maschalephidrosis ~ massive sweating of the armpits
Continuing on the theme from last week of mother’s curses . . . The daughter had another convention she had to attend last week, so I put in some extra babysitting time. But unlike the previous week, this time I had the use of the daughter’s car, and more importantly, the car seat.
Wednesday was story time at the library and I figured it was the perfect opportunity to get out and be sociable. Unfortunately the woman in charge of the program was not very friendly and the kids were kind of standoffish. So afterwards we indulged in a little shopping therapy to make us feel better. :-)
Thursday we decided to give the drop-in playgroup at the YMCA a try and had a much better time.
The people running it were friendly and welcoming. There were just enough kids to make it interesting and an endless supply of toys. The grandbaby’s favourite was the playhouse in the picture. And the small, indoor slide. It may take some finagling with the car seat, but we’ll definitely be going back again.
In fact, there’s a Halloween party there today that we’re planning to attend. And yes, I’m dressing up too. If I can find my witch’s hat. Grandbaby, of course, will be wearing the Ewok costume her doting Grammy made her.
It’s not the best picture of the costume, but the smile says it all.
On the weekend I finally started catching up on my book reviews so I could log the books I’ve read into my Goodreads account. Fourteen down and six to go. I’ve been meaning to do this since July, and to keep better track. Like, update once a month or so.
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it here or not, but I’ve decided to do NaNo this year. NaNo, for those of you who are new, is short for NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel during the 30 days of November.
This will be my tenth year, but my eighth win (if I complete the challenge). I did not win the very first year I did it - my story ran out at 30,000 words and try as I did, I just couldn’t make it any longer. And I didn’t do it last year, and really missed it. It just didn’t seem like November without those massive word counts.
To be perfectly honest, the writing hasn’t been going well lately. I haven’t been writing much of anything, other than blog posts. And yet I’m starting to feel pretty excited about NaNo. I’ve even ordered a NaNo tee-shirt online - this will be my third one, but I’ve already got the thermos, travel mug, hoodie, and USB bracelet.
There’s just something magical about NaNo, although you really can’t understand it unless you’ve tried it. But it’s so magical that I was even able to persuade three out of four friends (who’ve done it before) to join me.
Tomorrow night I’ll be attending a write-in being thrown by our official Municipal Liaisons and hopefully I’ll be meeting other like-minded writers. I may end up being a crazy person for the month, but it’ll be fun.
Some movies are so bad they’re good, and some movies are just ... bad. My husband and I enjoy watching them both and I thought it would be fun to share the best of the worst. So without further ado, here’s my bad movie review of the week. I leave it up to you to decide whether the movie is bad, or just the review. ;-)
Even a man who is pure of heart
and says his prayers by night
may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms
and the autumn moon is bright.
I have to admit, I wasn’t sure what I was getting into with this movie. While I hadn’t seen it before, I have seen The Werewolf of Washington, which was just plain stupid. So I was pleasantly surprised - I really enjoyed this movie.
There were a lot of big names in this one: Claude Rains, Lon Chaney Jr., Ralph Bellamy, Bela Lugosi. And as a refreshing change, we’re introduced to them all during the opening credits - a quick clip from the movie with a label to name them. It made it a lot easier to keep the characters straight.
The story begins with Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney), returning to the family estate after the death of his older brother during a hunting accident. In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really matter why he’s been gone for 18 years or what he’s been doing, what matters is that his father, Sir John Talbot (Claude Rains), is happy to see him and wants them to be closer. To that end, Larry helps him finish building a telescope up in the new observatory.
The first thing Larry observes is the nearby village, specifically, a pretty girl primping in her room over a shop. Not wasting any time, he goes to the shop where she’s a clerk and asks to see some earrings, describing the ones on her dresser. That’s not creepy at all (said with sarcasm). He ends up buying a cane that’s topped with a silver wolf’s head and she recites the werewolf rhyme for him. He finally leaves, insisting that he’s coming back later to go for a walk with her, and a group of gypsies pass by on their way to set up camp.
