Mooning Over Meryl and Margaret

My mom and Megs came over last night, and we watched The Iron Lady, which was fantastic.

I haven't seen a lot of Meryl Streep's movies, but the ones I've seen, I've really liked.  I think she's a fantastic actress.  I heard an interview of her on NPR a few months back, and I decided that I am an official fan.  She's so wise and so strong.  It was one of those NPR interviews where I sat in my driveway long after I had returned home from running errands, because I didn't want to miss even a snippet.

At the conclusion of the interview, this is what Meryl said:

"Sometimes when scrolling through the TV and there's something on, I look at it, and I think oh, my gosh. I thought I was fat? What is my problem?  You know, when I was younger I spent way too much time thinking about that. So stupid."

And that cemented my love for her.  Right there.

If you want to read the transcript of her interview, go here.

And as far as Margaret Thatcher, whom Meryl played in The Iron Lady - what a woman!!!   I am not very political or at all acquainted with her stance on politics - I got the gist from the movie that she is a conservative, so whatever, but what impressed me was, obviously, that she was Prime Minister - a woman!  In the eighties!  The most powerful person in England in the eighties was a woman!!  Just amazing.  And that she was able to stand up to all of those men by whom she was constantly surrounded.  She was tough.  Tough as nails.  And I think that's so great.

I was watching Meryl play her in Parliament, men yelling at her, she yelling right back and defending herself, and I thought, "Wow.  If that had been me, I would have broken down in tears and cried, 'You're hurting my feelings!!!'"  She was thick-skinned, that woman.  And I admire that.  I'm thicker-skinned than I used to be, but it's going to be a lifelong process, I fear.  I'm a sensitive flower. :)  I could never be a politician.

I also came to the conclusion, after watching this movie, or rather, the re-affirmation of my stance, that getting old sucks.  For reals, yo.  She was so sharp-minded.  So intellectual.  And now she suffers from severe dementia.  That really bites the big one, I think.  Every time I see stuff in movies or on TV about the elderly and dementia or Alzheimers, I think, "Please don't let that be me.  Please let me keep my mental faculties until the second I die."

So I've decided that when I finish reading Cold Sassy Tree (which I am loving), I'm going to the bibliotheque to check out a book about Maggie Thatcher.   I am a non-fiction junkie, after all.   I was watching this movie going, "That happened??  That happened???  Where are the Falklands???"  Hahaha!  Granted, I was very young when she was prime minister, but still.  I need to learn more.