Friday, August 31, 2007

Birthday Weekend Begins!


So today is the first day of my birthday weekend. Birthday weekends, and sometimes even birthday weeks, are a tradition in the Paddock family that goes back into the far distant past (about 20 years). Basically the idea of the birthday weekend is that the person having the birthday gets to do whatever they want, and if they have to do something they don't want to then you repeatedly whine, "But it's my birthday weekend!"

This weekend I plan on eating lots of rich and delicious food, catching up on my homework, and generally being lazy. After class today the celebration begins! I will pick up Emily and go cash my check, then a leisurely lunch at Pho Hien Vuong, then maybe a movie, and finally some Thai food. Saturday begins with brunch, then maybe a trip to the comic store or the used bookstore and the scary taxidermy park, then dinner with the fam. After that i'll probably work on homework. On Sunday, which is my actual birthday, I'm gonna fill up on Indian food and gloat over all the presents i received the night before. Included in this post is a picture from last years birthday party. Aren't those flops sweet? I love that picture, it just makes me happy.

I finished The God of Small Things last night, and boy was I pissed. I had added it to my books read for the year list because it was so great, except for the last 20 pages. The story involves two Indian children (dots not feathers) who are separated after a traumatic event in their childhood. The novel is very well written and manages to make one feel like they've been to India. Over the course of the novel most of the mystery about the traumatice event is unwound. The twins mother had an affair with an untouchable man, who was falsely accused of kidnapping the twins (and leading to the twins cousins death), so that the police could justify beating him to death for sleeping with a Touchable woman. The evil aunt has been lying to everyone in order for there to be as much suffering as possible. All of this leads up to the climactic ending when you think that the twins are going to figure out that their aunt was really to blame when...the twins sleep together. There. I said it and ruined the whole book for you. Ha! The twins sleep together and the last 15 pages are an erotic retelling of how the Touchable mom and the Untouchable man came to start bumpin' uglies. The whole thing left me feeling very uncomfortable.

Hopefully I'll be able to get the Chairman Mao waving watch post up soon.

1 comment:

IM said...

Glad for the recommendation for Pho Hien Vuong. I need to find more places around to eat--I'm doing reviews for the paper.