Easter Bunnies

So, Easter kind of snuck up on me--in that our vacation went until Palm Sunday, and what with getting home and unpacked and back into school routines and dog routines and regular life, I suddenly realized that I was going to be on call to pull off a holiday.

(Incidentally, the hardest part of coming back from vacation? The fact that the Nice Person doesn't take the plates away after you are finished with them and make them disappear. No, once you are at home, YOU have to do the dishes.)

I remembered by Saturday, however, and had time to pick up brunch ingredients, Easter candy and a couple of cool books for presents. Easter Chez Evil is traditionally an Easter egg hunt, with little candies in plastic eggs, and little gifts or coins, and sometimes a slip of paper with a gift for [your name here].

So, Mr. Sweetie and the kidlets had been packed off to church, the cinnamon rolls and turkey medallions were coming along nicely in the oven, and. . . .

I couldn't find the Easter eggs. I bought eggs about, oh, eleven years ago? And had some old baskets that we used each year? And I usually put the whole shebang (there's a word you don't here often any more) into a box that I store in the basement. This year? No box. Couldn't find it anywhere.

So, church is over, family is returning to brunch and egg hunt, they think, and I have no plastic eggs. Quick! It's Captain Internet! Boy, am I glad to see you! Can you tell me if there are any stores open on Easter morning where I can quick get some plastic eggs?

Cape flowing with the speed of typing, Captain Internet scans the websites of the likely candidates. Alas! The vestiges of Blue Laws mean that in the multi-cultural 21st Century, where on ordinary days a noticeable percentage of the staff in retail is Muslim. . .everything is closed for Easter.

So, in the end, I wrapped up the gifts and notes in Kleenex (TM) and hid them around. I took 10 pieces of each of 3 kinds of candy and hid that--so we would know when it was all found. I had a single basket, which the kidlets shared. And you know what? They thought it was cool. They liked the gifts, we had a tasty brunch, and all was well.

But you can bet your ass that I was at Target before 8:30 this morning buying plastic eggs for next year.

Deathly Hallows Cover Art

Okay, while we here at Chez Evil were filling our brains with early American history last week, Bloomsbury and Scholastic released the cover art for the last Harry Potter book. You would have thought that such information would have penetrated even our 18th Century bubble, but alas, no. It did not. So now I am terribly, hopelessly behind.

However, just because I am late doesn't mean I would deprive you of my thoughts on what this all means, right? Right.

I'd like to start with the UK children's cover, as it has the more interesting art to examine. Bloomsbury has a great site where you can see the image in close detail with high resolution here.

On the front, we see Harry, Ron and Hermione hurtling into a treasure trove. They appear to be coming from the round portal behind them at great speed. Harry's left sleeve is torn and his arm bloodied. Hermione has blood on her right arm. Someone is riding Harry's back and brandishing a sword with a ruby in the hilt. Ron seems to be frightened by something he sees to his right. Harry and Hermione are landing head first, Ron is arriving feet first.

So, let's take the easy parts. I'm pretty certain that is Dobby on Harry's back, carrying Godric Gryffindor's sword. Harry used that sword against the basilisk in Chamber of Secrets, which is also the book where we met Dobby. Notice the large ears and the bald head visible over Harry's shoulder. They are all falling into a pile of treasure, which is primarily red (rubies) and gold--the colors of Gryffindor house. There is also a suit of armor, with what looks like a Phoenix on the chest and a dragon (and a ruby) on the helmet. Harry and Hermione have been in some sort of fight, thus the injuries and probably the presence of Dobby. (Remember, house elves have powerful magic, and Dobby would do anything for Harry.)

It looks to me like the trio has either fallen down a slide and out of the round portal (like the entry into the Chamber of Secrets) or has been transported by portkey and are landing hard--they haven't yet learned how to land any better than they did while travelling to the World Quidditch Cup in Goblet of Fire. Given the presence of armor, a sword and the prevailing color scheme, I'm thinking this is Godric Gryffindor's personal treasure. Perhaps it is even in Gringotts?

Harry is wearing his black robes, but Hermione and Ron have colored, possibly dress, robes on. Perhaps they are members of the wedding party for Bill and Fleur's wedding? Hermione's robe is blue-ish--which makes me think of her Ravenclaw abilities, and Ron's green robes make me fear that he has become angry enough about what he sees as his second-rate status, and may have done something to betray Harry. Thus, the Slytherin green robes, and his lack of injury.