Later the girl, named Gwen, waits outside the shop for him, wearing the earrings he liked. Joke’s on him because she has a girlfriend with her. They're going to the gypsies to have their fortunes told. The trio walk through the dark woods where the wolfbane is growing and Jenny (the friend) goes in first to have her fortune read by Bela (Bela Lugosi).
Larry and Gwen go for a walk in the fog and he admits to spying on her through the telescope. She’s not impressed (but not creeped out by it either), and tells him she’s engaged. Meanwhile, Bela is not happy about whatever he sees in the cards for Jenny. As he brushes his hair out of his eyes we see a pentagram mark on his forehead, and then we see the same mark on Jenny’s hand. He tells her to run away, and she does.
Outside of the wagon a black horse pulls at its tether. A wolf begins to howl. A woman screams.
Larry ditches Gwen to run to Jenny’s aid. She’s being savaged by a wolf and he starts beating on it with his walking stick. The wolf turns on him but he beats it off. Gwen arrives on the scene to find Larry barely conscious. An old gypsy woman from the camp - who just happens to be passing by with her horse and cart - helps Gwen get Larry home.
A group of men - including gamekeeper Frank (Gwen’s fiancé), Colonal Montford (an old friend of Larry’s who’s now the police chief), and Dr. Lloyd (a friend of his father’s) - find Jenny, her throat torn out, and nearby is Bela, whose head has been bashed in. Larry’s cane is found close at hand.
Next morning Larry wakes up in bed, a little confused and a whole lot frightened. His father, the Colonel, and the doctor pay him a visit. Larry identifies the walking stick as his, and tells them he used it to kill the wolf. But although the clothes he wore the night before are torn and bloody, there’s no sign of the wolf bite on him nor were they able to find the wolf. Larry is even more confused and frightened.
Gwen’s pretty upset over her friend’s death, and she’s in the backroom of her father’s store when Jenny’s mother enters with a few of her cronies and starts mouthing off. Enter Larry, who chases them off and tries to comfort Gwen. Enter Frank, Gwen’s fiancé, who doesn’t seem to like Larry much. Gee, I wonder why?
Now it’s later that evening and the gypsies are holding some kind of a carnival at their camp. Frank and Gwen are there having a good time. Larry’s there too, only not quite as happy as everyone else. There’s a lot of music and dancing and general merriment.
Larry crosses paths with the old gypsy woman who tells him that he killed the wolf and the wolf was her son Bela. She also tells him the wolf can only be killed by silver and “whoever is bitten by a werewolf and lives will become a werewolf themselves”. She gives him a pentagram charm to wear for protection.
Larry leaves, then the old woman comes out of her tent and whispers to another gypsy, who whispers to another, and whatever’s being said spreads like wildfire. Larry runs into Gwen, and tells her about the old woman and how she said he’s a werewolf now and gives her the charm.
Next thing you know, the gypsies are packing up and leaving. Gwen leaves on her own and Larry has a mini melt down. He thinks he’s becoming unhinged and doesn’t know what to believe. Back home he strips off his shirt and is relieved to see he’s not sprouting any extra hair. But then he takes off his shoes and we see his legs and feet are getting really hairy.
Now we have a completely transformed Larry wandering through the foggy grave yard. He attacks and kills the grave digger. Wolf howls wake up the villagers and some men go to the grave yard and find the man with his throat torn out.
Larry wakes up sprawled on his back across his bed. There’s a pentagram tattoo on his chest and he’s horrified when he sees the animal prints leading from the window to the bed.
Clearly he’s having some kind of mental breakdown, which is why his father disregards his concerns about werewolves. Off they go to church together but Larry doesn’t stay. When he arrives home, his father and their friends are discussing the wolf problem. Larry insists it’s not just a wolf, it’s a werewolf.
That night, Larry (in werewolf form) is caught in one of the wolf traps. When he hears Frank and the other hunters he struggles until he passes out. The old gypsy woman finds him and he turns human again. Freeing himself from the trap, he wanders barefoot into the village to talk to Gwen. He tells her he’s going away, and even though he’s positive he’s the killer, she wants to go with him. As he holds her hand he sees the pentagram appear and he runs away.
