Doctor Who: The Reign of Terror

The Whoathon has slowed to a crawl, but it soldiers on. We come to the end of the first season of Doctor Who with “The Reign of Terror.” This serial has six parts, but episodes four and five are two of the episodes that aren’t in the BBC archives. I watched animated versions. I was surprised that they weren’t that great since I was watching a BBC dvd. I’ve seen fan-animated episodes that were better done. I like this episode, but I’m going to tear it apart a little in this post.

The Doctor is trying to get Ian and Barbara back home, but he misses and the TARDIS ends up in France during the French Revolution. Of course they’re separated from the Doctor, almost immediately captured, and thrown in jail. (An aside- during this time, prisoners were kept in the Conciergerie before they were sent to the guillotine. It was an old castle that was repurposed as a jail. It’s now a museum. I’ve been there! It’s pretty cool, if gruesome.)

Anyway, Barbara is planning her and Susan’s escape as soon as they’re thrown into the cell. They start digging, and when they run into rats, Susan freaks out. Barbara has to promise that they won’t dig anymore. That’s right- Susan prefers certain death by beheading rather than seeing some rats in their escape tunnel. Susan is incredibly whiny in this episode. She is far worse than usual. I’m not going to miss her when she leaves soon. Susan does the same thing when they’re on the cart heading to the guillotine. Barbara has a plan for them to escape, but Susan starts whining about how she can’t do it, so Barbara stays with her instead of running. Really, Susan? You choose death again over not being whiny?

This is a pretty horrifying period in history, and the Doctor enjoys himself way too much. He wanders through the French countryside; he dresses up; he has fun- all while massive amounts of people are being murdered in cold blood. It struck me as incredibly odd when Susan said that this was the Doctor’s favorite period in Earth’s history. Barbara is the only one of the TARDIS crew in the episode that seems to take this time period seriously. She and Ian have a pretty intense fight about it after he is callous about someone being killed. To be honest, it surprised me that he was so cold about someone deserving to die. That seemed out of character.

Barbara is great in this episode, and not just because she has the advantage of being a history teacher. Oh, and one of the French dudes has the hots for her, but dudes always have the hots for Barbara, wherever she goes. Take note, Ian. You aren’t the only one. Barbara and the Doctor have an interesting exchange about changing history. Barbara says that she learned her lesson with the Aztecs, and the Doctor replies that history will happen as it was written.

So long, season one. Bring on season two!

THE RUNDOWN

Doctor: First
Companions: Barbara, Ian, Susan
Episode: #8, “The Reign of Terror,” six parts- ‘A Land of Fear,’ ‘Guests of Madame Guillotine,’ ‘A Change of Identity,’ ‘The Tyrant of France,’ ‘A Bargain of Necessity,’ ‘Prisoners of Conciergerie’
Adversary: French revolutionaries
Classic Lines: Barbara, to Ian: “You check your history books, Ian, before you decide what people deserve.”
Tuck This Away to Impress Your Friends: Susan claims that The Reign of Terror is the Doctor’s favorite time period in Earth’s history.
Next Up: “Planet of Giants”

Grandmom is awesome

I wrote a blog post last year on how awesome my grandfather is, so it’s about time I wrote about how awesome my grandmother is. I’m not sure where to begin. My maternal grandparents have been a huge part of my life. I mentioned some of these things in the post about my grandfather, but they bear repeating. I think this post might turn into a disjointed series of stories, so here we go.

When I was younger, my grandparents often hosted extended family dinners on Sundays in the fall (and other random times during the year). My grandmother is a fantastic cook and baker. Her meals were delicious, as were her homemade desserts. I say that I inherited my culinary skills from my grandmom. Here’s something that exemplifies the kind of awesome that my grandmother embodies. We always had dessert after these meals. Sometimes it would be tapioca or rice pudding. I don’t like tapioca or rice pudding. Did I go without dessert? Nope. Grandmom made vanilla pudding especially for me so that I could have dessert, too. My grandmother’s meals and desserts have become the stuff of legend in my family. 1-2-3-4 cake, chocolate cake, crescent cookies, mini cheesecakes…lasagna, cavatellis, vegetable soup, escarole soup (that’s Italian wedding soup to non-Italian families), eggplant parmigiana, scalloped potatoes…anything she ever made was the best ever of that dish. My grandparents hosted holiday dinners, too. My parents, aunts, uncle, cousins, and I gathered at their house for Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving. My grandmom cooked everything. When the holiday dinner was turkey, my grandmother cooked an extra turkey breast just so everyone would have leftovers to take home. This is how thoughtful and awesome she is.

