My Sister-in-Law, May She Get Stung by 1,000 Angry Wasps

My littlest nephew is back with my brother, after a month.  My sister-in-law wanted to send him back to the recalcitrant brother after two weeks.  She claims she just can’t handle him.

I shouldn’t complain, because at least he’s back someplace safe, but it just pisses me off that she makes it out like it’s his fault, like he’s too much trouble, and not that she’s a psycho bitch who couldn’t even take care of a dog (see Wigglebottom, Mrs.).

Luckily, the preschool near the recalcitrant brother will let him enroll, which is good.  He loves school and loves other kids and could use the structure.

It just hurts my heart.  I can’t even tell you.  I just look at that little boy and my heart hurts.  I want him to have a good life and to be safe and to have a good close relationship with his brother and every second he’s with her, I’m terrified something bad is going to happen.

 Anyway, that’s all.  I just had to bitch about her.

I May Be the Only Girl to See the Dukes of Hazzard

I watched The Dukes of Hazzard yesterday and I’m still mulling it over today.  On a lesser note, I wonder why the make-up people didn’t do more to get rid of the dark circles under Johnny Knoxville’s eyes.  He looked a little like Zombie Luke Duke.  But I still find him fun to watch.

But the greater note?  Damn you, Jay Chandrasekhar, damn you!  No one should have to think so hard as I’ve been thinking about your weird "black guys meet the Dukes" scene, when it’s in a movie as inconsequential as the Dukes is.  And yet…

For those of you who haven’t seen it, the Duke boys go into Atlanta with their newly painted General Lee and they end up surrounded by some black guys who don’t take too kindly to the Confederate flag on the top of the car, especially since the Dukes have, through some weird contrivance, ended up with coal on their faces.

It’s a weird moment.  It’s hard to watch, not only because of the gratuitous racial crap, but because it doesn’t really seem to fit in with the rest of the movie or further the plot.  And even after the rest of the movie goes by much like any other episode of the television show upon which it’s based, that moment sticks out like a rough spot on an otherwise smooth and forgettable surface.

And so it makes me wonder just what the hell is going on there. Is it some hint from Chandrasekhar about what he thinks of the whole film?  Are Bo and Luke and the whole Hazzard gang types?  Is there something funny about how willing we are to watch a movie that trades in stereotypes of rural Southern whites and yet find the scene that draws attention to how blacks were portrayed (and are still portrayed) uncomfortable?  Or is it just an acknowledgement of how fake the movie is?  How in real life the bar-fighting, moon-shine-running, folks with Confederate flags on their cars are not sweet old boys we’d like to spend two hours with, but in general, are kind of scary and that there’s something really weird about a cultural phenomenon that portrays them otherwise?

I don’t know.  It’s something, though.

Lazy Sunday

When I walked into their house, one of the first things that the Legal Eagle said to me was that I sure had a Southern accent.

I denied it.

Doing these videos, though, has made it obvious.

It’s so nice and sunny out that I want to just go lay outside, but that would mean getting up from the couch, and frankly, I’m too lazy to move from here.

It’s been so long since I’ve had a weekend where I had nothing going on, no obligations to anyone but myself, and nothing pressing to do around the house.  It’s really, really nice. 

 I did give Mrs. Wigglebottom a bath and I got the drain upstairs running again.  But otherwise, I’ve not accomplished a thing, which is awesome.