He ends up back home where his father tells him he’s just suffering from mental stress, brought on by the gypsy woman and her fantastical stories. To prove it’s all in Larry’s head, he ties him to a chair while he goes to help with the wolf hunt. Larry begs him to take the silver headed cane with him and he does.
While the hunters lay in wait for the wolf, Sir John crosses paths with the gypsy woman. They’re arguing when they hear shots being fired. The hunters are positive the wolf was hit, but can’t find it. Gwen’s running through the woods looking for Larry and encounters the gypsy. Against the gypsy’s advice, she keeps looking.
Of course she runs right into the werewolf, who attacks her. Sir John is the first one to the rescue and hits the werewolf with the cane to get him away from Gwen. The monster then turns on him and he keeps beating it, in self defense. Then Sir John watches, horrified, as the gypsy woman speaks her blessing over the beast’s body and it transforms back into his son. She drives off in her cart and the others come running up.
The Colonel takes charge and it’s decided that the wolf attacked Gwen and Larry died defending her. Well done Larry.
At first I thought Lon Chaney’s portrayal of Larry was a little over the top, but actually, it helped show the mental breakdown of the character. You begin to wonder yourself if there really is a werewolf or if it’s all in his head. This movie really is a classic.
The only version of this movie I could find on YouTube is pretty dark, but if you can lighten up your screen this would be the perfect movie to watch while you’re passing out Halloween candy.
Are you familiar with “the mother’s curse?” It kind of goes like this: I hope when you grow up you have kids just as bad as you.
Well, I have learned to be careful what you wish for. Especially when you end up babysitting the child of your child. *sigh* She looks so sweet, doesn’t she? Sitting on the coffee table with her stuffed monkeys:
That picture was taken just before she stood up on the coffee table and booted the monkeys off, one by one. Monkeys flying everywhere!
Thursday and Friday last week the son-in-law had to fill in for someone at work, so my babysitting time doubled. What’s cute when you babysit for 2 ½ hours (which includes the beginning of nap time) is exhausting when you babysit for 5. And to make matters worse, it was too wet and cold to play outside.
On a whim I Googled “mother’s curse” thinking to discover the source of it. Imagine my surprise when the feed filled up with all this scientific jargon regarding a real mother’s curse. It’s some kind of genetic anomaly that’s passed down from mothers to their sons - only the sons, not the daughters. I didn’t understand a fraction of what it’s all about, but if you’re interested in the science of it all, you can learn more at Phys Org.
This week the daughter is off to another convention, so it’ll be full time babysitting for most of the week. But the upside is I’ll get to use her car, so even if the weather’s bad we can still go to story time at the library and play group at the YMCA.
And you’d think I would have had enough of the kid with the extra babysitting, but no, I went with her to our local comic con on the weekend. She wore her batman outfit and she and her trusty monkey were ready to protect us from the Daleks that were wandering around causing trouble.
Other highlights of last week include going to Oshawa to meet my favourite author, Charles de Lint. It was an amazing experience and I’ll be writing a separate blog post all about it soon.
And finally, yesterday I spent the day working on the grandbaby’s Halloween costume. She’s going to be the cutest little Ewok out there. I was able to get the main part finished in one go - basically, a brown sleeper made out of arctic fleece with a hood (with ears on it) and feet. The pattern turned out to be a little trickier than I expected, but it turned out okay. Now I just have to figure out how to do the head scarf.
Sadly, I didn’t get much writing in over the last week, but at least I kept busy. :-D
Some movies are so bad they’re good, and some movies are just ... bad. My husband and I enjoy watching them both and I thought it would be fun to share the best of the worst. So without further ado, here’s my bad movie review of the week. I leave it up to you to decide whether the movie is bad, or just the review. ;-)
Right from the start, there were two things that bugged me about this movie. First, in the credits they called the author Mrs. Percy B. Shelley instead of Mary Shelley. Yes, she was married to Percy Shelley, but seriously! Second, they changed the name of the lead character! Instead of Victor Frankenstein, we have Henry Frankenstein. They gave the name Victor to his friend.
I’m going to be generous here and pretend I haven’t read, and enjoyed, Mary Shelley’s classic tale of a man slowly driven mad by obsession. The only thing her book and this movie have in common is the fact that it’s about a man named Frankenstein, and he brought a dead man back to life.
