Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

On Saturday, Agent Smith organized a Lord of the Rings marathon, hosted at the house of a couple who have a big-screen TV. The house was in a rural part of the Philadelphia suburbs, an old farmhouse that retained some original features, such as a steep, twisting stairway to the second floor that gave me the cold sweats every time I traversed them.

Fortunately, I managed not to fall on them and aggravate my existing tailbone injury.

The goal was to start the first movie at about 11:30. We got there at about quarter after 11, and other people were still arriving, enjoying some of the food that people had brought. I took the opportunity to get some head shots of The Dormouse and The White Rabbit, both of whom needed them for different purposes.

Then everyone settled down and movie number one, The Fellowship of the Ring, began. It was difficult to squeeze everybody into the family room where the television was. I knew from the start there was no way I could sit through that many hours of movie, so I'd brought a pillow and planned to lie on the floor. The hostess brought in cushions from another couch to lie on, which helped immensely. I got quite comfy.

Attending the shindig were many of the usual suspects, including Agent Smith, The Warrior Princess, Pimp Daddy, The March Hare, The Dormouse, The White Rabbit, The Martial Artist, The Book Lover, The Video Editor, The Cousin and her two daughters, our hosts and several other friends.

Of course, watching movies with this group of people in someone's home is definitely not like watching them in the movie theater. You wouldn't want to watch the movie for the first time this way, because there were so many comments called out that, at times, it was difficult to hear the dialogue. I suggested several times that we put the subtitles on, but I think people thought I was joking.

That's OK; I'd seen most of these movies at least twice. I think I'd seen the first one three times.

A lot of the jokes centered around the Internet theory that all the action in the LOTR films can be explained through love relationships between the main characters. We weren't even halfway through the first movie when the first Brokeback Mountain joke came out: "I just can't quit you, Frodo." And that's just the one I can repeat.

This was the extended version of the movie, so there were some scenes I hadn't seen before, most of which was wisely cut from the theater release since it added little. Of course, I did miss some stuff because of getting up to use the restroom, get some food or deal with the host family's two kids, who had taken a liking to me.

They were a 3-year-old boy and a 1-year-old girl, and they gravitated towards me so that frequently I was paying more attention to them than to the movie. Especially when the 3-year-old got rambunctious and had to be removed from the room. He turned off The Two Towers twice, saying he didn't like the movie. I think he also hoped that if he could get people to stop watching movies they'd pay attention to him instead.

The little girl was really cute. She's not vocal yet, but very mobile, crawling around or even taking a few small steps. She was active much of the afternoon, although she did take a nap for awhile, as did her brother. Particularly amusing was when she started playing with a plastic sword, like she'd seen in the movies. We didn't have the heart to tell her that one normally doesn't hold the sword in one's mouth.

At about the time the little boy started to get really rambunctious and playful, his sister wandered into the room. I cautioned him to be gentle with her, and he greeted her by gently clasping her hands.

"Can I hug her?" he asked.

"Gently," I said, and he gave her a tender little squeeze. She seemed to like it but then wanted to continue on her way. He had other ideas, fascinated with his little sister. He wanted to hold hands and dance. She began to cry, so I had to remove her from the room and find her daddy. Immediately, she broke out in smiles and began one of her favorite activities: climbing Mount Daddy. She crawled up on his lap, then reached up to his shoulders and hoisted herself upright, while he smiled benignly.

We took half-hour breaks between each movie, which is the minimum you'd want. People got up and stretched, had some food. There were two types of chili, a beer and cheese soup, nuts, fruit, gourmet cheese and crackers provided by The Gryphon, microwave popcorn I'd brought, a couple types of desserts, including a chocolate cake Pimp Daddy brought, emblazoned with the legend, "LOTR Marathon Weekend!"

Of course, by the time the first movie ended, the snow that was predicted had started to fall. From that point on, it was constantly in the back of my mind. By the end of The Two Towers, we looked out the window to a white blanketed world. The roads didn't look too bad, and the plows had been making frequent passes, so I suggested we try to stay for the third movie, too.

But at the end of the first disk of Return of the King, The Gryphon suggested we leave. He was worried about the condition of the roads and was also having problems getting comfortable after so many hours on the floor.

So we packed up our stuff and headed out. The snow didn't look like much, but I took it slow after sliding a bit early on. I was concerned because the roads leading to 476 were country roads, many of them downhill. I was worried about hitting a turn and sliding off.

I really expected it to get better on 476. I was wrong. If they'd done any plowing on the Blue Route, it wasn't evident. I couldn't go much faster than I could on the little country roads. The entire way, I drove 10 to 15 miles per hour under the speed limit. It took us almost twice as long as usual, but we got home without further incident.

My dog, Una, and our kitty, Luke, had been checked on twice by the dogwalker and were happy to see us. We all settled down for an evening of getting snowed in, having no idea we'd wake up to 14 inches of snow. (For snow pictures, see Monday's Musing.)

Copyright 2005 by Alyce Wilson

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