Last night, Shawn and I finally (mostly) caught up on Buffy. We'd managed to watch the rest of season 6 last weekend (except for the finale -- aargh! -- since we'd loaned it to friends last year and they'd misplaced it, which I consider karmically appropriate, since I lost the DVD that Aaron lent me) and my Mom loaned me the 6th finale and current season up until January 7.

One of the problems of becoming emotionally involved with a TV series is that, when your life starts to mirror the ongoing plotline, the feedback loop can get kind of overwhelming. (I did get external validation that the parallels weren't all in my mind: when talking with a friend a few days ago about catching up on old episodes, she told me that the reason I couldn't watch had also finally caught up on season 6 last weekend, and his response was something along the lines of, "So that's what was going on!")

Anyway, our lives are healed to an extent that we can go back to watching Buffy without undue identification, although I think there will always be an underlying awareness of hidden scars. Shawn's also got a problem with the way that the characters seem to keep learning important lessons -- like tell the truth, talk to your friends, and ask for help -- that they seem to have completely forgotten by the next episode. Oh, well.

A few weeks back, David Moles posted an essay about sometimes feeling like he must justify writing speculative fiction. I used to be a little defensive about being so into Buffy, but now my Dad helps validate its relevance from a sociological perspective: he's a clinical psychologist, and he actually assigns watching Buffy as homework to his interns who will be working with teenagers/young adults.

*****
In other weekend news, I was voraciously attacked by my mother's hair dryer. It's an old Conair with holes in the sides for air intake which are actually vicious, hair-sucking fiends. I ended up wandering around my parents' house with the dryer stuck to my head until I found my husband, who manfully refrained from commenting as he disentangled me. Yeah, I know, the blimp story is funnier (thanks, Teresa.)

Shawn and I had dinner on a whim at a restaurant that was far ritzier (and pricier) than we'd originally intended. I put on some more makeup in the restroom and produced more cleavage, but Shawn felt dreadfully underdressed until one of the waiters passed by our table to say that he really liked Shawn's Batman T-shirt. Instant cachet, IMHO.

We also stopped off at Grandma's on the way up the hill and were treated to her and her sister (Aunt Barb) reminiscing about Old Times. She'd given me her old diaries from 1939-1945, which I've finally started reading, and this gave me the chance to quiz her about some things. A couple of sample exchanges:

Grandma: "When I was in nursing school, I was the only Jew, and they treated me differently -- "
Aunt Barb: "They didn't treat you differently because you were a Jew; they treated you differently because you were different!" (said with a tone which only partially captured the stubborn, feisty little hellion my grandma had been.)
---
Me: "So, here on August 12, you start talking about Grandpa as your 'husband,' yet a few months later, you say he wants you to marry him in secret but you don't want to. Was August 12...?"
Grandma: "Oh, that was the first time we had sex."

I was surprised she'd admitted it so straight-forwardly, until my husband reminded me that this was, after all, the woman who'd suggested I do Shawn's bachelor party completely nude. Of course, if Grandpa were still around, she probably wouldn't have announced it in his presence, because he would have turned bright pink.


And we've still got snow and are expecting another storm this week. Yea!