“Redwall” is a children’s book about mice and other animals at war with rats. Marty spent quite a while this past winter reading “Redwall” to H.o.p. at night. This past weekend H.o.p. got the “Redwall” TV series (first part) from Netflix.
This is the state of conversation around here.
Marty: They got it all wrong!
And etc. They got it all wrong, they got it all wrong. He went on at length last night after he got in in from his session, and yesterday morning before he went out to his session, and this morning before he left for his session. The television series has gotten everything all wrong!
Marty: I can’t believe I’m going on like this.
Me: Uhmmmmm.
Then off he’d go again.
Me: I can’t believe you’re going on like this….
Didn’t stop him for a second.
And that is the state of our conversation these days.
This evening I got to play “Redwall” with H.o.p., which was interesting as I’d not read him the book and don’t know the story line except for some of Marty’s rants about how the television series departs from the book, “And throws it all off! Throws it all off! They don’t even have so-and-so in the right place on the tapestry! He shouldn’t be up in the middle! He should be down on the lower right. It’s very important…”
And so on and so forth for the next fifteen minutes.
H.o.p. has been doing little radio play recordings at the studio once a week, acting out characters from different stories he likes, creating stories of his own for them. He has told me that I get to be Constance the Badger in the next recording, which will be to do with “Redwall” and so we had to rehearse. He said. Must rehearse.
“Are you excited you get to be Constance in my next recording? Aren’t you excited?”
Made for an interesting and confusing rehearsal because the story kept changing. First I was Constance rescuing Matthias the not-quite-orphaned mouse in the street and taking him back to the Abbey.
“Now you must sound very smart,” H.o.p. said.
“Oh, so I don’t sound smart enough as it is as your mom.”
“No, no, you sound smart…”
It’s all very dramatic with H.o.p. half passed out, barely able to speak, and me exclaiming and cooing over him and bundling him together and promising to get him warm food and shelter and what’s more he gets to live with me forever and ever, and he likes that (because none of us should ever die, forever and ever is a good thing). And Matthias’ sister, who had carried him on her back, to her doom, was lying dead somewhere, as far as I knew, because that’s how it is in the television series. She falls down a hill and lies there suddenly dead, done in by a small puddle of water it seems, her face half in half out. But Matthias (H.o.p.) kept asking for her and I didn’t know what to tell him and kept asking him but H.o.p. was in character and he couldn’t break character in the middle of a scene. But then next his sister was actually alive because the mother (me) and little brother had found her. Many adventures pass with snakes and birds and rats and they track Matthias to the abbey (we had been through an hour of character changes by now) and were about to find him when H.o.p. decided they shouldn’t and that they should bypass the abbey altogether…
And well it went on for about another hour with many reversals in plot and doings over again with this different plot line and that and me trying to figure out what was going on. You with children or you who were once children yourselves know how it is.
In a particularly sweet scene he went (as Matthias) to get flowers for his sweetheart, Cornflower. I was a mouse supplying the flowers. I said well he couldn’t have flowers for free so he gave me a bag of food and plucked some daisies, one, two, three, four, five, six, not wanting to take too many flowers, and I said oh no he needed to have lilacs and violets too and this and that and doesn’t it all smell beautiful etc. etc. And H.o.p. made sure to tell me then that there wasn’t just good food in the bag, there were also seeds for me to grow more roses.
Tonight, after H.o.p. is in bed and I’ve read to him and he falls asleep, I go to the computer and I read all the wonderful news about the world. Just wonderful news that makes your head so heavy you can barely stand it and your stomach turns and churns.
But earlier today it was “Redwall” (lots of comedy, too, H.o.p. always makes sure there’s lots of comedy) and Atlantis. We watched a movie on the mystery of Atlantis and read just a little of Plato on it, because what’s more entertaining than the ancients talking about the ancients and a world long past even before their own–and because H.o.p. had singled it out for today’s viewing. Is Atlantis distorted fact? Was it allegory? Was it this island next to Crete? What was it? We watched the movie (in the meanwhile he gets to see scenes of Crete and Turkey and Egypt) though I was also a little reticent and taking care because last night he was asking why in so many stories and games and movies there is an apocalyptic scenario.
H.o.p. picked up on the part of Plato’s story where the Atlanteans, in their bounty and excesses, became debased and full of unrighteous power, and was trying to figure out what kind of people they would be in his own potential movie.
“What destroyed Atlantis?” H.o.p. asked.
“Maybe earthquake,” I said.
“Bombs,” H.o.p. said.
“Hmmm, I think maybe a natural disaster.”
We watched the movie a little while longer.
“What destroyed Atlantis?” H.o.p. asked again.
“Sounds like a natural disaster,” I said.
“Bombs,” H.o.p. insisted. “Bombs.”
He doesn’t even watch the news.
“Will I have a long life?” H.o.p. asked. “I know, you can read my palm!”
There are times you don’t question these things.
He wanted to know if he would live longer than his Opa. If he would live as long as his grandfather and grandmother and if they would live a lot longer and if all his cousins would live really long as well and they’d all grow old together.
“Ah, you’ll have a wonderful, long, life,” I told him, reminding him the thing to do is not forget about today. That so many people are worried about the next day that they forget to pay attention to today’s moments (I’m one of them). “You will go a lot of places and do a lot of things!”
“Like to Italy!”
“Yes!”
“And China!”
“Yes!”
“And I will see my great-grandchildren.”
“Yes!”
“And my great-great-great grandchildren!”
(“Oh, he’ll see his children when he’s fourteen,” Marty says, reading over my shoulder, walking by. H.o.p. has this way with girls….)
H.o.p. has decided I should get a crystal ball.
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