Easter Sunday

Yesterday was beautiful in Kansas--the weather was just right for an Easter Sunday. I didn't go on an egg hunt, or have anything let for me by the Easter bunny; I didn't have a new Easter outfit or eat a nice Easter dinner of ham and mashed potatoes. I attended church and thought about Christ and how important His resurrection is to the world. Feel free to check out this video "Because of Him". I had a lazy Sunday evening filled with a nap, reading and baked ravioli.

Old Foto Friday

It was National Siblings' Day this week, so here's a photo of my siblings and me. This was my brother's graduation from high school in May 1997. We are all clearly dorks. I am wearing socks with sandals, Emily is wearing an over-sized Jazz shirt, and Jared, well, he's in his cap and gown which I guess is ok.

Choose One Thing

Last night, at the insistent urging of my sister, I went to the movie theater and bought a ticket for Divergent. I have not read the book and knew next to nothing about the story and characters. Which, if you know me at all, it kind of a good thing because then I don't have any expectations. When you have no expectations, then you're very rarely disappointed.

Anyway, the story takes place sometime in the future in a rundown Chicago. Everyone is separated out into one of five factions. When you are 16 (or so, as the main character and her brother do this at the same time and it's not mentioned that they're twins; maybe the book explains this) you take a test that tells you what faction you belong in, however you don't have to pick that one. But once you choose, you have chosen for life. Many end up in the faction they grew up with, but some don't. Our main character, Beatrice (later known as just Tris), was raised as Abnegation (selflessness), her test shows she's Divergent (meaning she excels at three of the factions) and ends up choosing to join Dauntless (bravery) because she feels like that is the right choice for her. She leaves her family and will never see them again.

(Side note here: Remember how everyone and their grandma was reading into Frozen and it's deeper meanings? Do you want me to do it too, but with Divergent? I could say that the movie is just one long advertisement for going against your parents and hanging out with the "cool" kids because they're more fun. They get to jump out of trains and wear black and get tattoos and police the city and be all around reckless and fun-loving, while the other faction lives in box-like homes and have to wear brown frocks and not look in the mirror and have to help people. Man, how boring is that?! Of course this is a little bit ridiculous. We can get messages out of any movie if we try hard enough, and it's usually personal to just us.)

At the Choosing Ceremony everyone recites the mantra "Faction over blood." This just seemed really sad to me. The whole concept of having to choose one way of life to be stuck with forever, and not get to be with your actual family, was really depressing. What I love about my life is the opportunity to be eclectic and like lots of things and do lots of things. I can help people, or I can be smart and go to school, I can showcase bravery or honesty whenever. I like knowing that I can love transit and bikes and watching sports and eating ice cream and traveling and reading and going to church and not having to fit into one description until I die.

In the movie, the faction system supposedly makes things easier to run because people know their roles and don't stray. But if we don't interact with other people with different views and ways of thinking then we'll never have new ideas. It would be a very sad to world live in.

And now I've read too much into the movie. Suffice it to say that I enjoyed it enough. 

Captain America

When my sister and I were prepping two years ago to see The Avengers, we made a plan to see most of the individual superhero movies to be prepared. On Mother's Day we rented Thor from RedBox and watched it with my mom. One weekend we rented The Incredible Hulk. Another weekend we rented Captain America: The First Avenger. This one was actually the only superhero movie I was not entirely enthused about seeing. While watching it I fell asleep. Neither my sister or I were taken with the film. However, I enjoyed Cap in The Avengers, as I felt his character worked better in smaller doses (and possibly, also, in the present time?).

So I wasn't planning on seeing Captain America: Winter Soldier any time soon, let alone on opening weekend. But since I like spending time with the friend who invited me I decided to go with it. And I was pleasantly surprised. (All of the preceding sentences start with a conjunction; I should probably work on fixing that....)

The movie was a little slow in getting exciting and piquing my interest, but that's not necessarily a bad thing since it eventually did. Captain America still isn't my favorite superhero (I'm not even sure who my favorite superhero is...) but I least like him enough. I liked the interplay between him and Black Widow and am glad they aren't pushing a romance between them. I really liked his friend who works at the VA and later becomes integral to their mission. I liked Robert Redford, who has a really nice head of hair, in his duplicitous role.

What I didn't like: the scene where Nick Fury is attacked in his car. It went on for way too long.

There were moments when I was genuinely shocked and truly engaged in the story. Way to go Cap, for becoming interesting (at least to me; I know lots of people, including my 9 yr old nephew, love Cap). I suppose it is sort of nice to have a superhero who isn't racked with torment or guilt or has major issues like Batman (and the recent Superman). Maybe I should love that he's so wholesome and square.

Just came across this article from EW about the movie, it's pretty interesting: http://popwatch.ew.com/2014/04/06/captain-america-the-winter-soldier-hydra-shield-paranoia/

Old Foto Friday

Em and I on the day Ivy was born.  On Thursday Ivy turned 13.