Silly Ladies, with their Cute Little Hoop Dreams

I am not a basketball fan. I can appreciate the grace and athleticism required to play the sport well, but I’m content to just admire the players via Sports Center highlights. Maybe it’s because Pittsburgh never had an NBA team, or maybe it’s because I don’t like to hear rubber-soled shoes squeak on a gym floor. Maybe it’s because the idea of having sweaty, barely-clothed strangers getting into my personal space is a total turn-off, but whatever the reason, basketball just isn’t for me.

That said, I’m happy for the UConn Huskies women’s team, who now hold the longest winning streak in NCAA basketball history. That freaking rocks! Records are fun and interesting, pretty much regardless of circumstances, and winning 89 games of anything in a row is impressive, to say the least. The whole thing to me seemed to be a nice story. I was pleased to see a women’s team getting national attention, and pleased that my fourteen-year-old son knows and cares who Maya Moore is, even though we aren’t a UConn or basketball household. Up until yesterday, I was under the impression that the situation said a lot about the positive state of women’s sports in general.

That all went out the window when I turned on my local sports-talk radio station after work and heard the afternoon drive team arguing over whether a decent high school boys’ team would be able to kick the UConn women’s collective ass. What brought this on? From what I could pieve together from the discussions on the radio, it seemed the Huskies’ coach had made some kind of crazy remarks the other night—before the record had been broken—and people were just furious.

I like a good scandal as much as the next loser, so I couldn’t wait to hear what Auriemma, the coach, had said. Did he say that . . . what? That John Wooden’s mother wore combat boots? (The late Wooden was a beloved basketball coach whose UCLA men’s team formerly held the record.) I couldn’t even think of something scandalous enough to have merited so much ire.

Here’s what he said (copied and pasted from Sports Illustrated's website):

"I just know there wouldn't be this many people in the room if we were chasing a woman's record," he said. "The reason everybody is having a heart attack the last four or five days is a bunch of women are threatening to break a men's record, and everybody is all up in arms about it.
"All the women are happy as hell and they can't wait to come in here and ask questions. All the guys that loved women's basketball are all excited, and all the miserable bastards that follow men's basketball and don't want us to break the record are all here because they're pissed. That's just the way it is.
"Because we're breaking a men's record, we've got a lot of people paying attention. If we were breaking a women's record, everybody would go, 'Aren't those girls nice, let's give them two paragraphs in USA Today, give them one line on the bottom of ESPN and then let's send them back where they belong, in the kitchen.'"

Now, okay, maybe he could have left out the ‘miserable bastards’ comment, but beyond that, what’s the problem?

I don't see why everyone is so angry about this. Is it because people feel guilty for not caring about women's sports, and the guilt makes them defensive and inclined to lash out? Or is it because some people are petty enough that they're truly upset about women breaking a record set by men and they have to be disparaging?

This is from a local sports guy's blog:

The UCON women’s basketball team is about to break the UCLA men’s record of 88 straight wins.

You would have trouble filling a Prius with the men (other than those related to the players and/or coaches) who care.

He was on the radio this morning, and he said something like, "Even if I were in prison, and in solitary confinement, and the warden said I could come up to the prison lobby to watch a WNBA game on TV, I'd pass." Really? And the guys from the radio--both the hosts and the callers kept trying to just tear down the women, talking about how even though the team might have incredible fundamentals and shooting skills, any decent male team--even a middle school team--could beat them because men are bigger and stronger. This may or may not be true, but WHAT DOES IT MATTER? How is that valid in discussing their accomplishment and the coverage of it? How is that anything more than mean spirited?

Some of the guys this morning were talking about how nobody cares about women's basketball, and the only reason it gets televised as much as it does is because of Title IX, anyway. (He was like a little kid in detention, kicking the ground and mumbling about, "Stupid teachers, always making us have stupid homework. It's not fair.") And I may be wrong on this, but I'm pretty sure Title IX doesn't have anything to do with what ESPN, ESPN2, or ESPNU, etc. puts on their air.

Sigh. Just when you think something nice is happening in the world of women's sports, which is a nice thing for women everywhere, whether they like sports or not, guys have to find some way to tear it down.

Oh, the plight of the poor, disenfranchised, white middle class male. No wonder they're so insecure!

Secret Agent Super Random

I've been on a Mystery Science Theater kick since Netflix came up with a slew of them to watch instantly, and I can't get the Secret Agent Super Dragon song out of my head.

The Boy turned 14 yesterday. He received his favorite dinner (chicken nuggets and fries from McDonald's) and red velvet cupcakes, as well as some cash, gift cards, a tremendous piece of luggage, and Cuponk, which he freaking LOVES. I have to admit it's pretty fun, and kind of addicting.

If you get a chance and can watch this year's Family Guy Christmas Special, please do. FOX has evidently lost all control over Seth MacFarlane, and just lets him work out his emotional issues during Animation Domination. Have you ever seen the creepy Invader Zim Christmas Special? Here's my favorite bit:



The Family Guy special makes this one look like an episode of Barney.

I can see Paradise by the dashboard light.

I should be knitting my mother's Christmas afghan, but I don't WANNA. I don't FEEL like knitting. Whine! I feel like going to bed at 9:00.

Speaking of being an old lady who wants to go to bed at 9:00, yesterday I sat in a seminar learning to be a notary, and when I pulled my knitting (the dreaded afghan) out of my bag, out fell some hard tack candy. BECAUSE I AM 90. In my defense, the hard tack is a tasty and wonderful gift a co-worker's mother makes every year, which I'd been carrying with me because the cinnamon and wintergreen flavors are especially kind when my stomach gives me trouble. But still: Notary training (which means I'll have my very own embosser soon), knitting, and hard tack. I might as well have been wearing Depends and a wig.

Steven Page, one of the former front men of the Barenaked Ladies and one of my secret boyfriends, has a new album out, and I like every single song from it. He writes great, catchy songs, but they aren't confusing and/or meaningless (Hi, Ke$ha), and he has an awesome voice. Plus, the album is called Page One. See what he did there? Steven Page? Page One? Oh, those Canadians and their crazy humor! But seriously, if you were a BNL fan, or like a fella who can sing, check it out.

That's all I have. Lucky you.

Confessional

Hello. My name is Get Shirty, and I like Band Aid's Do They Know it's Christmas. There. I've said it. Before you throw something at me, click the link to watch the video. Look at how young and healthy everyone was in 1984! Boy George is glowing, Bono's eyes are readily available, Simon LeBon is luscious, George Michael is bursting with hair and good health, and Sting is right around the peak of my love for him. Plus, that guy from Spandau Ballet is SO PRETTY!

Anyway, I like the song. I was thirteen in 1984, and I was really starting to be annoyed with my family. I remember very clearly sitting in the backseat with my sister, being driven from my dad's parents' house to my mom's parents' house on Christmas Eve, and really listening to the lyrics when the song came on the radio. My parents were toasted and beyond embarrassing, my sister was a brat, and then all of a sudden, Bono sang, "Well tonight thank God it's them, instead of you," and I really heard him. It seemed somehow wrong to thank God that someone else's misfortune wasn't mine, like I was somehow saying that God preferred me. But I *was* grateful. I still am. Sigh. Can anyone feel as much guilt and angst as a thirteen-year-old middle class American Catholic girl on Christmas Eve when a bunch of earnest pop singers from the UK are being all earnest and emotive? I really don't think so.

And so, for making me cry in the car on Christmas Eve, I love Band Aid, and I love their song.

So sue me.

OH MY GOD I EFFING DID IT

I am a winner!


And you probably can't see this very well, but there it is, for me to look at whenever I feel like crap:

In Sickness and in Fire

The Boy may have scarlet fever. SCARLET FEVER! We'll hear more later today when the lab tests come back. If there's any good news to come of this, it means we get to skip the enormous mass of extended family that will be at my parents' for Thanksgiving tomorrow.

Here's some further nice news.

That's Mr. Scarlet Fever over there on the right, playing Xbox. It's a terrible picture, because I'm entirely too lazy to get the real camera, but look at my toasty fire! The logs and a new gas line were installed today, and I am thrilled. The Boy is happy. The cats are bewildered.

And I only have about 6,000 words to go before I finish NaNoWriMo. Woo hoo!

Sharing the Love

Public radio is street, yo.

NaNoWriMo: Now with Cramps, for Extra Misery!

So I'm doing this. I waited a while to go public with it, because I was afraid I'd quit, but now that I'm 20,000 words in, I'm pretty sure I'll make it to the end. As The Boy used to say when he was little, "Phewf!" I signed up because my friend P wanted a writing buddy in the worst way, and because I am an idiot who always wanted to write a book. I'm one of those jerks who's read a lot of books and thought, "Pah! Why aren't I doing this? If this is as good as it has to be to get published, I should quit my day job!" Of course, I'm not a complete idiot, so I never quit my day job, and I limited myself to the occasional short story after I finished my writing degree in college. (English Writing: Fiction, with a minor in History and a certificate in Women's Studies. No wonder my mom frowned upon my choices--I graduated from school qualified for nearly nothing.)