On the back, is a picture of Hogwarts, glowing silver in the moonlight, with a welcoming golden light shining from the front doors. Even though Harry has said he wouldn't return, I think at least part of the book is going to have to happen there--after all, some of the items Voldemort wanted to use as horcruxes are still there, right? Also, as of the end of book 6, Gryffindor's sword was still in the Headmaster's office. Hogwarts will likely re-open then, which wasn't clear at the end of the last book.

The back cover shows a full moon, and what I think is the Whomping Willow. The end of the series will rely somewhat on what happened in the previous generation--Remus Lupin, the werewolf, and the secret path to the Shrieking Shack that is still guarded by the Whomping Willow. Harry's patronus, the stag, is depicted on the front flap--again, a reference to his father, and the generation that started the story. It also implies we will see Dementors again--they have joined Voldemort's side, and the patronus is Harry's defense again them.

Finally, and curiously, there is a long snake depicted inside a crystal sphere. Slytherin's symbol was a snake; Tom Riddle controlled the snake-like basilisk; Voldemort has Nagini; the Death Eater's symbol is a skull with a snake for a tongue. The crystal looks like the prophesies in the Department of Mysteries. Dumbledore thought Nagini might be a horcrux--at any rate, in order to confront Voldemort, Harry will have to get past the snake.

The UK adult cover is a silver locket, with an elaborately engraved "S" picked out in emeralds. I think this is Salazar Slytherin's locket, which was not found in the cave in book 6, and will be one of the horcruxes that must be found and destroyed.

The US cover is less detailed and gives fewer clues. (Click on the link, then click on the image for an expanded hi-res picture.) Harry and Voldemort are in a sort of Coliseum, with a distant ring of dark figures around them. Are they Death Eaters--a reprise of the graveyard scene of Book 4? Both Harry and Voldemort have one hand in the air--neither is carrying a wand, and they both seem focussed on the same object, which is off the page. Their hands are held slightly differently, as though Harry might be calling the object or trying to catch it, and Voldemort is trying to stop its arrival. Harry has a pouch around his neck, and there is rock and wood rubble in front of them.

We know, from Rowling's interviews, that the two-way communicating mirror Sirius gave to Harry in book 4 is going to make a reappearance--for some reason, that's the first thing I thought of when I saw the pouch. With his hand up, and his eyes looking to the sky, Harry seems to be repeating his actions when he "Accio"-ed his broomstick, or the many times he captured the Golden Snitch. If Harry is looking to catch something from the sky, I for one would put my money on him getting it.

What do we know for certain from these covers? The trio will stay together, either at Hogwarts or not. Harry will confront Voldemort one-on-one--alone.

I can hardly wait.

Coincidence? You Be The Judge

So, after posting a fairly long entry about how modern society drives family life to the margins, I found an article by Barbara Ehrenreich (via Sweetney) titled "How We Learned To Stop Having Fun."

In this article, Ehrenreich traces the rise in depression from the 1600s and couples it with the loss of social celebrations and festivals--a rise in the concept of "self" as separate from the community, coupled with the loss of "community celebrations" which allowed the individual to lose their terrible aloneness and enter into a larger communion.

Even the religions, she notes, had some form of ritual or approachable God where an individual might become part of a larger group. I found this statement worthwhile:

Not so with the Calvinist version of Protestantism. Instead of offering relief, Calvinism provided a metaphysical framework for depression: if you felt isolated, persecuted and possibly damned, this was because you actually were.

Back in law school, I remember have a couple of conversations with friends of other faiths about which type of guilt was the most damaging: Jewish guilt, Catholic guilt, or Protestant guilt. Jewish guilt was focused around disappointing your family, and having to leave with people disappointed in you--summed up nicely, I recall, by the following joke:

Q: How many Jewish mothers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Don't worry about me, I'll just sit here in the dark and not be a bother.

Catholic guilt was more widespread, but also absolvable. Yes, nearly everything is a sin, and will send you to hell, but you can go confess and it goes away. Sure, confession isn't easy, but there was an official way to get rid of your guilt and to not have to go to hell.

Protestant guilt was tricky. It was the devious product of circuitous thinking--a lose-lose proposition. Protestants were supposed to work hard, but the risk was being successful, because that was often the sign of inappropriate favor by the devil. This is why New England was such a great place for them: they could work very very hard at their farms, but the rocky soil made it certain that they weren't too successful however hard they worked.

Calvinism itself was logically flawed: if you were predestined to heaven or hell, then it didn't matter what you did in this life, right? So, as my Jewish friends pointed out, if you were predestined to heaven, you could enjoy yourself without worrying about what was going to happen to you. If you were predestined to hell, you had nothing to lose by enjoying yourself. So, logically, early New England should have been Party Central.

