I kept things simple for this week’s prompt. Most of these books are ones I haven’t read yet, but all of them grabbed my attention with their short, snappy titles. It’s harder than you think to come up with a single word that will do that!
I’m writing this post from the perspective of someone who is (mostly) able-bodied and still fairly young. Taking the stairs isn’t the right choice for everyone, so listen to your body and your family doctor if this post doesn’t resonate with you.
When was the last time you took the stairs?
This question popped into my head last month, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.
When given the choice between taking the stairs, elevator or escalator, my preferences have shifted in the direction of the stairs for the following reasons.
It’s Faster
Toronto is a bustling city. No matter what time of day or night it is here, you will almost certainly be surrounded by dozens to thousands of other people while going about your daily (or nightly) business.
There are many advantages to living this way that don’t quite fit into the theme of this post.
One of the disadvantages has to do with how crowded elevators and escalators can become, especially on the weekends and during rush hour. Elevators and escalators are in heavy demand. They would be crowded even if the only people who used them were chronically ill, physically disabled, pushing a stroller, or carrying a heavy load.
The fact that people who could take the stairs also use them only increases the demand for them. I don’t judge anyone for this decision, but I do personally find it more comfortable to avoid all of that jostling and take the stairs instead.
Why fight for a space on the escalator or wait five minutes for the next elevator when the stairs are right around the corner and mostly empty?
It’s a Mini Workout
One of the things I enjoy the most about living in a walkable neighbourhood is how much exercise is built into my normal activities.
While I have a structured fitness routine as well, half or more of the total exercise I get each day comes from mini workouts that happen in short spurts while I’m running errands or travelling somewhere.
Taking the stairs is one of these things I do regularly that only takes a few minutes here and there but adds up to a few extra hours of exercise per week.
In my experience, turning small, easy lifestyle changes like this into habits is an excellent way to become more fit over time. I’d never do this sort of exercise for two or three hours in a row, but I have no problem putting the same amount of time in if it’s two or three hours spread across an entire week (or more).
And the more I take the stairs, the stronger my urge to do it becomes over time.
It Doesn’t Require Special Equipment
I don’t know about you, but I have a strong preference for types of exercise that don’t require me to change clothes, travel to a specific place, or use a particular piece of equipment.
Blame it on my negative experiences with elementary and high school gym class if you will. All I know is that it takes far less emotional energy to make a quick decision to walk up or down a few flights of stairs when the opportunity presents itself than it does to change into gym clothes, travel to a gym, exercise, shower, change into regular clothes, and then go home again.
I believe in gravitating towards types of exercise that work for your fitness level, interests, and willpower (or lack thereof). For me, that means taking the stairs more often.
Content warning: snakes and bugs. I will not be discussing these topics in my review.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is a 2017 fantasy, action, and comedic film about four high school students who were accidentally transported into a magical video game and needed to beat every level of it in order to get back to the real world.
This movie is a reboot of a franchise that began with the original Jumanji in 1996. According to my spouse, there were multiple Easter eggs from the first version of this tale tucked into the storyline, so keep an eye out for them if you’re already familiar with this franchise.
With that being said, I’d never seen the original and had no problem figuring out what was happening in the plot or who the characters were because everything was explained clearly.
Some of the secondary characters had too many spoilers wrapped up into their backstories to be introduced in this post, so I’ll stick with the four protagonists in the character section of this review. They will be described both as their game world avatars and real life personas.
Characters
Game World
Dwayne Johnson as Dr. Smolder Bravestone
Dr. Smolder Bravestone was a strong, confident archeologist, explorer, and team leader. He was Spencer’s avatar.
Jack Black as Professor Sheldon “Shelly” Oberon
Professor Sheldon “Shelly” Obero was a cartographer, cryptographer, archeologist, and palaeontologist. He was Bethany’s avatar.
