Day Eighteen--and Happy Feet--The Movie

Bunny had no school yesterday--conferences, as I think I have already mentioned. So, we had a couple of girlfriends over: sort of a playdate/daycare kind of deal, and we went to see the new movie Happy Feet.

Now, as a seasoned viewer of kid flicks, I feel I don't ask for much. Not every movie can be The Incredibles, or even Lilo and Stitch. I look for charm, humor, nothing too scary, a decent story arc. The kidlets hate to see anything in jeopardy or even characters who are sad. Lovely animation is a bonus. I had some concerns about Happy Feet, because the reviews emphasized that this was a movie that went "deep and dark," that dared to be a movie with a message.

HA.

FernGully is a movie with a message. That whole damn movie is about cute little animals and fairies trying to save the rainforest from humans and heavy equipment. THAT is a message movie. Happy Feet is a family movie with some human bashing thrown in at the end but tied up tidily in about 15 minutes, a schizophrenic mash-up that sacrifices a real story arc for a 98 minute running time.

The first half of the movie is classic kid flick fare; it's Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer at the Other Pole. Mumbles the penguin is born with happy feet--he can't sing like the rest of the penguins, but he can tap like Savion Glover. EXACTLY like Savion Glover, in fact, due to the magic of motion capture. This is considered an abomination among the penguin elders, and Mumbles ends up banished, but not before the prettiest penguin in EmperorLand falls for him.

He meets up with some quirky sidekicks, goes on a quest, yadda yadda, comes home and gets the girl happy and finds his place the end. That would be a 90 minute family movie, about the power of embracing one's differences, the fear of not conforming and the joy of learning how not to.

But, that's somehow not enough. So a second 90 minute plot is forced onto this one. Somehow, despite living hundreds of miles inland, word gets around that the fish supply is being depleted, and the penguins are starving. Not so's you notice it, mind you. There's no animation support for that proposition--they all still look fat and happy, there's no decrease in their numbers or change in their motion habits. Just take the dialogue's word for it--there's no food. One of the elder penguins--voiced by Hugo Weaving and looking for all the world like a vulture--declares that it's a sign from the great Guin that they have tolerated the abomination of Happy Feet and Mumbles ust be driven out to restore the balance.

Okay, that too might be a plot--it might even be cool to explore what a penguin religion might be, and how they might conceive of something other than ice and snow. But religion is just the tool of the Big Bad Old Guy, and Mumbles (who has managed to not molt either--it's not cute, just kind of mangy) heads off to figure out what is happening to the fish.

Well, of course, it's those Nasty Humans, netting huge numbers of fish with their commercial boats. Not only that, but those nasty humans have built some sort of industrial station, and then abandoned it, leaving behind a backwash of crap. One penguin, voiced by the unavoidable Robin Williams, wears a soda can six-pack ring around his neck, which doesn't manage to strangle him, but does render him voiceless for a large part of the movie.

Well, of course, Mumbles gets angry at these "aliens" who don't seem to care they are taking the fish, and he swims after them. So, here's a second quest, which could also have been its own movie--but since it's just jammed onto the first movie, we cut to Mumbles passed out on the Jersey shore. He wakes up in a zoo, where he tries to communicate with the humans and goes mad. The other penguins call him "Dave" and they all talk like HAL 2000. So, here we have a bit of zoo bashing, just tossed in for why? I don't know. Because after some unnamed number of months (and he's still not molted yet--what is it about this perpetual immaturity?) he does his happy feet thing. And the next thing we know, he's back at EmperorLand with a radio remote mounted on his back convincing the younger penguins that if they all dance, the fish will come back because the humans want to help.

So, a research helicopter appears and humans come make a videotape of the thousands of STOMPing penguins and it becomes a huge hit on television and people think that if penguins dance then we have to stop commercial fishing and nobody points out that the fish are being taken to feed humans because fishing is just evil and the humans who oppose the ban just don't understand how cute penguins are but then everything is okay and a fishing ban is made and the fish come back and happilyeveraftercakes. This part takes about 90 seconds, excluding the big penguin dance number.

Whaaa? When did we get nice humans? Why did they make the connection between one dancing penguin and returning him to Antarctica? Why does he trust them? How did they mount that radio to his back--superglue? It looks implanted and creepy. What kind of smack does it say about humans that it takes 60 seconds of dancing penguins on videotape to resolve a major ecological issue--and why didn't they just throw in the ozone layer while they were at it? And WHY doesn't that damn Mumbles EVER MOLT?

Sure, the animation is beautiful--you'd never believe they could do so much with a palate of just white. The snow blocks shearing off and crashing into the ocean are fabulous--the desolate beauty of Antarctica is awesome. The movie tackles the problem of how hard it is to do CGI humans by blending the CGI with actual film of human beings. Visually, it's stunning. Sure, the tap dancing is a bit weird when performed by birds with virtually no legs at all and big horny clawed feet, but it's still oddly jubilant. The Moulin Rouge music mashes kind of work, although I got very tired of the Marilyn Monroe voice of Nicole Kidman. We have singing, we have dancing, we have Elijah Wood leading yet another band of misfits to deal with the adverse effects of a ring, we have religious fanatics driving out misfits, we have an Elvis impersonator, we have ecological finger-wagging, we have good humans, bad humans and humans who can't dance.

So, I'm asking--what was the point of this movie? And what the hell happened to the arc of storytelling? I mean, geez, what kind of third rate script is this? I gotta tell you, all three 5th grade girls I was with walked out of the theater saying--"And THAT'S why it's bad to eat fish."

Day Seventeen--and the Laura Bennett Challenge

So, Amy has issued the Laura Bennett challenge. I admire that kind of ambition in a mom--that desire to get up and get going and get glam.

Without issuing an manifesto and without adding yet ANOTHER challenge to my November, it turns out that I did, indeed, dress up today. Why? Or, perhaps more importantly, HOW?

Here's how it worked. I started several days ago, by doing my laundry. Perhaps, like me, it takes several days for laundry to work its way through the washer, the dryer, the composting laundry basket--until it's actually sorted and hung and put away. I got to the putting away part last night. More importantly, I got to MY laundry (not the kids', not Mr. Sweetie's, not the linens, but) my actual clothing that for some stupid reason I don't do until everyone else's is done.

So, this morning, I actually has something nice to wear.

Mr. Sweetie and I were scheduled for a conference with the Bunny's teachers this morning at 9, so I actually got showered and dressed before then. What with some more choices available in my closet, I got a nice black tunic which I wore over some dark blue jeans.

But that was so spare--this long expanse of unrelieved black. So I threw on a silver necklace that I have that is long enough to show up against the black. Plus then I put on earrings, because they are easy. I happened to pick up a set that comes with a complementary set, so I actually put on TWO pair of earrings (yes, I'm double pierced) because they looked silly alone.

I usually just throw some eyeliner on, and maybe darken my brows and call that made-up. But I had some extra time before I had to leave, and I caught sight of myself in the mirror. And the skin tone could use a little even-ing out. So, the foundation was right there...but then you have to add blush, because otherwise you look just too pale. Then the eyes weren't quite right in comparison, so I added the eyeshadow too.

Then, I had to wear black shoes, right? Given the rest of the outfit. The only black shoes I can put my hands on right now have about a 2" heel. So that gives the further impression that I'm "all dolled up." And at least two people mentioned that I looked especially nice today.

So apparently, one thing leads to another, and unless you stop early enough, you end up actually looking attractive! Who knew?

From the Stacks--One Down

I've posted my review of "The Outsiders" over here. This is the first book I've finished in my From the Stacks Challenge--and even with these books clearly marked for reading, I'm having trouble keeping from buying even more books that I want to read.

Addicted to literary crack--it's a sad story. Don't let it happen to you.

What Are The Odds?

Bermondsey and I were at the off-leash park today, and we met the most unusual dog. I thought she might be Basenji, but how likely was that? I mean, how many Basenjis are there around? Ginger, her name was, and she was just a little bit bigger and heavier than Bermondsey--the two of them got into a bit of a kerfuffle. Bermondsey was feeling a bit threatened by her, as well as by the fact that all the dogs today were bigger than he is. Somehow, the started to run, which is Bermondsey's favorite thing to do, and as they raced around, cutting and weaving, I got to speak to Ginger's owner.