But trust the dour Northern Europeans to spoil this game--no, your status as predestined to heaven was supposedly apparent though your conduct, and failure to behave in a suitably saintly fashion convinced your neighbors that you were hell-bound, and thus you were likely to be shunned, exiled, or burned for a witch.

No wonder depression is about the 5th leading cause of death and disability in the world. We sure know how to make ourselves unhappy, don't we?

We Have Seen The 18th Century, And It Is Us

So, we are back from our time-warp family trip, in which we lived mostly in the 18th Century. We spent a week at Williamsburg, which was fabulous, and a day getting to and from and enjoying Monticello, which was also fabulous. For our week in Williamsburg, we didn't rent a car, and walked the mile from our hotel to the Historic Area, thus feeling even more in character. Bunny got herself a mob cap, which she wore most days, looking very fetching.

We dragged ourselves back into the 21st Century by staying in a High Art hotel in DC before flying back home. It did feel a bit like time travel, especially since we saw the "Treasures of American History" exhibit at the Smithsonian, where they displayed items from Ben Franklin's walking stick to Judy Garland's Ruby Slippers and Jackie Kennedy's Inaugural Ball Gown.

It's been a couple of decades since I'd been to the East Coast, and the most interesting change I noticed was the explicit acknowledgement of the non-English cultures: the indiginous Powhatan Indians, and the West African slaves. Jamestown does the most with the Powhatans, since by the time of Williamsburg, Independence, and Montecello, they had been driven out of the area. But Williamsburg and Montecello made serious efforts to show how the slaves lived, worked, and struggled with the promises and betrayals of the Revolutionary Era.

One of the recurrent messages that stuck with me was the recognition that the slaves not only worked hard for their masters, but after their work was done, they still needed to raise food and make clothing, cook, etc., for themselves, since the rations allotment was not adequate. Colonial Williamsburg is developing a "typical" 18th Century small Virginia farm to show how the large part of the population lived, which was not in the urban world of Williamsburg. There is a large field for tobacco, plus a kitchen garden for the whites, and another kitchen garden for the slaves. The slave garden is planted and tended only after the slaves have finished work for the day.

Yet, despite working unremittingly hard, the slave did have their own community, or family, or culture, which was necessarily limited because they only were able to engage in their own activities evenings, Sundays, and holidays. This is what struck me--the explicit recognition of how little time was allowed for slaves to do anything but work.

Now, I don't want to belittle the harshness and utter wrongness of slavery. It was not just that they worked long hours, but the types of work they did, the harsh conditions in which they lived, the essential indignity of being "owned" and thus powerless over their own lives, as well as the physical violence in their lives were appalling and not to be dismissed. But these aspects were not particularly emphasized in these places--there was a clear recognition that the lives of the Virginia Planters (the wealthiest ones, of course) was leisurely and full of time to consider abstract ideas like "independence" and "unalienable rights." These lives were made possible by the fact that the slaves did the work to maintain those lives.

There was palpable poignance, though, to the recognition that the slaves worked all day for their masters, and then were forced to work to feed and clothe themselves and only then were able to take time for their families and their own lives. Even the kindest and most generous of masters didn't change this basic rule of work during daylight hours, relegating family life to the few hours between work and sleep.

But wait. How much has that changed? Well, it probably hasn't for the poorest in our society. One change, though, is that some of the richest and most educated people also work from early morning to late evening, with family time squeezed into "evenings, Sundays and holidays." Mr. Sweetie told me this morning, that he has to work on Saturday morning--there is a meeting he needs to attend to prepare for a trip to California, and he leaves on Sunday evening. He got home from work after 8, and has worked later than that on a regular basis. He has to still feed himself, clothe himself, live his own life in those hours that aren't work.

When I was a practicing lawyer, I worked a lot of weekends, a lot of late nights. I remember a meeting where the younger lawyers realized that we needed a full-time wife, or mother, or housekeeper, or something, because there was no way to work as hard as we were working and still pick up our drycleaning. Somehow, we have managed to replicate a very difficult way of life, and worse than that, we do it voluntarily.

What leads us to do this? Is it some hardwired biological imperative to compete? Sure, only the strongest animals get to reproduce, but that's not true of humans. We even continue to compete even after having all the children we are going to have. Is it the remenants of religious belief, that we work hard now, but we'll have an eternity of heaven in which to lead our own lives? Is it just that we are trying to get the most stuff before we die, because that's how we keep score?

