Bit of Ivory

I actually had another movie in mind for this post, but I decided to take advantage of the fact that Pam asked me to cap part of it for her BNAT application. Since I had planned on capping the exact same moment she wanted me to cap. . . well.

This is a favorite movie of my family, especially for Sunday viewing.

“Who is this fair young god entering into the house of Pharoah?”

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I wasn’t quite sure where to go next with my series– should I go to something completely different? Or follow in the same comedic vein? And then this movie showed up on TV the other night. Ta da! It was decided.

“Is it possible he met her while doing charitable work in a mental infirmary?”

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In an effort to write something, anything (in the hopes that the writing will translate to my thesis), I’m going to be starting a new series of posts. A series about movies.

More, specifically, a series about Movies My Family Quotes. I’m starting with 31 movies. There are many more that I could add. And that’s not even counting all the TV shows and church films and cartoons (oh, the cartoons!) which I’m not even touching. I got the idea from conversations with my co-workers, where I realized that the movies that my family quotes are not always the movies everyone quotes. But when someone recognizes a quote from one of our movies, I know I’ve got a kindred spirit. So I thought I’d share my love for some of these amazing films. Who knows– maybe you’ll find a new favorite. Or you’ll discover that we’re also kindred spirits. I have no idea what my posting schedule will be, although I’m going to try to do at least 3 movies a week.

I thought I’d start off big– with the mother of all quotable movies. At least for my family. I remember one camping trip with assorted extended Bytheway relatives, we sat around the campfire for at least 20 minutes, spouting line after line from this movie. If we tried hard enough, I think we could, collectively, quote the whole thing from beginning to end.

“Propriety? Noun: Conformity to established standards of behavior or manner, suitability, rightness, or justice. See: etiquette”

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So I’m about to embark on a day-trip down to Cedar City to see Cyrano de Bergerac again (yes, it was that good), and I realized that I hadn’t posted something that I intended to post. So.

A few months back I got an inquiry about helping to co-host a radio program for KBYU-FM, which is a public classical music station originating from my Alma Mater. I’d been recommended by my thesis advisor, because the subject was Harry Potter. Karen A. Brown, who did her undergraduate degree at BYU, has written and published a book called Prejudice in Harry Potter’s World, and they wanted to interview her for it.

Due to the fact that she was in London and I work full-time, it was hard to schedule a time to actually do the interview, but we finally managed it on Saturday morning. The interview is 26 minutes long (with me providing what I like to call “color commentary”), and will air today at 11:00 AM mountain time on KBYU-FM (89.1 and 89.5 here on the Wasatch Front). It will also be replayed at 8:00 PM, and will eventually be uploaded as a podcast to the Thinking Aloud website. If you’d like to hear it live, you can get the streaming audio from the Classical 89 website. There are hints on the site that it might also be available via BYU radio, which is available on Dish Network at least, but we haven’t been able to find any confirmation of that.

So. Just in case you’re interested.

I’ll do a real update soon, I promise.

So tonight my sister and I were watching the first few minutes of Good Eats, where Alton Brown was talking about how we need to reclaim the cupcake or something like that. And neither of us could watch any more of that, because of course we started craving cupcakes, and that would have just made it worse.

But eventually the craving became too much to bear, so we headed to Barnes and Noble, because they have good cupcakes in the cafe and, of course, books. And we both got paid today.

And the last 8 or so times I’ve gone to B&N I haven’t been able to remember the authors or the titles of the books I’ve been hearing about from my online friends. But THIS time, I took the time to look them up. And so I’ve come back from B&N not only with a vanilla cupcake and a Vanilla Bean Frappucino, but also The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner, The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall, and Faro’s Daughter by Georgette Heyer (which I didn’t have to look up, but which I’ve been trying to find for a while). And Lisa took the precaution of checking which of the Russell/Holmes books she still needed, so she came home with two Laurie R. King novels and the newest Artemis Fowl (which I fully plan on stealing).

I’ll have reading material for my Shakefest trip, huzzah!

Saw it at a Team Screening tonight.

GO. SEE. THIS. MOVIE.

Adorable and touching and hilarious and– there was spontaneous clapping at several points. Seriously.

Gotta see it again.

The short beforehand was hilarious, too.

Today at work, one of my coworkers (whom I really like) came to my desk to meter some mail. As she did so, she whistled 11 notes of a tune. A tune I immediately recognized.

“Kathy,” I said, “why in the world are you whistling ‘Theme From Flood’?”

She was very impressed. Especially as the 11 notes were from the middle of the song. She gave me a high five, then spread the news of my familiarity with They Might be Giants around the office.

In the meantime, in another room, another coworker was loudly singing “Yellow Submarine.”

Yeah, I like my job.

I’ve got some fic to post later tonight. After I come up with a title.

