My Royal Tenenbaums

I woke up at the delightful hour of ..... Well, by-gones will be by-gones. Griffon hopped up next to me and continued to pester me till I dragged my sore self out of bed, flicked on my light and turned around to see all his effort was merely to steal my warm spot that I left bare: the little turkey.
I stumbled across a stray can of RedBull (SCORE!!) in the fridge,




stumbled back to my room, glanced over at my dvd's (as usual).. And spied my recent purchase of The Royal Tenenbaums.




The last time I watched this was.... Eight almost nine years ago.. I didn't go to the regular theater very much at all and so I didn't end up seeing it till it was previously previewed at BlockBuster for $4.99. aaah the good old days. And when I finally saw it, it became embedded in my mind's eye, in my memory.. And it just stuck there. I even wrote a short story inspired by it for my first english class (on which I recieved an A+.) And all of this from only watching it once in my life. And here I am twenty-two years old, watching it for the second time in my life. And it feels like yesterday I watched it. How strange how things like that work....

My favorite characters are the main antagonist women, Margot and Ethel.


And I guess Pagoda is pretty sweet.


....


It always seems like women are the glue in-between everything, holding it all together.


.....


Favorite lines:

" 'Cause I'm in a rut, and I need a change."

~Margot


..."It's these little expressions of yours.."

~Ethel

"Goodbye, Royal."

~Ethel

I love the awkwardness of it all. And ya know what?... When something/someone is really real, and really belongs somewhere with someone, it doesn't matter how often you see it/them/her/him or how much time gets in-between you both... When you end up next to each other or in front of each other again.. It's like you never left in the first place. And I think everyone reading this would assume in some form of what the hell I'm talking about... And I can safely say, none of you know what/who I am talking about.. And that's ok, I like having my secrets.




-- Desde Mi iSoul

This is an english short story I wrote in my first english class I was in at Community College of Aurora. I based it very loosely off the film the Royal Tenenbaums. I was "inspired" as they say. ... oh, yea. I got a 99% on it, so that's good. And of course, it's about a dog... Wow. Haven't changed that much after all.









Katalin Johnson

July 5, 2005

English Composition/ ENG 121, Section 313



“Bruno” by Katalin Johnson



It was a hot, sticky summer afternoon. The older woman’s granddaughter was coming over to visit that day. The plate of chocolate chip cookies was already on the coffee table, beside two glasses of milk. Climbing up the creaking stairs to the attic, she wondered what picture they’d look at today. The skylight in the attic allowed the sunshine to beam dusty rays of light onto the room’s floor. Picking up a worn shoe-box, the grandma brushed the dust off before going back downstairs. She set the box on the coffee table as well, and sat on the worn couch to wait.

An old dog slept in the dining room, lying on an over sized throw-pillow. The grandma would have nodded off to sleep herself in the warm breeze of the fan, had the doorbell not rung. Groaning, she rose from the sunken position of the couch and creaked her way over to the door. Swinging the door open, the grandma was greeted by the smiling faces of her grown son and his daughter: her granddaughter.

Blinking in the bright sunlight, she invited them in, but the son declined. He only had enough time to drop his little girl off, before heading to work. Pecking his mom and daughter on the cheek, he quickly left in a cloud of exhaust.

The granddaughter stepped into the house and practically bounced over to the couch in her excitement. The little girl’s enthusiasm had always yearned for another picture; she had always wanted another story. The grandma following noticed her granddaughter instantly went for the cookies. While the younger girl flounced onto the couch, the older woman sat down more carefully. Leaning over, the grandma snagged the box and pulled it onto her lap. As she opened it the girl snuggled closer, while continuing to chew on her cookie.

“What picture are you going to pick today, Grandma?”

The grandma smiled secretively, knowing the perfect story to tell. Ruffling through the disheveled pictures, she pulled out a faded one.

“Is it a new story today, Grandma?”

The older woman held out the grainy photo for the girl to view. Looking at the picture in her hand, the story unfolded in front of the older woman with the flash of a camera.