There is a modern parable about an American MBA on vacation in Mexico who meets a fisherman. The fisherman fishes long enough to meet his family's immediate needs, and spends the rest of his time playing cards with his friends, taking siestas with his wife, raising his children, and playing guitar on a hammock under the trees.

The MBA scoffs, and offers to help the fisherman redevelop his business model, hiring other men in other boats to do more fishing, developing supplier relationships with commercial food producers, issuing stock, placing an IPO and making millions. Why? So then he is rich, and can play cards with his friends, taking siestas with his wife, etc. etc.

The point being, of course, that you could work even harder and give yourself ulcers and anxiety, in order to get what you already have. Sure, there are lots of things overlooked in that parable (like what if the fisherman gets too old or sick to fish, and can't meet his needs anymore?), but there is something about that story that strikes me as perfectly perverse, and perfectly human--we seem to need to achieve just for the sake of working hard and achieving. Which might be commendable, but is that really all our lives are about?

Spring's Desolate Promise

It is April here in The North, and the Family Evil is just back from a week in Virginia. Spring has sprouted there: pansies fill flower beds, and the ubiquitous magnolias have bloomed. Magnolias are icons of the South, but they even grow up here. They are odd trees: they bloom large white and pink flowers before the leaves appear, and shed those blooms as well. Where we were, there were very few magnolia petals on the ground. When they do fall, they decompose quickly, emitting a dank perfume and making the ground slippery as ice.

Spring has started here as well. Through much of March, the temperatures here have matched those in San Francisco. The snow has all melted and the sharp bite of winter has disappeared from the air.

There is very little green here, yet. Some spikes of grass have pushed up, vividly verdant, mostly in sunny corners near brick walls, where the microclimate has run ahead by several weeks. Florists and grocery stores are selling baskets of spring bulb plants: crocus, daffodil, hyacinth--cheery pastels like Easter eggs for adults.

There is a rabbit who has huddled underneath the climbing tower in our backyard during the winter, he was there again today, looking tucked into himself for warmth. Because this is not San Francisco, or Virginia, and the temperatures have dropped back down below freezing again.

Out in the country, the fields are bare but neatly furrowed from last year's harvest. As the air warms up, the smell of warming fertilizer lifts off the black rows. A few bent stalks remain, broken and brown, looking all the more dead for lying against the rich soil.

In the city, flowerbeds are emerging as well. Edging markers--bricks, stones, black pipe--outline the space where the flowers will go. Nothing is in those beds yet, it is far too early. Groundhog's Day doesn't mean six more weeks of winter to us--it's nearly Easter and it's still six weeks before we can begin to feel safe from frost.

But some things are different and promising. After last summer's reconstruction of the roads and curbs, there are now new storm sewer drains, embossed with the silhouette of a loon, to remind us that these drain directly into the river. Where new concrete sidewalks were laid, you can find paw prints, names, shapes, and even the impression of bare feet that were set in before the cement hardened.

Nature is very brown, right now: dirt, dormant grass, leafless trees. But they are no longer covered in white, which means the promise of green spring.

Spring Break Quick Post

Just a quick check in--Kidlets are on spring break, and we are busy. Bunny is just back from a 9 day exchange trip to Mexico with 10 other kids in her grade. She stayed with a host family, toured Guadalajara, and had a great time.

Pony and I took the opportunity to make a quick trip to San Francisco to visit the Fabulous Sister. We mostly hung out in Chinatown and Fisherman's Wharf, and took a newly revised tour of Alcatraz.

The Puppy is enjoying his own vacation at Grandma and Poppa's house, where he is being ruthlessly spoiled.

We leave tomorrow morning for Williamsburg--twelve hours after picking up Bunny from the airport from Mexico we go back to fly into D.C.

Thus, enforced silence on the blog front, as I just don't get much time to get to the computer, and the withdrawal pains are starting to ebb. I'll be back for more irrelevant postings of the type you've come to expect in early April.

Do You Know What Day It Was Yesterday?

So, yesterday, the 14th of March. Write it like I do on my checks: 03.14 Recognize it?

How long have you been out of high school?

That's right. It was Pi Day. Which they celebrate at the Pony's school. Everyone eats pie, of course, write poems to pi, make up songs to pi, wear pi themed clothing, memorize many many digits of pi.

This year, it was covered in the local paper. The whole story can be found here, for at least a little while.

This is why I love this school. Education is taken seriously, but also as an opportunity for fun. The teachers model such a generous and curious spirit, and they draw so much out of the kids. This is a school where it is cool to be smart--and it might even get your name in the paper.