Turns out I was right! Go me! She is part Basenji, and part something called a "Freist terrier" which I've never even heard of before. She was a rescue dog, found on Petfinder.com from Texas. This woman had even gone all the way to Texas to get her.

So what are the odds--that a Basenji and a "Freist terrier" were even able to run into each other, much less mate, much less that the offspring would go from Texas to Minnesota?

As Spock might say, "They would be astronomical, captain."

Day Sixteen--and Heading Into Winter

It's not that it's terribly cold here yet, because it isn't. Winter is definitely on the way. I took Bermondsey for a walk and got home at 4:53. It was dusky by then, but in a gray and cloudy way. Fifteen minutes later, it was fully dark as if someone flipped a switch.

This morning I saw seven flocks of Canadian geese at one time, all heading south and calling to one another. It's such a mournful sound, as if they are calling goodbye to their favorite places, or calling other geese to set out before it's too cold.

Seven flocks of geese are an amazing site. Living here on the prairie, the sky is like a dome over the world, with trees and a few buildings bravely poking up at the edges. Seven flocks of geese can spread over a large expanse of the sky, as if everything overhead is fleeing the coming season. Periodically one or two or three geese will join up with a larger flock, all following the pointman, who flies into the headwinds and clears the way for the rest of the birds.

Now is the time to draw all the curtains by five o'clock, to keep the heat and light inside where it makes the rooms seem comforting. People wear darker colors, now, looking like sepia toned photographs of themselves. The trees have shed their leaves, and the grass has gone dormant. All is gray and brown and quiet.

The night comes earlier every day, and for the next five weeks we will eat our dinners in deeper and deeper dark. It's easy to lose track of the time: is it five-thirty or ten-thirty? It all looks the same.

Just around Christmas, we will pass the solstice, and by January the retreat of nighttime is visible. Slowly--so slowly--darkness will ebb, arriving later and lasting less long. The cold continues to grow, and the snow usually accumulates, but the beginning of spring can be discerned in the growing light.

This is the season for good books, a fireplace, a sleepy dog, a glass of wine...this is what we wish for now.

Fortunately/Unfortunately

Unfortunately, the Bunny lost her retainer last week.

Fortunately, we found it.

Unfortunately we found it after the dog did.

Fortunately, it didn't fit him very well.

Unfortunately, he still managed to ruin it.

Fortunately, we could get a new one quickly.

Unfortunately, we had to pay for it.

Fortunately, it cost less than what I got for turning in the coin jar!

That's right--almost $180 in coins. That's a lot of coins.

Oh, And Another Thing...

Hey! It's Day Fifteen! We're halfway through NaBloPoMo! And, speaking for myself at least, there has been very little NaDruWriNi! Or any kind of DruBloPo.*

As my girl Christine Lavin says, "I'm never...I'm hardly ever...right now I'm not drunk!"

*That would be Drunk Blog Posting.

Christmas Is Coming!

So, as you know, I lost my iPods--both my jaunty little green Mini, and my earlier generation behemoth, which felt like a brick, but did hold all my music. And geez, do I miss them, especially in the car, where I am now forced to listen to the radio.

So, since we are approaching a major gift giving opportunity, I thought I'd look into replacing them. Being a savvy shopper, I looked at some non-Apple devices, and suddenly, this isn't as easy as I thought it would be.

Microsoft has come out with this: the Zune. Look at that nice big screen! It looks so much bigger than the iPod's! It holds music and photos and videos, and can connect wirelessly so you can share your music with another Zune!

Ahem. It also has some bogus system of downloading music with "points" that you have to buy before going to the music site. Its screen resolution is lower than the iPod, it's apparently dimmer than the iPod, and Microsoft is promoting it based on features that they don't have ready yet.

Um...Vista anybody?

So, I'm not overwhelmed by the Zune. Plus, what a stupid name. So, a certified gadget geek tried to sell me on this: the Zen.

It's pretty small, with a bigger screen than even the Zune. But the controls are kind of clunky, and I'm not sure it's got the memory of the big iPod.

So, now what? Do I wait for Apple to upgrade the screen size of the iPod? Do I get something for now to save me from the horror that is radio? Do I just quit whining about it all? Okay, you know me too well--the whining stays.

I Forgot.

Okay, so I already showed you my shoes today. But really, as keen as I am to jump on any internet bandwagon, I forgot that it would have been more appropriate here. Besides, they weren't really my shoes.

Who ARE The People In Your Neighborhood?

Can you sing it with me now?

"Oh, oh oh/Who are the people in your neighborhood?/In your neighborhood/In your Neigh-bor-hood/Say, who are the people in your neighborhood?/The people that you meet when you're walking down the street/They're the people that you meet each day!"

Thank you so much! Good night and tip your waiter!

Apparently the people in my neigborhood are fond of puns. Bermondsey and I found this at the entrance to an alley while out on one of our walks.














The picture is a little blurry, because Bermondsey kept tugging at the leash while I was trying to take the picture. And then we went the other way, because if there is something my dog is, it's a piddler.



Who? Me?

Let's Get Some Shoes!

So, I look down, and I see these bright red things on the ends of my legs. Are these my feet? Surely not!

Yes, those are red suede Comfort Mocs (TM) from L.L.Bean, which Pony and I ordered for her. Alas, they are too tight for Pony to get onto her feet. Alack, L.L. Bean is out of the red ones, and will not be getting any more in the foreseeable future.

So, as a service to the world and to spare the Pony any more shopping (which she hates), I am wearing these shoes to stretch them out so she can wear them. I guess this is what happens when your child is taller than you are.

I just never wear bright colored shoes like this, and it seems so weird to look down and see them attached to my legs. I don't even have anything that goes with red shoes. Clearly, that means it's time to go rethink my wardrobe.

You Are Lost in the 80s If...

1. You remember when Jordache jeans were cool.
2. In your school pictures you were wearing an Izod shirt with the collar up.
3. You ever rang someone’s doorbell and said “Landshark!”
4. Three words: Atari, IntelliVision and Coleco, sound familiar
5. You remember the days when “safe sex” meant that your parents were gone for the weekend.
6. You remember Friday Night Videos before the days of MTV.
7. While in high school, you and your friends discussed elaborate plans to get together again at the end of the century and play Prince’s “1999” until you passed out partying.
8. You remember when music that was labeled alternative, really was alternative.
9. You took family trips BEFORE the invention of the minivan.
10. You rode in the back of the station wagon and you faced the cars behind you.
11. “What you talkin’ bout?” rings a bell.
12. You can't read the Preamble to the Constitution without hearing the Schoolhouse Rock song in your head. ("We the peeeeo-ple/in order to form a more perfect union...")
13. You’re starting to view getting carded to buy alcohol as a GOOD thing.
14. You ever dressed to emulate a person you saw in either a Duran Duran, Madonna or Cyndi Lauper video.
15. The first time you ever kissed someone at a dance came during “Crazy for You,” by Madonna.
16. The phrase “Where’s the beef,” still doubles you over with laughter.
17. You honestly remember when film critics raved that no movie could ever possibly get better special effects than those in the movie TRON.
18. Ted the photographer on The Love Boat.
19. You’ve ever shopped at a Banana Republic or Benetton, but not in the last five years.
20. You’re starting to believe now that maybe having the kids go to school year round wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all.
21. You’re doing absolutely nothing pertaining to your major.
22. You care about whether U2 or REM were the better band.
    
23. You had a frontrow seat for Luke and Laura’s wedding on General Hospital.
24. You know who shot JR.
25. This rings a bell: “...and my name is Charlie. They work for me.”
26. You were unsure if Diet Coke would ever catch on after all.
27. You know all the words to the double album set of Grease.
28. You ever had a Dorothy Hamil haircut.
29. You sat with your friends on a Friday night and dialed 867-5309 to see if Jenny would answer.
30. “All skate, change directions”, means something to you.
31. You owned a pair of Rainbow suspenders just like Mork used to wear.
32. You bought a pair of Vanns and wanted to order a pizza in history class so you could be just like Jeff Spicoli.
33. You owned a preppy handbook.
34. You remember when there was only PG and R.
35. Your jaw would ache by the time you finished those brick sized packages of Bazooka gum.
36. Bo and Luke Duke.
37. VCRs cost $2,000.
38. There was nothing strange about Bert and Ernie living together.
39. Rotary dial telephones.
40. You actually believed that Mikey, famed for his Life cereal commercials, died after eating a packet of pop rocks and drinking a Coke.
41. You remember the theme song to Greatest American Hero and it can still come back to haunt you. (BELIEVE IT OR NOT, I’M WALKING ON AIR...)
42. You’ve recently horrified yourself by using any one of the following phrases: When I was younger... When I was your age... You know, back when...