The movie starts old style, with a narrator in a tux, on a stage, introducing the story. This fades into a funeral at a cemetery with one of the cheesiest back drops I’ve ever seen. Creepy looking Fritz (not Igor) and Frankenstein are lurking behind a wrought iron fence (like the bars would really keep them hidden).
If you’re the least bit observant, you’ll see that the portly grave digger throws his hat and coat on the ground before filling in the grave (after the funeral goers have left), but when he’s done they’re hanging off the handle of a shovel that’s stuck in the ground. Same thing happens when Fritz and Frankenstein dig the coffin up again.
As they’re on their way home with the coffin in a hand cart, they pass a cross with a body tied to it and Frankenstein makes Fritz cut it down - mmm, fresh meat! - only to reject the body because the man’s neck is broken. Apparently a broken neck means the brain’s no good.
Now we see a doctor giving a lecture on the difference between a normal brain and an abnormal one. Fritz is peering in through a window, and after everyone leaves sneaks in to steal the normal brain. A noise startles him and he drops the beaker it’s in, so he takes the abnormal one instead (anyone else hear Marty Feldman’s voice saying, “Abby Normal?”).
Next we visit Frankenstein’s fiancée, Elizabeth, who’s reading a letter from him telling her all about how his experiments are so important they come even before her. Frankenstein’s friend, Victor, commiserates with her and promises to help. They go to the doctor and convince him to come with them to visit Frankenstein.
It’s a dark and stormy night. Frankenstein and Fritz are in the ultimate mad scientist’s lab high up in the falling down castle. They’re preparing for a great experiment - a lot of electrical arcing going on as they test the equipment.
Suddenly there came a rapping, as of someone gently tapping, tapping at the castle door. Frankenstein sends Fritz to send whoever it is away, but they’re not budging and start yelling for Frankenstein. He yells down at them to go away but they won’t, so he reluctantly lets them in.
Frankenstein tells them that he’s discovered a ray beyond ultra-violet on the spectrum and that this ray is the source of life. He allows the doctor to confirm the body he has on the table is dead. The storm continues to rage as Frankenstein turns on the equipment and uncovers the body. He raises the table up through a hole in the ceiling and begins counting. Lots of thunder, lots of lightning, lots of static. Slowly he lowers the table again - the body’s hand moves!
Apparently Frankenstein has a bit of a God complex and goes into near hysterics at his success.
Leaving the castle behind for the moment, we next find Elizabeth and Victor visiting with Frankenstein’s father, the baron, who’s complaining quite vociferously about his son’s continued absence. Thinking his son is holed up with another woman, the baron decides to go in person to bring him home.
Back in the lab, the doctor advises Frankenstein to lock the creature up because it’s dangerous - the stolen brain was that of a criminal, not a normal brain. The creature wanders in and appears somewhat harmless until Fritz rushes in and starts waving a torch at it. The creature’s frightened and reacts accordingly - Frankenstein and the doctor manage to subdue it and chain it up in another room.
We aren’t told what Fritz’s problem with the creature is, but he seems to enjoy tormenting it with a whip, and when Frankenstein takes that away from him, he uses a torch again. Frankenstein and the doctor are in the lab when they hear a scream and they rush into the creature’s cell to find Fritz hanging from the ceiling. Serves the nasty little worm right.
Frankenstein manages to give the creature a shot of something that knocks him out. At this point Victor arrives to warn them that the baron is on the way, and helps them hide the creature’s body. The baron is kind of pompous, demanding entry, and then he and Elizabeth go up to the lab. Frankenstein opens the door and promptly faints. They revive him and the baron tells him he’s taking him home.
Despite the fact the doctor promised Frankenstein he’d dispose of the creature humanely, he spends the next few days performing his own experiments on the creature, having to use increasingly larger doses of drugs to keep him unconscious. Unfortunately for him, he misjudges the dosages and the monster wakes up and kills him, then escapes the castle.
Meanwhile, Frankenstein is recuperating with Elizabeth at his side and they’re making wedding plans. Fast forward to their wedding day - the whole town is celebrating.