Kevin Hart as Franklin “Mouse” Finbar
Franklin “Mouse” Finbar was a zoologist and weapons carrier. He was Fridge’s avatar.
Karen Gillan as Ruby Roundhouse
Ruby Roundhouse was a martial artist and fighting dancer. She was Martha’s avatar.
Real World
Alex Wolff as Spencer Gilpin
Alex Wolff as Spencer Gilpin.
Alex was nerdy and sometimes socially awkward student at Brantford High School. He and Fridge were childhood best friends, but now he feared he’d been left behind.
Madison Iseman as Bethany Walker
Bethany was a popular, pretty, and self-centered student at Brantford High School. She spent a great deal of time taking selfies and posting them on social media as shown in the photo above.
Ser’Darius Blain as Anthony “Fridge” Johnson
Anthony was a strong and athletic student at Brantford High School. He was proud of how much work he’d put into his body and enjoyed showing off his strength.
Morgan Turner as Martha Kaply
Morgan was a quiet, shy, intelligent, and cynical student at Brantford High School. She struggled with letting people get close to her, especially if she thought they wanted something from her.
My Review
My characters descriptions were more negative than usual in this review. The beginning of this film made it a point to hammer home each character’s flaws, how aware they were of them, and how those problems were affecting their lives.
The four main characters moments after they were transformed into Mouse, Dr. Bravestone, Ruby, and Shelly.
Since the four teens the audience were just introduced to were about to be transformed into video game avatars, getting to know them was crucial.
One of the things this film did incredibly well was to show how each character’s tics and habits carried over into the game. All of the adult actors mimicked the teens they were playing so well that it was easy to forget they were acting!
I loved seeing all of the little ways they reminded the audience of their teenaged selves. This was especially funny when it came to Shelly because of how she’d been transformed from a beautiful young girl into a fairly average middle-aged man.
Yes, the storyline did address the gender flip there, but it was done in a very respectful manner. Gender and gender identity was never the butt of the joke in this tale which was refreshing. When the storyline gently made fun of Shelly, it was for her self-absorption and other character flaws, not the fact that she had no idea how to properly urinate standing up. (Although there was a hilarious scene involving just that early on in the plot!)
What I would have liked to see was more attention paid to the character development. The four protagonists were all written in pretty stereotypical manners as you might have gathered from the descriptions of them above. While I understood that much of it was written that way to poke fun at some of the more ridiculous – and even sexist – tropes in video games, I think more time could have been spent developing the main characters and showing how they were different from typical video game avatars.
As entertaining as the plot was, there were times when I was honestly a bit bored with the characters at times because of how easy it was to predict how they’d behave. I’m saying that with the understanding that a casual video game player like me probably isn’t the ideal audience for this sort of film at all. People who immerse themselves in that hobby may have a very different reaction to it, so I don’t want this criticism to dissuade anyone from giving it a try if the trailer grabs their interest.
Just remember that there is a lot of tongue-in-cheek stuff going on here. The less seriously you take it, the better.
The cartoonish violence was a lot of fun, though. I’m the sort of person who looks away from the screen or TV when a violent scene pops up, and I was able to handle the fight scenes without a problem. Characters certainly get thrown around a lot in all sorts of ways that are only possible in a virtual world, but there was no blood or gore to make my stomach turn. That was definitely something I appreciated.
All in all, this was an amusing way to spend a couple of hours. It was a light, cheerful storyline that didn’t require the audience to do much analyzing at all. You just had to sit back and enjoy the show. There’s something to be said for movies like that!
Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.
My family lived in Laramie, Wyoming for four years when I was a little girl. We were low income, so my parents came up with all sorts of creative ways to enjoy their days off without spending money. (I honestly didn’t even realize money was so tight for us during those years until I was much older. They made do with what they had really well).
The cool thing about living in Wyoming is that it’s filled with mountains, national parks, and other free places to take three small children who have boundless energy. For the cost of a little bit of gas and some sandwiches or other simple meals culled together from fridge leftovers, we could spend all day outdoors together.