Speaking of Cheese

One of the beauties of the internet is what you stumble across while looking for something else. While searching for a picture of cheese to post on the last entry, I found this:


Real Wallace and Grommit Wensleydale cheese! According to some internet lore (thus disclaiming any representation as to its truthiness), the cheeserie was on the verge of financial ruin and collapse, until the advent of Wallace's love for "Wensleeedale, Grommit!" ignited interest in the item and rescued the world from authentic Wensleydale famine!

See! Art does serve the greater good! Go and get yourself some!

Mega Mix 80s Dance Party!

I picked up some cheap (a word which here means "craptastic") mix CDs at Target last week, and got them onto the iPod. So I could introduce the kidlets to the happenin' music scene that was the 1980s. (This was even before seeing Music and Lyrics.)

Because right now, they've got an inkling of the era, what with karaoke and television commercials, but really, everyone deserves the joy of butt dancing in the car to 867-5309/Jenny by Tommy TuTone. Even if that means you have to come up with another fake phone number to pass out at bars.

The thing about these compilation CDs is that they heavily feature one hit wonders, which is fine, because Soft Cell never did anything but Tainted Love, and anyway, it's only the single version anyway that has the seque into the Supremes. This is because back in the days of vinyl, I had the album only for Tainted Love and was heartily disappointed. Fortunately, my children won't experience the same heartache.

So, we had a pleasant roll around the music lesson circuit, listening to Thomas Dolby getting ocularly distressed by data ("Science!"). So, imagine my mixed reaction to the kidlets greeting the morning singing "She Blinded Me With Nachos."

Because cheese makes everything better, I guess.

Appropos of Nothing

For some reason, anthropomorphism is on my mind. I don't know why, but I woke up this morning thinking of the McDonald's "gang." You might remember Mayor McCheese, the Hamburgler, and the singing and talking Chicken McNuggets. Where have they gone? You don't see them anymore, and a Good Thing Too.

I mean, how do you convince a toddler that it's okay to eat something she's just seen behaving sentiently on TV? (Okay, I can already feel the hate about taking a kid to McDonald's--sure, maybe it's better not to have her eat anything from there, but let's just view this philosophically, can we? And the whole "watching TV" too.)

You could try and reason with her--that it's just something that was made up, it doesn't reflect reality, but does that work? I remember my mother trying to reassure me about clowns at a circus we had just seen, telling me that "They weren't real." Which, of course, I thought meant that I had hallucinated the whole thing, so I replied "But I saw them." You can imagine the usefulness of that conversation.

So, rather than talk my own kids out of what they had seen, we just pushed it further. Antropomorphize away! We dreamed up a "Food Party" in their tummies, and the food they hadn't yet eaten was excited to go to the Food Party.

Yeah. I don't know why this came up today either, but what the hey. It's my blog, reflecting the flotsam and jetsam of my brain. Let us all be very afraid.

Music and Lyrics--A Review

Mr. Sweetie and I took adavantage of the kidlets having an overnight, and had a movie date. With dinner too! Here is post Oscar land, there is kind of a dearth of movies I want to see, but we both thought Music and Lyrics would be a decent date movie.

And it was. I know! Usually I am so critical! (A word here meaning once who looks carefully and considers many aspects of the finished project, evaluating dispassionately and evenhandedly--right?) This movie, though, exists purely on charm, and it did charm me.

Briefly, Hugh Grant plays an 80s pop has-been--The Other Guy from the mythical band Pop. Think Wham!, and he's the one who isn't George Michael. He's managed to make a living reprising his old hits at class reunions and amusement parks, happy to be working at all. (This is where the charm has started, of course--"I'm a Has Been and proud of it.")

Plot intervenes, and he is challenged to write a new song for the world's reigning Pop Tart--Britney + Shakira, with an Eastern mystical flair. Or, as they say in the movie "Buddha with a thong." He needs a lyricist, and Drew Barrymore has already done the Meet Cute. Of course, they find a mutual attraction, write The Song, hit difficulties, make up for a Happy Ending. The plot really doesn't bear any kind of examination, but that's not the point.

The point is in the throw-away nature of the lines and the witty writing. Hugh Grant is not the Bumbling Cute Englishman his has trademarked, but is a man happy that he has accomplished something with his life, and realistic that his time has passed. He tosses off self-deprecating lines while going about the business of life, with a casual effortlessness that lets the jokes sink in a fraction of a second after he's already gone on with his next bit of business.

