What we do When we're Sick

D and I have been sick. Go ahead-groan if you've been around us cus it def. means you'll be getting sick, too. This sickness knows no bounds.

So yesterday, he ran me a nice warm bubble bath complete with candles and tasty aromas and I changed into clean, non-sick pjs and it was great. Then D tucked me into bed with the space heater murmuring me to sleep and Bogey at my side. Bogey thinks it is his job to care for me and since this is the first time D has been the one to really take care of me when I'm sick, Bogey felt pretty territorial and didn't like sharing his responsibilities. Every time D came to the bed, Bogey would jump out from beneath the bed and growl at him. It was cute that they respected each others territory and assumed their individual responsibilities. Here is a shot of Bogey caring for me:

It's a bit on the blurry side, but you get the picture.

Soon, though, my disease infested my caretaker and before I knew it, we were both on the couch, bundles up, sharing a box of tissues, eating soup from Panera (I was so stir crazy I had to get out of the house! So I went for meds and soup), and watching the first season of 24. D had never seen it before and I own it, so what better time, right?

Sometimes, now that we don't have cable, I forget how much I like the show 24. It's so dynamic. We have had an ongoing discussion in our house about television characters and the actors that play them. For example, Hugh Laurie plays Dr. House and he is simply magnetic. The character is incredibly diverse and multi-faceted, which draws watchers to him, and he's full of character flaws, which makes him human and dislikable, yet he saves lives and has this quirkiness that forces you to like him! The question we kicked around for a while was: Could anyone, any actor, have played House in such a way that he'd be just as intense of a character as Laurie's portrayal of House? 

We decided against it. I don't think they could've cast someone else in the role that would've been better than Hugh Laurie. Especially considering Laurie plays all the instruments House plays (which brings up the idea of art mimicking life, of course). He is originally of British descent so his accent is learned rather than natural and, therefore, the very way he speaks his lines is affected by his acting. An American actor wouldn't have to inflect in the perfect way Laurie does because he would take his "American dialect" for granted in a way Laurie does not. Another actor may not be as musically inclined or trained in theatre like Laurie is. It's hard to imagine that Dr. House without Hugh Laurie would be as dynamic.

But on the other hand, there's Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer. Dustin mentioned to me tonight that when he thought of Sutherland as Jack Bauer-bad ass, CTU government agent, running around breaking rules and kicking ass, he couldn't imagine that Kiefer Sutherland was playing a character on a hit television show with that character as the lead. Strangely enough, I imagine D had the whole Three Musketeers-Kiefer in mind. You know, the one who ran around in tights with a bow and arrow? The Kiefer who got ditched at the altar by Julia Roberts? (Does anyone else get the feeling I know way too much about Kiefer Sutherland?) Although he always had a kind of "bad boy" rep, he dated Julia Roberts aka-(in the 90's, anyway) America's Sweetheart and that's just a hard label to break. Sutherland didn't do much of note following that. He may have been a bad boy, but his antics didn't break headlines (not enough to land him on one of those shows like "I Love the 90's" on Vh1 or any other time capsule shows like that). He was sort of a B-list actor, though I totally adored him after The Three Musketeers and would lay in bed at night when everyone else had fallen asleep, skipping from station to station on my little sister's pink LA Gear radio, waiting for the theme song from the movie to come on....

.... ... .... ...

....... ........ ........

C'mon! You must know where I'm going with this by now, right? "All for Love" by the original scratchy-voiced, male singers themselves: Sting, Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart!

When it came on, I quickly hit the "Record" button (I had a blank tape in there, just waiting for this moment) and swooned while listening and imagining it was really Kiefer Sutherland singing that song and he was really singing it to me...just for me at that late hour of the night. It was conceivable-that he'd sing the song, not the other part. He, too, has a scratchy, hoarse voice, similar to the one I've been getting during this sickness when I have to speak for long periods of time (phone to my mom, lecturing in class today)...exactly like Sting, Adams and Stewart's voice. Anyhow, I was a kid and pretty sure my discovery by a big-time Hollywood agent was imminent. Lofty ideas were my forte. Far be it from me to think that Kiefer Sutherland was legitimately out of my reach. I assumed it was only a matter of time.

And time, did, reproduce Sutherland as Jack Bauer-an even more exciting character than whatever Musketeer he played. I had forgiven him his inability to sing and his disappearance from the limelight by the time 24 aired. In fact, I didn't even care about the show when it first came out. I had no time for t.v. or actors and hadn't had a crush on a celebrity since, well, since my Three Musketeers love affair with Kiefer Sutherland never worked itself out. That and the fact that my agent-in-shining armor never showed up while I hung around outside of Spencer's. Plus, I write creative nonfiction...there's no room for falsities in what I do (that's the other genre: fiction, I think they call it). Being in touch with the real and the truth of it are the tools of my trade, not the daydreams I had as a child.