Out in the woods, the creature is wandering around and stumbles across a little girl playing by a lake. She invites him to play with her and they have fun floating the heads of daisies in the water. The creature gets a little too enthusiastic with the game and tosses her in too.
Back to the wedding. There’s celebrating in the streets, but Elizabeth has a really bad feeling and talks to Frankenstein. He brushes it off as wedding jitters. Victor interrupts them to tell him the professor’s been murdered and the creature’s on the loose. Frankenstein locks the door to Elizabeth’s bedroom as he leaves.
Suspecting the creature might be in the house, the men search upstairs. And while they do so, the creature climbs into Elizabeth’s room through the window. By the time the men get the door to the bedroom open, the monster is gone again and Elizabeth’s in a swoon on the bed.
The father of the little girl walks into town carrying her body, putting a damper on the festivities. The crowd follows him to the baron’s house and he promises that justice will be done. Elizabeth’s still in shock, so Frankenstein leaves her in Victor’s care so he can help search. The Burgomaster separates the large, angry mob into three smaller angry mobs to search for the creature.
The backdrop for the searchers is even worse than the one at the cemetery. You can practically see the brush strokes on it. Frankenstein gets separated from his group and the creature knocks him out and drags him off. The mob sees them and chases the creature to an old windmill. Still carrying Frankenstein, the creature climbs to the top where he growls at the mob below from a balcony.
Frankenstein regains consciousness and he and the creature struggle - the creature tosses him off the windmill. He must have had a soft landing because he’s still alive and some men carry him off. The rest of the mob set fire to the windmill and watch it burn. The monster is screaming as the entire thing is engulfed in flames.
They really could have ended the movie right there. But instead the tacked on a scene with a group of giggling maids with a bottle of wine on a tray. They knock on a set of double doors - the baron opens up and we can see Frankenstein in a bed with Elizabeth at his side. The maids suggest the happy couple might want the wine to celebrate but the baron decides not to disturb them, he’ll drink it himself.
I actually did find a copy of this on YouTube, although it’s only 49 minutes instead of 71. The beginning has been chopped off - it starts after the grave digger is about to leave the cemetery. I haven’t watched this one, so I have no idea what else may be missing.
In late August/early September, while we were still suffering a heat wave, there were all kinds of dire predictions about how cold October was going to be, and how we were going to have snow early in the month.
Well, it’s mid-October and as I sit here typing this (late Sunday night), I have the deck door open and a fan blowing in the living room. Not only is it rather warm, it’s humid too. What the heck is going on?
Last week was pretty warm too, at least during the day. At night the temperature would dip low enough that we had frost warnings, but once the sun was up it would warm up fairly quickly. Which of course let to my favourite fall game - musical wardrobe.
I’m sure most of you out there have played musical wardrobe before. You know, where you check the weather forecast the night before, set out your clothes, but end up having to wear something completely different because the weather’s not as predicted.
Or you dress for the temperature you wake up to, have to change into something cooler by lunch time, and change again when it cools off in the evening. This is the time of year when layers are your friend.
Not much progress on the bathroom renovation. A lot of sanding and filling, waiting for the filling to dry, and more sanding. Hubby's started working on the stand for the sink, but there’s not much to see yet. And ... we discovered that the taps we bought are not exactly the best ones for a vessel sink. The faucet’s okay, but the taps themselves are a smidgeon too low, so he’s going to have make a little mini stand for them too.
Once the filling is finished, then it’s primer time. And once the primer is dry it’s paint and tiles. So looks like someone better get off her lazy butt this week and pick out the paint she wants. I’ve got a bunch of little paint samples and once I narrow it down to my favourites, I can exchange them for the bigger paint samples.
Well folks, it’s the end of an era. I finally broke down and got a cell phone. It was time. I’ve been putting it off because I’m surrounded by people who have an unhealthy attachment to their cell phones and I didn’t want to turn into one of them. However, the daughter gave up her land line, so if there was ever an emergency when I’m babysitting I’d be in big trouble. Also, part of the bundling of our TV/internet services included switching our phone to cable as well. If the power goes out (which it tends to do occasionally) or even if it's just the cable that goes out (which happens more often) then we’re without phone service.