Drew Barrymore has matured quite a bit from Charlie's Angels, and credibly plays the Meg Ryan role with a bit more shadows and hidden heartache. She has moments of such goofy and loving chemistry, especially in a scene set at her sister's house, where she has managed to bring Hugh Grant for dinner. Kristen Johnson is the older sister, who is still madly crushing on her pop music idol, and the interaction when her little sister reveals she's slept with him is hilarious. Johnson is simultaneously excited that someone she knows is this close to a (former) superstar, and worried aobut her little sister getting hurt. Barrymore is also producing a fine mix of triumph and embarassment. It is on such moments that the film coasts over its rough spots and in the end makes me certain I will see it again.

The music is largely by Adam Schlesinger, of Fountains of Wayne, and the man who wrote "That Thing You Do" for the movie of the same name. (In fact, that movie's studio held a contest for songwriters to write the theme song, which Adam won. . .coincidence? I don't think so.) He gets the 80s sound pretty right, although none of the songs are are unforgettable as That Thing You Do. But as someone who remembers how new and exciting the 80s sound was after the bloated pretensiousness of much of the music of the 70s ("Nights In White Satin" anybody?) it hit its target. Yes, I am, sadly, one of those women of a certain age the film so gently ribs.

Although, in my own defense, it would take more than Andrew Ridgely (the "other guy" from Wham) shaking his booty to get me asking for an autograph, or even stopping between rides at the theme park.

It's The Midwest--Let's Talk About The Weather!

Last week--snow. Snow on snow. Lots and lots of snow. So much snow that the puppy had to swim through the back yard. That much snow.

This week? Forty-five degrees. Farenheit. Tomorrow is supposed to be fifty-five. People are wearing flip flops and shorts, outside, because it's practically balmy.

Nothing is turning green yet, but here at Chez Evil we're starting to think about landscaping. The addition of the new! garage has changed things quite a bit, and I can already tell that we need to do something about a path from the around it. Because as I went to carry the garbage out to the cans, all the lovely snow melt ran straight off the peaked roof and down the back of my neck. Note to self. Get a pathway that is farther away from the garage.

Also! since the yard was once (we are told) entirely a vegetable patch, it is Very Bumpy! With lots of interesting Dips! and Hollows! Which in the major melt we are having create Interesting! Water! Features! for the garden.

See, you can tell the medication is working, because I'm able to even conceive of "Interesting! Water! Features!" instead of "Bloody Great Mud Puddles In The Middle Of The Damn Yard!"

Freudian Slips

I have some pet peeves about pronounciation. The most ubiquitous irritant is the failure to aspirate the "h." Not that we hear the Eliza Doolittle dropping of the "h" entirely--" 'Eartford, 'Arrisburg and 'Ampton, 'urricanes 'ardly h'ever 'appen." Instead, we get the non-aspirated but pronounced "h"--"yuman" as in "We are all yuman beings." Absolutely drives me bonkers.

I heard a new one today--it's either a new pronounciation or a totally misselected word. In the wake of the Justice Department report about abuse of the PATRIOT Act by the FBI (and that's an entry by itself,) a commentator on NPR was discussing the response of other branches of government, including "ornery attorneys general."

Given the context, I expected the word "ordinary." You know, the ordinary ones, not Alberto Gonzoles. This is either a new low in the eliding of syllables into nonsense, or someone has a personal issue with those ornery attorneys general.

Winter Hazards

As I have mentioned, ad nauseum, we have had a lot of snow, recently. A great deal of snow. So much snow that when the snow plows cleared the streets, they left large piles of snow in the intersections.

Despite much snow, the temperatures have been quite pleasant. Warm even. The kind of weather where we don't put on a coat to go carry the garbage out to the cans behind the detached garage. The kind of warmth that leads to standing water on blacktop, where the solar heat has melted the snow. The kind of warmth that leads to large piles of snow left in the intersections to turn to slush, to get thrown up by passing tires and packed up into the tire wells of the cars.

With enough snow packed into the tire wells, it can make turning the wheels a bit tricky, and even noisy. The squeak and squeal of tires against packed snow sounds like a scrawny seventh grader who has been stuffed into his locker by the beefier eighth graders.

That's right--it's a winter wedgie, for cars!

Bumper Stickers To Challenge Assumptions

So. I was filling my gas tank at the SuperAmerica(TM) and a very old car pulled through. It was somehow squat, as if it were wider than it was tall, and a dingy maroon. The kid of color of maroon that inexplicably I associate wtih Denny's "early bird" dinners at 4:30, and inland Florida concrete housing. The driver was also short, and elderly looking. His glasses were wider than they were tall, but not in a Samuel L. Jackson kind of way. More like they had stopped growing up and started growing out. Given that this is winter time, there was no way that I actually saw what he was wearing, but I have a distinct recollection of a short sleeved cotton business shirt and plaid Sans-A-Belt slacks.

