The Sunday Salon -- One Week In

I hope the first full week of 2012 has been great for everyone. I've been a little absent this past week because I flew to Kentucky to help my grandma start packing up her house to move. It was...a pretty intense trip. It's been a few years since I've seen her and her memory is beginning to go. (thus the reason she needs to move) Also, I spent a lot of time in my childhood summers in that town and going there brings back so many memories. I think I was just hit hard with the natural progression of time and change and aging and transition. Not to mention that having to work so quickly to sort through her belongings and try to pack up her things was hard. I wish that I lived closer and could be there more. I also learned some family history and it's so weird how you view it all differently the older you get and the better you know yourself...you can kind of see your family in yourself more if that makes sense.

On the bright side, I got to see my sister and nieces for a bit. My 10 year old niece is reading The Hobbit and loving it! She's going to be a fantasy fan for life. I sometimes wish I had read and loved those books as a kid as it seems that people who read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have really special feelings about them. I've always felt like I missed out on that club. She obviously won't, as she's loving it!

Reading
I've read two books so far in the new year. I read The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was the first Fitzgerald I've ever read, I know, I know. It was...kind of painful, but I'm glad I read it. Not ever having read his work before I felt like I had a huge gap in my education. I read this one for a specific reason which I'll write about later, but it was a book that took a lot of power of concentration. I even ended up dreaming about it one night. At that point, I decided to try reading another book at the same time, and picked up Francisco X. Stork's Irises which turned out not to be a light book at all, but a book I loved so so much. I can't wait to talk about it in more detail soon.

TV

I haven't had a chance to watch all the shows that came back this week, but I made time to watch The Vampire Diaries and The Secret Circle both of which I really enjoyed.

The Vampire Diaries--So...I guess the various sibling relationships were supposed to kind of tie the stories together, but tbh the Jeremy one kind of annoyed me. I actually think a longer story about Jeremy coming to the realization that "no one here gets out alive" could have been great story telling and given the compulsion scene more emotional resonance. (as it was though, I did cry a little during that scene, but in my defense I'm a bit of an emotional wreck due to lack of sleep and the week I had). For some reason, that seems to happen a lot with this show, I enjoy the stories they tell, but it's like this little persistent bug that there's potential for such great stories that get kind of rushed or glossed over because there's a different plot they are more interested in. BUT anyway, I did enjoy the episode. I liked that the problem with Alaric's ring came back and escalated (the last time Damon killed him, if you remember, it took longer than normal for him to come back to life) and I'm wondering if Alaric will die by the end of the season or someone else will die to somehow save him. Also, Dr. Fell! Tyler was...kind of annoying and I thought it was interesting that Alaric likened his mentality to that of being in a cult. Even though Tyler compelled Jeremy it could have been so much worse. I kind of think Tyler will probably die this season as well, but it could have been a much bigger thing that he did before realizing what was going on, so I don't know.

Stefan/Damon were the best part of the episode for me. Their little fight, lol. Damon and Elena was...interesting. I don't know it's so weird, but I'm having a really hard time buying them. I'm not sure exactly why. But it will be interesting what they do with that...you know Damon finds out Stefan was saving him YET AGAIN and then kisses Elena. But in fairness, of course, she's just said that nice stuff about she didn't know what she'd do if he wasn't there and they were having a moment. And he did tell her about Stefan. And also nice callback to the last time we thought they kissed on the porch!

Though....Nina Dobrev's acting irritated me this episode for some reason she kept making the same face. Maybe she always does that I just really seemed to notice it this episode. And compelling Jeremy again annoyed me. I am constantly annoyed by Elena making decisions about how to protect people. And Klaus was...well just sort of there. This whole stealing his family plot makes me laugh it's like straight out of 24. Anyway, enjoyed the ep! And next week looks interesting.

The Secret Circle--Diana's grandma! ♥ I liked this episode a lot. I did get Harry Potter vibes from learning that Dawn had worshiped John Blackwell. And I wouldn't be surprised if John is in fact not dead. I liked the symbolism of Cassie rising from the grave and then later being branded the one they were waiting for. I'm easy okay? Though I'm not exactly sure what they meant by the one able to tip the balance of darkness and good. I loved everything Melissa but I'm ready for her to have her own story line. Faye trashing that voo-doo guy's place was awesome! And I liked Diana and Cassie being friends and hope they build that even more.

One minor gripe...if someone you barely know is going to do a spell to take all the black magic out of you, it might be a good idea to like, ask them more details beforehand. And if Kate hadn't been trying to trick her and such a spell really existed, I think she would go over the process beforehand. But oh well, Cassie is so so naive, and I like to think that this episode put that to death and that's the death she experienced. The battle of dark nature and good side is an interesting one to have in your main character and I like it. I'm really liking this show. And I was glad to see Jake come back because I kinda ship it. Also, I just love all the elders. More elders please! They are more interesting than Charles and Dawn, yawn.

Movies

I only watched one, Moneyball on the plane and whenever I watch a movie on a plane, especially an old one with old headphones and only those aisle TVs I only feel like I see about 75% of it. But I really really liked this! I was so surprised by how much I enjoyed it, tbh. Brad Pitt was fantastic, and also just the story about the business of baseball and the fight against established way of doing things was fascinating to watch. I kind of want to watch it again soon. Fans of baseball should definitely watch! It's about baseball, but it's really about carving out a path to do something new against all accepted procedure and reasoning.

And that was my week. I hope to catch up with everyone soon! How has 2012 been so far? A winner?