Thing

GottaBook: The Fib

GottaBook: The Fib: "A six line, 20 syllable poem with a syllable count by line of 1/1/2/3/5/8 – the classic Fibonacci sequence. In short, start with 0 and 1, add them together to get your next number, then keep adding the last two numbers together for your next one. It’s a wonderful sequence, and it’s one that is repeated in nature (most famously in nautilus shells). "

Here's my example:

Horse
crap!
I won't cry.
You can't make me cry!
I got my green belt yesterday!

Anyone else?

Green Belt!

Today was my green belt test. I took some Aleve and persevered. I think it went GREAT. All my worrying was for nothing. I certainly did get a green belt at the end of it, so what more can I ask than this? Nothing.

The kicking/punching was good. The hardest was doing a round kick / back kick combo while moving forward -- that was making me lose my balance a little, especially at the end of a bunch of other things. The form was good. I threw in an extra open hand block on Pyung Ahn Cho Dan, but hey. I was very happy with my forms. Self defense technique demo also good. The problem was, naturally, of course, no surprise here, sparring. Sparring makes me giggle and normally I get partners that just kindly hit at me and accept my feeble thrusts at them, but today I got a partner that was A BEAST, she was like... HUGE and extremely mean and she just kept hitting me, I kept laughing more and more hysterically, until Mr. Odom finally stopped the fight. I have a high pain tolerance -- I don't mind getting hit -- but I start getting disoriented and the whole thing just seems SO COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS I can't bear it. And I just laugh. Dan thinks the laughing was getting her all enraged. *cackle* Whatever. She was tough. I'd rather fight guys, frankly.

SO! The high point was the board-breaking, which I have been totally dreading. I had to break two boards with a step-side-kick, and I did on the SECOND TRY. No one hit it on the first try and I was the only one to hit it on the second try, including a bunch of GREAT BIG MEN! Whee!!! I totally BLEW IT AWAY. I kicked so hard that I actually fell headlong into the guys that were holding the boards. Woops! Hehehe. It was fun though. I was so worried about that -- all for nothing.

So, I got my green belt. No pictures, but Dan did come and brought Sadie so the whole family watched me. A fun time. A lot of worry for nothing. And thanks to Aleve and adrenalyn, I wasn't even in pain. YAY.

Captured by sleeping baby

Clean ring

Sadie

Celebratory Lunch

YARP

Today I'm going to the orthopedic surgeon to figure out what's going on with my foot/leg/back. This is all very charming because tomorrow is my green belt test (at last!) and I really don't want to find out I can't just hop myself up on pain killers and persevere.

Today I getting a hair cut.

Today I'm hanging fliers and sending out emails inviting people to the Happy Tales Book Club which starts next Wednesday and is for homeschoolers of an age to be amused by a pet-themed book club with a play date afterward at the playground in back of the library.

Today I'm going to Michael's to get the crap to put together a display for the kids program stuff projects I'm starting at Benny's karate school. And also the crap to make the little houses for the book club -- as an attendance record they can put another pet into their house every month. I need to make those.

Today I'm picking up my engagement ring which CRACKED across the band and needed to be fixed and is going to come back to me all shiny and cleaned and grand.

*what else*

That seems to be it. If you don't count a life-threatening pile of laundry. Which I don't.

After

Before

Book

Baby

X Ray

Bones

In a room

Orthopedic Surgeon

Hat

Cute

Sadie

Tree

Done

Collage and fruit

A Couple of Bennyisms

Benny was doing his time work this morning, learning more about telling time. He has just a few more time workbook pages left, and he's beyond what they're teaching him, but whatever. They're easy to do. Anyway, he was lecturing me on the significance of different hands on the clock, and what they are pointing to, and if this, then this, etc. and he was getting this very pedantic, sonorous tone to his voice, and he ended up the lecture by clasping his hands in that grand, patronizing way he has and saying...

"But no matter what time it is, you're still alive."

Heh.

Fast forward 6 hours or so and I've just spilled dried beans all over the floor and I call out, "Oh Benny! Help me pick these up, won't you please?" and he comes trundling over and says, "Mom, those beans hold no interest for me."

WHAAAAAT.

Ice Age: The Meltdown

The children liked it but they weren't riveted. That's the short of it. It wasn't a shocking disaster, but it was just a bit muddled. A little scattered. Fragmented. It failed to engage me.

But let's be positive. The writers wisely decided to vastly expand the role of Scrat the Squirrel in this version. Periodically we get to take a break from watching the mammoth, sloth, tiger, possums, and other mammoth walk very slowly along toward the vague "other end" of a vague "valley" to avoid a flood that is being caused by global warming. We get to step back from the grindingly uninspired mammoth love story and the other many subplots that go with the many characters. We get to watch a squirrel chase an acorn. And those sequences present some of the funniest bits in the film.