One of our favourite places to visit was Vedauwoo National Park. It was a short drive from our home and was filled with rocks to climb, chipmunks to greet, and trails to conquer. There was nothing more exciting than hiking those trails with my parents and siblings.
My youngest brother was about two or three then, so sometimes he’d need a parent to carry him if we walked for a long distance. But the important thing was that we were together and we got to explore rocks that felt impossible large to me as a child.
I also remember picking and eating berries in a little patch of forest near the park. That was a wonderful treat! I think they were raspberries, and, yes, I did get permission from mom first.
I believe the picture I included in my post was the one my parents sent out to extended family as our Christmas card greeting that year? We’ll see if mom or dad can confirm this when they read this post
I’m going to perform a magic trick today and give Internet access and knowledge of how to use it to the characters on this list who didn’t actually live in times and places where social media, much less the Internet itself, existed.
Why: Imagine all of the stories that a vampire who is commonly mistaken for a child could tell about her life as she met people from every walk of life on Facebook.
Why: Her life was filled with difficult twists and turns that were poetically described. I’d want her to share every detail she was comfortable sharing (and accept donations so she could flee to a better life). There is a lot of compassion online for people who are going through financial trouble and who have troubled family relationships. She could find a real sense of community on a place like Twitter or Instagram.
Why: She was by far the most interesting character in this book. Since it wasn’t written from her perspective, getting her to share small moments of her life on Snapchat would be a nice way to get to know her better. I’m sure she’d be filled with things to say about her childhood.
5. Elsa from Frozen (and Frozen 2, although I haven’t seen it yet)
Why: She’d be great at condensing her thoughts into bite-sized tweets on Twitter. I think that medium would suit her well, too, because of how easily it combines words and pictures together.
6. Hermione Granger
Why: Her LinkedIn profile would be legendary. She’d have so many accomplishments to share.
7. Santa Claus
Why: If he were on every social media platform, social media would be a much friendlier place in general.
The idea for this new series came from two places.
Terry Tyler’s year-long photo series on what her local park looks like in each month of the year.
And Marianne Arkins’ comment on a post I wrote last month in which she asked me to share more of my photography.
Once a month, I will share snapshots of one of the parks in Toronto so my readers can get a feel for what the climate is like then and what the foliage is (or isn’t) doing. I may share bonus photos of other parts of the city, too, once the weather warms up and I’m spending more time outdoors.
February used to be a colder and snowier month in Toronto than it is in this century. I didn’t grow up here, but the weather in my childhood home state of Ohio is similar enough for me to make the comparison between them.
Climate change has shifted those historical weather patterns. February now acts like March in this part of the world. By that I mean that it’s unpredictable and often stormy. One day you could have a blizzard and overnight lows of -20 C (-4 F) or colder. A day or two after that it could warm up to 10 C (50 F) and sunny.
My visit happened on a warm day when it was about 7 C (44 F) outside. The sun was shining, but there was still some snow on the ground.
The orange fence you see is the background is part of a city project to revitalize this park. It’s a heavily used area and the ground had been pretty trampled before city workers started to cordon off areas to let them rest.
A park monument covered in snow and ice.
All of the plants are dormant or dead at this time of the year. You can see a few straggling leaves from last autumn still holding on, but the trees’ branches are bare other than that.
Notice that you haven’t seen any people here yet. While I do my best to avoid taking photos of strangers, this isn’t a popular time of year for going to the park in general. I didn’t see anyone in the distance while I was there.
There is generally some snow on the ground in February. It melts on warm days, but we’ll probably continue to get more snowfall and to see patches of old snow hanging on in shady spots until April.
The photo above is of a muddy running trail that is flooded with half-melted ice and snow. Normally, it would have a flat, solid dirt surface.
