Living in Los Angeles, you probably think that I see a lot of celebrities on a daily basis. Good thing I don’t, or I’d be even more tired of this place than I already am. But sometimes I see someone, so I thought I’d write about it.
I do have to say that he is waaaaay hotter in person. Although that might just be my personal preference for men who are 7 feet tall and 4 feet wide.
Have you ever noticed how much this guy:
looks like this guy?
I guess that’s why they made him the Hulk. And an excellent hulk indeed.
Anyway, I know this is going up on Wednesday (or Thursday, depending) but last week was brutal. On Wednesday May 23, I went to the largest, most consistently under construction hospital in North America (citation needed), Huntington Memorial in Pasadena to support my grandma as my mother went in for surgery. The intention was to excise a lobe of her lung, test the cancerous cells and know by the time she woke up if the cancer was lung or breast.
Why can’t doctors all get together and agree to stop saying they can do things when they totally can’t do them and people are counting on a certain timeline of events and it’s frustrating and disappointing when it doesn’t turn out that way? Not least of which because you have to call the entire family and several friends and honorary relatives and tell them that all that shit you said before the surgery is actually not what happened at all and instead this other thing is happening, or at least supposed to happen and that doesn’t even happen either. More on that shortly.
While we were waiting for the news, Grandma and I hung out in the hospital cafeteria, where I showed her the wholesome goodness of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
She wasn’t impressed. Some of her better commentary:
Trying to keep the RT train going, I then had the Internet ask my grandma random questions, which she answered in her endearingly grumpy way.
So, after annoying my poor grandma and soundly beating her at Gin Rummy, the doctor was ready to tell us the news. Apparently they couldn’t test the cells while my mother is in surgery (they just told us they could for the luls) so instead of taking the lobe, they just took the cancerous bit and left the lobe in there for possible later retrieval. They sent the cells off for testing, and the doc told us the results should be back by Friday. Seven (or eight, depending) days later we still don’t know what’s wrong with her.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Huntington Memorial. If I ever get injured, airlift me to that motherfucker, I don’t care if I’m in Kansas. All doctors do this. Why don’t they just say results will come in a week and be done with it? That way if results do come in sooner, people are happy to know sooner instead of being constantly disappointed while the dates they should have known things on sail by waving.
Whatever, the important thing about this whole ordeal is that I managed to avoid my mom the entire time. I was at the hospital from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. and I didn’t lay eyes on her once. I was a good (if obnoxious) grandchild, I waited with my grandma through the surgery and kept her entertained. I talked to my uncle and my grandma’s bestie Lomie. After surgery, I dropped grandma off at the entrance to the recovery ward with my mom’s friend and left them to find my mother together, and when they called me I came back up and got her.
After the hospital, we went and ate at Shakers, so named because everybody there has a palsy. The median age for this place was about 65, and that’s only because there was a table of 16 year olds in the corner talking about BJs. After a long day of tweeting and card playing and relative wrangling, I was starved and exhausted, which is probably how I was able to choke down their food. The burger tasted faintly of uck. Maybe I shouldn’t be so harsh on what was obviously a family owned operation. I’ll say this for Shakers: it was open. Also their zucchini bread was awesome.
Not to bury the headline, but the update here is that there really is nothing to update. Mom still definitely has cancer, but weather it’s lung or breast is anyone’s guess. Well, not anyone’s. The doctor said he was 70% sure it is stage 4 metastatic breast cancer, which is why he didn’t take the whole lobe, as there would be no point if he was right. Then again, he also said we’d have results by Friday, and before that he said he could test what type of cancer it was while she was in surgery. So who fucking knows.
This is one in a series of custom blogs I’m doing for my facebook friends. I asked if there was anything they wanted me to blog about, and I’m writing a post for each person that answered.
Melanie said: I miss your movie reviews.
Melanie and I used to work at Blockbuster together, so I’m not actually sure if she means the movie reviews I used to give in the store or the movie reviews I have written here. They are very different. I think because I’m not surrounded by movies all the time anymore, I can’t give the kind of review I used to be able to. Back then, I could say something like “If you liked ‘Do the Right Thing,’ and ‘Waiting to Exhale’ but you thought it needed more ‘Big Momma’s House,’ The Madea movies are for you.” Customers loved them. I had fun too. I honestly wish I had more time to be on top of movies anymore. I talked about going to see more movies in my post about things to do when Ben is working. He’s not on the crazy schedule yet, but I have a feeling I know which activity will come to the top of the list.
As for movie reviews, I do not disappoint:
THE AVENGERS
This is the best superhero movie I’ve ever seen. “But Marina, I thought you loved Batman, and I don’t see Batman anywhere in this film, I mean it’s not even the same publish–” THE FUCKING BEST. I know what I said, and I know what it means to my one true love, Batman.
It means he has to lose the gravely voiced scarecrow and bring back Michael Keaton. “Dark Knight, what can I say, you’re not the same man I fell in love with.”
Actually, I first fell in love with Adam West Batman, but his time is passed and I think we all know we can never bring back that level of magic. Not with all the shark repellent spray in the universe.
One thing Avengers was missing: man ass. Man anything, really. For all the clothes changing that superheroes are required to do, all I got was one brief shot of Mark Ruffalo thigh and chest. Not nearly enough to satisfy my porno fueled brain. Come on, guys, we live in the age of broadband. You’re gonna have to be a lot more naked if you want my 10 out of 10.
Will I see it again? Hell yeah. Let’s just say that you’re not an American if you don’t see this film. It’s everything we stand for: Hot dudes, marketing, and begrudging alliances based on mutually assured destruction.
THE RUM DIARIES
I rented this thinking that it would be Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with more hair and better costumes in front of cuter extras. I was sort of right.
The film, for those who don’t know is an autobiographical fiction about Hunter S. Thompson’s early career, his journey to find his voice as a writer, and his purpose as a man. In the sense that everything is fucking beautiful in this movie, my anticipations were correct. In the sense that this would be like Fear and Loathing in any way except that they are two stories ostensibly about the same man, I was wrong.
Where Fear and Loathing is madcap, funny at parts, and infinitely tense, Rum Diaries is slow and meditative, bordering on navel gazing. If I didn’t like Hunter S. Thompson so much I would have been bored. Fortunately, I love Thompson, I think his writing style, his diction, and his vision are amazing. I appreciated seeing this earlier, more relatable version of him, trying to find purpose in a purposeless world.
Watch this if you’re a Hunter S. Thompson fan, or if you appreciate casual period films about drunks in tropical climes.
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