That last may be because this is Saint Paul, after all, and a surprisingly large percentage of our work population wears just that.

Saint Paul is also the Boston of the Midwest. This means that many of our police officers are still Irish and have Actual Irish Accents. Until quite recently, in fact, we didn't have neighborhoods, we had parishes, and families identified themselves by which Catholic Church they attended.

To say Saint Paul is conservative is to state the obvious.

So, when I saw the bumper stickers on this gentleman's maroon Old Man Car, I was, I confess, surprised.


I mean, I didn't expect that. And I found myself thinking--"Maybe this is his daughter's car. Or his granddaughter's car. And he's just taking it in to fill the tank and wash the windows." Which is just the sort of thing nice older gentlemen in Saint Paul do.

But who's to say? Maybe it was his car and maybe they were his bumper stickers. In which case, perhaps we are no longer as conservative as we used to be.

Paying It Forward

It's really winter here--we've had an entire season's worth of snow over the last week. Even after settling and compacting, we've got at least 8 inches of snow on the ground. This is a significant amount of snow at our house, because the dog's legs are significantly shorter than 8 inches, which makes life difficult and cold for him.

On Friday night, in the middle of the second series of big snow, I took the Pony over to Minneapolis for a sleep-over. I dropped her off, and started home. The house is on a large hill, and the only access is from the back alley. I had a couple choices of route--I could attempt to back up a fairly steep hill into the opposite driveway, and come out the way I came in. I could back up a slightly less steep hill, and then pull forward through the alley. Or I could just go forward down a second alleyway that lay just below the first one.

I knew there was ice under the snow whichever way I went, and there were some seriously solid concrete walls I would need to avoid while backing up. Meanwhile, the lower alley was downhill, required no clever backing up skills, and no risk of fishtailing. There was a long clear track where someone had driven down the alley before me--clear wheel tracks, and a straight shot to the next street. I picked the lower alley.

I picked badly.

I had gotten two buildings down the way when I got stuck. There was no going forward, so I tried to back up. Nope. Wasn't going to happen. I was good and stuck, and the alleyway was so narrow that I couldn't actually get out of my side of the car. Perhaps it was just that my Japanese vehicle wanted to stop right behind the Zen Center for some meditation, but we weren't going anywhere.

I ended up calling the parents hosting the sleepover, and they tried to get me out. It was soon apparent it was going to take a tow truck, which we called, and I waited inside the house, feeling very very embarassed to be such an idiot and to be imposing on their plans. This is very typically Minnesotan, as we don't like to be a bother.

Fortunately, these were also long time Minnesotans, and Mr. Host assured me that he had gotten stuck himself only the day before, and it had taken six guys to push him out, so he saw this as an opportunity to pay the favor forward.

The two truck showed up after half an hour, and it turned out to be my lucky day. Luck, like many things, being relative. Had my car made it an extra 12 inches further down the alley, the tow truck could not have gotten me out--I was at the extreme end of the reach of the winch cable. Incidentally, I was also "bottomed out," meaning that the snow was so deep that the bottom of my car was resting on the snow and thus my tires were not even touching solid ground. Plus the tire track that I had been following was wider than my car--apparently rather than being the sign of a drivable route, it had been the signs of an urban commando driving a Jeep.

Even with the tow truck, it took a good half an hour to extricate my car, and even out of the deep snow, I still was stuck in the driveways. The tow truck driver thought he could drive me out of the shovelled part of the alley, but I still ended up pushing my own car out onto the street.

The very next day--daylight, bright sunshine, our next door neighbors got their car stuck on the piles of snow left at the base of their driveway by the snowplows. Like me the night before, the car had bottomed out, and their efforts with an ergonomic shovel, kitty litter, and cardboard had not worked. Mr. Sweetie offered his help, and I came along. I'm not such a great shoveller--which had to happen--but I'm not a bad pusher. It took 15 minutes, but we got them out, and they were so grateful! Mr. Sweetie, bless his heart, even brought the new snowblower around and cleared their driveway too.

So, I think I may have paid my debt forward, because that's what we do here in the North. Give someone a push, or a jump to start a dead battery, because next time it may be you. However, our nice neighbors brought around a plate of home made brownies to thank us--on a very nice plate too. And you know you can't return a plate empty, right?

This may be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Lagaan--A Movie Review

We have had a lot of events over the past several days, and as a result, we have had tired kidlets. So on Saturday we ordered in pizza and have Family Movie Night. The movie was Lagaan.

