Something in the Rain

 

I haven't finished this series, but I want to comment on it while I remember it. There are a lot of issues being taken on here. The protagonist, played by Son Ye Jin, is taking on familial expectations, workplace sexual harassment, cultural norms....a whole host of things. She's no stranger to that kind of role. She also starred in "Crash Landing On You" which faced the challenges of having North Korea right there.

I can tell when a story is well written. And I do have a type. The protagonist is usually just a normal person that won't "take it" anymore. In this case, she got tired of her bosses hitting on her all the time. So she's dealing with that, and the fallout that it is creating. There's another woman in the office that is helping her and the CEO root out the people at fault. That is an interesting arc.

She's also facing the cultural issues of falling in love with a man many years younger than she is, and she's almost an "old maid" by her parents' terminology. Well, her mother is the domineering one. The Father is fairly laid back about the whole thing. The twist is that the man she's in love with used to live with them, almost an adoptive child to the family. So everyone is freaking out like she's in love with her brother or something.

The hooks for me? A strong female protagonist. Kicking butt and getting things done, and still trying to balance her life. The boyfriend is genuinely happy, almost giddy around her. He just wants to be with the woman that he's in love with.

And that brings me to another show, an anime, that I'm almost done with, "Say 'I Love You'". It's about 10 years old. Not the best artwork, but all the characters are a little flawed and they dive into the reasons. I don't know what kind of a person I'd be if I'd grown up watching this stuff instead of Bugs Bunny. I'd probably be a better person. Anyway, the story is about an unusually attractive boy falling in love with a "plain" girl, one that is antisocial at that. One of his friends touches her in a "creepy" way and as he tries to stop him from doing it, she turns, roundhouse kicks him mistaking him for the creep, and that's what it takes. He's in love. Like I said, I have a type.

I had a girlfriend in college that had strong opinions. She didn't care if I agreed or not. That stayed with me and I've wanted strong, opinionated women around me ever since. I wanted someone to call me out on any BS I might try to push. I wanted to be better and I needed that honesty to get me there. I still do.

Another, better review.

Dundee. I Really Hate Going Through Dundee

 So Tracy didn't have time for a longer ride elsewhere in the state, so I decided to go up to Crystal Lake via the Fox River Trail. I shouldn't need her to run support, it is a nice, paved path up to that point. So that's what I need to do.

I started out as I normally would I burned up the miles to Elgin without incident. I've never actually cycled through the city completely so it was somewhat new. I did lose my water-bottle on one of the sidewalk bumps, as I would do frequently on this ride. Still, no issues. The trail north of Elgin was a bit bumpy but no real issues going up until Dundee. There's a crossing on the major east-west road that makes no sense at all, and Dundee makes you cross every road. I almost crossed that road at a bad time because the lights were stopped only a few seconds in each direction and ... well, it is just a dumb setup considering how busy this trail is. I did spot a button to push when crossing but it isn't situated where us poor slobs on bikes can get to easily. At some point, I noticed that finally both directions were red and I crossed. Then just a lot more crossings. And bikers don't like stopping so often. It is hard to get going again, we have to downshift, stop, push ourselves up and then get back up to speed. Then another street. There's a reason these bypass most of the traffic. But I understand that pedestrians can like these. 
Anyway, I got my way north of there. I didn't hold back. I figured I was hitting 15mph or so, which is a lot on my bike. I kept pushing, crossing the Fox at Algonquin. It was a nice ride up the bluff. I noticed at the switchbacks that a bunch of kids were walking up the embankment with their bikes. I kept pushing forward and reached the top along with the kids. I did the hill probably 4x faster than they did. But kids. Sometimes they don't think things through.

The ride up to Crystal Lake from there seemed to be a constant upward grade. The worst hill on the entire path was about where I turned around and it was a bridge over a very busy road. Anyway, I turned around at the corner and wondered why, a few years earlier, I was struggling with the path. I mean, I was at my wits end then coming to Crystal Lake from the North. The path was kind of unreasonable but it was only 15 miles, for Pete's sake. Anyway, I've found that I my stamina is quite a bit different now.

The path back was a joy. I hit top gear, verifying that the grade was now working in my favor. I just followed my earlier path, doing a good clip. Yeah, my thighs were starting to bark at me but I was doing fine. I stopped at a park to go to the bathroom and stretch. Then I started off again. The slight rises I anticipated from my earlier traverse proved to be no issue. 

Then came Washington Street. I was so busy trying to figure out how I was going to get through this stupid town again that my mind wandered from what I was doing. I have a bad right eye at the moment and I tend to turn my head farther than normal to make sure the path is clear. So I was concentrating how to cross this busy street and make sure that, no, there really wasn't a car in either direction. I didn't pay attention to what was on the path in the opposite direction. I don't think I was going very quickly at that point. 

"Hey!"

I found I had drifted left while trying to negotiate the crossing. Opposite me was someone heading straight for me. I moved right, and he was turning that way too. Nope. I turned back to my line. And so did he.

Bang!

I ended up standing on my bike. At some point I had come to a stop. I can't recall but because my arm hurt so much later, I must have hit my brake hard. I think I pulled all the muscles in the process. The other guy was stopped, head down, draped over my bike. He struggled at something on his shorts and I realized he was hung up on my brake handle. I pulled if off. He struggled up. By now, a few drivers had stopped and got out of their car to help. I looked down and my bike tire was well and twisted. So, I would have to call up Tracy to come get me. 

