Wind and Waves

From the time Madame x was just a little xlet... she has had a fear and fascination of giant monster waves. Who doesn't, one might ponder. Madame x, however carries this morbid terror (and curiosity) deep into her psyche, complete with repeated dreams of water demise due to giant monster waves.

This is the dream:

Little madame x is sitting on a beach towel playing with her friends and family (her back is to the beach), suddenly a look of fright and panic appear on the faces of all the beach goers. The sky abruptly becomes dark and as she turns, she watches the ocean being sucked out.... and to her horror! sees, a mind boggling, terror inducing, wall of water.... a Gi-normous wave. So big it blocks the sun... There is a flotsam and jetsam mishmash of weird stuff in this giant wave. Mostly furniture (couches and tables and chairs). She awakens just as the wave begins to peak.

This dream has been recurring for the past forty years and the fate of Madame x is always spared by the alarm clock.

What in the world happened to cause this to be her demon? Who knows. Perhaps it was when her brothers learned about the tsunami(s) and spent the week creating tidal waves in a galvanized tub in the back yard, sinking battalions of little plastic army men on popsicle stick rafts.

Or maybe it was the time a young madame x got caught in an undertow at San Clemente beach. When an ocean rip current pulled her under and towed her, bouncing and somersaulting, until she popped to the surface on the other side of the wave and swam safely back to shore.

Madame x will watch an entire t.v. show about guys surfing gazillion foot waves. She Just stands watching transfixed.... in awe and amazement. She looks and looks...but there is never furniture in those huge waves.

What ever the reason for this fixation, it created a lifetime allure. So yesterday when the local newspaper reported twenty foot waves due to gale force winds.

Madame x had a perverse desire to go see them.

Wednesday Review

Two posts in one day.... a miracle ....for that you get:

Two reviews (same movie) for the price of one.

In 1963 Madame x was sixteen years old. She saw this movie on a date with her ‘then’ boyfriend (the football hero). She had no idea Hollywood was sending her a ‘message’ in the movie. Trust this, Madame x’s mother drilled into her, the consequences of ‘pre-marital sex’ and the horrors of back alley abortions! She didn't need Hollywood for such things. So for young mademoiselle x it was just a MOVIE, a made up story, an unreal look into another life …. It didn’t go any further than that.

This is what the sixteen year old (Mx) got out of ‘Love with the Proper Stranger’.

A pretty young thing with an overbearing family, somehow manages the ultimate act of defiance and has a ‘one night stand’ resulting in (unwanted) pregnancy with a hunky wannabe jazz musician named Rocky. They are all of Italian heritage living smack in the middle of Manhattan.

Rocky (Steve McQueen) is really quite appealing in a sweet, protective sarcastic way. He looks very hot in his trench coat and skinny tie

And Angie (Natalie Wood) is really quite appealing in a feisty, vulnerable doe eyed way. She looks stunning in her little black dress and chocker length pearls.

To Mx it was a simple solution. They needed to get on the bus and get out of that dirty, noisy, crowded, scary city and move to an abode that didn’t require hiking three flights of stairs with a fire escape for a backyard. Rocky tries to do the right thing by offering marriage, Angie thinks she should do the right thing by marrying the dufus grocery store owner who professes desperate love for her (played by Tom Bosley).

WHAT? ??

Marry Tom Bosley or......... marry the King of Cool? Hmmmmm… Let us think about that……


FORTY – FIVE years later

It is 2008 and Madame x is no longer sixteen. She is watching this movie in a delirious state on her death bed, every breath a death rattle, being force fed a poisonous death concoction called ‘Nyquil’. In the next room is her husband (the former football hero) brewing up more poisonous creations and oblivious to the fact that he is about to succumb to the very same ebola virus Madame x has barely survived.

This is what a no longer sixteen year old Madame x got out of ‘Love with a Proper Stranger’…. (we already know the story line, we’ll just move in for the kill).

1. The black and white ‘film noir’ feel, adds to the grittyness of Angie’s situation. The acting is really very good. In fact, Natalie Wood got an academy award nomination for her part. But alas, Patricia Neal won for a movie called ‘HUD’. Didn’t see that one.

2. But Wow, has Manhattan changed in the last forty-five or what? In real life, it is all cleaned up, and friendly like, with trees and cute little store front neighborhoods and police on horses.

3. Unwanted pregnancy would be the least of your worries in having unprotected sex with a stranger… The stranger could be a disease carrying serial killer…for either party. Hollywood can drive that message home any day of the week.

4. In confused delerium, Madame x wants to tell Angie it is okay to go with the ‘King of Cool’. Tom Bosley will go on to ‘Happier Days’ as Howard Cunningham.

5. Last, a Nyquil saturated brain landed on this thought.....That baby would be forty-four years old with the very real possibility of Angie and Rocky being GREAT grandparents.

The King of Cool…. A great grandpa. Hmmmm…. Let us think about THAT!



Madame x gives this movie ….. a definite rating

Woe is Madame x

December 07.... A happy, hilarious, fun filled noisy Christmas, with the constant commotion of a four year old and a six year old and all the company of parents and aunts and uncles and cousins, ravaging the house and neighborhood. One hardly noticed the brief few hours the little one fell ill... Spreading the deadly virus like a sparkling pixie dust storm, landing where it may.

It was a melancholy day when they all left, one moment all choatic and alive with laughter and kisses, and the next.... silence, unsettling and erie. Madame x thought she was just in a lonely funk, wandering about the house. picking up stray toys, a forgotten sock, feeling kinda blah.... and then she lost her voice. No kidding her voice totally, completely amazingly disappeared..... gone....
Although Madame x felt kinda punky, she managed to function through her January days in semi-croaky silence. It took the full month to rally (something the 4 yr old managed in a few hours). On the evening of January 31st, Madame x announced in her scratchy recovering voice that she was looking forward to a February of good health.

HA!

Madame x didn't know sick.... until February 1st dawned..... the unseen, unheard, all powerful and ever lurking virus of the 4 year old swooped in and dropped a bucket load of sick on Madame x's head. Rendering her unconscious and on death's door....(shut up, its true) for FIVE days straight ....miserable and delirious. Unable to eat, drink, think or even check into the morgue hospital....

Upon regaining consciousness, with barely the strength to shower and collaspe back in bed... Madame x awaited her fate. the tunnel... the white light..... and while she waited.....she watched a movie.


Therefore, In the next post....

Madame x will offer up her Wednesday review about that very movie.