Wedge, We Hardly Knew Ye

Randy took Monday off and we loaded up the kids and drove to one of the library branches that we had not yet visited. While there, Randy found all three volumes of Charles Dickens' Bleak House on DVD--the BBC version with Gillian Anderson (Scully from The X-Files) and Denis Lawson (of Star Wars fame--or not)--and he snatched them up. I knew very little of the story; the only "classic" novels I recall reading in my high school English classes were the likes of The Scarlet Letter, Where the Red Fern Grows (ooh, a tear-jerker!) and Moby Dick.

Bleak House worked well for us because it was presented in "episodes," each roughly thirty minutes in length (though I never timed them so don't take my word for it). We started watching on Monday night and watched several episodes every night after the kids went to bed (which means we stayed up WAAAAY too late three nights in a row) and we even watched a couple of episodes during Randy's lunch breaks. Compelling, compelling stuff. Dickens is without peer among writers of the Victorian era. But may I just say something? He might just as well have called it Grim, Stark, Dismal, Where No Good Ever Comes of Anything and Everyone Dies a Horrible Death and There's No Happiness Ever House because it was D-E-P-R-E-S-S-I-N-G. Watch it--you'll love it. (Ironic, huh?)

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Well, we did the best we could. Darcy and I struggled valiantly to remain patient as her bangs grew out so that she could sweep them to one side, but in the end we were overcome. And of course now we wonder what took us so long to cut them!