. Have a great weekend :)