Found these archived at Jim's Joke Repository, where it was titled Signs You're Lost Between the Baby Boomers and Gen X. Sadly true--I've edited a bit.

Wow. Friday Night Videos. That takes me back.

Wodehouse or Baseball?

So, I gave you a quiz--which names are fictional characters from the works of P.G. Wodehouse, and which are actual baseball players.

How'd ya do?

1. Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy, also known as "Connie Mack" BASEBALL
2. Augustus Fink-Nottle, “Gussie” WODEHOUSE
3. Roderick Spode, WODEHOUSE
4. Dan Quisenberry, BASEBALL
5. Bertram Wilberforce Wooster, WODEHOUSE
6. Dorrel Norman Elvert Herzog, “Whitey” BASEBALL
7. Watkyn Bassett, WODEHOUSE
8. Mordecai Brown, “Three Finger” BASEBALL
9. Stiffy Byng, WODEHOUSE
10. Floyd Bannister, BASEBALL
11. Algy Wyndmondham-Wyndmondham, WODEHOUSE
12. Lastings Milledge, BASEBALL
13. Percy Craye, WODEHOUSE
14. Snuffy Stirnwiess, BASEBALL
15. Heathcliff Slocumb, BASEBALL
16. Augustine Mulliner, WODEHOUSE
17. Clay Dalrymple, BASEBALL
18. Tuppy Glossop, WODEHOUSE
19. John Wesley Powell, "Boog" BASEBALL
20. Oliver Randolph Sipperley, “Sippy” WODEHOUSE
21. Mike Jackson, both WODEHOUSE and BASEBALL

I actually did pretty well, since I was pretty good at picking out the Wodehouse characters. You?

Photo from www.baseballhalloffame.org. Hall of Famers Honus Wagner and Eddie Collins choose to see who bats first at Doubleday Field for the All-Star exhibition on June 12, 1939.

Day Thirteen--and Heaven

Well, since I seem to have hurled my verbal vomit yesterday, I find myself oddly quiet today. Life just continues: the kidlets go to school, the dog needs to be walked, the laundry continues to amass.
Maybe this is all there is. Although I still seek the transcendent, still seek to fill my spiritual hunger, I am left with the probability that this life is all we have. That there is no anthropomorphic God who watches over us and that dead is dead. That is the void, and I'm okay with it. Because that means that this life is even more precious, and that the people we love we have to connect to today, because there is no Great Hereafter where we can make up for what we missed here.

Which is really too bad, because I like the idea of an afterlife where I can have dinner with all those people in history that I'd like to meet. Like Amelia Earhart, just to find out what really happened. And Thomas Jefferson, who was really fascinating. And also books--all the books that I never got to read, or that weren't written yet, or that I did read and want to read again. Those should also be in heaven. Plus totally comfortable places to sit so you never get sore. Don't even get me started on the food.

Actually, my ideal heaven would be a lot like those murals on the walls at Barnes and Noble, where all the great authors of all time are sitting at a cafe and talking. Plus me.

Oh, And It's Day Twelve

Day twelve!

I'm just sayin' .

SundAche

Well, I tried again. I tried to go to church again, and it was a spectacular failure.

You have to understand that from 1988 to about 2000, I was incredibly active in the church. This church--the one I went to today. I was on the governing board, I taught Sunday School every week--every age, whatever they needed. I'd drop my nursing baby at the nursery and go teach the youth group. Or the fourth grade. Or the adults. Or stay in the nursery as extra hands. Plus I was on the Christian Education committee for years and years.

We experimented with an arts based non-profit using the church as a historically significant auditorium space, and I ran that non-profit as its incorporating executive director, and then was on the board of it for years. I was at every single event for at least two years.

We tried an alternative worship service for about a year, running from 9:15 to 10:00. Mr. Sweetie and I decorated the space, printed weekly bulletins, chose the music, performed the music, took turns (with others) leading prayers and doing meditations on the lectionary verses. THEN we went to the regular service too.

The congregation went through a convulsion in 1993, which churches often do, and the pastor left. It was hard, because feelings ran high and deep, but a new pastor came in, with the portfolio to close the church down gracefully. The church didn't close, but started to grow. We changed a lot of the staff and started over. Things remained shaky, especially financially, but that wasn't new--we ALWAYS had enough to keep going for "five more years, and that's it." It was never "four more years," or "two more years." Always "five more years."

But things were getting hard for me--1999 may have been the worst year of my life, depression-wise. I am convinced that the pastor at that time was also clinically depressed. I know that I couldn't listen to his sermons, because they were just like listening to myself, only worse because they were coming from the pulpit. I didn't need him to tell me I had failed God and that I was fallen and sinful--I could get that at home by myself, and not have to wear pantyhose to get it. I started to get physically itchy and uncomfortable in services and could not bear to sit through them.

So, I put my energy into the things that gave me joy, which filled my "God shaped hole." That was working with our Christian Education director and the kids. The alternative worship was my effort to fill the adult part of me as well.

Then, one budget season, the pastor panicked, and told the entire staff "There's no money for next year. We'll all have to get new jobs." Of course, we found the money, but not before our CE director, the foundation of my life at that church, had found another job and left.

I don't blame her. She was a single mom who could not afford to go without regular income: that's kind of a deal with church personnel. It's not a high paying, financially rewarding profession. So she was gone, and I had nothing left. So I burned out and stayed away.

Eventually the depressed pastor left, and a new interim pastor came for three years. I met him briefly, but still didn't go. About two years ago now, a new, young, vital and deeply intellectual pastor has come to the church, and cool things are happening. There is a new music director, and she's fabulous. The music is accessible, crisply performed, and varied. There is a new CE director who has a background in stand-up comedy and theater. New and cool people are coming and joining--people who are doctors, international workers, young professionals, immigrants from far away. And they are responding to the vibrancy coming from the pulpit. When the children come forward for the Children's message, only a couple are Caucasian--the wide diversity is amazing.

And I can't go. I can't benefit from this, becuase in the intervening years, something inside me died and I can't really say I'm even a Christian any more.

In trying to survive those horrible years of depression, I tried all kinds of things, and I swear I still have a God shaped hole, but God can't fill it anymore. I just cannot believe in the Christian God as represented in my church. I cannot stand and recite a "Prayer of Confession" because I can't beat myself up for failing any more. I cannot bring myself to say--in a rote, unison fashion--that I have failed God, because my failures are my pain, they are my hurt and suffering, and they belong to me, not to some group read. Some of the things that the church has us "confess" are not my failures, and I cannot stand there and say they are. Nor does the "Assurance of Pardon" help any either. Sure, I can be pardoned for things I haven't done, but that doesn't soothe my soul or bring me any closer to a God I am having trouble believing in anyway.

In the blackness of depression, I looked for God, and didn't find it. What I did find was something larger than my "church God," and much less personal. I came to be highly suspicious of the paternal God, because it was clear that I wanted one so much, I'd even invent one. And really, who is to say that we didn't? Once I started to suspect that I had invented a God that was to me what I needed, I became unable to look at religion as a believer.

Once the foundation of my belief was damaged, it became farcical for me to pretend to believe. The liturgy irritated me; the music was no longer uplifting; the stories of the Bible spoke to me as anthropological and cultural tales of humans seeking for meaning--not stories of revealed meaning. I looked into heaven and saw a void.

And I have made peace with that void. If there is a God, I cannot begin to comprehend its nature, and so I have come to believe that I shouldn't try. I can embrace the not knowing.

So, with this newfound peace so freshly won, I am confronted with a family that misses me at church. And really, how can they not--I was so very present for so long. So, this morning, my family each asked if I would come, and so I did. Because I love my family, and I didn't want to disappoint them over something so doable.

And I found I really didn't want to go. Something in my soul was ruffling up and asserting itself as unwilling to go docilely. Still, I went. And I sat in the pews, and I looked over the bulletin, and it felt wrong to be there. Not just wrong for me, not just some sort of theological purity test, like "I shouldn't be here if I don't believe." More like--this hurts to be here. I managed to stay until the kidlets left for Sunday school, and I went as well.