The kid who set me up with my phone was great - he was very patient and made sure I was comfortable using it. So far I can make calls, send texts, and take pictures. However, I might have to pay the kid another visit because I have yet to figure out how to set up my voice mail.
But no games! That’s what I have a tablet for. LOL
Some movies are so bad they’re good, and some movies are just ... bad. My husband and I enjoy watching them both and I thought it would be fun to share the best of the worst. So without further ado, here’s my bad movie review of the week. I leave it up to you to decide whether the movie is bad, or just the review. ;-)
When I was a kid, I used to get into trouble for watching the Saturday afternoon monster movies. Or to be more precise, my father used to get into trouble for letting me. I adored the mostly science fiction, usually black and white, B movies, but they’d invariably give me nightmares. LOL
But that’s probably when my love for the creature features began. Two in particular stand out in my mind. There was one about a meteor that crashed on Earth, and when it got wet it grew. But then one of the heroes discovered that salt water would harm it, so they loaded up a reservoir with salt and then blew a dam to stop it. The other was the original Invaders From Mars where it begins with an alien craft landing in a sandpit during a storm. To this day I still don’t like walking on a beach or any other bare earth in the dark. :-)
I don’t recall seeing any of the classic horror movies during my Saturday afternoons, but at some point did see Frankenstein, Dracula, and one of my favorites, The Creature From the Black Lagoon. I never did see the original Mummy back then, although I have enjoyed the franchise staring Brendan Fraser.
The 1932 version of The Mummy begins with the discovery of the mummy of Imhotep, a high priest, during an archeological expedition lead by Sir Joseph Whemple. They also found the Scroll of Thoth and when Sir Joseph’s assistant reads from it, he unwittingly brings the mummy back to life. When Sir Joseph returns, it’s to find both Imhotep and the scroll gone, and his assistant gibbering in a corner, quite mad.
Ten years later, Sir Joseph’s son Frank and Professor Pearson are at the same field office when they received a visit from an Egyptian named Ardath Bey, actually Imhotep, who tells them were to find the tomb of an Egyptian Princess named Ankh-es-en-amon. This is an amazing find, but of course they turn the whole works over to the Cairo Museum.
Once the princess is on display, Ardath Bey sneaks into the museum to visit the princess, whom he loved when he was alive. As he reads from the Scroll of Thoth, a young woman named Helen, the ward of Dr. Muller, an Egyptologist who was with Sir Joseph when he discovered the original mummy, is drawn to the museum. Joseph and Frank are just leaving and spot her trying to get into the closed museum. Naturally they take her back to their house.
Ardath Bey is caught by the security guard at the museum, and when he flees after killing the guard he forgets to take the scroll with him. Sir Joseph is called to the scene and is surprised to find the scroll, which he takes home with him. Meanwhile, Dr. Muller has arrived at the Whemple house where Helen is still lying semi-conscious on a chaise, murmuring the name Imhotep. When she awakens she’s confused, remembering nothing about what happened. Frank is immediately smitten with her, and she seems to return his feelings.
Leaving Frank to sit with Helen, Sir Joseph and Dr. Muller move into the study and talk about the original mummy, Imhotep. He would have been a priest when the princess was a Vestal Virgin, and they never did find out what happened to his mummy. Dr. Muller advises Sir Joseph to burn the scroll.
Frank leaves Helen resting and joins the others in the study just as Ardath Bey arrives at the house. He seems to hypnotize the servant who opens the door, and as he stands over Helen’s sleeping form, she awakens again, but she isn’t scared. In fact, she seems mesmerized by him. Dr. Muller asks Frank to take Helen back to the hotel - she’s acting a little loopy and at first she doesn’t want to go, but Frank convinces her.
Dr. Muller confronts Ardath Bey about the scroll and the mummy coming back to live. Ardath Bey demands the scroll back and leaves in a huff when they won’t give it to him. Once agin Dr. Muller advises Sir Joseph to burn the scroll, and then leaves to see to Helen.
