Shoutouts to George, Obituaries, and Movie Adaptations of Lengthy Novels

I love running, I really do, but running in sub-freezing weather was a new experience for me. This morning, the city of Alexandria hosted its annual George Washington Birthday 10K. I, along with around a thousand other Alexandrians, braved the cold to pay homage to our nation’s favorite president. We all got t-shirts with his face on it. Very exciting, but not in a middle-eastern dictator kind of way. I always shy away from attending political celebrations with 30X20 posters of faces being waved around like kites. You want to stay away from those.



If your rally looks like this, you might want to find a nearby ethnic restaurant and wait it out looking as un-American as possible.

Anyway, at the starting line I realized I was standing next to a girl wearing a Florida State beanie. Turns out she is from Tallahassee, went to Lincoln, and attended Florida State. What are the chances? Her and her husband worked at the Tallahassee Democrat together and met in the obituary section. How romantic. I can hear small talk from their first date,
“How was work today?”
“Oh, well, you know, four funerals and a cremation. How about you?”
“Two funerals and a Viking raft burning. Might be two-column coverage.”
I can’t make too much fun. After all, my parents met in prison.

Tonight I walked to Target and I wandered through the movie section. Target has good $5 movies. It wasn’t five dollars, but I still had to pick up Pride and Prejudice when I saw it was on sale. Now, normally I like books much better than the movie counterpart, but there are a couple of exceptions. Pride and Prejudice is one of those exceptions. I suppose I’m betraying the female sex by saying I’m not a Jane Austin fan, but I willingly confess that I only made it through 250 pages of Pride and Prejudice. It made me a little sick with all of its self-seeking, frivolous dialogue. I mean, really, how can five girls spend each and every day walking around the house, spinning in swings, and doing very little other than creating drama wherever they go? It’s hard to get through 700 pages. However, Kiera Knightly and Matthew MacFadeyn make you forget about the triviality of the pages their conversations were taken from and the movie is quite enjoyable. So, if you haven’t seen the newest movie version yet, I highly recommend it. Good night, everyone. Until we meet again, I wait impatiently for my own Mr. Darcy (minus three or four hundred pages).