I was a good student. From when I was small through high school, there were very few times when I didn’t get straight As. I’m not bragging- I’m just stating a fact. My grandparents took me out to dinner after each marking period/semester to celebrate my good grades. I loved those dinners with just the three of us together. They were great. Anyone who knows my grandfather knows that he is a TERRIBLE tipper. He hates to tip. I think his barber gets a quarter for cutting his hair. I’m actually serious about that. Grandmom was always in charge of tipping when we went out to eat. Pop-Pop says that the waiters and waitresses love when they see Grandmom coming into the restaurant because she tips them so well.

When I was in college in Rhode Island, my grandparents drove up once every year to spend a weekend with me. They met my friends. We went out to eat. It was fun, and it meant a lot to me. My grandparents used to visit my cousin in Florida every year, too. They drove all over the place! My grandmother kept a diary of each trip that she and my grandfather took together. I always thought that was a great idea.

My grandmother goes everywhere with dog treats in her handbag. All the family dogs go running to Grandmom because they know what she has for them. It’s pretty funny. The same goes for when the dogs go to my grandparents’ house. Kenobi runs to Grandmom like a nut and ignores everyone else until he gets his treats. That’s treats with an “s.” More than one.

Many Saturday mornings, Kenobi and I go with my mom to spend time with my grandparents. Kenobi sits on Grandmom’s lap, and they both love it. We chat and watch The Golden Girls. It’s fun.

I don’t usually put photos of others on my blog, but I don’t think my grandparents would mind me sharing these. I took them over ten years ago at my cousin’s wedding in Florida. The DJ invited all the married couples to dance and gradually asked couples to stop according to how long they had been married. My grandparents were the last ones on the dance floor.

I could say that my grandmother is kind and good and wonderful, but then I’m just listing adjectives. She has had a series of health problems in recent years, yet she never complains about it. She still loves to laugh. She is still the nicest person in the world. She and my grandfather still kid each other like always. I’m so very lucky, not only because my grandmother is so wonderful, but also because she and my grandfather have been there for me my whole life. I’m grateful for that.

Doctor Who: The Sensorites

The Whoathon returns! After a bit of a hiatus, it’s back. A friend of mine watched this one with me. Well, we weren’t in the same place, but we watched at the same time and texted each other about the episode. It was fun. I highly recommend watching Doctor Who with a friend. I don’t think I would have enjoyed this story if it weren’t for my friend making comments about the Doctor being a wanker and the Sensorites looking like they're wearing pajamas and one of the guest characters being incredibly boring. So, this post will be on the short side.

The 1st Doctor is being cranky again.

Incredibly brief summary! The TARDIS gang arrives on a ship that is stuck in orbit around a planet. The crew of the ship is subjected to occasional mind control by the Sensorites, inhabitants of the planet below. They aren’t allowed to leave, and one of them has gone kind of nuts. The Sensorites steal the lock of the TARDIS, so the Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Susan can’t leave, either. We discover that Susan can communicate telepathically with the Sensorites. Funny how Susan being telepathic has never come up before and how at the end of the episode it is explained away and her telepathic ability is gone.

How is he breathing outside the ship? What is he standing on to look through the window?

The Doctor, Ian, and Susan go down to the planet to see about getting that lock back and leave Barbara on board the ship. Barbara wasn’t in a few episodes of the story! I missed her. Ian OBVIOUSLY missed her. He’s the one who was asking that she be brought down from the ship, of course. One of the Sensorites on the planet doesn’t like the humans and makes mischief. Ian gets deathly ill, which leads the Doctor to solve a serious problem the Sensorites were having and couldn’t figure out themselves. The solution was obvious to the point that I called it before it was revealed, so I don’t know why the Sensorites didn’t see it.

Lapels!

There's more mischief and lots of time wandering around in an aqueduct, and everything turns out okay in the end. Even the crazy boring guy gets a happy ending. They deal with the main baddie offscreen, which seemed odd. He wreaks havoc for several episodes, and they just mention what happens to him like an afterthought. Oh, that guy. Yep, we punished him.

