This 'n That Fab Friends Movie Mania

I guess the title is testament to the fact that I've been busy and haven't posted for a few days. I've been mired in work and decided to get caught up with other things today, if possible. But because I have been able to cross a couple of things off my To Do list (the one in my head, not on my desktop), I have that little extra time.

That was the This 'n That for Monday.

One of my very good friends, Kristi Gold, will be leaving early next week to attend RWA's annual conference, this year being held in San Francisco. Although I would have loved to have gone, it wasn't in the cards for me, and I'll miss Kristi while she's gone. She and I and Kathie DeNosky have a weekly phone conversation, utilizing the three-way calling option, but next week, we'll have to skip it. We talk to each other throughout the week, too, but it's nice when we can all be "together" with the one phone call, too. Our fingers are tightly crossed for Kristi. She's a RITA finalist for her fabulous book, Fall from Grace, so it's extra hard for Kathie and me to not be there to cheer her on at the awards ceremony and calm her nerves before it.

And that was Fab Friends and Fun...fun that will be sorely missed by Kathie and me, but we'll survive.

Movie mania? Who has time? Yes, I'd planned to set aside during the week for at least one movie, if not more, but the best laid plans and all that... A couple of weeks ago, my youngest and I watched Little Women. This was the version with Winona Ryder as Jo and not a terribly bad one. My oldest memory of LW was one in 1933 which starred Katherine Hepburn. No, I wasn't born then, but I've seen it. Then there was the 1949 version, starring June Allyson as Jo, Janet Leigh as Meg, and my strongest memory of Margaret O'Brien as Beth and Elizabeth Taylor as Amy. Of course, casting those two was a reach, since Amy was the youngest of the March girls, not Beth. I noticed on IMDB (Internet Movie Data Base...the absolute BEST source for all movie and TV info) that there were also two silent versions, the first released in 1917 and the second a year later in 1918. Not being a silent movie fan, I didn't recognize any of the actors listed, but I thought it was interesting.

My daughter is always disappointed when Jo turns down Laurie's marriage proposal. I can remember feeling the same. And said daughter is sorely disappointed in Jo's choice of Professor Baer, just as I was when I was young. Now that I'm older, I understand both so much more. Jo could never have made Laurie the wife he would need in the future. She would have hated it and so would he, no matter that she understood his music. Amy would understand his music later, just as Jo had. And the professor was the perfect man for Jo, calm and stable, while Jo tended to be wildly emotional at times. Too, he would understand her writing, which was not something Laurie ever would have done, even though he would have accepted her need to write.

I reminded my daughter that Little Women was not the only book Louisa May Alcott had written about her family. My daughter was surprised. I'm not. While women my age were encouraged to read the classics, the next generation didn't fare so well.

And because that brings me up to tomorrow's "Latest Reads", of which there are none, I'll stop for today and call it done.