Now you may think that comes off as cynical, but while D and I watched, it occurred to me that no one could play Jack Bauer like Kiefer Sutherland, either. When I first started watching the show, I hadn't considered whether the actor makes the character or not. In truth, I think lots of people could play Jack Bauer, but I don't think they'd have me as an audience member. It's not that I think Kiefer is hot or that he's still single because I am his misplaced soulmate (though fifteen years ago, I might've fantasized that was the case-kind of like when Julia ditched him-I was pretty convinced it was because the Fates couldn't bear to keep he and I from unifying purely and without earlier, mistaken blemish-ahem-aka-Julia!). It's not even that I think he's this fabulous actor with a true talent for complexity and diversity of character or that Jack Bauer is soulful or deep. It's that I think he's a bad ass who, on his days off, would smoke and drink and hang out with his buddies. It's that he could easily be Kiefer Sutherland's alter-ego. For example, when McFarlane Toys Inc. sent Kiefer the prototype of the Jack Bauer action doll they made, Sutherland tortured and burned the doll with friends of his during a night of drinking and hanging out. Supposedly, when they awoke the next day, the doll was a puddle of wax but his clothes hadn't burned up...which Sutherland thought was pretty cool. McFarlane, however, failed to tell Sutherland that the toy was the only one they had, the prototype, information that may have come in handy before the doll was tortured and burned. Needless to say, this doesn't sound too off the cuff when you consider the things Jack Bauer does on the show. Kiefer merely reversed my earlier statement and, unlike Laurie's character House imitating Laurie, Kiefer (life) imitated his character, Jack (art).

Is there a difference?

Why not? Maybe it's necessary for one entity to overtake the other or for there to be a merging point. If I were Kiefer Sutherland, I'd want to be as bad ass as Jack Bauer...and if I were Jack Bauer, I'd totally want to have that raspy, hoarse Kiefer Sutherland voice. Sometimes I wish I could just invite Kiefer/Jack (they're becoming inseparable from one another...see that happening there?) into my classroom to get my kids talking. After all, interrogating with a side of torture is certainly one of his strong points.

At any rate, it seems some actors make the character and some characters make the actor. While I love Kiefer and will probably always harbor a soft spot for him in my heart, he's no Hugh Laurie and Jack Bauer is definitely no Dr. House...but I love the show and I'm looking forward to finishing up the first season with Dustin, who is a growing fan, as well.

I leave you with this conversation from yesterday...a taste of the other questions we pondered while watching the magnetic Jack Bauer.

D: Who would you be more afraid of interrogating you-Jack Bauer or Batman?

Me: Batman. Definitely.

D: Why?

Me: Cus Batman wouldn't kill me.

Further, we wondered:

If Jack Bauer were Lost, could he get off the island in 24 hours?

(Can't do that with Dr. House, now can you?)

xoxo

N

Coming to a television next season: Dr. House meets Jack Bauer. 

Haley and the Return of the Blue Fairy

For most people, the glorious weekend is coming to an end, but for me there is still one day left. That's right, I don't teach until Tuesday...woohoo! I love a week's worth of work being crammed into two days. Nothing nicer than a two-day work week! Especially because I'm totally a snot-nosed, sneezing, sniffling, sleepy, red-eyed sickface. That's right, now it's full blown, all out attack of the sickies. But I have D here taking care of me which is super sweet...before I get too detailed about today, let me back up to Friday.

Friday, D and I hung out and had our tasty dinner (which I already blogged about), then moved onto making these incredibly scrumptious Banana Spring Rolls. The fat content is pretty low in these suckers, but the sugar and calorie content, not so much. However, I figured we deserved a treat since I've lost about thirteen pounds since leaving NY and coming back to MO and I feel pretty good about that so far. So, I whipped up a Banana Spring Roll for each of us as a means of enticing D into learning how to make them, as well. Here's my version:

I know! You can see my years in the service industry skills paying off, right? The hearts in the background made of chocolate syrup. They were better before I moved the plates and the spring roll went flying...but the powdered sugar was a carefully thought out plan, too! All for aesthetics, of course :)

But they were so good, I got D interested in making more...so here he is performing step one: rolling half of the banana (sliced down the middle) in the spring roll wrapper with a sprinkle of brown sugar doused in with the banana, as well.
Here he is grilling it on the stove in a pan. The recipe called for lots of butter in the frying pan, but I cut it down to just enough for crisping purposes.
Here he is taking his spring roll making VERY seriously, of course.
And here we are tasting the final product...he approved of his version, too, not just mine. Way to go, Fi!!!
Then we went out and caught the movie "Bride Wars," which was a lovely way to do something wedding, but not stressfully wedding, related. It was quite cute and quite predictable and exactly what I needed to be excited about the wedding and less stressed about life. Speaking of which, our Save the Dates came in and we are addressing, stamping and send those puppies out this week (finally!). It's all very exciting! D and I spent a lot of tonight putting them together and will, hopefully, get them out by Tuesday-ish. (Also...I have to say "Save the Dates" instead of "STDs" which is the acceptable acronym for obvious reasons. I can't bring myself to call them "STDs"...could you?)