One of the reasons why people don’t visit our parks as often, or at all, in February has to do with what the land is like now. The cycles of freezing and thawing creates less-than-ideal conditions in the park for many common activities like having a picnic, exercising, or otherwise straying from the sidewalk.
We get so much precipitation in Toronto that it’s hard for the ground to absorb all of it when it’s cold outside. This sort of flooding is normal and generally keeps happening until April when everything thaws out and the soil can absorb more water.
The park actually looked pretty good when I visited it. It can be much more flooded than this at the end of the winter. There have been times when the entire sidewalk was covered in ice if we’d recently had a big snowstorm that melted and then refroze overnight.
I will pick this series up again next month when we’ll see what March is like here.
Or at least that’s what it feels like at this time of the year. You see, I get the winter blues. While other people are outside revelling in the snow, ice, and cold weather, I’m inside quietly counting down the days until spring.
If winter in Ontario included as many bright, sunny days as spring and summer did, this post might be quite different.
But our winters include months of long, dark nights that make me half-forget what it’s like to feel warm sunlight on my face.
And having access to enough bright light is important for my mental health. It boggles my mind that some people on this planet live in places that don’t see the sun for months on end. I wouldn’t be able to cope with that well at all unless someone invents a way for humans to go dormant for the winter like real plants do.
Luckily, there are light therapy lamps for wilted houseplants like myself. I’ve been basking in the glow of that artificial sunshine this winter.
Sometimes I sat there and surfed the Internet on my cell phone. It was an especially good way to pass the time when I first accepted the fact that I needed to use one of these lamps but was skeptical about if it would do any good.
If actual plants had opposable thumbs, they might look at cute animal pictures while soaking up light, too, so they didn’t have to count down how many weeks left until spring or how many weeks after that it will take the weather systems in Ontario to shift from cold, wet, and slushy to anything that bears the faintest resemblance to true spring weather.
Then it started to work.The sadness began to lessen. I could concentrate better, I felt less sluggish, my energy levels slowly began rising, and my quality of sleep improved.
Am I back to my old self yet? No, but I’m doing better. That’s something to celebrate, especially as we inch into the time of the year that is the most challenging for me to get through.
For now I sit next to my lamp and chuckle at the fact that I react so much to the lack or the presence of sufficiently strong light. I am entirely human-shaped, and yet somehow I still need to bask in light like a plant to function properly.
When that thought passes, others don’t take its place. In this moment, I am surrounded by light. I breathe in and out as it shines onto me, the desk, the chair, and the floor.
Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.
There are quite a few types of exercise I enjoy.
Weightlifting
Swimming
Dancing
Power Walking
Canoing*
Hiking*
*Although I haven’t done either of these in a long time and definitely would need to recondition my body for them. That is to say, let’s pick the easiest versions of these things if you want to do them with me.
What all of these activities have in common is that they’re non-competitive, fairly easy on the joints in most cases, and can be done solo or in a group.
When I was a kid, the vast majority of my exposure to exercise was team sports.
I’ve never liked team sports, so it took me a while to realize how many forms of exercise are out there that don’t require competition, keeping score, or having winners and losers.
Kudos to those of you who thrive on competition and being the biggest, strongest, and/or fastest person in a group.
But to me, exercise is most enjoyable when it’s about doing something cool either by myself or with a few other laid-back people.
I’d never heard of a book hangover until Jana mentioned them in this week’s prompt.
Most of the strong attachments I formed to books happened when I was a child or teenager. It was fairly rare for them between that point in time and my current age until pretty recently for reasons I haven’t figured out yet.
So this list is a short one, but a few years ago it wouldn’t have existed at all. The links in this post will go to my reviews of these books.
The imagery in this book was so strong that reading it made me feel as if a movie were playing out in my mind. I sure hope this gets made into a film or TV show someday. We’re overdue for an aquatic show, especially one that tackles as many important themes as this one does.
