The Offending Object
On Wednesday evening, I was walking through the family room with my attention elsewhere when I caught my toe on the leg of the ottoman. The pain was unbelievable and I figured I had broken it. Ice and elevation helped a bit, but by the next morning I was only able to wear flip-flops (Ralph Lauren, at least!). Having my leg down sitting at a desk most of the day didn’t help matters and so finally on Friday I saw the doctor. Despite the swelling and bruising, he said it probably isn’t broken, but if it is it may take until September to heal!
So, I decided to fight my urge to keep moving and spend the weekend parked on the couch with my foot up. I am not someone who likes to give in, but it had to be done. So, here is some of what kept me from going stir-crazy over the weekend.
From W Network
This 4-episode show which premiered in June 2017 is available on TV on W Network and on-line at
The W Network website. It follows designer Jillian Harris and boyfriend Justin Pasutto over the course of a year. Harris is the funny and emotional cohost of
Love It or List It Vancouver and a former Bachelorette. The docu-series follows the pair as Harris tries to juggle her 5-hour weekly commute between Kelowna and Vancouver, and a profitable lifestyle blog, and her relationship. The couple is also fully renovating their new house, trying to sell their old house, and working on multiple projects. Over the course of the year, Harris becomes pregnant, gives birth, gets engaged, and swears a lot (but this is somehow endearing!). This is a very busy couple, who are loving and not afraid to disagree. It offers an interesting and often funny look behind the scenes at a driven celebrity career.
From IMDb
I’m a sucker for any movie that plays with time and/or the “butterfly” effect where one small change can have a big impact. So even though the movie is aimed at a YA crowd, I figured I’d give it a go. I probably should have left well enough alone. It’s about four mean girls, but their characters are not drawn with any depth. Based on a YA book by Lauren Oliver, the movie stars Zoey Deutch (as Sam) who is the best thing about the movie and is clearly a rising star. On February 12 (or Cupid Day at her school), we follow Sam through her day at school and then to a party, after which there is a terrible car accident. When she wakes up, it is February 12 all over again. She lives the same day over and over in different ways, until she is able to change things enough that she is released. It might be a good teen film, with some presumably relatable high school situations and a moral of sorts about being nice to other people, but there are certainly movies that do this kind of thing better.
Groundhog Day did it with a lot of humour and
The Butterfly Effect took things to the limit in a cool psychological thriller.
From IMDb
This dark episode in the X-Men saga is well worth watching. Hugh Jackman is compelling, playing the Wolverine as we’ve never seen him — drinking, sick, and despondent. Patrick Stewart is Charles Xavier who now has devastating psychic seizures, with the disability played to perfection. Dafne Keen as the young mutant, Laura, is amazingly freaky, with an awesome stare and a ferocious attack. My husband’s and my biggest complaint was the amount of violent gore, with repeated severed heads and claws through heads
ad nauseam… we had to look away. As an aside, after watching
Castlevania, I found that
Logan had some similarity of story line, but without the humour — drunken recluse, pulled reluctantly into helping people, adamant that he doesn’t care, and finally caring and throwing himself into the battle. Oh and the other thing is that X-24, the clone/android type replica of Wolverine also played by Hugh Jackman, really reminded me of Richard Armitage when he had his really short haircut! Well, we always knew that Jackman and Armitage had some facial similarities. But also, according to
Inverse.com, “We did some subtle things,” explained Jackman. “I changed the bridge of my nose, I wore contacts — I just wanted him to look a little different from myself.”
The Richard and Layla Chronicles: No judgments, please… Yes this is real-person fiction starring a fictional Richard Armitage and an original female character. The story is often funny, starting from when a drunk and heartbroken Layla first meets Richard in a bar and including some cute scenes with Hobbit pals Aidan Turner and Dean O’Gorman. It touches on serious subjects, such as domestic violence, and it explores the relationship of two people trying to get past scarring from their past romances. It is often touching, and VERY often VERY steamy. Definitely, NSFW. The stories were written mainly in 2013 and 2014, but there are updates as recently as 2017. We see this fantasy couple through their early relationship, camping trips, engagement, moving to New York, marriage, and babies (although I haven’t reached as far as these last several stories yet). If you like RPF and don’t mind that it’s NSFW, this will keep you going for a long time. The full collection has been assembled in chronological order at Not So Molly.
90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After?: OK and don’t judge me for this either… I was very bored! But they had a marathon of episodes on TLC… what was I to do? The regular season focuses on several couples, where an American brings someone over on a fiancé visa. The visa requires marriage within 90 days in order for that person to be allowed to stay in the country. I had watched bits here and there in reruns and so I had some familiarity with these couples who managed to marry and continue on now a year later. As my husband says, it’s kind of like watching a train wreck. It seems pretty obvious that a few of them were probably just in it for the green card, which is pretty sad for the ones that were tricked. But a few of the couples really seem to want to make it work but their cultural differences and separation from family make it really difficult.
Well. So, at this point, my brain had basically been turned to mush. But, good news! By Monday morning, my foot was well on the way to normalcy… if definitely multi-coloured!
