...heavy on the drama. Kdrama, or Korean Drama, is my new obsession. Rather, it is The Moon Embracing the Sun that is the obsession. What's not to like about 19th century costume drama with intrigue, betrayal, love, loss, and happily ever after mixed with a bit of magic and a love triangle or 3? The actors are handsome and pretty and the costumes are gorgeous enough to send me googling to find out the background of each, like the hair pin that gives the name to this particular Korean costume drama. Just beautiful.
This is my second time through this particular Kdrama, but only because I figured out watching it on my laptop provided a lot more detail than watching it on my Kindle Fire. There is something to be said for size.
Synopsis: Court official's daughter bumps into crown prince climbing over the wall of the palace grounds to get away from the protocol and hassle of being crown prince and he nearly falls on top of her. She thinks he is a thief. He tells her he is a eunuch. She is at the palace compound to watch her older brother get the award for best scholar and he's running away. It is love at first sight, even if he is a thief, as only love can hit us when the girl, Heo Yeon Woo, is 13 and the prince, Lee Hwan, is 15. She is a learned girl who can read and write Chinese and knows philosophy. He's a spoiled prince with a penchant for disguising himself and running away from protocol to see what's really going on in the country outside the high walls of the palace compound.
Yeon Woo eventually discovers he is the Crown Prince and she becomes one of his little sister's companions. Min Hwa's other companion is another court official related to the Queen Dowager, who is a nasty piece of work and not at all bothered having people killed, as long as the king doesn't know about it or get his hands bloody. That's what the Minister of the Home Office is for. Besides, he's a member of her clan, the Yoon clan, and greed runs in the clan. His daughter is the princess's other companion and she is a nasty piece of work who hates Yeon Woo because she is everything that Yoon Bo Kyung is not -- queenly and not at all vicious, mean-spirited, or duplicitous.
Yeon Woo is chosen as the Crown Prince's bride-to-be until the Queen Dowager has the chief shaman call down a curse that will kill her so that Bo Kyung will be the Crown Prince's bride and eventually Queen. Too bad the Crown Prince sees through Bo Kyung's polite words and smiles and refuses to consummate the marriage during the 8 years of their married life. Yeon Woo is presumed dead by her family, and the Crown Prince, and his half-brother, Yang Myung, who is also in love with Yeon Woo. But she was only sleeping and the chief shaman had her dug up after her burial and registers her as a shaman with the local temple.
For 8 years, the shaman travels around the country with Yeon Woo, who has lost her memory and has been told she was possessed by a powerful spirit and found wandering in the streets before becoming a shaman, her maid, Seol, and a street urchin with the gift of sight, Jan Shil, while Yang Myung wanders just a few steps ahead of the rebels that want him to over throw his brother and become King, and Bo Kyung and Lee Hwan live separate lives while their ministers steal the country blind and gather power to supplant the king once he sires and heir on the Minister of Home Office's daughter.
Okay, enough of the synopsis. Even reading the subtitles cannot dampen the enthusiasm of seeing such a wonderful spectacle or falling a little bit in love with the actors, or even laughing at the head eunuch's exasperation and shock at his master's antics. He suffers in silence -- most of the time -- and the comedy is a breath of fresh air after the passion and tension of the main story. Lee Hwan's chief eunuch is kind of cute and funny which is a nice counterpoint to the very handsome young men playing the lead parts. One can even forgive Princess Min Hwa's spoiled brattiness and utter devotion to Yeon Woo's older brother even if she did ruin his life and his future. After all, she is so cute in a kitten with a whip fashion.
But life goes on, and so must I.You will have to admit the actors are all quite handsome.
At any rate, there are other things to fill my world, like sees, plants, and supplies to create my container garden. I even plan to put a couple of trees in the house, specifically a dwarf Meyer lemon and dwarf fig tree. I do so love lemons and I've never actually had a fresh fig. I've eaten plenty dried figs and I love Fig Newtons.
Then there is bread to bake and food to cook, although I must admit I'm not much in a food eating mood, unless you count the occasional biscuit or the omelets, peanut butter, and fruit that I eat once a day. I also like to have hot chai, but have given it up this week for fruit juices, most of which I water down with real water. For some reason, the juices seem a bit heavy at times, though they are delicious.
And then there is work. I ended up with my 7th account since starting 2-1/2 months ago and seem to always be in QC hell (i.e., making very little to no money because I have to learn the protocols for another whole hospital or health care system). It is hard to keep the differences in mind when switching between so many different accounts. I think I've finally convinced my supervisor to settle me into 3 accounts, one of which is all typing. I've learned that in order to make money stability is key, and so are lines, especially when those lines are typed and not edited. When it takes me more time to edit the lines than it would to type the entire report, especially when I'm getting paid half as much for the edited lines, over time and typing full reports is key. I might actually make enough money to live on once I get settled in.
The best part about switching jobs, once I get out of QC hell and make the money I'm capable of making when I have the same accounts all the time, is that I bargained for 14 vacation days and ended up with 43.46 vacation days. All those years of working for a company this company bought out is the vacation time, nearly 6 weeks. I have never had that much time to use in my whole working life. I plan on taking at least a couple of vacations for 2 weeks at a time and use the other nearly 2 weeks to carve out a 3-day weekends. All paid in full. That is definitely worth changing jobs for, as are the benefits, chance to make more money, and a health care plan that does not cost me more than a month's rent every month. Made me feel like I did when I was newly divorced and working 2 jobs to pay for the babysitter for my 3 young sons. Rather defeats the purpose of working if all your money goes for someone else's benefit and there is little to nothing left for the necessities of life: food, clothing, a roof over your head, and utilities to power the furnace when it gets cold. Into every life a little rain . . . and all that stuff.
As long as the rain does come through the ceiling in the kitchen and getting someone to repair said hole and the roof are proving difficult at best. Like I said, into every life a little rain. I am optimistic that I will be able to get everything handled. I'll do whatever it takes to keep my cabin in the mountains even if it means working more hours and finding someone to do the repairs, even if I have to drag him into the house and make him watch Kdrama
That is all. Disperse.
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