Next up is "The Reign of Terror." I remember that being a good one. I hope that turns out to be right.

THE RUNDOWN

Doctor: First

Companions: Barbara, Ian, Susan

Episode: #7, "The Sensorites," six parts- 'Strangers in Space,' 'The Unwilling Warriors,' 'Hidden Danger,' 'A Race Against Death,' 'Kidnap,' 'A Desperate Venture'

Adversary: the Sensorite city administrator

Classic Lines: the Doctor: "Beau Brummel always said I looked better in a cloak."

Tuck This Away to Impress Your Friends: Susan talks about their home planet but doesn't mention its name. She says that the sky is burnt orange and the trees have bright silver leaves.

Next Up: "The Reign of Terror"

Oatmeal raisin cookies

A quick post on oatmeal raisin cookies! This recipe is from Joanne Chang's cookbook Flour. Yep, once again I have returned to this book that doesn't disappoint.

I messed up these cookies. I baked them for too long. Completely my fault! Each cookie sheet I baked for less time, and the final one had the tastiest cookies. The flavor was excellent, but I could tell they were overbaked.

Something I didn't realize was how enormous these cookies would be. They were huge! Only six fit to a cookie sheet.

I don't think their size is adequately expressed by the above photo. Anyway, in the future I'll bake them for a shorter period of time. They were good, but next time they'll be better.

New Hope and NYC - huzzah!

I visit my friends in North Jersey quite a bit, but one weekend recently was extra special because a mutual friend was visiting from out of town. I headed up Saturday night, and Sunday we all went to New Hope, a small town on the Delaware River in Pennsylvania. I had never been there, but my friends all said great things about it. It did not disappoint. It’s a pretty town filled with fun little shops. Kenobi benefited from there being a pet store - I got him a giant dog treat that looked good enough for me to eat. One friend bought some spicy chocolate that was so hot my mouth would not stop burning. Thankfully, another friend had some gum to soothe the fire. Another friend let me have one of his chocolate covered caramels. YUM.

On the way back, we took the scenic route along the Delaware. I regaled them with the tale of my grandfather and John Glenn. Two friends confirmed a third’s opinion that I look like Claire Danes. They are wrong. That night my friends made Indian food for dinner. Delicious!

The next morning, my friend from out of town and I went to New York for the day. He suggested going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I was excited to see the museum. It was huge and amazing and wonderful. We only ended up going through the medieval and Egyptian sections because there was so much to see. They were fantastic. My friend happens to be a medieval scholar, and he was translating the Latin for me. Pretty cool. He may protest being called a medieval scholar, but too bad! My blog, my rules. Should medieval be capitalized? Who knows? Not me. (This is not the time for anyone to point out that I make my living as a writer or that I could probably google that.) He and I both speak French, so we enjoyed eavesdropping on native French speakers who were walking through the museum. Too bad we didn’t hear anything interesting, comme, “J’ai tué ma femme, and sa corps est enterrée dans le jardin.” Heh. The horse armor was great. I think the Book of the Dead was the highlight of the Egyptian section for both of us. It was cool. Why is there a spell for not stepping in excrement? They expected excrement in the Egyptian afterlife? How is the afterlife so great if you have to worry about stepping in poo?

My friends showed me the movie Frozen. It was awesome. My friends’ daughter knows the words to the songs and sang along, which was really very cute. They also had me watch Clone Wars, the Star Wars cartoon. I have been hesitant to watch Clone Wars because the prequels are utter crap and I thought it would be similar. I was happy to be wrong. The cartoon is entertaining.

I played chess for the first time in years. That was a lot of fun, if slightly challenging as a couple of the pieces were painted blue. My friend from out of town had his Cairn terrier along with him. She is adorable. There was some discussion as to whose dog is the cutest dog in the world, mine or his. Kenobi is the cutest dog in the world. Of course. (Again- my blog, my rules!)

No, this post doesn’t have any photos. I should have taken some with my phone, but I wasn’t thinking. I wish I had remembered. I never end up bringing my DSLR camera or taking photos with my phone when I’m with my friends. I’d like to have some photos of the people who are important to me. I need to remember next time.

What happened to March?!

March has been a crazy month. Lots of fun. Lots of work. No time for blogging. The Whoathon is not over! The baking is not over! April will be a better month for the blog.