Anyway, P is much more serious about being a writer than I am, and the idea of NaNoWriMo's crazy deadline and inexorable march toward a Daily Word Count appealed to her, because she knew she'd have to shut off her inner editor/critic/perfectionist and Just Write It (suck it, Nike). And I've always wanted to write a book. Honestly, my goals when I was in my 20s were to own a house, get a graduate degree, and write a book before I turned 40. Assuming I finish the (flaming pile of crap) book on November 30, I will have achieved each of those goals. Granted, these are technically the "lite" versions of these goals: Really I wanted a nicer house in a better neighborhood--with my husband still in it, I wanted a PhD in English, rather than the MLIS I have, and I wanted to actually PUBLISH a book, but hey. I'll take it.

If I finish this book (which is a completely stereotypical first novel, semi-autobiographical and all that. because, Write What You Know), I will feel like the poor sap at the end of the Invictus poem: Bloody, but unbowed.

If I don't finish, I'm pretty sure my future is doomed. DOOMED, I say. Because if I can't spend a month doing what is essentially little more than thirty 1,600-word homework assignments (THANK YOU, P), then I can't ever finish anything. Ever. And I'm doomed.

Cross your fingers for me. You'll never read my pile of dreck, but I promise you'll know when I've finished it.

Election Day, Plus: Has the Internet Killed Cool?

My sister and I voted this morning, dutifully following the example set for us by our parents, and gleefully canceling out their votes. We do it every election, and it never ceases to feel good.

***

In other news, have you guys heard the ubiquitous-to-pop-radio song Like a G6? It's catchy, and it sounds cool, and though I grasped the basic gist of what the song meant, many of the words were foreign to me. This is probably as it should be, as I am a nearly-40-year-old mom who hasn't seen the inside of a dance club in decades. Thanks to Urban Dictionary, though, I was able to get my geek on and translate.

First, though, here's a picture of the band, Far East Movement, so you can see how their Coolness Quotient far exceeds mine:

These people are clearly Too Cool for School. I'm probably too cool for . . . forget it; I'm not too cool for anything at all.

And now, the lyrics with translation:

Poppin bottles in the ice, like a blizzard (Easy: We put our alcohol on ice, like sensible people.)
When we drink we do it right gettin slizzard (Still easy, but for the curious, "slizzard" is a "dirty south" term for drunk.)
Sippin sizzurp in my ride, in my ride, like Three 6 ("Sizzurp" is a very likely disgusting drink whose Urban Dictionary entry I'll paste here: The original formula: Promethazine w/Codeine syrup Any fruit flavored soda A jolly rancher Put it all in a styrofoam cup and enjoy. The codeine is mainly responsible for the euphoria felt after drinking sizzurp. Promethazine causes motor skill impairment, lethargy, and extreme drowsiness. If it doesn't have promethazine, it ain't real sizzurp. DXM is not a component of sizzurp, although it may produce vaguely similar effects to the above recipe in doses ranging from 150 - 250 mg. "Three 6" is a group comprising rappers from Tenessee.)
Now I'm feelin so fly like a G6 (It's a play on words! Even the lamest among us knows that "fly" is super-cool, and a G6 is A PLANE (a very expensive Gulfstream G650)! Oh, the hilarity!)
Like a G6, Like a G6
Now now now now now now I'm feelin so fly like a G6
Like a G6, Like a G6
Now now now now now now I'm feelin so fly like a G6

So there you have it. The song goes on in its catchy way, making me wonder about the fact that one of the singers repeats, "When sober girls around me, they be actin like they drunk (I can't decide whether it means that his charm radiates so strongly that it intoxicates even women who abstain from alcohol, or if it means that he realizes that certain women might feign intoxication in his presence in order to try to get something from him without being taken advantage of)," but that's pretty much it.

Anyway, I feel like Far East Movement would be really disappointed if they knew that I knew what all their slang meant. Isn't the point of slang, after all, to keep out undesirables? And isn't a middle-aged, lower-middle-class mom pretty much Undesirable No. 1 (me and Harry Potter, man--me and Harry Potter)? But the Internet allowed me to decipher their codes in mere keystrokes.

Nothing is sacred. Cool is dead. And now I'm off to find a red plastic cup to mix up a drink in.

Fancy Meeting You Here!

I am digging out from under a pile of work that built up during this most recent pledge drive--our most successful October drive ever, by the way--and I thought I'd drop in to say Hello.

Hello! The pledge drive is still on my mind, of course, because its remnants are scattered all over my office. We took 119 pledges on nine phones during the last hour of the drive (Car Talk), and things were insane. I still have a minor case of PTSD from all the ringing phones, and the sound of the Car Talk banjos makes me want to cry, but it's all for the good, and I'll survive.

The Boy is surviving well, too. His casts are off, and he's back to soccer and hand-writing his school work and playing his precious Xbox, so he's a happy camper. He's also happy because his dad and I have agreed to let him go on a school trip to France and Spain in June. He's thrilled, of course, and I'm thrilled for him--it's going to be a great time, and a great experience--but I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to be in a medically-induced coma while he's flying. I know it's irrational, but he's never flown without me, and . . . I can either protect him with my Magic Mom Powers or go down with him if we're together, but this way FREAKS MY SHIT OUT. But I accept that it would be selfish to cheat him out of this experience because of my anxiety attacks, and deposits have been sent in. His passport is being renewed, and the trip is a go.

According to my mother and various other parents whose children are my age or thereabouts, this worrying (if you're the kind of person inclined to morbid worrying) never goes away, no matter how old your kid is. Great. Nobody told me that when I signed up for this parent business. Oh, Waiter! Could you bring me a Xanax sandwich and some Bourbon soup for lunch, please? There's a big tip in it for you!

Okay. Nice seeing you all, but I have to get back to work.

Still Life for the Common Cold

So this is how I spent my weekend (the squirt bottle is for keeping the cats away--I love them, but they shed and the fur sticks to the Vick's VapoRub I'm liberally coated with, and that's just miserable). Not pictured: Boiling my Diva Cup, because it's *that* time. So, I have a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad cold, it's that time of the month, and the fall fund drive starts at work on Tuesday, just to add waking up at 4:15am into the mix. Yes, I really do still love October, but this isn't going to be an especially good week. Sigh.

The Boy has his casts off, which is a delight for both of us, and he's taking his opposable thumbs to see a friend's band play at the Hard Rock Cafe tonight. Now, I know it's an all-ages show at a lame chain restaurant that hasn't been cool since I was a wee lassie, and I know that the show is more like a piano recital for kids whose parents let them play rock music, but still. I can say with confidence that I didn't do anything that sounded so cosmopolitan until I was at least . . . I don't know . . . 25 and living in London?

I'll just stay home with my Vicks and watch The Simpsons.

Random Rocktober

October may be my favorite month of the year, despite the reality of my public radio job and October Pledge Drives.

I miss high school football Fridays. The Boy's school doesn't have a football team (it was in fact an all-girls school until the 1980s), and I just don't feel a part of any of the other schools' teams, so we don't go to games on Friday nights. I admit that if I still lived in my home town, I'd probably go.

The Boy is coming home from a four-day school trip to DC, where they braved the weather and walked all over the place, enjoyed the Air & Space Museum and the Smithsonian, and went to the Holocaust Museum. The Boy had done everything on the trip already, since we have relatives very nearby in Maryland, but I hadn't taken him to the Holocaust Museum before because I thought he was too young to have to go through that up to this point. The 8th graders at his school spend a lot of Social Studies time on WWII and the Holocaust, though, so this was a great way for them to start off. I'm interested to hear what he thought about it--especially since he's close friends with lots of Jewish kids.

I had a Holocaust . . . thing . . . that started before I was in 8th grade, and before I'd seen anything like the Holocaust Museum (it all pretty much started with Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself), and I didn't know a single Jewish person until I went to college!

Anyway, I've missed The Boy this week, and I can't wait to see him this evening. We're having pizza with his dad so we can hear all about the trip, and I can't think of a better way to spend my evening.

The Sparrow

I just finished Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow, and I can't believe it took me this long to read it. I read A Thread of Grace a few years ago and liked it so much I bought my own copy, but somehow I just didn't want to read The Sparrow. Fool. Now I'm going to return the library's copy and just go ahead and buy the sequel when I order my own. Russell's brilliant, isn't she?

