A Decent Post Surgery Read

I just had surgery a couple of days ago, and I am grateful that I was able to have the least invasive procedure available. I was quite scared since I haven’t been put under since I was five years old and had tubes in my ears, but the nurse assured me they were going to give me something off the bat that would make me feel like I had had three margaritas. When they wheeled me into the operating room, it hit, and I realized I was in a better mood than I had been in in months. I was delighted to see the seven people in scrubs waiting for me during this difficult time like they had showed up for a surprise party that required PPE, and squealed a high pitch, “Hi ya’ll,” from the gurney while waving my hand like a jazzed up middle school queen of court on the back of a janky convertible. As the anesthesiologist asked me if I was ready to go to sleep, I asked, “What is the name of the drug you gave me??” and he said something that had like eight syllables that I had never heard of before. I am pretty sure I asked him to write the name down for me on a paper, but he forgot and was gone when I woke up. Do you think the hospital would be annoyed if I called and asked for the name? Because now I know what I want for my birthday.

So I have felt just surprisingly dandy but am still supposed to take it easy…so I was looking for material that holds my attention but doesn’t make me think too much. Mrs. Kimble, a first novel by Jennifer Haigh, fits the bill.

It’s a chick lit book about three women who unknowingly marry the same man. I’m not entirely sure why it held my attention enough to read in one sitting, but it did. It’s quite well written. It’s set in the late sixties and shows well deep constraints of sexist and racist society. The characters are believable and likeable, and you care about what happens to them. There’s Birdie, who when physically, emotionally and financially is abandoned by Mr. Kimble, a minister in Virginia in this iteration, can’t manage parenting her two children under 8 and turns to wine and waitressing. There’s Joan, a journalist who has retired to Florida, whose mastectomy for breast cancer, dislocates her from herself, causing her to fall into the institution of marriage she had consciously avoided for a couple of decades and this time with Mr. Kimble who pretends to be Jewish in order to become a real estate mogul in Joan’s family. And then there’s Dinah, a young woman who babysat for Birdie’s kids before Mr. Kimble left her and then ends up running into him again decades later while she is working as a chef in Washington, DC. She was born with a purple birthmark covering half her face. After Mr. Kimble helps her have lazer surgery on her face, they also end up getting married and having a child. You come to know the children as well.

It’s a book that I enjoyed reading the whole time, and at the end was kind of like, “huh…what was the point of that?” but it does do a good job of showing how sexism is the thief that robs women of themselves and how we still try to work against this on a daily basis. It provided me several hours of sitting still, and I would rate it higher than the four movies I watched, trying to accomplish the same goal. Here they are in order of worst to the somewhat less bad.

#1 Bridesmaids

I know there are people who think this is the funniest movie they ever saw, but honestly I didn’t laugh even once, and I love Melissa McCarthy. It’s not that I’m too high brow or not scatological enough because my favorite comedy movie is Blockers. This just didn’t do it for me. I think I’m that old feminist who doesn’t find feminine competitiveness funny.

2. Wild Hogs

They could’ve done something entertaining with this four midlife crisis guys run into a real motorcycle gang on their quirky outing story line, but they didn’t. They should get an award, however, for writing a script that literally doesn’t have a single line that isn’t a cliche. Homophobia and sexism just aren’t that funny, people.

#3 Book Club

Four ladies’ lives are changed when they decide to read Fifty Shades of Gray in their book club. (I went to go see Fifty Shades of Gray with a friend and a guy in the audience hilariously snored loudly through the much anticipated dungeon scene….when the maroon leather strips of the flogger finally began to fly, my friend turned to me and said, “it looks like she’s going through a car wash.” Yes, Book Club is exactly what you think it is and nothing else, but Jane Fonda always pleases, and I have mentioned in past reviews how well Don Johnson has aged. In a creepy coincidence, the star of Fifty Shades of Gray is Dakota Johnson, daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith so Jane decides to claim her sexuality with her man by watching his daughter in a soft core porn, but you know, whatever it takes.

#4 and finally…..drum roll…the least terrible movie of the four I watched:

Doolittle

A movie that has been almost as resoundly panned by every critic as Waterworld with Kevin Costner, but what can I say, I have a spot in my heart for Robert Downey Jr. is a hot mess who wins in the end, restoring goodness and love of animals to the world. And the animals talk. Ha! There’s a bitter squirrel named Kevin!

Ok. So it’s good that today is the last day of my convalescence. I’ll try not to sink much culturally lower in the next 12 hours…but I can’t make any promises!