i have never seen the movie THE WIZARD OF OZ in its entirety. this fact has absolutely nothing to do with frugal blake and maureen and prices of admission to the cinema...in fact i will always remember maureen taking us kids out of school when i was in in grade two and pam was in grade four so we could catch a matinee of the sound of music. apparently i don't get the nuances of that movie, i never understood why people thought the baronness was so mean to maria. (trivia for the day: the von trapp family emigrated to america, and set up in philadelphia where the kids went to the same school as grace kelly.)

my lack of education regarding dorothy and the rest of the crew is mainly that the movie alternatiely scares and bores me. charles remembers seeing it as a small child and being really frightened of the flying monkeys for months afterwards. i had the capacity to sit through wizard, i have seen gone with the wind many times (although i always cringe in the second half as scarlett self destructs and alienates all those around her...)and oz never held the same appeal for me as gwtw did. whereas i could sit in the living room and watch gwtw on a sunday afternoon, i could never sit through oz. not even if i had a book on my lap to distract me.

i have been distracted over the past month, as insects have swarmed back into hong kong. the fricking cicadas serenade us night and day...do they all draw breath at the same time? zzzzzzz-         ZZZZZZZZZZZZz-zzzzzz and the spider webs are getting three dimensional, sticky and you really need to run with your mouth shut. snails are larger, slimier. and one look at carys little matchstick legs will inform you that the mozzies are back.

the worst are the flying ants. i don't know why i say worse because they are harmless, but i don't like the looks of them. they are a dull shiny black, and look like giant ants with clear grey wings. they don't bite, and are rather harmless, but i dislike their size and the buzzing they make as they beat against sealed windows. they remind me of the flying monkeys from the wizard of oz. they really are beautiful to look at, indeed, in an insect sort of way. i like that they don't  bite and that is why i have never killed one. but they are creepy.

for the past month these miniature flying monkeys have joined charles and i on our morning runs. they frequent the mountain and they are our tiny chariots, leading the path. it is ridiculous to watch the tiny swarm buzzing ahead of us. why are they doing it? there is no glory in leading humans, horses certainly wouldn't do it if it weren't for the bit, so why are the insects? who knows, but they take an interest in our runs, and slow down when we do, careful not to fly too far ahead. it's like they think they are incentive. ed harris for me, nigella lawson for charles sort of thing.

if they really wanted to help of course, they would scoop us up and carry us to the end of the run, or preferably, home again. but possibly for that to happen i would have to be wearing a blue gingham apron and carrying a tiny dog in a basket.  and that certainly doesn't sound like anything that i will be wearing soon, on a run or otherwise.

Comments

[Charles]

The monkeys STILL scare me!

[Louise M]

I'll take "It's a Wonderful Life" any day over Dorothy and Toto. I have always loved the Sound of Music, saw it for the first time when I was four. My brothers, a cousin and I lined up afterwards and pretended we were the kids, belting out "Doe a Deer" (ok, we only numbered 5, but what the heck, we had fun).

[joeinvegas]

No little gingham apron in your house? You've been around the kids too much and Charles too little.

[Tonya]

Well I will confess, that when asked what my favorite movie of all time is, without hesitation I saw "The Wizard of Oz", it was a family tradition to watch it when it came on TV around Thanksgiving, and although I own the Tape and the DVD, I still watch it on TV commercials and all, so give it another chance for me Tess- LOVE YA!