In non-book news, The Boy did indeed break himself. Specifically, he chipped the scaphiod bones in both arms. Here's a helpful illustration:



A true Pittsburgh boy, he's got a black cast on one arm and a gold one on the other. I bought two enormous blue rubber oven mitt-type things that form a water-tight seal and allow the kid to bathe and shower (and even to swim, if he were so inclined), and while they do a great job of keeping the casts dry, he's not able to do much in the way of manipulating wet things. And so . . . I've been washing the kid's hair, to his mingled dismay and delight (he sort of feels like he's being waited on, which I know he likes). I abandon him to a soapy washcloth, though, to make him get the rest of his body as clean as he can. I do clean and trim his nails, though, and I finally (FINALLY!) get to comb out the kid's wet hair. His hair is long and wavy, and he never combs it out as thoroughly as I'd like. He ducks away from me, though, when I threaten to come at him with a comb. Now, though, he's powerless against me, because he can't grip a comb. I've been using a wide-toothed comb and then a finer-toothed one, and even he admits that his hair looks better than usual when it dries. Time and attention: Long hair requires it; The Boy is too rushed to want to bother. Yet he shies away from scissors like Samson. Dork.

He goes back to the orthopedic specialist (who says he hasn't seen bilateral breaks on a kid in twenty years) on October 8, and the casts will come off and more x-rays will be taken. If things look good, The Boy is free. If not, new casts will go on, and I think The Boy and I will both cry a little. As cheerful as he's been through the whole process, and as oddly nice as it's been to be able to baby him a little, we're both ready to get back to normal.

My Poor, Poor Kid

Thanks to a rousing gym class dodge ball victory, there appear to be very small fractures in both of The Boy's wrists. The doctor in the ER didn't quite trust the x-rays, though, so we have to see an orthopedic specialist to make sure. He's got fiberglass half-casts for now, and the specialist will x-ray the wrists again next week. It's a pain, but I appreciate that the ER doctor didn't want to put the boy in casts for twelve weeks without being certain it was necessary.

I'm giving The Boy a pity day off from school tomorrow, and staying home to spoil him--and possibly try washing his hair in the kitchen sink.

"If Bobby doesn't love football, he won't lead a fulfilling life, and then he'll die." --Hank Hill

Yes, I have to worry about a woman-hating QB1 who's suspended for at least the first four games, but . . . I don't care! I've thought a lot about it, and I'm not dumping the team for the one bad apple (who I admit is trying to clean up his act), and I'm going to enjoy the hell out of this season. The Boy retired from his travel-league soccer team and will only ref on Saturdays, which means that months of beautiful Sundays are stretching out before us. Here we go!

School starts Thursday, although The Boy has been going every day this week for soccer practice, so he's already kind of getting back into the swing of things. He's been taking a city bus and getting himself there; I don't have to spend my lunch hour driving around, which makes me grateful for the kid's growing independence. He's due for a little more independence, as he's about to start eighth grade! It's his last year in Middle School, and his tenth year at his school--he's been there since Kindergarten Readiness--and . . . this line of thought leads to high school and college and my baby being a man, and I'm not ready to think about that kind of independence.

So: I am ready for some football, but not ready to accept that my kid will be in high school next year.

That is all.

Crucio!

Well, we’re back. The trip was a strange one, because I found out while sitting at the airport Thursday morning, waiting to board the plane to Florida, that my parents’ neighbor of 35 years, my mother’s best friend, my “surrogate mother” through high school and college, had died of cancer.

It was the first time I’ve been the person to tell my mom a loved one had died—usually it’s been the other way around—and it was terrible. My mom saw my face and said, “What,” and all I could get out was, “Kathy.” And then we stood in the airport, hugging and crying. I asked whether we should still make the trip, and my mom said we absolutely should, so we did. We were home in time for the funeral on Monday, which: Ugh. At one point the new widower, who is a kind and patient man who never left his ailing wife’s side, said in passing at the funeral home, “I just keep looking around for my wife.”

So there was that to deal with. We did have a good trip despite the sadness, and I was very, very glad to be there with my mom, so she could talk about things when she felt like it. She’s furious more than anything, because Kathy found a lump in her breast six years before she did anything about it. By that time, of course, it was too late, and the cancer was everywhere. It’s hard to see my mom so sad and angry and frustrated, and to know that my emotionally retarded father isn’t going to be much help to her. Again: Ugh.

Anyway, though, we truly did have a good time, even in the face of the heat. Sweet Jesus, the heat. Only damned fools would go to central Florida in July/August, and damned fools we were. Between the heat (“Feels like 104!” Thanks, Weather Channel), the humidity (enough to steam my glasses every time we left an air-conditioned space), the crowds, and the flies, it felt like I imagine the slums of New Delhi must feel. Slogging through that park was like a punishment. And the crowds in the Potter portion of the park were so thick that I swear people would have been trampled to death if someone had yelled, “Fire!” The lines were so long and winding that you couldn’t even tell what you were in line for.

You couldn’t tell if you were in line for a ride, to get into the Three Broomsticks for something to eat, or to get into one of the many, many stores. The first day, Teddy and I managed to get to ride the roller coaster that’s set up to mimic a Hungarian Horntail racing a Chinese Fireball, and it was a good coaster, but that and a trip to Honeydukes and Zonko’s was all we could accomplish. We didn’t buy anything from Honeydukes because we knew it would melt at our touch, so we got some butterbeer from a barrel in the street and beat it out of there. (Butterbeer is delicious, by the way. We had the frosty kind, which tasted like an ice-cream float made with vanilla ice-cream, cream soda, and butterscotch. That may sound gross and too sweet, but it was a really nice treat.)

We staggered out of Potter and into Jurassic Park, where we had the stamina to wait for one water ride, which was very well done, and then we beat it back to the hotel pool (the indoor pool, because the water in the outdoor pool was HOT).

I took charge the second day, and we left the hotel in a cab an hour before the shuttle was scheduled to take us to the park. We got in before the park opened, and waited in line for about an hour for Potter to open. Yes, we were in line, but it was super early and the heat was tolerable. Plus, our line wound past a shop in Jurassic Park that generously left its doors open so the a/c could flow out to us. That wait was fine. Potter opened, and we made a beeline for Hogwarts, where we only waited for a little more than an hour to get in.

All of the waiting and the trudging and the sweating and the money were worth it.

You enter Hogwarts through the greenhouses, where you get to see all the plants—including the mandrakes—and then you flow into the (blissfully cool) castle. You get to see the glass cases that hold the jewels representing the house points, various suits of armor, and then you’re in front of the big statue that marks the entrance to Dumbledore’s office. You wind around, and there you are, with Dumbledore’s gadgets and trinkets all around you, and Dumbledore himself sitting at his desk.

He’s a projected image, I guess, but it looks like a hologram almost. And it’s Michael Gambon sitting there, his fingers templed under his chin, telling you a bit about Hogwarts. My first thought was, “But Dumbeldore’s DEAD,” but I got over it and was just charmed. He asked us to step into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, where we came across the same kind of projected images, this time of Harry, Ron, and Hermione. They were arguing amongst themselves when Hermione said, “Ron! You’re making it snow again!”

AND IT SNOWED ON US. REAL SNOW! I nearly swooned.

Then we wandered around, past the Mirror of Erised and the many, many moving and talking portraits on the walls, and past the Fat Lady, until we made it into the Great Hall where we were seated four across in a little car. Harry popped out on his broom and asked us to meet him at the Quidditch Pitch, and then took off. We started moving (the car did move, but there were projected images all around us, too), and then Hagrid showed up on that covered bridge from the films and asked if anyone had seen a dragon . . . and then we took off on a flight that kind of echoed the one Harry had when the Horntail was chasing him in Goblet of Fire. We were up and down and flinging around near the roof tops, and tiles fell and the dragon screeched, and then we were in the shelter of the Forbidden Forest. With the spiders. These were really there, not images, and they were creepier than in the movies because we were so near to them. They were shiny and moist looking, and Aragog was huge, and spit at us. I squealed at that point.

And then it got misty and colder, and the dementors showed up. They were real too, although there were projected ones as well. One flew right up to The Boy and startled him so much that The Boy kicked out at it and lost a shoe (he’s now proud that one of his shoes will live forever in Hogwarts). And then dementors swooped down at us to give us the kiss, and we could see silvery images of our (wide-eyed) faces shimmering and stretching out above us, but Harry came and cast his Patronus just in time.

We past the Whomping Willow and made it to the Quidditch Pitch when Draco showed up and chased us through the stands. This was fast and furious, and the images here (I think it was 3-D) were really good.

Then we landed, Harry asked what took us so long, and the Hogwarts staff and students were there to welcome us and tell us we’d done a good job. We disembarked and were spit out into a gift shop (the only amusement park gift shop I’ve ever seen that sold books), and we floated away to find a kiosk to buy The Boy some flip-flops.