Heading out to the car, there were tears running down my cheeks. And I realized, with a stab of pain, that I hurt because it was clear to me how much I have lost. I have lost my faith. I have lost that connection with people I love and care for. I have lost that source for comfort and community. I have lost that place as an outlet for my passion and creativity. I have lost the larger community of believers--they can speak to each other in the stories of the bible, and communicate. I am left out. And the loss hurts more than I can bear.

So, I am here, alone, at home, trying to explain myself to myself, and I am crying again. Because I see what it gives my family, the wonderful people who are drawn together through it, and I can't do it--I no longer speak the language. And that makes that God shaped hole hurt.

A New Challenge

November is not just NaBloPoMo--Oh no! That would be too easy! No, I have to add another challenge to the month: the From the Stacks Reading Challenge. Michelle has challenged us to find five books already on our own shelves and to read them between now and January. I've got stacks of books--what am I going to try to read?

There are a ton of books my kids are reading that they feel strongly I should read. Pony has just finished The Outsiders, which I have never read. Bunny has been completely captivated by the Enchanted Forest Chronicles: she's read them through twice since we got them this summer. Technically, that's already five books, but I'm inclined to think of the Enchanted Forest books as just one book, which leaves three more for me to choose.

I bought a whole load of classics last summer to fill the darling round bookshelf in the parlor, and one of those would be good: Mansfield Park or Kate Chopin's Awakening.

I have Love, by Toni Morrison on my shelf and I've never read it.

I bought some books at the school book festival that I've not gotten to. Broken For You would be a decent adult book, so as not to totally load the list with children's lit.

And that's five!

Smell The Fresh Paint

I thought it was time to freshen things up around the old Evil castle: obviously I am experimenting with new looks for the blog. I'm looking for something that is simple, yet evil. Something that goes with my skin tone, you know?

Anyway, I welcome your comments and feedback on the various looks that have auditioned this month. Be assured that I will read your comments, and then sneer smugly at them before sending my goons out to beat you up. Being evil and all, it's what I do.

Day Eleven --and A Quiz!

Here is an opportunity to take a home made self assessment quiz! Kind of like a Cosmo quiz, but without all the sex!

Got your number two pencils ready? You may begin.

Fill in the blank:

“Healthy fighting” is_________

a) essential to a healthy marriage.

b) a useful skill.

c) an oxymoron.

Conflict_________:

a) resolution

b) management

c) avoidance

Disagreement is a _________;

a) sign of strong individuals with healthy self esteem.

b) an opportunity to learn more about each other.

c) disaster.

Okay! Pencils down!

Give your self 2 points for each "a" answer, 1 point for each "b" and 0 points for each "c."

How'd you do?

5-6 points: you are a healthy and well adjusted adult who has no need to take such silly quizzes. Well done!

3-4 points: you are able to bring others to resolution and are either a psychiatric professional or a middle school teacher. Congratulations!

1-2 points: you are in the middle of an encouraging growth point--you are learning to see with the wisdom of maturity that conflict is an "opportunity" rather than a sign of failure. Keep up the good work!

0 points: Hey! You are me!

Really, I am far too old to keep behaving this way. "Duck and cover" was never an effective response to nuclear explosions, and it isn't an effective way to deal with conflict. Just because it's my natural instinct doesn't mean it's evolutionarily effective either.

I am working on it, and have surprised myself by actually confronting some conflict in a productive and mature way. I know! I don't believe it either! Sure, it took me a week to screw my courage to the sticking point, but still! See, there are some advantages to getting older--and you can teach an old dog new tricks!

Day 10--and Internet Gremlins

The damn internet gremlins have been feasting on the cable signal here at Chez Evil. All day the kidlets and I have been trying to connect, and then, yes, at 10:00 p.m. C.S.T it went and fixed itself. So I'm going to make the deadline for today!

Mr. Sweetie and I are availing ourselves of the freedom of older children: we went out to dinner. Just the two of us. Like a real date! We went to this little bistro in an old historic building towndown, and Oh. My. God. Why have we never gone there before? Why have strangers not accosted us on the street, grabbed our labels and shaken us, shouting "You have to go eat there! You don't know what you are missing! Go there immediately! The end is near! Repent! Go eat at A Rebours!"

(We will now break for a little food porn. Please keep the vulnerable away.)

We started out with a marvellous Pinot Grigio/Chardonnay mix: it had the mineral sharpness of a viognier, a bright taste with a long finish, and was served perfectly icy cold. It had a complex taste, soft then sharp, sweet then spicy...it danced across your tastebuds like the Nicholas Brothers. (And if you don't know who the Nicholas Brothers were, go Google them immediately.)(On edit: or look just above this post. I got a clip from You Tube, but I can't get Blogger to let me post it with a title or anything. *Sigh*)

I wasn't terribly hungry, and didn't want an appetizer, but Mr. Sweetie ordered the mussels. I don't eat mussels. They smell like sea water to me, and if you don't drink sea water I don't see why you'd eat it. But, they came to the table and smelled divine. They were cooked with a wonderful warm broth--like a lamb broth I'd had once, though I don't know what this was, and so I let Mr. Sweetie talk me into tasting one.

Remember when you were a kid, and you'd go out with all the kids in the neighborhood and you'd go sledding and you'd sled and sled and the sun would start to go down, and there was snow packed into the tops of your boots and your wrists were red and chapped because your mittens didn't reach up to your sleeves, and by the time you got home your eyes were all watery and you couldn't even feel your nose any more, and you'd come inside and there'd be a fire in the fireplace and you'd put your feet into cozy slippers and your mom gave you some hot cocoa with as many marshmallows as you wanted? The mussels tasted like that. Warm and cozy and sanctuary against the cold winter--which was represented by the icy cold wine. It was marvelous. But I only had one, because I was saving myself for...

The steak au poivre, which came to the table on a tiny mound of creamed mustard greens. It was a rich dark brown, covered in a rich brown sauce, and yielded to the steak knife so easily, revealing a moist pink interior. I put it in my mouth and had a conversion experience, right there at the banquette. My soul hath been uplifted and I have glimpsed heaven.

I might feel guilty about it, except that Mr. Sweetie was having the very same sort of experience with his wild salmon. That meal was better than anything I've eaten in years. Years, I tell you! It was delicious, and warm and the waitstaff was attentive and personable and the room was charming and funky in an understated way, and my dinner companion was the best one possible...

And then we had dessert. Our waiter recommended the banana profiteroles, and they were fabulous. Rum infused chocolate sauce over delicate and tiny cream puffs, perfectly smooth vanilla ice cream, and cooked bananas lightly fried with coconut. But when the espresso came, I though Mr. Sweetie's eyes were going to roll into the back of his head and stay there. Oh my god it was delicious.

So, we will go back, but I think we'll have to wait a while. You wouldn't want to get too used to that kind of fabulousness, because where would you go after that?

All About Keys

So, today I have demonstrated the folly of having Schlage locks on all my doors.

When we first bought this house, lo these many years ago, we had new deadbolts on all three doors, and they were Schlage, and they were good. They were all "keyed" the same, a phrase I had never heard before which meant that the same key would work in all three doors. And this was good, as I would never have been able to keep straight which key went to which lock.

The years passed, and our babies grew into middle schooldom, and it came to pass that we did issue a decree that a garage should be built. And it was so, and the access door to the garage was given a lock, and the lock was Schlage.

Which is where the story reaches its tragic arc. For today, out of no ill will, I did attempt to lock the house door with the garage key. They are very very similar in appearance and location on the keyring, and the key did slip into the lock with a smoothness that indicated that it was the correct key.

Only it did not turn.

Worse, it did not come out.

By this point, the dog had picked up his leash and made a bee line for the nearest tree. The clock was ticking inexorably to the hour at which School Lets Out, and I could not free my keys from the door.

I think I remember a fairy tale where an elf gets his beard caught in a wedge of wood, and something very bad happens as he attempts to free himself. I pulled, and I pushed, and I jiggled gently and I wrested with all my strength, but the key would not move: neither forward nor backward nor sideways.

So I slipped it off the keyring and decided to come back for it later. And now I have taken my best pliers to it to get a stronger grip than my mere fingers could provide, and it did not move.