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I call Richard and Hugh ‘The Wonder Twins.’ Same build, same shape face, from different angles I can see why they get mixed up.
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Sorry about your toe by the way. 🙁
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Thanks. It’s definitely getting better.
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Excellent!
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I know, right? Except somehow HJ hasn’t affected me in quite the same way!
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sorry about the foot problems, but more sorry that you have to suffer through daytime television! I used to watch Jillian on ‘Love it or List it too’ but didn’t know that she had a reality show. I may look it up just to hear her swear 😀
‘Before I Fall’ is a book/movie my 12 year old daughter really liked. I watched the movie w/her recently and was so mad at the way it ended! I told her if I read the book, I would have thrown it across the room. lol! I was torn during the movie, growing to sympathize with the main character but not really wanting to since she used to be one of those mean girls herself. I felt the same way watching ‘Pretty Little Liars’ though; is this what YA culture is now? ugh.
as for ‘Logan’, I really liked it. I do like the comic book movies and Wolverine in particular, so I was really looking forward to seeing it. I had seen some not-so-favorable reviews which made me apprehensive but I really liked the grittiness of it, the angsty vibe, and that little girl was a delight!
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Thanks on both counts! Yes I actually enjoyed Jillian’s new show.
I was mad at the ‘Before I Fall’ ending too, but more because I’m not sure that Juliet and Kent are actually so much better off after that happened!
I liked Logan a lot, but really would have like it much better if it weren’t so gory!
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Oh dear, I hope you’ll get back on your feet again, soon. Sounds very painful! (Chuck that ottoman!)
Had a look at Jillian’s blog, but I’m afraid I can’t hack celebrity reality stuff. It invariably makes me feel annoyed with these people being famous, beautiful, rich – and not much else. But Logan sounds like an interesting film. Thanks for the recommendation!
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A few years ago I caught my baby toe on the kitchen table and actually broke the toe — same foot, next toe over. I’m afraid if I start throwing out furniture I may end up with none!
Logan is very good and not very comic book like.
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Other option: wear slippers with toe caps 😉
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Now there’s a thought!
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Owie!!! much sympathy.
So that’s what that 90 days thing is about. I see it in the TV options but I’ve never watched it. I suspect, if Congress ever legislates about it, that visa is going away, since the San Bernardino gunmen was married to a woman who came to the US that way. Mixed feelings — it’s also the mechanism that facilitated the mail order brides thing here. OTOH I also know people who have used it honestly to marry people they knew well and were really in love with, and weren’t planning to destroy the USA, and for them it’s been a real boon.
I used to really like the original “Love it or List It” (Hilary and David were so funny, and I liked some of the contractors, too) but lately I haven’t been able to watch HGTV at all, not even the show with the pretty Property Brothers. Dad hates it, so that’s also a disincentive.
Richard + Layla — I remember those stories. And I love RPF. At some point I started to have trouble with them, but I don’t remember why any more. I think in the end it’s usually about the author’s picture of Richard Armitage being different from mine in subtle ways. Like, it’s another way of putting together evidence about him to build a picture and I am familiar enough with the Armitage “lore” that I see where the elements come from and then I end up thinking “that’s not what that evidence suggests.”
re: YA stuff in general — my limited observations based on what I catch of what the nieces read is that the main characters are more realistic than they used to be, more aspirational on the level of consumption and appearance, but much less admirable on the whole.
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Thanks. It’s actually sooo much better today.
90 days is a pretty short time to go forward, so it’s pretty hard unless you already know the person pretty well. I don’t recommend watching the show, I just got sucked into it because I was bored. Some of them seem to be creating drama just for the show. But there’s one where the guy is from Israel and they live in Florida. They genuinely seem to be trying to make it work. They’re exploring bringing his parents over once he has citizenship. That seems like it could happen pretty quick, but to get his 26-year-old brother over has a wait list of 13 years!
The Vancouver Love It or List it crowd is funny too, but not as much as Hilary and David. Apparently, it’s all pretty scripted (i.e. I’ve heard they film two endings) so that kind of turns me off.
I like the Richard and Layla stories, but for sure you have to see the RA persona as fiction. This one is rather possessive and domineering — if someone kept saying “Mine” to me and/or grabbing my throat, he’d be out the door pretty fast! But mostly, the story is good.
I used to watch Hunger Games and Divergent with my younger son. Those two have strong, courageous female lead characters. And transformers had a courageous male lead character. It may depend on the type of YA story, too.
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Ouch! Hope your toe is better soon!
This reminds me that I still really need to see Logan!
Richard & Layla – I recall coming across that but never had the patience to read it. Layla is an original female character or is she based on the Spooks character or the Strike Back one?
I often get impatient with RPF, because the picture an author has of RA doesn’t often gel with mine. Having said that, I have enjoyed an occasional RPF, read a really nice one recently that I can’t quite remember the name of anymore.
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Thanks. The toe is gradually healing, but I can still only wear flip-flops.
Yes, Logan is definitely worth seeing.
Layla is an original character. I like the stories, but I find the RA a bit possessive and at the same time maybe too insecure. And maybe they’re both a bit needy for each other. It’s a very nice romance, though.
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