This time Sir Joseph listens, but as he’s about to start the fire, Ardath Bey is watching through a scrying pool and uses magic to cause Sir Joseph to have a heart attack. As Sir Joseph dies, the servant takes the scroll out of the fireplace and takes it to Ardath Bey.
Later, we get a creepy close up of Ardath Bey’s eyes and the next thing you know, Helen is on her way to his place, dragging her very reluctant dog. She and Ardath Bey sit in front of the scrying pool and he shows her her past life as a Vestal Virgin, and how much he loved her. She sees him kneeling beside her as she lay dying and the big procession when they entomb her. Then how he stole the Scroll of Thoth so he could bring her back to life and got caught trying to cast the spell, and subsequently buried alive with the scroll.
He awakens her from her trance and she hears her dog cry out and goes to find him. She arrives home to find Frank waiting for her. At first she’s a little annoyed, but then she realizes she left her dog behind, because it was dead! Frank comforts her and professes his love. She’s really confused and afraid she’s turning into someone else. A nurse Dr. Muller had hired gives her something to help her sleep and Frank volunteers to keep watch until the doctor returns. He wraps a charm of protection he’d been carrying around the knob of her bedroom door.
Once he’s done that, Ardath Bey begins casting a spell to kill him. He manages to make it to the charm so that he only passes out instead of dying, and Helen walks right over him in her trance to go to Ardath Bey.
She awakens dressed in the clothes she wore as Ankh-es-en-amon, Ardath Bey beside her. They’re in the museum where he sets fire to the princess mummy, explaining that once it’s destroyed its soul will be free to enter Helen. They go into an embalming chamber where he tells her he’ll have to kill her and then bring her back to life as Ankh-es-en-amon. She’s not on board with this at all but Ardath Bey uses his magical mojo to make her more compliant.
Dr. Muller and Frank arrive as Ardath Bey is about to sacrifice Helen on the altar. They distract him and Helen wakes up. She remembers her past life and prays to a stature of Isis. Ardath Bey is using his magic to stop the men and Isis answers Helen’s prayer, burning the scroll which was Imhotep’s only link to the mortal plain. Frank saves Helen with his love. The end.
The great part about buying the DVD versus watching it on YouTube is the bonus features. Here’s some interesting facts I learned:
- the original story was not Egyptian but inspired by a story about Alessandro Cagliostro, an Italian occultist. The story was about a man 3,000 year old magician.
- Imhotep was a high priest of the temple of the Sun in Karnak
- the original name of the movie was Imhotep
- supposedly, the guy responsible for the mummy makeup studied Egyptian embalming methods
- the mummy makeup took longer than the makeup for Frankenstein
- because of the way the makeup was applied, it was painful to remove
This movie was a classic in every sense of the word. At its heart it was a story of eternal love. There were no CGI effects, and the black and white leant an atmospheric creepiness to Boris Karloff’s portrayal of the mummy. His eyes spoke volumes all by themselves. One of the things I found really interesting was how much of the original movie made it into the remake with Brendan Fraser, including naming one of the main characters Ardath Bey.
If you enjoyed the remake, I highly suggest you pick up your own copy of the original. Currently it’s available at Walmart for under $10.00.
monopolylogue ~ dramatic work in which one actor plays many roles
It’s officially fall.
Yes, I know, the calendar said fall started a couple of weeks ago. But this morning when I got up I actually turned the heat on in the house. Me, the woman who’s perpetually cold. There was frost on the ground outside and according to the Weather Network it was all of 3 degrees Celsius outside (that’s in the high 30s for those of you using Fahrenheit). It was around 10 C (50 F) according to the thermostat inside the house. So yeah, an extra sweater just ain’t gonna do it any more.
Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canadians! And a Happy Columbus Day to my U.S. friends.
I believe I mentioned last week that I cooked a turkey dinner last weekend to both use up my excess turkey and to give us leftovers. I didn’t get any pictures because although the build up to dinner was leisurely, the actually serving of it was not and there just wasn’t time for a picture.
Yesterday we went to the in-laws for a big family dinner. We all take a dish or two, mine were glazed carrots and sweet potatoes. A long time ago I used to just take carrots, but they’re not a sweet potato bunch and I can’t imagine Thanksgiving without sweet potatoes, so ...