So, given the risk of breaking the key off while still in the lock, I have left it in place,and will ask my Knight In Shining Armor, Mr. Sweetie, if he knows how to free the lock.

And I guess I am painting that sucker orange, so I never do this again.

What Ho...With Knobs On!

I was looking around the old World Wide Web for something about P.G. Wodehouse, and was surprised and delighted to find that one can read many of his stories, etc. online! Do yourself a favor, and go Google him yourself and read a couple.

On a related note, I stumbled across this delightful quiz--below is a list of names, some from P.G. Wodehouse works, some of actual baseball players. Can you tell the difference?

Wodehouse character or baseball player?

1. Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy
2. Augustus Fink-Nottle
3. Roderick Spode
4. Daniel Quisenberry
5. Bertram Wilberforce Wooster
6. Dorrel Norman Elvert Herzog
7. Watkyn Bassett
8. Mordecai Brown
9. Stiffy Byng
10. Floyd Bannister
11. Algy Wyndmondham-Wyndmondham
12. Lastings Milledge
13. Percy Craye
14. Snuffy Stirnwiess
15. Heathcliff Slocumb
16. Augustine Mulliner
17. Clay Dalrymple
18. Tuppy Glossop
19. John Wesley Powell
20. Oliver Randolph Sipperley
21. Mike Jackson

List from The Winged Elephant. Answers tomorrow.

Day Nine--Oops! I Did It Again

Despite the implication of the title, this post is NOT about Britney filing for divorce from K-Fed. Which, by the way, don't we all approve?

No, this is about my own Ooops. A mistake I swore I was not going to make again, and yet did.

Mr. Sweetie is travelling again, and so wasn't home last night. And every time he travels, I just up and forget to go to bed. Something about the fact that he isn't here, and he isn't coming home...I just never go to bed.

It was worse last night--worse than usual. Because due to absolute boneheadedness, I'd been drinking diet soda that was NOT DECAFFINATED! So, when I finally did notice the time (2:15 a.m., if you want the ugly truth) I COULDN'T go to bed because I was far too wired. I finally went upstairs a bit past 3, and tossed around quite a bit.

And, of course, since Mr. Sweetie isn't here, I had to get up and get the kidlets to school.

So, having done my intense moring parenting, I think I'm going back to bed.

Image provided by Gnurf free clip art.

Surely It's Not Too Soon To Refresh?

All you NaBloPoMo dudes...I am getting, like, seriously addicted. This daily posting thing? It's like eating potato chips, man. I just can't stop. I have the list of blogs I read daily, but you know what? A bunch of you have promised to post daily--so I'm checking in two, three, five times a day to see if you have posted yet. Because God forbid I should do anything other than read blogs all day.

But you see, I'm hooked now. I am loving this challenge to post daily, because suddenly everything in my life feels bloggable. My entire life is turning into nothing but a string of slightly amusing anecdotes, which I then post, which makes me feel like I've done something productive, because there's the evidence--right there on the internet!

The real evil comes as I look at the list of participants, and there are literally hundreds of bloggers that read the same blog I do, and might be exactly the kind of blogger that I need to read! Daily! Or even more often! So now I'm following links to bloggers who themselves have links and archives! (Oh, the La Brea of the internets is the archives!) And they also have other blogs they read. Or write for. So many blogs!

And so many of them are so pretty! Individual-like. So, I get the urge to redecorate, and then I have to spend many many hours figuring out my fonts and colors and do I really want to get into HTML? Of course I do!

So, please keep posting, everybody, or I'll have to do something drastic. Like laundry.

Day Eight--and Results

Oh, my friends. I should never have doubted you. You didn't let me down. You looked into your eyes in the mirror and asked "Can I really vote for Mike Hatch for Governor? Even if he is a Democrat?" And from the true and good part of your heart came the answer. Sure, you don't agree with a lot of Tim Pawlenty's decisions, and you want some things to be different, but you looked at Mike Hatch and saw that he wasn't the answer either.

Thank you. You made the right decision. Sure, it's hard to vote for a Republican, but sometimes we all do things we didn't think we'd ever do, because they are the right thing to do.

And hey! Way to go Amy!

Techies Have Nothing To Fear From Me

PICT0006
Originally uploaded by Cate Ross.

So, late to the party again, I am only now using Flickr for my photos. You know, since I already have boxes and bags of developed film scattered around the house with no way to find anything, I thought I'd upgrade to digital. So now, I have digital pictures stored on my computer with no back up...smaaaaaart! Not.

So, I said to myself, "Self," I said, "this is a disaster just waiting to happen. Get thee some form of back-up!"

So, I'm sloooooooooooooooooowly putting some--not all, of course, because that would be sensible---of my pictures, a few at a time, onto Flickr, with the hope that when the hard drive fails, I'll not lose everything.

Did I mention that this is going very slowly?

So, here's a test--an early photograph of our Bermondsey from the first couple of days we had him. I'm posting to this blog through Flickr. Let's hope this works.

Everybody's A Comedian

Bunny surprised me with this one in the car today.

Bunny: Hey, Mama. Guess what religion Bermondsey is?

Me: I give up.

Bunny: Chewish!

Judging A Book...

A local energy company is offering a booklet to help consumers save resources. However, the booklet is called

"More Comfort, Less Energy."

I think I'm going to have to use this for the title of my autobiography.

Day Seven--and Look Ma! I'm a Political Blogger Now!

WARNING: Painfully sincere and turgid post below. Caffeine is recommended. You have been warned.

Yes I voted today. I know how I feel about some things that make it important to me to record my preferences. We are voting for constitutional oficers here in Minnesota, and we need to keep our current governor. He's done a fine job and is a intellectually honest and decent man. I disagree over some of his social positions, but I respect the man.

Can't really say the same about his leading opponent, and it just kills me that my dear friends the electorate seem to be willing to elect a bad man just because he has the right party affiliation. It will make watching the returns tonight more visceral than usual.

Oddly enough, we were presented with a constitutional amendment on the ballot this year. The proposal states: "Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to dedicate revenue from a tax on the sale of new and used motor vehicles over a five-year period, so that after June 30, 2011, all of the revenue is dedicated at least 40 percent for public transit assistance and not more than 60 percent for highway purposes?”

Now, I'm not a hugely dedicated news junkie, by any means, but I do listen to the outside world, and I haven't heard much (or ANY) discussion about why this amendment is being proposed. As I understand it, Minnesota currently collects sales tax on motor vehicles, and currently 54% of that money is used for transportation. So, for some reason I can't fathom, we need a constitutional amendment to increase highway funding by 6%? Apparently the legislature once passed a law requiring that the motor vehicle sales tax be dedicated to transportation funding, but it was "never fully implimented" and was ultimately repealed. Meaning the legislature made some decisions that other programs needed the money more desperately?

According to a radio ad that I heard yesterday, with the "projected revenue growth" over the next couple of years, by the time the full effect of the amendment occurs in 2011--everybody will have enough money for everything, no other programs will lose revenue, and we'll all have new roads and bridges.

Let's just say I'm skeptical. ("I'm skeptical." --Frank Drebin) After all, I live in a state where mass transit is viewed as inherently suspect by actual legislators, who feel that people just want to "drive and be happy!" A state where it is self-evidently stupid to ask people to drive to a parking lot and take a train into work, rather than just driving in the entire way. A state when HOV lane requirements of 2(!) people to a car is viewed as too onerous, so you can buy a pass to drive in the HOV line by yourself. A state where bus ridership can't keep the bus lines running, so they get cut, and HEY! the ridership keeps going down! Because there aren't buses any more! Go figure!

Part of this has to be fundamental prairie thinking. When you work in Washington D.C., odds are you live in either Virginia or Maryland. If you try to drive into D.C. from Virginia or Maryland, you run into an obstacle called a "river." To cross this river, you need a bridge. There were 5 bridges when I lived there. If everybody who works in D.C. tries to drive--alone--in a car, with only 5 bridges, you end up with traffic takes a hell of a long time to unjam.

Here on the prairie, we don't have that problem. In fact, with the right kind of SUV, we could probably not even bother with roads, just plow across the flat land to our destinations. The reality of rising populations just doesn't seem to get across--why not just make the roads wider? That'll take care of the problem.

With that kind of thinking going on, it bothers me that we are being asked to permanently ensconce transportation budgeting into the constitution and out of the hands of the legislature. I'm not sure how, but I'm afraid that passing this inflexible amendment will strangle our ability to plan properly for mass transit in the future.