He was banged up pretty bad, I don't think he was that angry. "It is what it is." and I think that on top of everything else, we were both distracted by the crossing and I think he had a good head of steam built up. Neither of us stopped before crossing, so we both screwed up. His bike was fine. He got up, called his significant other and off he went. I snapped the picture above, called Tracy to come get me and hauled my sorry butt to the parking lot acrossed the street to wait.

When I told her that I wanted to take this ride so as not disturb her day, we got a laugh out of it. On the way back home, she suggested that since we had the bike already loaded, we might as well take it to the shop. So we did. New front wheel, new shifter (as the brake lever had broken at some point) and I might as well get that bad bearing in the crankshaft fixed.

So that is what happened. I had a scrape on my hand, and I wear gloves so I think they protected me, a bunch of pulled muscles in my wrist and a phantom pain in my thigh. It hurts, but it isn't bruised.

I'm going to live with the stupidity of the whole event for now. I did learn something. I'll leave it at that.

Familiar Wife

 

I recently finished up the KDrama "Familiar Wife" on Netflix. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and that was in sharp contrast to the previous one I watched, "My ID Is Gangnam Beauty" which frustrated me (And I don't recommend). That type of movie usually chooses protagonists that I cannot identify with, or are just not personable. 

Anyway, I was looking for a good romance, at least better than that previous attempt. I poked around my Netflix list looking for something non-netflix. This is not anything against Netflix. They produce some good things. I was looking for something that might disappear if I didn't watch it. I found "Familiar Wife" with its slightly science-fiction premise, that of time travel.

You enter the story with a man in a bad marriage. It starts sympathetic toward him. He's the protagonist as you spend the most time with him. It started with the couple with two young children. It was a false path as I thought this was moving towards a comedy about this couple trying to cope. Nope. You soon saw some behaviours that were disturbing. The man was lying. The woman was raging (for reasons) most of the time. In a particular slapstick moment, she threw a crab leg at the husband for one of his inconsiderate decisions. I was playing this in my mind trying to see how, if real, the man could make this situation better. 

The end of this phase was of the wife destroying a game console, the man's only "escape" from this reality. Holy crud, these people are horrible to each other.

Years ago, the man helped out this girl in a assault situation, later to become her tutor. As the story moved on, because of this act, he didn't get to go out with the pretty, rich girl and he wondered what life would have been like if he had dated her instead. So, and just suspend your belief here, he finds a way to go back in time to do just that.

So he's back in time. He dates the pretty, rich girl and ignores his previous wife. He is happy.
But fate brings back his former wife and she is soon invading his space, his dreams and thoughts. 

Some introspection here, as that is part of my interest in these shows. I'm not sure if I ever contemplated personal changes like what this person did. There are some points in my life that I wish I didn't go through. I do realize that they defined me. I wouldn't be the person that I am without going through those times. Still, it wasn't pleasant. 

The man comes to the realization that his life isn't what he really wanted. He finds he is still attracted to his former wife. His present wife holds her wealth over him, she is self-centered and demands his attention by virtue of her being rich and pretty. While working with his former wife, he comes to the realization that he was the cause of her transformation into the horrible person she was in that former life. He eventually decides that he is a horrible person and he doesn't want to hurt his former wife with his presence and increasing attraction to her. While he is having his dreams and thoughts invaded by his previous life, his former wife is having the same. He eventually tells her that they were once married and the thoughts that she's been having are his fault and how sorry he is. She accepts his apology on the condition he does penance by her side. 

And another time travel happens. Just accept it.

So we now have her trying to start a romance with him and he is a firm bachelor. He feels he is poison to whatever relationship he would enter, let alone with her. So a LOT of psychological stuff happens. At least, from my point of view, she has to overcome his own knowledge of what he is like. He knows what he is like and it is demonstrable that he is bad for the women in his life.

They do get together and it is adorable. I find the characters very likable. The last episode is fan service with the man coming to terms with who he is and becoming a devoted father and husband, respecting his wife's (Yeah, he gets married again.) decisions and space. They communicate and make the marriage work. They even open the door to an argument in one scene where they both get a bit hysterical with each other and they take a breath, and just make it work. 

I enjoyed show because it made me think. I want to be a better person and I like seeing the trials of other men trying to be better people. And yes, this is written for the women in mind, clearly. But, because of the things that are brought up in this type of show, I don't think I'm doing too bad. It isn't that I'm all that great, but I've learned how to change. A lot of people never learn that. And there is an unnerving amount of empathy I had with the main character. I've come to the realization that at points in my life, I've been the a****le. I've had a point in my life when I wanted to run away from people because I felt that I was toxic, that a healthy relationship seems to be out of my grasp, that I didn't deserve to be in a relationship. I also had a wife that clawed me back and we have a better life. 

It's a good show. There are some corny things in the show. Suspend belief and just let it through. 

There is one thing that I haven't found yet. At one point, there's someone that also used the time-travel thing, but it wasn't obvious who it was. At least, it wasn't obvious to me. There are other characters that are shown in transformation, so I have my guesses. Anyway, it wasn't the best Kdrama that I've watched, but the previous one I viewed was pretty bad, so this was exceptional in contrast.