Scott Freeman

Flu-ful Recommendations

I honestly cannot remember the last time I had the flu. I’m pretty sure I haven’t had it in the 10 years I’ve been married and don’t remember having it during my adult life.

Needless to say these past few days have been absolutely brutal. This past Wednesday I took a Diet Coke run about 4 in the afternoon and began to shiver uncontrollably. I lasted until about 5:15 before I conceded that I was not going to be able to teach class. I made arrangements for a replacement teacher and then went home.

Tracy, being the loving and caring wife that she is, whisked the girls off to church so I could have a few minutes of peace to shiver and moan like a baby. I went fetal on the couch and let Simon, Paula and Randy keep me company. Alas, by the time Tracy got home she had been touched by the indiscriminate hand of said flu.

It hit Chloe in the middle of the night. Then Cassie (Friday afternoon). Then Shayla (Friday night).

All five of us in various stages of this killer pandemic.

My initial thought as Thursday morning dawned was to take Cassie to school, run to the office and email my sermon notes to myself, and work at home. That wasn’t happening. Instead Tracy and I tagged team as well as we could on sleeping, caring for kids, and wondering who to bequeath all of our earthly possessions to in the increasing likelihood that we were about to expire.

Friday was some better so, again, I thought I would go to the church and finish my sermon. I’m preaching through Matthew and was up to my introductory sermon to the SOTM. But I stared at my computer screen for a couple of hours wandering if anyone would find my body between then and Sunday morning. I opted for an older sermon on Hosea because I get to say the word harlot without people looking at me strangely and I called it a day.

I did get to preach and teach yesterday morning but that wiped me out. I’m back in the office today and feeling about 80-85%. One of our members who is a nurse told me that this particular strain is lasting about 7-10 days. Needless to say, it’s been a long week.

I did get to watch some movies and do a little reading over the last few days.

Books

The Innocent Man by John Grisham–Grisham takes a 150 page story and shoves it into 300. Read the Wikipedia article instead and hope that Grisham sticks to fiction and coaching little league in the future. If I had known that one of my parishioners had one of the major characters as a science teacher back in the day I could have skipped this entirely. Grade: C-

The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs–I like Jacobs. His attempts to read through the Encyclopedia Britannica and spend a year obeying the bible literally make for the same quirky read. However, as in The Year of Living Biblically, he meanders and takes too many stream of consciousness asides. One of my major pet peeves in book-reading is when an author takes too much space to get the point across. Brevity is a virtue. Poignancy is not directly attributable to number of pages. Grade: B-

Movies
Since the Academy Awards are zooming up on us I’m trying to be as completest as possible in the major categories. I’ve seen all the nominees in just one category thus far (Costume Design!) but hope to have quite a few finished between now and the 24th.

Bourne Ultimatum–Finally saw the last one and enjoyed it as expected. Grade: B+

Elizabeth: The Golden Age–It was almost a decade between Cate Blanchett’s portrayal’s of The Virgin Queen but both attempts garnered her an Oscar nod. She has no chance against Julie Christie but, as always, she was illuminating. Blanchett was able to convey the doubt, vulnerability and insecurity of the queen at the same time showing the resolute core of the woman that defied the Spanish onslaught. Grade: A

28 Weeks Later–Is there anything better than a Zombie flick? And is there anything scarier than Zombies that can sprint? Not as good as 28 Days Later but still good fun. Grade: B+

The Invasion–A question emerges at the beginning of watching this film: do we need another version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers? And the answer is no. Nicole Kidman is in grave danger of becoming the female Kevin Costner. At least it was so bad it was funny. Grade: D

Across the Universe–Music was great. Story line was non-existent. Grade: A for the Music, D for the rest.