Or, let's take a worst case scenario: a Force 5 hurricane blows north up the Mississippi River, innundating the twin Citites metro area, and destroying homes, businesses and lives. Enormous needs need to be met quickly--but that sales tax money can't be touched. No, I am not in favor of relieving our representatives from doing their jobs--and part of that job is to make decisions about how to best allocate our resources. And face it--everybody could use more funding. Hell, I could use more funding. But constitutional budget planning means that we are making decisions out of context. Transportation is an important priority, but is it more important than HeadStart, or health coverage for the uninsured, or food stamps, or pollution control, or education funding, or...or...or....

So, I voted against it. And I voted to retain our (Republican) governor. And I voted for the DFL senatorial candidate. And I even voted for the Green Party candidate for one position. Hey, just because I'm politically schizophrenic--does that mean I get to vote more than once?

I didn't vote for water board commissioner. I just don't know the issues!

In Production: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

I found these great pictures at Veritaserum. There are many more pictures, but these are my favorites. Maybe they will have to replace U2 on the desktop.

First, here's who appears to be Luna Lovegood. She is just right, in my mind: she looks whispy and dreamy, with big eyes and a fact that looks utter unperturbable. She's not quite "all there" and yet she's able to accept the worst of how the world works. She is more comfort to Harry after the death of Sirius than anyone.

Tonks is another favorite: I was really rooting for her to be the next Defense Against Dark Arts teacher before book 6 came out. When searching for a HP costume for a theme party, Pony chose to be Tonks. I like her punkiness, and I think this picture demonstrates that she has been properly cast.

This one is my new favorite: the DA, presumably in the Room of Requirement. They look tough, a bit scared, and aware of the seriousness of what is going on in the Wizarding World. So, they are going to do what they can to stop Voldemort and protect themselves and their families. There is a great close up of this one available at Veritaserum--it fills the screen and you can see each of the faces closely. I love the way Dean Thomas has caught up with the Weasley twins in height. Neville has gotten quite tall as well, which is apt, for this is the book in which he truly demonstrates his Gryffindor qualities.

As a book, Order of the Phoenix is one of my least favorite, although to be fair, it's sandwiched between the two most sweeping of the books. This will not stop me from reading it again before the movie comes out, and/or after the movie comes out, and/or after I see the movie. At least twice.

Day Six--and Harry Potter

"So," you say, "we've heard quite a bit about your obsession with U2. Do you have any other fixations you haven't told us about?"

Me: Fixations? Obsession? Whatever do you mean?

You: Obsession. You know: a noun meaning a persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling; broadly : compelling motivation ; as in "obsession with profits."

Me: I have no idea what you are talking about.

You: Yeah. Right. I bet you are listening to U2 right this very instant, am I right?

Me: Umm...er...

You: Uh HUH! And I bet you have pictures of U2 on your computer, right?

Me: Well, if by "on your computer" you mean...

You: And I bet you've even got a desktop or screensaver of U2--true?

Me: Oh, look over there! It's the Winged Nike of Samothrace!

You: The prosecution rests. So. What else are you obsessed with?

Me: This could get looooong...

But I'll limit this post to my literary crack addiction to Harry Potter. Yup, good ole HP and me, we go back a ways. The phenomenon seemed to hit the US around the time the Pony was in kindergarten--1999. I'd heard about it, and thought it sounded interesting, but was not in a position to be buying a bunch of hardcover books, so I thought I'd wait until they were out in paperback.

HA!

I was listening to an interview on Public Radio about the whole phenomenon, prompted because some school districts were being asked to prohibit them, and the discussion was about what they meant to readers. And a sixth grade class called in. Which totally got to me--a teacher was cool enough to bring the show to the attention of the class, and actually had them contribute to the conversation. And I decided I had to experience HP in real time--damn the expense.

So, I bought Sorceror's Stone, which was in paperback. And it was good. Really good. Good enough, I thought, that it would last as a children's classic, like Alice in Wonderland or Phantom Tollbooth.

Which is NOT as obvious then as it is now. In fact, that was at the height of the R.L. Stine Goosebumps fad, where the Goosebumps series was not only at the top of the best selling children's books, but that each individual title, counted separately, would have filled the top 20 or 50 (or some such ridiculous number) of spots. ALONE.

And who reads those books now?

Anyway, as much as I liked the first one, I decided I would get the next one from the library. Again: HA! The waiting list was in three figures. So, while I waited for the library or paperback release, whichever came first, I saw the second one at Target. And I picked it up...

(No! Don't touch the Tar Baby, Anansi! Don't touch it!)

And I opened it...

(And Pandora said "What's in this silly old box anyway?")

And I read the first chapter...

( Mothers of River City! Heed the warning before it's too late! Watch for the tell-tale sign of corruption! The moment your son leaves the house, does he rebuckle his knickerbockers below the knee? Is there a nicotine stain on his index finger? A dime novel hidden in the corn crib?
Is he starting to memorize jokes from Capt. Billy's Whiz Bang?)

I was hooked. Dobby got me. What a great creation he was! Totally unlike anything I had seen in fiction before, and totally engrossing.

So now we go to the midnight release parties for the books--in costume even. We quiz each other on HP trivia. And we see the movies. And buy the movies. And watch them again. And play family wide games of Scene It, HP Edition. We have all the books in hardcover, some duplicates in paperback, some falling apart at the spine. At the beginning of this past summer we all looked at each other and asked "Well? Is there a Harry Potter movie coming out this year? When is it coming out?"

The answer is July 13, 2007. We can hardly wait. Since this post is already hopelessly long, I'll save the pictures for the next one.

Isn't "Pop" Supposed To Be Short For "Popular?"

Went to the kidlet's school tonight for the annual High School Pops Concert. Back in olden days at my high school, Pops happened in the spring, and involved just the band doing numbers from musicals, with the bandies themselves trying out never before used singing voices and dancing feet. It was invariably filled with lyric changes to mention the band director, and was salted with re-enacted Monty Python sketches.

Nowadays, the youngsters do it differently.

With only two months of practice, there was a definite lack of musical crispness to the presentation, which incorporated all the choirs, the orchestra, and about five different jazz bands. each musical unit had its own electric guitars/pianos/bass as well as the more traditional instruments.

Oddest of all, to me at least, was the selection of music. It's just kind of hard to believe that something is really "pops" if it was written before I was born--I just doubt it has a lot of currency among the actual performers. Sure, there is nothing wrong with "In The Mood" and "Night Train"--they are timeless and classy pieces--but I wouldn't necessarily call them "pops." And really, there is no call for resurrecting "25 or 6 to 4" and inflicting it on a previously unscarred generation.

Probably the worst choices--IMHO, of course--were the choir pieces. Many of them were the kind of songs that, in their original form, really aren't about the vocals at all. "Funkytown" for example. It's gotten a new lease on life somehow, but even so, it's not really the sort of song that lends itself to a male chorus. "Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto" is just unexplainable. The senior women did a nice job with "Come On Over" as originally performed by Christina Aguilara, complete with simple and effective choreography--but again, not really the sort of music that calls out to be rendered in harmony.

It's not that I'm dying to hear high school students performing the latest by Chingy or Outkast; and I think we're all glad we aren't hearing these kids performing the Oscar winning "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp." But surely there are some more effective choices? Music that was--oh, maybe written for multiple voices? I hear there's this mythical land, called Broadway, and that occasionally they have a tune or two in their shows...

I stumbled across this book in a store, and as I was already buying a bunch of stuff that was not, strictly speaking, absolutely necessary, I did not toss this one into the cart. However, the concept has been haunting me, and I find myself wishing that I had written this book.

Or, at least, wishing I had written the book that I want this one to be. It appears, from this introductory excerpt, to actually be a self-help parenting guide; one which truly believes that adults have a right to their adult space even when raising children.

Which is probably a more valuable book than the one the I want to read. What I want is the book that Dorothy Parker and Fran Liebowitz would have written. The book that looks frankly at the huge job of parenting, and then advises vodka as the first line of defense. I want to read someone who is witty, so that when I feel pulled under from all the family demands, at least I know I am not alone. If that wetty someone is willing to exaggerate and represent herself as downright neglectful, I can feel like I am a better parent than I think I am.

