The merry month of May

Watched Moulin Rouge last night. It reminded me of reading an Alexander Dumas novel (of which The Three Musketeers is highly overrated, by the by - far more deserving of mention are Queen Margot or The Queen's Necklace, but I suppose the titles just weren't as dashing-sounding): very well made, extremely finely done, made you sympathise and identify with the characters, but ultimately you couldn't countenance the morals. It was, well, very French. At the ending scene, when Satine is dying in Christian's arms, Michael remarked, 'I wonder if he'd be hugging her as closely if they'd known just how contagious TB really is.' Good question. So as soon as the movie was over we went online and spent some time researching the history of TB, AKA consumption, and found that by the late eighteen hundreds they knew GOOD AND WELL just how contagious it was (doctors were prescribing quarantine as early as the early eighteenth century), so probably Christian was just holding true to his Bohemian ideals of recklessness and hopeless passion and such sentimental drivel.

On Saturday Benjamin came up and spent the day playing Axis and Allies with Michael. Ever since we went to the Blue Willow Inn I've been dying to serve B&A the wonderful southern meal of fried catfish, fried green tomatoes, and tomato chutney. So Amanda came up for dinner and we enjoyed a filling repast. It was by now 7:00 - the game had been going on for nigh on ten hours, and at our suggestions that the world could be conquered in that time 'the boys' laughed immoderately. So Amanda and I trekked off to the cheap theatre to watch 50 First Dates, an amusing and largely forgettable chick flick that 1) gave away the ending to Sixth Sense and 2) had the very inspirational moral that you should live every day with the object of making your spouse fall in love with you all over again. Back home for delicious coconut cream pie. Conquest of the world was still underway. Amanda went home. I curled up with a tome of Edgar Allen Poe. It is not advisable to read this kind of stuff by yourself. I fell into uncertain slumber and heard the next morning that the Axis won.

Today is Thomas' seventh birthday. I remember when I turned seven - not so very long ago, as I like to remark to Michael. What is this world coming to?