It was taken many, many years ago; taken just before her granddaughter was a glimmer. It was a day in late autumn, when all the leaves were had fallen on the lawns, and the orange light of dusk fell warmly on concrete sidewalks. The couple living in the house in the center of the block, on the right, was getting ready for a holiday. Not a usual holiday, but for a holiday involving their three sons coming home for a visit. The parents had lived alone for quite a number of years and were excited to have the house full of people again. Their sons rarely ever came to visit anymore, what with their worldly-lives and jobs elsewhere. But this weekend they would all be coming to visit.

Like most families, the individual sons varied widely in their interests. The eldest was a doctor. Having slaved through college and worked his way into the big city’s medical industry, he was (in short) a health-nut. The middle son was a cigarette manufacturer. He not only sold cigarettes, he had a smoke in place of his meals, as well. The youngest was a photographer. Just out of college, he took pictures of everything. There wasn’t a moment you didn’t catch him without the camera in his hands, snapping pictures.

The mom and dad cleaned up the house and got everything ready. The mom told the dad what to clean up, while she baked the enormous quantities of food in the kitchen. Everything was ready by the time the sons all arrived, at exactly four p.m.

The evening didn’t start off well, as the doctor and cigarette manufacturer disagreed about absolutely everything, except their mother’s cooking. That, they both agreed, was the best food ever prepared. In the mean time, the photographer got pictures of everything, from the distracted older brothers, to the smiling parents, and to the dead-looking dog. The dog caught his eye, because his parents had never owned a dog. The mom seeing her youngest son eyeing the dog piped up over the din,

“I allowed your father to get it since he says he’s lonely. We named him Bruno.” The son, nodding, moved away from the table to take a picture of it. Trying to get the dog to move, he picked it up. It felt like a bag of jelly and acted like one too. Leaning back on his heals, he tried to get a good angle of the dog. Taking the picture, the camera flashed. Usually a dog would blink or flinch when its picture was taken, but this dog just laid there. Picking it up, he addressed his dad.

“Uh, your dog isn’t looking too well dad.”

The cigarette manufacturer, while exhaling a breath of smoke, looked over.

“Geez,” he said, “you killed it with your camera.”

The doctor cut in,

“No it didn’t. Your sickening smoke did.”

The mother cut in,

“Oh, for God’s sake, neither of those things did it. That dog has acted like that since we got it.”

Then the dad rose up from his chair, picked up the dog, and cradled it to his chest, before heading out the door.

Being an impulsive dad, he herded the entire family into their huge, over-sized van and headed to the veterinarian’s office. Driving quickly, the dad plopped the limp form of the dog in the mom’s lap. A hub-bub of noise ensued during the ride and finally in the vet’s office. The mom was whining at the dad, why she’d let him get the dog in the first place. The oldest son argued it was the all the cigarette smoke making it ill. The middle son blew a few smoke rings. The youngest son was snapping pictures like crazy, his flash bulb on his camera flashing continually. The vet, entering the room, couldn’t get a word in anywhere. He tried to ask why a flock of squawking parrots was in his office. Suddenly, the youngest son yelled,

“I want a picture of everybody! Squeeze together!”

Everyone’s train of thought was cut short, and they mumbled to themselves while shuffling together; even the doctor obliged by crowding in with them. Everyone looked up and posed. Everyone’s face was strained and wrinkled in irritation. Everyone’s eyes turned to the dog.

Suddenly the dead-looking dog raised his head as if on cue.

The photographer took the picture with a blinding flash.

The dog’s head plopped back down on its chest.

The silence followed. And the arguing began, once again, shortly after.

The urgent tugging of little hands, sweaty and sticky from chocolate chips, pulled on the grandma’s shirt-sleeve. The afternoon was only growing more humid and the glasses of milk had beads of cold water evaporated dripping down the sides. The grandma snapped back to reality and looked at her granddaughter’s pinched face of anxiety.

“Grandma? Grandma? Was Bruno OK? Is he still OK?”

They both cast a glance at Bruno sleeping in the dining room. The younger cast a glance of anxiety; the elder had a glance of humor. Chuckling lightly at the poor absurdity of it all, the grandma patted her granddaughter’s hand reassuringly.

“Oh, yes,” she replied, “Bruno was perfectly fine; and, he’s still fine. The vet couldn’t explain why he slept all the time except he was extremely lethargic.” With a nod of confused satisfaction, the girl suddenly grinned with a toothy-grin.

“Dad got everyone together didn’t he? He told everyone to get together for the picture, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he sure did.”