After all, don't you really want to live by the rule: "Take care of luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves?" Goodness knows that there are entire days, weeks, months, years even, where the only response to the cry of "Mama" is Parker's stock response to the telephone ringing: "What fresh hell is this?"

And wouldn't raising a family be less psychically taxing if you could simply approach discipline with an attitude like Fran Liebowitz's: "No animal should ever jump up on the dining room furniture unless absolutely certain that he can hold his own in the conversation."

So, I have in my imagineation the Platonic ideal of the "Three Martini Playdate" which is not a guide to easing parental guilt over taking time away from children. I want to see what it would look like to be completely amoral about maintaining one's pre-child life. That would be a delightful book to read, and wouldn't we all appreciate the opportunity to feel smugly superior?

Moonlight

So, I ended up taking the puppy for a walk last night. He'd been out in the yard a few times, and I'd even taken him to the puppy park, where he wore himself out running with the big dogs. Still, he really wanted to get back outside, and when anybody is working the cute that hard, you kinda need to reward it.

So, Bermondsey and I were outside in the dark. The project to reconnect the streetlights after all the road destruction this summer is not yet complete. Very few people were home just after dinner on a Saturday night and all was quiet. Only the house for sale up the street had many lights on, and the moon was full.

Sometimes, if you can catch it on the horizon, the full moon looks enormous and red, like something out of a Shakespeare play. I imagine a bolldy red moon like that signaling MacBeth's guilt, or goading Regan and Goneril to blind poor Gloucester. But once it's perched high in the sky, as it was last night, it seems smaller and purely white, like a gleamingly lusterous pearl. On full moon nights, even here in the city, the moon throws shadows, and you can understand how travel was so dangerous for escaping slaves under the full moon.

Last night the air was still, and the pearly moon was riding nearly overhead, casting a clear and cold white light across the sky. The light was so bright that it created a corona...like a moonbow. Bermondsey was busy with his dog business, and I stood and looked closely at the moon and its ring. It was a complete circle around the moon, standing out from its source with a diameter about 30 times the diameter of the moon itself, a perfect halo.

Yet, as I looked, there was something else at work, because there were clouds being illuminated as well. The longer I watched, the more it appeared that part of the halo was created by a bank of clouds curving along the line of the corona, creating a three dimensional halo that perfectly matched the optical one.

Sometimes we get a glimpse of what we miss by living as we do, in cities, with lights and homes and well lit streets. Sometimes the silence and the dark invite us back from our modernity into the mythic sources of humanity.

Day Five--and Dreaming

I promise I won't belabor this, and tell you every boring detail, but OMG what was going on in my brain last night? I was dreaming this incredibly elaborate dream, that involved me being Julia Roberts, dressed up for Oscar night, with Dennis Quaid as my date.

(Mmmmmmm...Dennis Quaid...)

Some how, I ended up singing Karaoke with Bette Midler, while Cher hung from a trapeeze on the ceiling, wearing a fishnet outfit.

I don't know what it was. Sometimes my brain frightens even me. But you know, while my life might look quiet and lonely from the outside, it's apparently a real circus over here!

Words To Live By

I saw this, attributed to Dave Barry, who has offered many tips for Living Right over the years. I thought I'd incorporate this into my daily life, and hope it will offer you some guidance as well.

Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative at the same time.

Don't forget!

An Attempt At World Peace

I was at the gas station when a boom truck pulled up. It was a Ford Explorer with such loud bass speakers going that my car started shaking. Just walking past it to the station gave me a headache. The driver of the car had gone in ahead of me, but god forbid he turn off the stereo, when he could just keep listening from INSIDE THE BUILDING. The girlfriend also went inside to buy soda, so as an act of....what should we call it...consideration?...he LEFT THE DAMN STEREO ON while he pumped the gas.

Once I got out of the building, I could hear cats fighting to the death...I mean the hip-hop/rap thing going on over the unceasing bass.

THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA

You know, it's nice when people are willing to share their musical taste with you. You know, the opening of musical doors and the community of humans in the universal language. Music being what soothes the savage breast and all. I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony, and the song we'd start with goes like this:

THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA THUMP

"The Prestige"--Here Be Spoilers

The trailers looked excellent, and Mr. Sweetie is half in love with Scarlett Johansson, so last night we went to see the movie. Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman play rival magicians whose grudge escalates and threatens to overtake their lives.

Made by the Nolan brothers who also made Memento, this is a stylish movie. The look is rich and somehow gaslit looking, and the pacing is like that of a magic show, slightly ominous with the promise of an eerie surprise at the end.

Which The Prestige delivers. The end of the movie is set up very early, when Christian Bale's magician, Alfred Borden, is performing in a largely empty hall. He has made the bird in the cage disappear, and a young boy in the audience breaks into tears. When Borden pulls the bird out from behind his back, the boy will not be consoled. "But where is his brother?" Which is the secret to the trick, we soon see, as Borden empties the bloody body of the dead bird out of the collapsed cage, and says to the other one, "You were the lucky one tonight."

Hugh Jackman's magician, Robert Angier, lost his wife to a badly performed trick, and blames Borden for his loss. When he sees Borden with a wife and child, to all appearances happy, Angier is furious and mourns his own half-life. When he attempts to steal Borden's signature trick, he is forced to do it with a double, but insists there is more to the trick than that, so he sends his mistress to work for Borden and get the secret. She tells him Borden has a double, that she's seen the false beard and other items around, but Angier won't believe her.

Of course, it is a movie all about doubling, and as a consequence, of halving as well. Borden does have a double, a twin, and they take turns being Borden or Borden's assistant. They are so dedicated to their magic that they take turns living Borden's entire life: between the two of them they only have a single life. One of them is in love with Borden's wife Sarah, the other is in love with Scarlett Johansson, the mistress. When the trap closes, and Borden is hanged for murder, it's irrelevant which one it is--like the bird in the first trick, it's whichever one was unlucky that time.

Angier finds another way to complete the trick: he gets Nicholas Tesla to build a machine which actually duplicates him, so at the end of each night's show, the duplicate disappears through a trapdoor and falls into a watertank where he is drowned. The tank is removed each night, under wraps, and at the end of the movie we see the degree to which Angier has sold his soul to be a magician: there is an entire warehouse of "the Prestige items;" the tanks with their corpses floating within.

Nice literary touch: After Tesla has built the machine that creates clones, "Edison's men" arrive in town and torch the place, evoking the image of torch wielding villagers from Frankenstein.

Favorite (inadvertent?) humorous moment: Angier speaking on stage to the audience at his magic show (paraphrased): "You may be amazed at what you see, and I assure you it is quite real" as the camera centers the shot on Scarlett Johansson's bosom, balanced precariously on a push-up corset. Issac Mizrahi surely agrees.

Day Four--And The Thin Line Between Hobby and Mental Illness

So, today I indulged my love of shiny things, and took a class in Precious Metal Clay Charms. PMC looks like a blob of white Sculpey, only gloopier. It's made of water, organic binder, and fine silver powder. "Fine silver" is a form of silver, higher purity than sterling silver, and thus easier to work with, although more prone to scratches.

Each of us in the class got a half ounce of this stuff, which we rolled out and shaped, stamped, and otherwise decorated. We then heated it to "hard leather" stage, when we filed off edges and burrs, then fired it in a kiln.

It emerged white, and looked terribly brittle--the way clay would be if it were fired in such thin strips. A few swipes with a metal brush, and Hey Voila!--shiny silver. I ended up with about seven or eight tiny little charms--kidlets' initials, shaped made with stamps. Already, I know some things I would do differently--make the charms thicker, for one thing. We were resting our rollers on stacks of four playing cards, so we didn't roll it too thin. Next time I'd use at least six cards, and maybe more.

I'd pay more attention to smoothing out the surface before placing my image on it. I didn't know that the charms only got harder when baked--there was no "plastic" stage when the clay leveled out. I'd also smooth the edges more carefully.

But the result was not bad, even for a first shot. The images are a bit off-center, and the shapes are not uniform: the squares are a bit round, the rounds are a bit oval, but the overall effect is of handmade jewelry, which is not a bad look. I think I'll hang them on a bracelet with some interesting colored beads, which should make for some interesting jewelry.

Just what I need--another hobby! I'd only need the PMC--which runs about $1 per gram--plus the tools to work it, plus a whole bunch of tiny stamps for designs, and some letters and numbers, and then a kiln...