The daughter brought a pumpkin pie and I believe she called it a bourbon pecan pie. It was so pretty it was almost a shame to cut into it, but at the same time it was really, really too yummy to let just sit there. Which is how I ended up spending most of last night in a food coma. ;-)
Thanksgiving is a time for family, and for feeling gratitude for all the things we have. We may grouse about our families the rest of the year, but we still move heaven and earth to be with them at Thanksgiving. Often it’s not just over the hill to grandma’s house, it’s way across county.
Despite the fact that we all live in the same town, we don’t get together with the hubby’s family that often. Sometimes we’ll have dinner with his parents, but with the siblings and their kids, not so much. So for me the highlight was seeing the granddaughter playing with her cousins - one smaller and three bigger. It was pretty crowded and there weren’t a lot of toys, but they had a blast.
This year I’m grateful for friends and families, the food on our table and the roof over our heads. I’m also grateful for the kids. They may be a rowdy bunch, maybe a little head strong, but they’re healthy and happy, and that’s what counts.
I had a wonderful plan for October. I was going to spend the month watching and reviewing the classic creature feature horror movies: Frankenstein, The Mummy, Dracula ... You know, to get everyone in the Halloween spirit.
Alas, YouTube was not my friend on the weekend. I spent so much time trying to bring one of these up that I had no time to watch one. And for the record, these movies are not available on YouTube. Nor are they available through Netflix. *sigh*
So then I had the half-hearted idea of just talking about some of these movies, not reviewing them but maybe discussing why they made such a mark in the film industry. Maybe even doing a poll on Facebook to see what movies people think of when they hear Classic Horror.
BUT ...
Yesterday I was in Walmart (looking for a stylus for my tablet) and lo and behold they had my movies on sale. Sweet!
However, I did not have time to watch any of them last night, and I’m not sure if I’ll have the time today either.
So the weekly review is coming, I’m just not sure when.
muller ~ flat heavy stone or iron pulverizing tool
Wow, can you believe it’s October already? September sure left in a hurry - must have had an important appointment to keep.
For Canadians, October means Thanksgiving. The local grocery stores have had turkeys on sale for the last couple of weeks so naturally I took advantage of the low prices to pick up a turkey to replace the emergency turkey I was going to use for Thanksgiving.
Yes, that’s right. I keep an emergency turkey in my freezer. You know, in case we’re ever invaded by a ravening hoard. Although it’s to be hoped the ravening hoard isn’t in a rush for dinner because it’s a frozen turkey after all, so it’ll take a while for it to cook.
I also have a large, emergency ham in the freezer for the same reason. I won’t bore you with the tale of my food hoarding tendencies, suffice it to say I must have starved to death in a previous life because in this one I live in fear of someone leaving my table still hungry. :-D
But I digress.
It wasn’t until after I’d already bought my secondary turkey that I learned we were having Thanksgiving at the in-laws this year. And since I’m only allowed one turkey at a time in my freezer and I didn’t want to miss out on the leftovers, I decided to do my turkey dinner yesterday.
Now, if you’re going to do a turkey diner, you have to do it right. That means fresh, not frozen veggies. And lots of them, that I cooked early in the day to make dinner itself less stressful. I even went so far as to buy a couple of those little pie pumpkins to make my pie with.
Actually, I figured I’d be making a couple of pies and maybe some pumpkin bread, but I was wrong. My two little pumpkins resulted in three measly cups of puree. Not sure if it was worth the trouble or not, although the pie did turn out rather well (if I do say so myself).
And I also did something I’ve never tried before - I saved the pumpkin seeds for roasting. It’s a little messy, and I have to admit to having mixed feelings about the results.
I actually divided them in half and did one batch of onion/garlic, and one with Italian spices. Definitely not like store-bought, but I think I could get used to them.
Anyway, dinner was a great success, and it was a trial run for the grandbaby for real Thanksgiving. Without a doubt her favourite part was the turkey - which I don’t think she’s ever had before - followed by the whipped cream on the pumpkin pie. Not the pie itself, mind you, just the whipped cream.
But the main thing is, I have my leftovers. Club sandwich anyone?