Saturday, I spent the morning waiting for D to write his blog for the Missouri Review. We were supposed to play racquetball at one, but since he needed to get the blog done and at 1pm he wasn't finished yet, I decided to head out for a run without him. It was ridiculously cold and I didn't wear my gloves (dumb!), but ran a fantastically hilly 3.25 mile loop. When I say hilly, I mean...my car rolls down the hill backwards cus the damn hills are so freaken steep and there's a stop sign at the top of one of them (who does that, right? Really dumb!). I mean, these are hills that bike riders get off their bikes and walk up...exactly. They're bad. I was super proud of myself for running the hills with no trouble, but really wanted to run longer than 3.25 miles. I couldn't because the final hill, the one right before our house, is a total killer. I couldn't fathom running by the time I got to the top...I just wanted to fall on the grass in our lawn and wait there until a neighbor let Dustin know to come out and collect me.

However, it felt awesome to run like that. When I got back, D had just finished up his blog and we headed over to the rec where I did some arm-work and then we hung out in the hot tub for a while. We investigated the two saunas: one with steam and one without and I thought I'd pass out in the steamy one. Have you ever been in there? Seriously. It's painful. There was an old man reading a library book in there...and how he could see the pages, let alone the words, is beyond me. I could barely see my own hands and, eventually, had to get the hell out of there. The old dude sat there, though, he was there before us and was still there when we left. I have NO idea how people can just sit in there like that. It had to be at least 100+ degrees in there! The heat was literally painful! The dry sauna was so much more bearable. 

Then we took the dogs to the dog park where they, luckily, didn't get into fights or run away (ok, ok...so they were fenced in and couldn't get out if they tried, but they're sneaky little canines and could've found a way out of they really wanted to! And...ok, ok! There were no other dogs in the park when we got there. They left as we arrived. And no jokes about my fur-babes scaring them away!). And to add on to our already busy, and growing busier, day, I played Wii-Boxing for the first time. I'd seen Lance and D play it earlier in the week, but was sort of intimidated by the whole nunchuck idea and how aggressively they punched the air. But, yesterday, I caved and tried it out. Much to my surprise, I was actually pretty good at it and went through about four rounds before my entire body started weakening and fatiguing. It is one HELL of a workout, my friends. I am literally sore all over to the extent that it feels like my Wii-opponent actually socked me and not a virtual version of me. I'm in pain. Really. Still.

Last night, Beth's friend Haley was in town for a wedding. When they were finished, they grabbed a few friends and swung back to our place. Always a good time. Haley, it turns out, is a loyal Dustin and Neesha Save the World reader, although we didn't know it until last night. I was beyond flattered, to be honest. Occasionally, someone will tell us they read our blog, but it always surprises me just how loyal people are. The conversation turned to our Gossip Girl-toned blogs, and Haley said, "I don't know what UTHers are, but I love it anyway!" to which Steph replied, "Upper-Tate-Hallers!" and it flattered my to no end to see that they enjoyed what we were writing and new, even, the acronyms. Awesome! Plus, Haley is super fun and we definitely do NOT see enough of her. She was nice enough to let D keep his car in the parking lot of her apartment complex when he came to visit me last year. Such a lifesaver! And at that point, I'm not even sure I'd ever met Haley! Needless to say, we were thrilled to hear she was coming into town, even before we knew she dug our blog! But, thanks, Haley! That made my night! (Pictured: Beth, Haley, Me)

This was just the event D and I needed to test out some of our new games. You see, D got me "Gossip Girl" the board game for Christmas and we haven't had the opportunity to play it yet because it demands more than two people, so we took this opportunity to cast our game choice on others. Essentially, the Gossip Girl game is a less-risque version of "Never Have I Ever" that we used to play as a drinking game in college. "Never have I ever...hooked up with someone in this room..." if you did it, you had to throw in a "$100" dollar bill (like in college, if you did it-you had to take a sip of your drink. If you were the only person who drank, you had to tell your story). This game didn't have the consequence of having to tell your story, thank God, and we all had a good time playing, except Beth. We think she was afraid it was going to be more scandalous than it was...hopefully, she came around to it by the time it ended.