As we were leaving Potter at about 10am, we heard the guards TURNING PEOPLE AWAY, because the place was at capacity. People were being told to come back at 3pm. It was unbelievable, but that’s how bad the crowds were.

The rest of Universal was fine. The Boy and I rode The Hulk, which is quite an excellent coaster, and we rode the Spiderman thing, which was totally crap after having been through Hogwarts (I think I may have actually yawned while on the ride), and we bopped around to a few more things, bought some swag, and beat it back to the pool.

I know this is a long post, but I wanted to express the greatness of that castle. I’ll never visit central Florida again unless it’s winter, but I will say that the castle is worth every bit of suffering it took to get there. Even if it felt like Bellatrix was after us with the Cruciatus Curse.

To Squee, or Not to Squee?

A work friend recommended that I watch Warehouse 13 on Syfy, and I'm nearly caught up to the current Season 2 episodes. The premise is a little tired, what with the two government agents with Odd Couple personalities working as partners (yes, I'm looking at you, Bones and X-Files), but the fantasy aspect of the episodes and series' arcs more than makes up for it: In the world of the show, things like Alice's looking glass are real. How cool is that? And the people who work for the Warehouse (which is a super-secret government agency) are charged with tracking down such "artifacts" and containing them. The writing and acting all seem to be improving pretty much by the episode, and all in all, it's a fun thumbs up.

The most recent episode I watched, though, pretty much clinched me forever, because of its guest stars. Think of my Firefly love, and then imagine my fangirl dorkitude when I saw Kaylee and Simon show up! Together! Looking older, and so cute and sweet! It honestly made my day. Sure, their names were Loretta and Sheldon, and they were in a pie shop rather than a space ship, and no one said anyone was shiny, but there was kissing!

Aw!

Anyway, the second thing I'm dorking out over is that tomorrow my mom, The Boy, and I are headed to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Dum, DUM, da da DUM, da DUM, DUM! (That's my text version of the theme song that plays over the movies.) We're all pretty excited, but I swear my mother is bouncing off the walls. I'm pretty sure she'll cry when she sees the Hogwarts like she did when she saw Cinderella's castle the first time.

It's going to be hot and miserable, but there will be pumpkin juice and dragon races and Merlin only knows what else. We're coming back Sunday, so I'll report soon after.

Expecto patronum!

Paul Bunyan’s Mega Movie Marathon

The Boy and I cut down a tree. I told my parents that I had a dead tree in my backyard, and they sort of rolled their eyes and told me I had a dead bush. My mom said she’d bring a saw and help me get rid of it, and my dad was happy to be left to his own devices on a Saturday afternoon while she did so.

Does this look like a weed?

And then she got to my house, and saw that her puny wee saw, a sort of electric carving knife on steroids, was no match for my TREE. Granted, it wasn’t a giant redwood or even a mighty oak, but it was clearly a tree. I told her I’d get a chainsaw and manage on my own, so she went through my yard and identified which of the things I’d been trimming were weeds that could and indeed should be obliterated—who knew I was filthy with wild grapes vines—left the handy hook-on-a-stick, and The Boy and I got to it, despite the fact that my mother actually said out loud in words that cutting down a tree was man’s work. Man’s work! I explained later to The Boy that my mother’s comments were clearly an illustration of the differences between her generation and mine, because it never once occurred to me (or to him) that I wouldn’t be able to wield a chainsaw successfully.

I was indeed successful: The tree is now a neat stack of wood, and neither our house nor our bodies were harmed in the process. (Finally, the hard hat I’ve kept since I worked on a road construction crew in college came in handy—I made The Boy wear it.)

Say hello to Stumpy, whom my dad will have to deal with.

We rewarded ourselves yesterday with a day off—the weather was too rainforest-like to think about leaving the comfort of the a/c, so I stuck to laundry and cooking, and we spent lots of time reading and watching movies.

The Men Who Stare at Goats is funny and fun, and more than a little puzzling when you consider that it’s based somewhat on fact. Really? Our military had (or has) programs that deal with psychic activity? Huh. The only weird thing about this movie (other than its premise) is the casting of Ewan McGregor, who is forced to use an American accent. No idea why this had to be, because it clearly wasn’t easy for him, but I guess it added an extra layer of fun.

We also watched Hot Fuzz, which I really cannot say enough good things about. It’s the story of a highly talented and successful London cop who’s transferred to a small village when his superiors start to worry that he’s overshadowing them. He’s frustrated with what he sees as a waste of his skills, until he realizes that the rate of accidental deaths in the village is suspiciously high. The action that follows is part homage, part good natured ribbing of American cop and buddy movies, action flicks, and British mysteries. It’s funny, it’s fun, and so, so very endearing. Two thumbs way up.

We closed out our marathon with X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I like the X-Men a lot—I used to set my alarm when I was in college, so I’d be up to watch the X-Men cartoon at 11am. Wolverine’s hard-ass attitude used to annoy me, but the more I came to know him, the more I liked him. I own the comic the movie is loosely based on, and while I’m probably in the minority, I have to say I liked the movie better. Maybe it’s Hugh Jackman and Liev Schrieber, or maybe it’s the fact that the movie is less dark and hopeless. Or maybe it’s the fact that my beloved Tim Riggins was there—granted, he was Gambit, and I hated stupid Gambit in the cartoon, but TIM RIGGINS! Sigh and swoon. Anyway, if you like X-Men at all, this is one to see—the story is good, the effects are good, and you get to see Professor Xavier when he could still walk around. Good times.

Speaking of Tim Riggins, did you know that he and Eric Northman are going to be in a movie together?!?! Yes, it's a movie based on the board game Battleship, but who cares? Sure, Tim won't have his Texas accent, and Eric won't be immortal, but maybe there will be shirtless wrestling! A woman can dream.

Preach

I'm here to preach to you today, but not like that guy. Do you know who he is? Why, he's L. Ron Hubbard, of Scientology fame. Why do I have a photo of him? Because he came into my house via the magic of television, care of my good friend P, who may just be my equal in weirdness. See, P was in Half Price Books and happened to notice this DVD on sale for 99-cents, and she just couldn't not buy it. Nor could she miss the chance to share it with me. We're the friends, after all, who have shared the DVD glories of Left Behind--The Movie and The Book of Mormon Movie, Volume 1. I suppose we can blame it on our Catholic backgrounds, but for whatever reason, we share a need to know about religions that vary so differently from our own.

L. Ron looks surprisingly like an aged Craig T. Nelson in bad makeup, and he talks as if he borrowed George Washington's false teeth. Very odd. Odder still is the things he says. Scientology is seriously weird. Like more weird than the religion I was raised with, where transubstantiation is accepted as a matter of course. The worst thing about Scientology, though, is a quote from L. Ron that we found on the official website, regarding Scientology and belief in God:

“No culture in the history of the world, save the thoroughly depraved and expiring ones, has failed to affirm the existence of a Supreme Being. It is an empirical observation that men without a strong and lasting faith in a Supreme Being are less capable, less ethical and less valuable to themselves and society....A man without an abiding faith is, by observation alone, more of a thing than a man.”

So atheists aren't people. You know who calls other people non-human? Hitler. And slave owners. And L. Ron Hubbard. Nice trio there.

So. P and I watched what we could stand of the riveting Scientology video. We continued feeding our odd fetish for watching weird things with a screening of Sherlock Holmes. Not the one with Robert Downy Jr., but the one with DINOSAURS. In London. Oh, and there's a Krakon that robs a ship. So the bad guy can use the gold the ship carried in order to be able to buy the dinosaur, so he could use it to steal a pipe from a fountain. And then a dinosaur killed a man in a rubber factory, apparently by metling his face. And that's not even the half of it. We laughed, we cried: It was better than Cats. Seriously. It's available on Netflix to watch instantly, and if you dig a good B movie, you won't be disappointed in this.

The evening wasn't pure junk, though (even though cheesecake was consumed in honor of the late Rue McClanahan), because we began our viewing with an innoculation: I made P watch the most recent episode of Friday Night Lights. I can't believe what a fantastic show this is, and why the entire country isn't in awe of it. I know I've mentioned it before, but this show is seriously great. You know I'm a big Joss Whedon freak, and I will state for you here that I think FNL is better than anything Whedon's ever done. There's no fantasy here, no metaphor, no need to suspend your disbelief; this show is about real people living real lives. They go to church. They pray. The stumble through pancake breakfasts given in fire halls. They get on the floor to play with their kids, one eye looking at a chewed up book that's been read a million times, the other eye on the TV. And they creak and groan and moan and sigh when they finally get up off the floor.