I’ve now officially been working at my job for a week and one day. I like it. There are still some things I’m unsure about, but most of it is starting to become familiar. At the moment I’m concentrating on the front desk, although there is a strong possibility that I’ll move to the actual HR department in a more traditional admin assistant role, concentrating on insurance and benefits. The girl I’m replacing did both, but she was filling in until they hired a replacement, and they always planned on hiring two people. At first they tried to teach me both roles at once, but I was feeling overwhelmed. It’s not that the front desk job is particularly challenging, because it isn’t really, but it is considerably more complicated than my last receptionist job. Since, you know, the last company I worked for had 40 employees total, whereas Jordan Commons is responsible for 5 theaters, two restaurants, and a number of administrative staff. Plus we coordinate with several of the other Larry H. Miller companies. There’s a lot more bureaucracy to deal with– more making of copies (under department codes) and logging and cross-checking and this going to this place and this other very similar thing going to a completely different place. And my predecessor was spreadsheet-happy. And she’s not the only one. But it’s still good. I’m starting to remember what things need how many copies and where they go, and everyone I work with is really really nice. So, I’m satisfied.

I finished knitting my Dalek. It’s really funny to have a nice cuddly friend who can kill you in an instant (and wants to!). I took a picture today, but haven’t had a chance to upload it. I’ll try to do that tomorrow.

The day I found out I got the job, I went shopping. In the past week, I have bought 3 shirts, 3 pairs of pants, 2 pairs of shoes, and a purse. They were all needed (well, maybe not the purse, but I tend to buy purses every season change whether I need them or not :P)– I’ve gained a few pounds since last spring/summer, and I’d planned to buy new work clothes when I lost my job. Since there was no real reason to buy business clothes when I didn’t have a job (and I didn’t have the money anyway), I put it off. But now that I have the prospect of a paycheck in a couple of weeks, I felt justified in spending a couple of hundred of my hard-hoarded money. I actually put my stimulus check aside for just such a purpose.

I am trying to be more conservative with my money, though. I hope to keep a nice cushion in both checking and savings, just in case I should find myself unemployed again. It’s not very likely– business is booming for the theaters– but it’s better to be safe than sorry. I also want to pay off my credit card balance as quickly as possible.

In the meantime, I haven’t been able to work much on my thesis. My body is still adjusting to getting up at 6:30 again, and I just haven’t had the mind power. But I hope to set aside at least a couple of hours every night to work on it. I really, really, need to get this off my plate.

My grandma is coming home from her rehab facility tomorrow. She’s getting a bit stir-crazy. I hope she does well at home.

<i>Midnight</i> was amazing. Much looking forward to the last few episodes of Series Four. Oh, and David Tennant can sit by me.

So Wednesday was my birthday. It was good. There was lunch at Tucano’s (a Brazilian steakhouse) and yarn shopping and other shopping and See’s chocolate and Backer’s Bakery cake and Litza’s pizza. I bought enough yarn to make a sweater. I finished knitting a Dalek. I watched Doctor Who.

And my sister got a phone call from human resources at her work, asking if she’d thought about applying for the Administrative Assistant position. She said no, she hadn’t really thought about it, because she liked her job very well. And then she hung up and told us (we were shopping) what the call was about, and I said “. . . I need a job, Lisa.” She hadn’t even thought of it. So she called them back and said that while she didn’t need the job, her older sister did. And Kathy (the human resources person) asked if I could come in for an interview yesterday.

Of course I could!

So after I opened the Sonic Screwdriver that Pam, Susan, and Rachel sent me for my birthday (yay!), I went in for the interview. And she seemed very impressed.

And then I came home and proceeded to get very nervous. You know, the longer you have to wait, the more you start second-guessing yourself– did the interview really go as well as I thought? Will someone else wow her more than I did? Did I seem overeager? GAH! I was good for absolutely nothing today.

And at 4:30, I got the call. Offering me the job.

YAYNESS!!!

So. I’m now working at Jordan Commons, as an admin assistant for the human resources department. I’m earning $2 more an hour than I was at New Life. I get to go to movies for free (even in the “no passes or discounts” period). I’ll have benefits and paid holidays and sick leave. I start Monday.

I’M EMPLOYED!!!!

Yesterday, I had two job interviews. I was picking up lunch after the second when my mom called my cell.

My grandmother had fallen when she got out of bed, and had broken her ankle.

Great.

So I spent the afternoon in the emergency room. Grandma’s ankle would definitely require surgery. But she’s 83 years old, has had diabetes for 40 years (that’s why she managed to break the ankle in the first place– she was in low blood sugar), has heart trouble (had a triple bypass 15 years ago), and is just frail in general, and surgery would be dangerous. So they delayed surgery until this morning.

Luckily, she did fine with the surgery. 8 pins and a plate later, and she. . . won’t be able to stand on her foot for 2 months. Lovely. Because my 85-year-old grandfather surely can’t lift her in and out of bed. Plus she’s stubborn as all get-out (although today she insisted that she’s not stubborn, she’s persistent). We’ve found a good rehab facility for her (Aspen Ridge, I’m sure Nicole is wondering– the new one is our first choice, but the Wheeler one is second on the list, so maybe she’ll see your dad) where she’ll hopefully be able to stay for at least 21 days. And they said they won’t let her leave until she can get herself in and out of bed and into a wheelchair. Now we just need to find a solution for their super-skinny bathroom door.

What is up with the medical stuff lately? First my aunt has heart trouble, then my sister-in-law has a baby (at least that was good news, but, still, it’s a hospital), then my paternal grandmother gets vertigo, then my mom’s surgery, then my nephew gets pneumonia and my niece gets bronchitis, then my cousin falls out of the sky, and now my maternal grandma breaks her ankle getting out of bed. Fantastic. Now all we need is for my dad’s kidney to go into a sudden decline, or my sister to get into a car accident on the way home from work.