There’s something about reading about pandemics that comforts me every flu season. I still need to read the rest of this series, but, wow, was this a good introduction to this universe! Jumping around among so many different characters really drew me into this world.
I’ve been a huge fan of The Handmaid’s Tale for many years now. It was immensely satisfying to finally get a sequel to it. I can’t wait to see how the updates on so many characters from the first book are integrated into the TV show based on this series, too.
Click on the tag “hope” at this bottom of this post to read about all of my suggestions for hopeful science fiction. If you have recommendations for future instalments of this series, I’d sure like to hear them. Leave a comment below or send me message about it on Twitter.
Recently, I discovered the Better Worlds series, a science fiction anthology of short stories and films about hope that was published at The Verge two years ago.
A Theory of Flight
Justina Ireland’s “A Theory of Flight” is the first instalment of this series. It was about a daring plan to build an open-source rocket could help more people escape Earth. Click on the link in the first sentence of this paragraph to read it for free or scroll to the bottom of this post to watch the short film version of it. There are mild spoilers in this post, so reader beware after this sentence.
When I first began this series, I talked about my expectations for hopeful science fiction.
This type of sci-fi isn’t about creating a utopia or brushing aside the very real challenges people face. It’s about finding hope and fighting for a happy ending no matter what the circumstances are.
Carlinda was no stranger to conflict or struggling. She was a black woman who’d grown up in a low-income neighbourhood. This may have been set in a future version of Earth, but the obstacles she faced were the same ones that people from all of these groups face today.
The big difference between her time and ours had to do with how much the environment had degraded thanks to climate change. Life on a hot, polluted planet was beyond difficult, especially for people who didn’t have the money or social clout to get away from Earth.
Cooperation
Carlinda had some money saved up from a well-paid job building spaceships for the wealthy folks who were fleeing Earth for safe colonies on Mars and Europa.
Her funds weren’t enough to get her to either of those places, though, much less help anyone else to join her. This futuristic version of society was so economically stratified that the vast majority of people were doomed to live out short, painful, poverty-stricken lives on Earth.
Or were they?
The beautiful thing about Carlinda’s open-sourced plans for rocket ships was that they could be built out of trash. Very little money was required to create them. All you needed were some workers who understood how to follow the plans and build something that could safely bring a few hundred folks to Europa.
There are some plot twists related to the political ramifications of this plan that are best left up to new readers to discover for themselves. Still, I loved seeing how the small percentage of humans who were wealthy and politically powerful reacted to the idea of ordinary folks taking their own fates into their hands.
Not only did it add a layer of urgency to the plot, it gave Carlinda and the people working with her even more of an incentive to keep building and to share their knowledge with as many other poor folks as possible.
A better world is possible, and it all begins with regular people banding together to creatively solve problems that are too big for any one person to fix on their own.
Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl
I kept things simple for this week’s prompt. Most of these books are ones I haven’t read yet, but all of them grabbed my attention with their short, snappy titles. It’s harder than you think to come up with a single word that will do that!
One of the things I enjoy the most about living in a walkable neighbourhood is how much exercise is built into my normal activities.
I don’t know about you, but I have a strong preference for types of exercise that don’t require me to change clothes, travel to a specific place, or use a particular piece of equipment.
Content warning: snakes and bugs. I will not be discussing these topics in my review.
My youngest brother was about two or three then, so sometimes he’d need a parent to carry him if we walked for a long distance. But the important thing was that we were together and we got to explore rocks that felt impossible large to me as a child.
I’m going to perform a magic trick today and give Internet access and knowledge of how to use it to the characters on this list who didn’t actually live in times and places where social media, much less the Internet itself, existed.
My name is Lydia, and I’m a human houseplant.
*Although I haven’t done either of these in a long time and definitely would need to recondition my body for them. That is to say, let’s pick the easiest versions of these things if you want to do them with me.
I’d never heard of a book hangover until Jana mentioned them in this week’s prompt.