This show honestly raises television to the level of art: It makes you think about what it means to be a person. It makes you look at the humanity in others. It makes you want to make sure you're doing your best and living life and loving the people you love. It's not without its missteps, but I'm here to testify that it's the best thing I've ever seen on television, with the best actors, writers, show-runners . . . just the best of everything, showing how talented people who care about stories and life can make Art out of the idiot box.

Amen.

Sock it to Me

Behold, the Sensational Socks training sock.



It's far from perfect, but I understand how socks work now, and am pretty sure I could knit people-sized socks from actual sock yarn, on those tiny #2 needles. I'm still not quite sure I have the patience, but I think there might be at least one sock in my future.

And it's all about the future for me, as I am thrilled to be seeing the last of the month of May. In addition to the passing of my great Aunt Mary, this month has seen trouble at work, an understaffed pledge drive, a four-day stomach virus for The Boy, which turned into a four-day stomach virus for me. This month saw me trip and fall at work, squashing my lunch and gouging me knee. It saw me accidentally pay a bill twice, screwing up my accounting. And finally, it saw my face morph into something like Sloth from The Goonies, thanks to an enormous sty that grew on the bottom of my left eyelid, effectively flipping it over and making impossible to blink or fully close my eye for days.

Goodbye, May. Kiss my ass.

The Screenplay That I'll Never Write

My grandmother is turning 86 tomorrow, and I know she's feeling a little conflicted about her birthday this year, because her elder sister, my Great Aunt Mary, died two weeks ago. Aunt Mary lived in Sacramento with her son Steve (a notorious family fuck-up--that'll matter later), and my grandmother lives here in western PA, but the two were very close. This was always surprising to me, because my grandmother is a combination of Rose Nylund and Dorothy Zbornak (smart, industrious, and extremely capable but utterly, utterly sweet and more than a little co-dependent) and Aunt Mary enjoyed swilling cocktails, dressing to the nines, and smoking unfiltered Pall Malls while grumbling like Patty and Selma. The two should have clashed at every encounter, and often did, but loved each other fiercely. Aunt Mary moved west in the 50s, but the two always found time for visits, and as they got older and found the time, those visits could last six weeks or more. They talked on the phone often, and I just found out that as Aunt Mary's health started failing, my grandmother would end each phone conversation by singing You Are My Sunshine.

Sweet, I know. It makes me want to hug my own sister, believe me.

Anyway, Gram got the call that Aunt Mary was on life support the day before my cousin--Gram's youngest grandchild--was set to graduate from nursing school. Gram's a nurse (still!), my mom's a nurse, and my cousin is now the third generation, so the ceremony meant a lot to my grandmother. Things were serious, though, and Gram didn't hesitate to get on plane with her baby sister, my great Aunt Frances, to be there with Aunt Mary.

Of course speculation started on our end right away: Would Steve (the fuck-up mentioned above) manage to be able to pick the two old ladies up, or would he leave them stranded at the airport? Would he send some old stoned dude with a long ponytail yet no hair on top to get them? If that were the case, would they go? We worried for nothing, though, because Steve picked them up and delivered them to the hospital, where Aunt Mary was indeed dying. According to Gram, she had time to hold Aunt Mary's hand and talk to her. She felt Aunt Mary could hear her, as her eyelids fluttered in reaction. She told Aunt Mary everything would be okay, and then asked if she wanted her to sing. Eyelids fluttered, my grandmother whispered You Are My Sunshine into her ear, and Aunt Mary died a few minutes later.

I cry every time I even think of it, and I doubt I'll ever be able to hear the song again without bursting into tears. I'm a wimp, though. My grandmother and Aunt Frances left the hospital with Steve, and they all went to a sort of restaurant/lounge place another relative owns. There were drinks, and singing, and Gram was befriended by a large black man named Hershey. Hershey pulled my grandmother to the little stage, and the pair lead the joint in a rousing version of, you guessed it, You Are My Sunshine.

So then they left the restaurant, and Steve took his two very sad old aunts to the house where he'd lived with Aunt Mary and his maid. Or the woman he referred to as a live-in maid, and whom Gram and Aunt Frances immediately decided had to be a prostitute because the house was a filthy mess. The prostitute had the run of the place, as did her large bird, whose cage was left open for his convenience. She kept a fish tank in the kitchen and a boa constrictor in one of the bedrooms.

The old ladies didn't eat much of anything while they were there, because they swear they saw the prostitute stir a bowl of fruit salad and then dip the serving spoon into the fish tank--as if to clean it--and then set it on the counter next to the bowl. They didn't want to hurt Steve's feelings by leaving for a hotel, so they pretended to eat and did a lot of cleaning.

And then the boa constrictor was discovered to have escaped.

Now our old ladies were not only not eating, but they weren't sleeping, either. They decided to kill some time by going through Aunt Mary's things, as they were staying in her former bedroom, ("I've never known a woman to have so many shoes and earrings! My GOD, the earrings! Such junk!") WHEN THEY DISCOVERED A SUITCASE FULL OF CASH UNDER THE BED. Knowing Steve's history of drugs, drinking, and petty crimes, they promptly WIPED OFF THEIR FINGERPRINTS and shoved the suitcase right where they found it. Gram says it was stacks of hundred dollar bills, likely tens of thousands of dollars.

According to Gram and Aunt Frances, the services for Aunt Mary were nice, the snake was never found but not a problem, and my uncle and his son came in from San Francisco and Las Vegas, so they covered the trip back to the airport and kept things uneventful. My sister wrote to the cousin to thank him for being there for Gram, and his reply included the following:

Two amusing notes from the excursion:

1 – I was sleeping in the room wherein the snake was at large, I did not realize this until the morning of my departure, which was probably for the best.

2 – The last of Aunt Mary's above-ground mortal remains (she was cremated) is being kept in what was described as "a beautiful hand-hammered pewter antique urn" by the donor, one of Steve's old girlfriends who remains a friend, but is really an old-fashioned cocktail shaker, it has a pour spout. I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with this, as long it is generally perceived as valuable. Don't tell grandma.

Aunt Mary loved her gin and tonics, and would probably be thrilled with her final resting place, but my god did that crack me up. If ever I need a lift, all I have to do is think, "It has a pour spout." But I won't tell Gram.

What could possibly improve on a Mother’s Day spent with The Very Best Boy in the Whole Wide World? How about throwing in Robert Downy Jr. on the big screen? Swoon! I honestly think I would be happy to watch that man eat a bowl of cereal and fold laundry, so seeing him reprise his role as Tony Stark/Iron Man was a lovely treat on a lovely day.

I had expected to be a little disappointed in IM2, so I was pleasantly surprised. It’s nowhere near as dark (literally and figuratively) as The Dark Knight, but it takes a similarly sober look at what it must be like for a human with no super powers to decide it’s his job to save the world. I’ve never read an Iron Man comic, so I don’t know anything about the story beyond what’s presented in the movies, but I think this movie goes a long way toward showing how much of an egomaniac you have to be to think protecting all of mankind is up to you—and that arrogance is something you rarely see in someone who’s supposed to be a hero. Combine that contradiction with struggles with depression and alcoholism, and a genuine desire to do good and to love and be loved, and you’ve got yourself one interesting fella.

RDJr’s talent is arguably wasted on playing a comic book hero, because I honestly believe he’s one of those actors whose talent raises entertainment to art: I believe he could play roles that could change peoples’ lives. He brings so much pain, humanity, and fragility to Tony Stark, though, that I almost sort of wonder if maybe someone might look into those big liquid eyes and find inspiration to face a fear and become a better person.

Boy, that’s a little serious for Iron Man and Monday morning, isn’t it? I blame RDJr’s eyes for turning me to mush. I’m already looking forward to IM3, and despite some skepticism, further interactions between RDJr’s Tony Stark and the very definition of badass that is Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury have me looking forward to seeing what happens with The Avengers.

I’m also looking forward to the NEXT Sookie Stackhouse novel, because I gobbled up the newest one, Dead in the Family, within a few hours of its appearance on my front porch (thank you, Amazon Prime). I don’t know how many more books Harris plans to write about Sookie & Pals, but I almost wish I hadn’t started on them until the whole series was completed; I hate having to wait to find out what comes next. Damn Carly Simon and her anticipation!

Aside from the Sookie, I’ve been ripping through all kinds of books lately. I bought Steve Almond’s newest, Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life, which is a great book for anyone who cares about music. Even though I didn’t know much or anything about some of the music and bands he writes about, the writing is good and funny and fun and the occasional exegesis (my favorite is of Toto’s Africa) makes the price of admission (especially if it’s a library book) well worth it.

