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.