We had the extra-added bonus of having some extras over, as well. Our friends Steph and Meg came over to play games, too, as did two friends of Eli's (Beth's bf): Zeke and Bob. The thing is, Zeke and Bob were not their real names, but I was drunk enough to believe they may as well have been their names so they stuck. Meg came up with Zeke and I think I misheard poor Bob's name. We knew those weren't actually their names, but it seemed ok to call them that and they were good natured about it...so, hence, their names went from "Seth and Tom" to "Zeke and Bob."

To the left is a shot of Zeke and Eli (on the right) in our living room (see our new t.v. on the mantle? Our first couple-purchase ever! Just bought from Best Buy last week). Bob is not pictured. Somehow I couldn't find a pic of the two of them together: Bob and Zeke, that is (which begs the question-can one exist in the same frame as the other? Weird). The boys totally got into Wii baseball. Guys seem to have this thing with seeing who can hit the most "homeruns." I know. It screams innuendo, right? I wonder if they're trying to make up for something by swinging the hell out of the Wii remote and watching the numbers for just how far the baseball travels. Hmmm. (If anyone's counting...D won :)

Overall, it was a good time that only got better when the fairy costume came out. Yes. I said it. The fairy costume.

Some background on the fairy costume: Two Halloweens ago I got a fairy costume and wore it out to a bar the day I got it. Yes, this is a good time to mention it was about five days before Halloween or, maybe, a week...but who keeps track of these things? Anyhow, it was a blue fairy costume with giant sparkly wings and I totally loved it from the moment I saw it. I wore the crinoline under it and tights, heels...the whole nine. And I coaxed a buddy of mine to go out bar hopping with me while I donned the fairy costume. I know-who does that? Long story short, I met this very old man with a very sad story who asked me to please grant him a wish. He asked for happiness and it nearly broke my blue-fairy heart. You can read the full story on that one over on my myspace blog if you're interested...but the costume was awesome. When I walked through blacklights, it lit up. Not all bars were "Fairy Friendly" that night since it wasn't exactly Halloween, remember? But my love for the costume grew strong.

I wore it two more times that year. To the left is a photo of me and part of my friend Danielle at a Halloween party that year. She was Strawberry Shortcake. This was full-out fairy costume. See the possibilities of this baby and why I love it so much? Below is a photog of the fairy costume in full effect last night...note, it doesn't even need the crinoline, curly hair and blue eye shadow to work it's magic. Amazing. Not many costumes work that hard all these years later. And, trust me when I say this, this costume works it, baby.

Last night, the wings were sitting in the corner of the living room and, before I knew it, the costume came out and there we were, living it up in the glitter of my wings. Haley was totally in favor of the fairy costume and all I needed was the slightest bit of egging on and I was more than happy to slip into my blue fairy getup (as you can see). I didn't bother taking my jeans off, and threw my pink cardigan back on before tying on the wings, but I think it made a nice fashion statement...don't you? Thanks for the encouragement, Haley! (Not that I needed much, but without you, I might've sidestepped the fairy costume til everyone left!) 

I swear, I really don't get to wear this often enough. Luckily, next weekend there will be a Ladies Night, which means some other ridiculous, yet fun outfit to dress up in...so it won't be too long before my desire to costume-ize my attire will be satiated. Whew! What is it, cowgirl night, Meg? Better start seeking out a ten-gallon hat and some boots. Any other suggestions?

After Wii games, a random card game (I don't even know what they were playing, actually, or where the cards came from), Catch Phrase (which nearly always ends in a fight), Gossip Girl and the fairy costume, we called it a night. 

When everyone left, D and I popped in "Mean Girls" and I passed out on the couch. Today, I rose to a throbbing, ailing pain in my head and throat. No siree was it a hangover, but a double shot sickness coming at me full force. We were supposed to meet Beth's little group for lunch and had invited our boy Ben, who we haven't seen in WAY too long (that's for you, Ben, if you're reading!), but I was too sick to get out of bed (which was so sad for me). D brought me back an extra large Sweet Tea from McCallister's (lunch spot) and a broccoli-cheese soup (my fave). I drank lots of yummy peach tea and stuffed two sandwiches into my belly by day's end. We also managed to watch Iron Man, Mean Girls (with commentary), Juno and the first dvd of the second season of 24. Good stuff...especially since I haven't seen any of this season of 24 just yet (NO CABLE!).

Now the sneezing is back and I have to seek out something without sudafed (it kept me up most of last night) to help make me feel better.

Hope you all had a fab weekend...and look forward to more exciting, less "three day catch-up of events" blogs as soon as we get, well, all caught up with life. D has a hilarious story about some girls he over heard talking in the sauna...Gotta love being around the undergrads.

xoxo

N