Or, maybe not.

Day Three--and Halloween Costumes

Sadly, the Bunny graduates from lower school this year, thus this was the last year for the Halloween Costume Parade. We've been going for eight years now, and it is still just as darling as ever. Although I think they are making kindergarteners tinier this season. Seriously, there is NO WAY my kidlets were ever that short.

Saleslady: Um. Ma'am? You might want to get a bigger size--kindergarteners tend to run small.

This might explain why Bunny went straight into first grade.

Anyway, the parade goes by so quickly, and the costumes are sometimes tough to "get" and the next thing you know, you've missed your child's best friend, who came as "Static Cling." This is a costume that consists of socks and underpants festively affixed about one's person--or so I'm told, because I missed it.

Harry Potter and his pals were seriously underrepresented this year--only one or two kids in Hogwarts robes this year, while in past years it's been a good 30% of the school. Lots of girls in "Pop Diva" costumes--shiny lame, platform shoes, feather boas, goofy hair. Very few of them were able to cop the appropriate attitude--they tended toward being giggly and a bit embarassed about it all.

"Goth" is not a look I would have expected to appeal to 5th grade and under, but there were a few. Back in the olden days, they would just have been vampires. New Math: vampire + punk clothing + black fingernail polish = Goth.

The boys are typical--just as boys don't care much about what they wear, they also don't care about costumes so much. Lots of faceless wraiths, devils, whatever was available in the Party America store. Not a lot of effort to be original...although one boy was a "Cat Burgler," wearing black clothes and stuffed cats all over. This is the same boy who was a "Cereal Killer" in 3rd grade, with cereal boxes and bowls and spoons attached to a sweat suit.

Teachers dress up each year, which requires a certain je ne sais quoi--treading the line of being clever and appropriate without sacrificing one's authority. One teacher, whose name is "Bob" has played on that over the years. By wearing a tool belt and hard hat, he was magically "Bob the Builder." (And yes, he can!) A few cleaning supplies made him "SpongeBob." This year he got decked out in St. Louis Cardinal gear and was the Assistant Coach. Is there really a Cards coach named Bob? (Yes, there is! #45 Bob Gibson, Special Instructor!)

Bunny's 4th grade teacher was Charlie Brown--with the holey sheet over his head and a bag of rocks. One teacher wore a black dress with white lines and Matchbox Cars all over. There were clowns, a gardener, an angel, and the new principal looked like she'd walked straight out of Williamsburg or Mount Vernon.

Several years ago the former principal and the vice principal were Charlie Brown and Lucy--complete with the football. What a great working relationship that promised!

I'm still holding my idea in reserve for the next adult party I'm invited to. I'm going to Ragstock and getting a white lab coat and a long skirt, and I'm going to line the coat with glow sticks and be Madame Curie.

Oooooooo! Spoooooooky!

The Unbearable Flyness Of Being

I like to think I'm in touch with pop culture. Sure, I'm now officially old enough that I get a headache when listening to KDWB and I couldn't tell you any songs in the Top 40. So being in touch is sort of a loose description of where I am. You know, born after the Boomer Generation, too old to be Gen X, with kids not old enough to be immersed in the current culture.

Yet not entirely out of it.

So, I can start a new cultural meme...right?

I owe this one to SueFunky, but since she's not posting, I'll preserve it for posterity.

SueFunky was looking for sunglasses with a friend of hers, who was suggesting things that are totally NOT Funky-ish. SueFunky is kind of an Ann Taylor, elegant classic kind of gal. If she were a "Friends" she'd be Jennifer Anniston. If she were on "Sex and the City", she'd be Charlotte. And I mean that in the nicest and best of all possible ways.

So, the Funky Friend was urging the purchase on increasingly odd sunglasses, leading to an exchange something like this:

SueFunky: I have never worn anything like this in my life!

FunkyFriend: Well, no offense, but you're not really very fly.

Can you believe it! SueFunky--not FLY? We are shocked, I tell you, SHOCKED by that comment.

Eventually, a compromise was reached, and sunglasses were purchased, which were agreed by all the Funky Posse as being just a little more fashion forward--that is, "baby fly."

And what is a baby fly? Maggot of course.

Look for Maggot to be the next Derelicte--coming soon.

Day Two--and--Why I've Not Replaced My iPod...Yet

I miss my iPods. *sniff* I had a mini, bright apple green, which was just a happy-making machine. It just made me smile to see it. And to have so much music all at once! It was amazing!

To get the proper context, however, you might need to have a brief history of my non-cutting edge audio history. My first stereo was...$100 when I opened a bank account. Yup--it was a premium/giveaway. Over time, I added a tape deck, larger speakers, and upgraded the turntable. That's right, you young whipper-snapper--that was back in the day when we played RECORDS, which were as big as a pizza, and you could listen to ONE side, and then you had to walk over and manually TURN THE DAMN THING OVER to hear the other side. That was back in the day when men were men, and album cover art was something you could see without a damn jewelers' loup. When they even sometimes put POSTERS inside that you could hang on the bedroom wall so that you could show everybody that you OWNED something.

You youngsters, you don't know what you are missing. Back in the day, when I was in the 8th grade play, and we needed props to stand in for mug shots. We used the four glossy prints of the Beatles that came in the White Album--just TRY to do that with your CD inserts. I dare you. And STAY OFF MY LAWN!

Ahem.

Yup--I really feel that old.

Anyway--that "stereo" served me well into my married life. It's kind of embarassing to realize that I had a 8-track player--built in!--in the receiver until the 1990s. We didn't have any kind of CD player for YEARS--we played the ones we had on the computer until i finally bought a 5 CD bookshelf system...with tape player and radio TOO!

This was my world until the iPod, which I got in 2005? Roughly? And, OMG--it rocked my world. Lots of music! At the touch of a button! Music that didn't get scratched and have to be replaced. Music that I could carry with me and listen to in my ears, or could play in my (no CD player) car! A machine that weould hold the entire text of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which I could listen to while walking the puppy. What an incredible invention! What a happy-making machine it was!

Until I discovered it couldn't hold ALL my music. And not even ALL the music, since I would cut only my favorite tracks onto iTUnes. I needed more room, more memory, more music!

And I discovered a clearance sale of an old--maybe 3d generation?--40GB iPod on sale for $185. And that bay DID hold all my music. Sure, it was so big that it felt like I was carrying around a brick. Sure, it was thick, and heavy, and had only a black and white screen. Sure, I found an old case, that fit it, sort of, but not quite. It still played! ANDplayed and played and played...

Until the day came when I inadvertently left both of them in an unlocked car inteh garage with the overhead door up. And by the next morning, they were gone. The two ipods, the case, the car charger andthe FM broadcaster. I hope whoever stole it finds her/himself hearing nothing but Grandma music--or goes deaf,or something.

But, I haven't replaced them yet. Sure, the video iPod looks cool, and I love the color display that's now available. I've even heard rumors of a new generation iPod that is entirely screen, with touch screen controls. I'm not sure that's the one for me.

I figure it's just a matter of time before they come out with the Implantable version, and then Ill never have to be without it.

And remember all those years of teaching kids not to put their fingers into electrical sockets? I figure we'll just need an unoccupied USB port.

Voices In My Head

So, as I'm bustling* around this morning, picking up for the cleaning ladies, something about my pace sets up a sort of Marine chant in my head, and the longer I go, the more I start to get the words going in my head. By the time I changed the sheets on the Pony's bed, I've got actual words running in my brain.

And it goes EXACTLY like this:

We are smart and we are sweet
We're the girls who can't be beat.
We laugh loud and we laugh gaily
We remember to floss daily.
We work smart and we work hard
They'll hire us at Scotland Yard.

At least the voices are benign.

*And isn't that just the best word? Yes-it DOES mean that I was dressed up in my 1893 house dress, with the bustle in the back.

Day One--and--Whiny McShut-Up

Day one of the new regime! Daily postings--NEXT month we'll try brushing twice a day and not going to bed with make-up on.

As regards Whiny McShut-Up: I was posting my Pity Party over how hard October is, and how many birthday cakes I have to eat...um...bake, and how much trouble it is for me to get to do anything because of all the constant partying...

THEN I noticed the archives list with 55 posts for October.

I guess one is never too busy to blog.