I read Jen Lancaster’s Pretty in Plaid last week, and chuckled all though it. She’s a little older than me, and so was ahead of the curve on when she was able to buy her own clothes and choose her own music, but I was familiar with pretty much everything she wrote about, fashion-wise. And while I wasn’t a sorority girl—after going through rush and getting an idea of what the whole thing was about I sort of became vehemently anti-sorority—it was amusing to read about her experiences. Frustrating, too, as you could watch her develop the patterns that got her into such big trouble in Bitter is the New Black. It’s weird to have that kind of insight into a total stranger’s life, but there you go.

I’m just about finished with Susan J. Douglas’s new book, Enlightened Sexism. Douglas is my favorite feminist writer—her Where the Girls Are made me want to turn my undergraduate certificate in Women’s Studies into a PhD so I could launch into a career of sucking up pop culture and then writing and teaching about it from a feminist perspective. I never did that, obviously, but sometimes I think I still might. You know how someone said that if you could find work that’s like play, you’ll never work a day in your life? I think being Douglas’s protégé would do that for me.

My good pal BabelBabe stopped over last week for Knitting, and while I don’t think either one of us knitted a single stitch, we had a nice visit. She left me with The Forgotten Garden, which is a nice, rich, chewy family drama set in Australia. So far, so good, but it’s made me realize that aside from Bill Bryson’s In a Sunburned Country, I can’t think of anything else I’ve read that’s set there. What am I not thinking of?

I’m talky today, huh? I should go listen to the president try to convince me that Elena Kagen is a better choice than Diana Wood. Time will tell, I guess.

Death by Green Bean

Help! I’ve been trying to remember more about a novel or short story in which a young housewife accidentally poisons her mother-in-law with botulism found in her poorly home-canned green beans. I can’t remember anything else at all, but that image has stuck with me for a long time. I’d love to can my own veggies and tomato sauce—my mother and grandmother still do it—but I’m too afraid to end up killing someone.

Why am I thinking about this? Thunder storms knocked out my power Friday afternoon, and when it still wasn’t restored Saturday morning, The Boy and I went to my parents’ to enjoy some light, heat, and television. We came back home yesterday afternoon, and I opened the fridge to discover fuzzy strawberries and the scent of death, as well as an exploded tube of Pilsbury cinnamon rolls.

In short, the paranoid maniac in me trashed just about everything in the fridge and freezer. Sigh. I’d feel better about having done that if I could go back and reread the botulism story.

On a happier note, though, we went to see Kick-Ass on Friday, partly in hopes that the power would come back on while we were gone. I didn’t care too much about Kick-Ass one way or another, but The Boy really, really wanted to go. It’s rated R, so I talked it over with his dad, and decided to take him (and another kid, actually, with his parents’ permission) as long as he understood that there might be things we needed to talk about when it was over.

It turns out that there wasn’t anything to worry about, but much to laugh at cheer for. The movie is two kinds of violent: One is as close as you can get to cartoon violence without animation, if that makes sense, and the other is realistic to the point of being cautionary. The boy who turns himself into Kick-Ass does so because he wants to help people instead of standing and watching or running away, and he gets beat up and nearly killed for his troubles. He’s afraid. His body has realistic limitations. And he cries. He shows what courage has to be for normal people, and the cost that courage brings.

The other violence in Kick-Ass is what seems to have so many critics feeling violent themselves, and that has to do with Hit Girl. Yes, the premise of a father who starts training his daughter as an assassin from the time she’s about five years old, is a terrible thing . . . in real life. But in the comics, which this movie most definitely is, it’s . . . not okay, but understandable and allowable.


Hit Girl is really eleven-year-old Mindy, who likes bowling, hot fudge sundaes, cocoa with marshmallows, and her dad. They have a close bond, and like him she wants to avenge her mother’s death and his wrongful imprisonment by bringing down the crime boss who plagues their city and caused it all. That’s a proper evolution story, and one that rightly troubles people in the movie—people who care about Mindy don’t like the idea that she’s Hit Girl, but it’s who she is. She’s smart, capable and earnest (what pre-teen girl isn’t?), and she’s a marvel to watch.

The best thing about her, though, is that she’s never, ever sexualized in any way. She kicks ass and deals blows and death and fear like all good comic book heroes, and quips her way into the hearts of those she doesn’t kill, but unlike any other strong comic book females I can think of, there’s not an ounce of sexy to be seen. And rightly so, of course, because she’s just a kid.

[Slight spoiler:] She ends up enrolled in school at the end of the movie, leaving viewers to hope against hope that she won’t lose her poise and confidence once the hormones kick in and boys begin to look at her without her costume and weapons.

The crack of her knuckles is promising.

An Explanation of My Hero Worship

I fell in love with Firefly's Captain Malcom Reynolds for many reasons, including his face, his build, and his grin, but mostly because of who he was. Mal wasn't Hero Guy in the large sense; he was a regular guy who was often called on to act heroically, and he did the best he could to rise to it, even if he didn't really know what the right thing was. He had to do things he didn't want to do, and hurt people he didn't want to hurt, and deny himself so many things . . . all because he essentially wanted to keep his home and family safe.

I will never be Hero Girl--I'll never be Buffy or Meg Murry or Hermione Granger or even Anne of Green Gables, but I am very much a woman on her own, struggling to figure out how to keep a home a family safe. I know the stakes aren't as high or precarious for me as they were for Mal, but his story is my story in a lot of ways. His struggles are my struggles--how to to lead when you're not sure of the right way? Which risks do you take? When can you relax when you always have to be looking forward to see what's coming next--what you have to protect your loved ones from, and what you have to be confident they can handle on their own?

Mal messes up and gets angry and frustrated and acts like a jerk sometimes. But he works hard to do his best, and THAT is heroic (and more than a little inspirational) to me.

I love Zoe and her strength and wisdom, I love Wash for his Wash-ness, and I love their marriage. I love that Kaylee is allowed to be a single woman who is capable and dirty and smart, but also girly . . . and totally sexual without the least bit of embarrassment or punishment. I love Jayne for his Janyne-ness and his arms and shoulders. I love Simon for his dedication to his sister above all else, and I love River because she's crazy and cool. I love Shepherd Book because he's wise and mysterious, and a great representation of a person of faith. I love them all because they can be so funny. But more than anyone, I love Mal.

And I don't care if there are spaceships. I don't care about aliens. I don't care about any of the setting at all, really. I love that hot guy, struggling the way I struggle, caring about the very same things I care about.

Most Excellent Kids' Book Alert

When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead.


Read it now.

What is Wrong with Me?

I spent the long Easter weekend with my extended family, and I think it broke me. I've tried several times to write about it, but I can't seem to do it. This is the first time The Boy has been old enough to notice what a bunch of freaks and idiots (and I don't mean the *good* kind of freak and idiot that I am and that I generally choose to surround myself with--I mean the bad kind) he is descended from, so you would think I'd have tons to write about.

I can't, though; I can't seem to commit to writing the bad feelings I have toward those people. I've certainly given verbal accounts to all and sundry--to my sister, who skipped out on us using her new puppy as an excuse, to C, who hasn't been around those people in years, but remembers them well, and to my friend P and my boss, neither of whom knows the people in question. Everyone laughs. Everyone rolls their eyes. Everyone sympathizes with The Boy and me.

So why can't I write about it?

A summary: The Boy started bugging me to drive to the Easter Destination (a Maryland suburb of DC) on Tuesday. I refused to entertain the idea of going down there before Friday at the earliest, which caused much grumbling disappointment. However, once we settled into our assigned sleeping arrangements on a torturous old futon, The Boy whispered, "You are a very smart woman for not letting us come early." I said, "Well, I've known these people for a long time."

And that was that.

***

The neighbors on the north side of my house have a pit bull, which we finally caught using our backyard as his toilet. Of all the dogs to leave off a leash, why a pit bull? Don't these people watch the news? The Boy asked me whether I'll say something, but I honestly don't see it doing any good, as people who allow an unleashed pit bull to use my lawn (AND FRONT PORCH--once) as a bathroom are probably not the kind of people who respond well to criticism. I'm putting my plans to fence in the yard into fast-forward, and I'll leave it at that.

Once the yard is fenced (and free from doggie land mines and threatening barks), I am going to grant one of The Boy's fondest wishes and get a trampoline. (As long as my homeowner's policy will let me, that is.) It's not as much fun as a pool, but it's much more affordable--and no one can drown on it. The Boy has volunteered to buy a trampoline-friendly basketball hoop with his own money, and I'm all for that. He and his friends can bounce and dunk themselves silly and then cool off with the hose. Summer will be all taken care of.

Speaking of summer, The Boy and I listened to the audio book of the Wimpy Kid book that has to do with his summer vacation (don't know if this is the third or fourth in the series) while we drove to Maryland. We both laughed out loud a few times, and were pleased to discover that the books are just as fun without the benefit of the illustrations. Greg is a good character--the author does a good job of making him the right mix of spoiled, suburban white kid brat AND funny, put-upon, young adolescent.