We had it because the kidlets had seen Bride and Prejudice, the Bollywood extravaganza version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which our protagonists sing and dance their way into matrimony across three continents. It's sheer exuberant silliness captured their imagination, so I thought it would be fun to show them another one.

I had forgotten what a big mouthful of bran and oatmeal Lagaan could be. It's actually four hours long, and the plot revolves around land taxation and a three day long cricket match. Mostly in Hindi, with subtitles. I actually began to have second thoughts. And third and fourth thoughts as well. But, amazingly, we all got caught up in it. I'd even seen it before and knew how it came out, and I was biting my nails over the tension in the final act.

The kidlets were absolutely engrossed, except when the tension got too great, and the Bunny put her fingers in her ears and buried her head in the cushions chanting "I can't watch this, I can't watch this." We cheered on the good guys and booed the bad guys, and Bunny kept interjecting "I can't believe no one has slapped him yet. Someone should slap him. Maybe the elephant can step on him." My palms were itching too.

The plot concerns a bet: in 1893, the drought stricken village of Champener is behind in its taxes to be paid to the British forces, and they owe double taxes. The rains still haven't come and there is no way they can pay the taxes, much less double taxes, and they are already starving. While the villagers are asking for tax relief, the British officer issues a challenge--if the villagers can defeat the British at cricket, the tax will be cancelled for three years.

The impetuous (and deeply honorable) Bhuvan accepts the challenge, and now has to collect eleven players and learn the game. In the course of training the team, we see an allegorical unification of India: the squabbling neighbors unite, Muslims and Hindus play together, the village cripple is found to have a unique skill at bowling with spin, and even an Untouchable is accepted onto the team. In their desire to defeat the British and preserve their village, the traditional divisions of age, position, and cast are all overcome.

In the end (slight spoiler here) the British outpost is closed, and this small corner of India sees the withdrawal of British rule. After all, the Empire can't afford to have the entire country playing cricket to evade taxes--it's a dangerous precedent.

Simultaneously, there is a love story which parallels the story of Krishna and Radha. One of the village girls, Gauri, is in love with Bhuvan but he seems blind to her. An Englishwoman defies her countrymen and comes to help the villagers learn to play cricket, and finds herself falling in love with Bhuvan as well. Gauri sees this infatuation, and worries, but Bhuvan also seems blind to this. The parallel is not clear--which woman will Bhuvan/Krishna marry, and which will be his "Radha," the one who personifies pure and selfless love?

One of the beauties of Bollywood films is the singing and dancing, and even in Hindi the music is hummable and infectious. I went to scour iTunes for the soundtrack, but it's not available on the US version. It can be ordered from Amazon, however.

Now I'm looking for some more recommendations for more Bollywood. And we've put India on the list of places we need to visit.

New Toys

Well, I got a snowblower this week. I never had one before, and it's not quite the same as a lawnmower. That is, I have never come inside from mowing the lawn with a solid 6 inch crust of mulch up my legs and my hair stiff with grass clippings.

I'm still getting the hang of remembering to point the funnel away from the inside of the garage, for example. And did you know that when you've got snow shooting over 20 from the top of your snowblower, it's a good idea not to stand downwind? Literally, my hair froze with all the snow I managed to blow onto myself.

Plus! Snow is more hazardous than lawn. Because more things can hide in 9 inches of snow and mess you up. The first time I tried to use the new snowblower, I managed to run over the cable for the dog leash. Because it was hidden under the snow! I had to leave the darn thing out overnight until I could buy a cable cutter, because it had gotten twisted up really really tight and the I couldn't unhook the cable from the stake (which was solidly set into the frozen ground) because all the clips had frozen closed.

Today, I managed to run over some orange twine. I was trying to do a good deed and do my neighbors' driveway--they've done ours for years, and I thought I'd return the favor. Plus I'm not entirely certain they are back from the Caribbean. So, I'm just at the point where I'm clearing away the snow that I had thrown from the other side of the driveway, when the thing lurches out of my hands and pulls to the left and dies.

And I think I'm maybe too short for the starter cord, because I couldn't get it started again.

It still beats shovelling, though.

Parenting Is Crazy

No school today, due to conferences. Just as well, as we got an assload (this is a technical term) of snow, and even conferences got cancelled after 1:30.

So, I'm home with two girls who have some project they are concocting together. Thus, I get the following requests:

"Where is Murtag's collapsible hut?"

"Do we have a working strobe light?"

Ummm....no?

Separated At Birth--Straight Guys Playing Gay Edition

Jake Gyllenhal and Steve Carell.