I also just listened to Sarah Vowell's The Partly Cloudy Patriot. I read it when it first came out, but beyond a few details, all I really remembered was that I enjoyed it. Like David Sedaris, Vowell is even more fun to listen to than to read. She's so smart and thoughtful, and while her sense of humor comes across well on the page, there's something about her voice (she's Violet Incredible, if you're unsure what I mean) that makes listening to her that much more funny and endearing. She should write text books and lecture. More people should know how awesome she is, because then more people would see how interesting and important and meaningful history and civics really are.

***

I guess that's it for me today. Time to return to my efforts to stay awake while doing tedious work in an office that is 9,000-degrees despite the fact that it's not at all hot outside and the cool air being sucked into the window by a little fan that's pointing directly at me. It's seriously like physics doesn't exist in here, because the temperature in this room will not alter. The life is sucked out of me in proportion to the sweat that soaks my undergarments as I sit at my desk. I went to college so I wouldn't have to sweat at work (an important lesson I learned as a flagger for a road crew in the summers), yet despite a BA and MLIS, here I sit and sweat. Thanks, Universe. You're the best.

Vacation: All I Ever Wanted

The Boy is on Spring Break all this week and next, and I've managed to only have to work for a total of three days up until Easter, so life is pretty spectacular. I've done lots of good housework, finished The Children's Book* and read Palace Circle**, bought some storage things from The Container Store that I think are going to really help my kitchen issues, knitted one spring scarf and started another, watched New Moon (1,000 times better than the book, which I hate so very passionately)***, saw Alice in Wonderland**** (which I enjoyed enormously--this was going to make it or break it with me and Tim Burton, and he's safe for now) and . . . I guess that's it.

Oh wait--no it's not: I bought some books today! I bought three books which include six of the Betsy-Tacy novels (I hadn't heard of these books until some internet people raved about them, and when I saw them all together today I scooped them up. I'm about 100 pages into the first one, and it's wonderful. I have no idea why these weren't in my school library when I was a kid, but they're the kind of books I'd have slept with.) I also bought the new Christopher Moore and a remaindered copy of The Lace Reader. It's a good thing Barnes & Noble doesn't provide shopping carts, because I was in a buying mood.

Sorry for all the footnotes, but my brain refuses to get organized . . . I'm in too much of a hurry to get back to Betsy!

_____

*Brilliant, dark, serious, interesting, funny. Byatt just rocks. She's brilliant. She tells stories within stories, makes me love and worry about her characters--all of whom are real and vital and flawed--and in this novel she looks hard at priorities and responsibilities, and . . . it's a very disturbing. But in a good way.

**Set in the same time period as TCB, but so much lighter and fluffier in comparison it practically floated. But fun and enjoyable, and recommended for a quick read.

***The boy who plays Jacob freaks me out, because he has the manly body, but a kid's face and voice, and I feel dirty when I can't help but admire that torso. Also freaky: His teeth are so white they're blue. Ew.

****We went to the 3-D IMAX version, because that was the one about the start when we got to the theater. I'd never seen a movie in this format, because I was afraid it would make me puke or give me a headache or both. It *did* give me a headache, but not until I took off my glasses at the end. No nausea at all, which was a relief. That said, though, neither the 3-D nor the IMAX did anything at all to enhance the story. Totally, utterly POINTLESS.

Bucket of FAIL

The Boy and some of his friends were on the loose this afternoon, and as all proper kids on their own do, they decided to get ice cream before going for lunch. They went to Ben & Jerry's, where The Boy and three other kids--one of whom is a girl--decided to try to eat this:



It's called The Vermonster, and it's free (and you get a free t-shirt) if you can eat it all inside of ten minutes.

From Wickipedia:

A Vermonster is a large ice cream sundae made by Ben and Jerry's. The name is a portmanteau of Vermont (the company's home state) and monster (indicating large size). It consists of standard sundae ingredients, but in such amounts as to (excessively) feed four people. It contains the following:

Twenty scoops of Ben and Jerry's ice cream
4 ladles of hot fudge
Whipped cream
3 cookies
A choice of 4 toppings
brownies
4 bananas
According to a Travel Channel show highlighting extreme foods (October, 2009), the Vermonster has 14,000 calories and 500 grams of fat.

Guess who came home without a t-shirt.

Hi There

It’s been a while, I know, but I’ve been busy. Work has exploded, which is a very good thing, and I’ve been busting ass at home trying to finally finish the move. See, I had to pay rent at the old place through this month, so I was taking my time getting the nonessential things moved. I had been slowly, reluctantly bringing boxes over, but last week I gave up and hired movers. Awesome decision, by the way, and totally worth the cash. But I did ask them to unload everything into my dining room to save time (and my money), so I’m still schlepping boxes.

And I keep getting distracted, because . . . THE BOOKS. I can’t decide which books should live in which rooms . . . and while most people might let that slide while they do more important things, like locate the crock pot or, I don’t know, uncover the dining room table, I want to play with my books. Do I want my most beloved books in my bedroom, so I can sleep with them, or do I want them in the living room, where I can see them all the time? Or how about behind the glass doors of the dining room built-ins? Because then they won’t get dusty! And clearly, each room needs a dictionary, but the other reference books can go in the office. Although maybe the books about television and movies should be in the living room?

See what I mean? The Boy’s books go in his room, and the cook books go in the kitchen (or maybe they should go into the dining room built-ins, because the kitchen isn’t exactly crying out to have more things crammed into it), and then . . . sigh. I just keep moving stacks of books around, because it makes me happy. Lugging shoes or clothes or (effing) Legos or bundt pans doesn’t thrill me at all, so I avoid it. (Speaking of books, when I’m not moving them I am reading A.S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book. I’ve had it for a while, but had been putting it off until I was in the right mood, and I LOVE IT. It’s rich and thick and layered (yes, I’m hungry—so what?), there are tons of people in it that need caring about, or disliking, or worrying over, and even though I’m not entirely sure where it’s headed, even after two hundred pages, I am in love.)

Anyway, the apartment is empty but for some trash and recycling that I couldn’t fit in the alley Sunday night and a china cabinet that I have to post to Craigslist (unless anyone local wants it—it holds a ton of crap and it has lights). I feel like I am NEVER going to be fully out of there, but I guess that’s to be expected after six years, right?

**

Did you see that the awesome Betty White is going to be on SNL? While it's sad that there are only two Golden Girls left, I get the feeling that Betty (my eldest Birthday Buddy) and Rue are fairly sanguine about being old, and that makes me kind of happy in a weird way. I mean, the Golden Girls are excellent role models--they're positively counter-cultural revolutionaries in this era of Forbidding Women to Age--but it's nice to know that the actresses are also great role models. They own being old ladies, and all that entails, and I'm glad to see it. It gives me hope that I will be a sprightly, caftan-sporting old broad who can happily slam a door in someone’s face. (Yes, Betty is my Birthday Buddy and I love her, but my Golden Girl of choice is Dorothy.)

And speaking of celebrities, did you see Judd Nelson at the Oscars? He looks so unlike my precious, bad-ass Bender that I may not have recognized him if he weren’t in the context of the other Hughes-ians. Duckie and Ferris haven’t aged enough for a change to have registered, and Anthony Michael Hall filled out a bit but looks much the same. Judd Nelson, though, looks like he spent a lot of years living pretty hard. Maybe not Mickey Rourke hard, but something along those lines. (Ha! Lines! See what a cool drug reference I just made there? I’m so hip.) Here’s hoping some casting director noticed him and offers him a similar come-back role.

**

Okay, moving, reading . . . oh: Knitting. I haven’t knit more than six or seven rows of anything since I moved. I tried the Class Sock in the Sensational Socks book, and it was moving along fairly well, but my carpal tunnel struck and I dropped it. Then I picked up some lovely silk yarn from my stash, in beiges and creams, and pale pinks that I thought might make a pretty spring scarf, but I created a disaster when I tried to roll the hank into a ball while sitting in the car waiting to pick up The Boy from reffing. So I’ve been trying to untangle that while I watch TV, but I’m not getting very far. Because all I want to do is read The Children’s Book!

I’ll get back to it one of these days. You know, once I’ve finished the book, finished unpacking, painted the living room and dining room, put some stuff on the walls, started the outside work on the house, and figured out which rooms my books should live in.

And They Call it . . . Puppy Love

No, I didn't get a puppy, however much The Boy might want one. My sister, however, added to her family this weekend. In addition to Sophie, the four-year-old French Mastiff, my sister now has Stella, the fifteen-week-old Bulldog.



I've never seen a sweeter, more patient and mild-tempered dog than the gigantic Sophie. She's fiercely protective of my nephew and The Boy (whom everyone refers to as her boyfriend), but otherwise, she lolls around like a kindly stuffed animal, allowing my nephew to sleep on her, play with her ears, and even give her an elaborate haircut with safety scissors. (My sister: "I knew things were too quiet!") Sophie is no less patient with her new little sister, regarding the rambunctious ball of love that is Stella with a look that says, "What is this little weirdo doing," even as Stella attempts to gnaw on her ears, paws, or tail. Aw!

***

I am in a compete and utter fiction slump. In the last weeks I've read Lizzie Skurnik's Shelf Discoviery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading, which is excellent, Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking, which is sad and funny and fun, a collection of essay's about Firefly (thanks, P!) called Finding Serenity: Anti-Heroes, Lost Shepherds, and Space Hookers in Joss Whedon's Firefly, which is awesome (I ordered the sequel and can't wait for it to get here), Nina Planck's Real Food: What to Eat and Why (who knew I could be persuaded to drink raw milk?), and Susannah Gora's fun and interesting You Couldn't Ignore Me if You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Huges, and Their Impact on a Generation.

I have about a chapter to go in that last one, and aside from some things about the writer's style that kind of annoy me, such as referring to Sixteen Candles as Candles and The Breakfast Club as Breakfast--like she's best pals with these movies or something--it drives me MAD . . . anyway, aside from that, it's an interesting look at some movies I loved back in the day but hadn't thought of in a long time.

I graduated from high school in 1989, so I was pretty much the prime target for these movies, and I love some of them deeply. I could recite from Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club line for line, and still use many of the lines as short hand to communicate with my sister. I don't know that I loved the things about those movies that I should have--I did not have a crush on Jake Ryan, for instance (I preferred the nerdy Farmer Ted character, who seemed a lot more fun), but I did love Sam's family and the other parts of the story.

I loved pretty much everything about The Breakfast Club, and wanted to be Ally Sheedy's character. I wasn't anything like her (or Molly Ringwald's character for that matter, though I did love her boots), but I wanted to be just like her--until the make-over scene. It bummed me out that she had to get "pretty" for Emilio. Sigh.

Anyway, I wasn't a big fan of most of the other movies of that style/genre/ilk. Pretty in Pink bummed me out. I despised everyone in Less than Zero and St. Elmo's Fire. I liked Some Kind of Wonderful well enough, but I didn't love it. The only one I really, really loved was Say Anything. Chuck Klosterman once said that Lloyd Dobbler ruined a generation of women, and I admit that's true for me. I loved his character with all my heart. Sigh. I always wonder if Lloyd and I would like each other now that we're grown-ups.

So yes, these movies were a part of my life, and shaped me in ways I couldn't have known. I didn't know any adults who'd gone to college when I was growing up, for example, so what did I think like should have been like in college and just after? Why, like St. Elmo's Fire, of course, only with people who weren't a bunch of hateful, whiny douche bags. Turns out that I most certainly could NOT afford an apartment like Judd Nelson shared with Ally Sheedy, or like Demi Moore's. Nor did I have a glamorous and/or important job. Therefore: Fail. Sigh.

I'm getting off track here, though. Sorry. The book is good, and if you're around my age it will make you think about a lot of things that may never have occurred to you. Give it a go.

So that's my big list of non-fiction. I bought the new Nick Hornby last week, Juliet, Naked, which I know I will like once I get to it, and also picked up Frank Portman's new book, Andromeda Klein. Portman wrote King Dork, which I really enjoyed, so I'm excited for this, and yet . . . I can't wait for the new Firefly book to show up so I can continue to immerse myself in the geekdom.

What's up with me?

Spoke Too Soon

Remember how I was just all proud of The Boy? Well . . . he and his best friend are here, and we've been watching America's Funniest Home Videos (we have 9,000) channels, and this is what they want to see). They decided they should make their own video, so now they're recording one another while artfully botching slam dunks into a nerf hoop, smashing into the front door and collapsing to the floor, writhing in fake pain.

Weirdos.

Teach Your Children Well

As a proud feminist since I learned such a thing existed, even going so far as to have earned an undergraduate certificate in Women's Studies, I am extremely gratified to announce that The Boy passes all gender awareness/sexism exams with flying colors. He recently observed while watching idiots on TV attempt all manner of Hilarious Schemes in hopes of wooing a pretty girl, "They must not know girls aren't people," and while watching the latest deluge of Barbie's "I Can Be Anything" campaign ads, "Yes, as long as it's a teacher, nurse, or secretary--or something else that involves little kids." I know it should be a no-brainer, but I can't tell you how proud it makes me to see that he's noticed my bitter feminist sarcasm all this time, and that he seems to have absorbed it!

Thus concludes my patting myself on the back.

Hermit the Hog

See what I did up there? I'm not fair to myself, because while it's true that I'm overweight, the last few days have presented me with major workouts, so I'm probably lighter despite all the eating I've done over the last few days. Lasagna. Real pudding with real whipped cream. Apple cake. Pizza. And breakfasts of the lumberjack variety.

Why so much food? We're a little but snowed in. Record-setting snows and all that. My driveway was filled with more than two feet of snow, and it took hours and hours and hours of digging. My arms and shoulders ought to be buff any minute now. Like Venus Williams buff. My hands ache from gripping the shovel and the hammer, which I had to employ to chip away at the ton of snow and ice left banked up in front of the driveway. Thanks for that, Mr. Plow. There is snow EVERYWHERE, and not a place to put it.

Those aren't bushes covered in snow--that's ivy ground cover hanging over a retaining wall; the snow is that deep on the ground. And it's still snowing!

The city is a total mess, and people are apoplectic because they can't get out of their homes. I'm lucky, in that I can leave if I need to--and I can walk to the grocery store --but I haven't had to leave because the city requested that the university where I work REMAIN CLOSED. I haven't been to work since I left early Friday afternoon, and I am enjoying the hell out of this unexpected vacation. Books, DVDs, baking, playing Nerf basketball in the living room . . . I seriously don't care if I never leave the house again. The Boy's school has already canceled for tomorrow, but I haven't heard anything yet. It's snowing again, so my fingers are crossed.

I was born to be a hermit. Truly.

Middle Age: Come Over Here So I Can Embrace You

I was born a little old lady, and now that I’m a scant year away from 40, I am really starting to embrace it.

While I’m not ready to stop coloring my hair, which has been graying since I was nineteen or so, nor am I ready to put a cut-glass bowl of hard candy on a doily any time soon, I am getting more comfortable with being angry and annoyed; I won’t say I’m turning crochety, but I’m willing to back off when the Muppets in my head do battle, and maybe let Kermit and Ernie take it easy when Oscar and Bert want to be heard. (As a lifelong Doormat and People Pleaser, this is a huge step toward maturation, even considering the Muppet metaphor.)

I am also feeling my age when it comes to music. Not in the, “Kids these days, with their hippity-hoppity pants on the ground,” kind of way—though I still can’t help but focus on lyrics and want to kick ass when I hear Kanye say he’d “do anything for a blonde dyke,” (too bad, Kanye, because LESBIANS AREN’T INTERESTED IN YOU), or that guy who’s, “trying to find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful,” (I don’t think he knows what that actually means). No, I’m still plenty troubled by stupid lyrics and sexist sentiments. Here’s one more: “Before I leave, brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack.” WHAT? You got 1500 on your SATs, Ke$ha—I heard you tell Scott Simon on NPR. Why in the WORLD would you say something so stupid and gross?

Sigh. Here’s what I mean about being an old lady when it comes to music: You know that song Low, where someone (maybe Flo-rida?) sings, “She got them baggy sweatpants, and the Reeboks with the straps . . . She hit the floor, next thing you know, shorty get low, low, low, low, low, low , low, low.” I love this song. I love it. And I am now old enough that if I were to hear this song at a wedding (because god knows I won’t be going to a club to hear it), I would dance to it with abandon, not caring at all how stupid I would look. There are a bunch of middle-aged people cutting rugs on my wedding video, and now, fifteen years later, I would join their frumpy ranks with pleasure. (And I think I'd also enjoy the fact that it would mortify The Boy.)

Youth? Suck it. Middle-age may come with a degree of invisibility, which can be disconcerting, but OH the freedom!

Presents!

I have to share these wonderful, SUPER linen dish towels my friend K sent for a housewarming gift!

And look at the cute little pouch they came in!!!!



Awesome, awesome, awesome! And you know what? I'm going to USE them. My mom wouldn't--she'd save them because they're too pretty--but linen wears like IRON, and I am going to use them ALL THE TIME. In fact, I sort of wish I could wear them. Oh, to be thin enough to be able to use one as an apron!