The rest of it is just kind of there. One problem is that there's really no reason for a sloth, a tiger, and a mammoth to be casting their lots together, except that they did in the first movie. That movie, I felt, had a storyline that involved actual characterization, growth, change, a real tension, etc. When the tiger almost fell off the cliff in Ice Age #1, I gasped. This time, I fidgeted. It just didn't seem real. And that's what I want from an animated movie about talking prehistoric animals -- REALNESS. No, but seriously, without some degree of actual jeopardy, of actual question of what will happen from scene to scene, without someone to root for and embrace -- it's just pointless.

The only character I was getting that for was the sabertooth squirrel. They could have saved a lot of money in celebrity voices.

Everyone had a subplot because they had to have something to do, so that was tidily arranged for them. But nobody's subplot had anything to do with the others'. And the global storyline about the flood was just a reason to walk... slowly. Slowly walk. And pester each other half-heartedly about how they were all going to die. Or not.

Like I said, the children didn't complain. I did laugh, many times, at the places I was supposed to. But it wasn't great.

Ice Age: The Meltdown

The children liked it but they weren't riveted. That's the short of it. It wasn't a shocking disaster, but it was just a bit muddled. A little scattered. Fragmented. It failed to engage me.

But let's be positive. The writers wisely decided to vastly expand the role of Scrat the Squirrel in this version. Periodically we get to take a break from watching the mammoth, sloth, tiger, possums, and other mammoth walk very slowly along toward the vague "other end" of a vague "valley" to avoid a flood that is being caused by global warming. We get to step back from the grindingly uninspired mammoth love story and the other many subplots that go with the many characters. We get to watch a squirrel chase an acorn. And those sequences present some of the funniest bits in the film.

The rest of it is just kind of there. One problem is that there's really no reason for a sloth, a tiger, and a mammoth to be casting their lots together, except that they did in the first movie. That movie, I felt, had a storyline that involved actual characterization, growth, change, a real tension, etc. When the tiger almost fell off the cliff in Ice Age #1, I gasped. This time, I fidgeted. It just didn't seem real. And that's what I want from an animated movie about talking prehistoric animals -- REALNESS. No, but seriously, without some degree of actual jeopardy, of actual question of what will happen from scene to scene, without someone to root for and embrace -- it's just pointless.

The only character I was getting that for was the sabertooth squirrel. They could have saved a lot of money in celebrity voices.

Everyone had a subplot because they had to have something to do, so that was tidily arranged for them. But nobody's subplot had anything to do with the others'. And the global storyline about the flood was just a reason to walk... slowly. Slowly walk. And pester each other half-heartedly about how they were all going to die. Or not.

Like I said, the children didn't complain. I did laugh, many times, at the places I was supposed to. But it wasn't great.

Tire bad. House good.

Yesterday on the way to church we got a flat tire. I picked up a nail in our driveway from the siding guys or the gutter guys or whatever guys, and by the time we had picked up Ahno and were halfway to church, it had poked through whatever vital membrane holds a tire together, and it went from fine to flat in about 2 seconds, sitting at a light. Some helpful guys were standing there, waiting to assist us, so they did, and Dan came from home and brought his knowledge of where the hell the tire and the jack were, and then the guys fixed the tire and we gave them a twenty to go get drunk, which they forthrightly admitted they were about to do anyway. Hey, Sunday morning!

Since we were all dressed up and had no where to go, we went to mediterranean lunch, and then house hunting. We looked at five houses. The fifth one was the one I have been drooling over and playing phone tag with the realtor over, trying to get in to see. We finally saw it at 3:30 yesterday and I am now officially in love with it. I am trying to rein in my emotions, because it's out of our price range, and I don't know if it's even a good idea for us to try and manage it, but it is lovely, in every way, completely spot-on perfect, and I've never seen a house I liked more.

This is a 100 year old house onto which an addition was put in 2004, and the addition includes this room, which has this fantastic kitchen. The rest of the room, spreading out to the right, has build in bookshelves and entertainment center, and then the adjacent little breakfast room, jutting out with all those windows on the right side, first floor. The thing jutting out with all the windows in the left side is the office. There's also a long dining room which we'd use as a den, and what was the dining room in the old house, which we'd use as a music room/art room.

The back yard has a great magnolia tree, perfect for climbing, and the neighbors have little kids. The neighbors two doors down the other way are homeschoolers with lots of kids and lots of swings and stuff in the yard. We've met them -- they seem friendly etc. The stairs off the kitchen go up to the master suite which has a deck on the second floor. Lots of bedrooms. Lots of room, in general.

What a day. :) It is a house that makes me want to go through the agony of moving, in fact makes me want to start packing today. We probably will not be able to get it, but it's nice to know such a perfect thing exists out there. Pictures below, etc.

Sadie

Tire store

Flat tire

Another Photo Show

This one is all the kids from Isle of Palms from last summer.

Here is the photo show.

Photo Show

Check it out -- is this cool or what?!? It's possibly cool. I'm testing it out to see if it's cool.

Go HERE to see a Photoshow of Benny and Sadie, one year ago at the playground. You'll need Flash to see it, I think.

House

House

Mall

Movie

Ice age

The Leak

We have an old house and an old refrigerator. Periodically, the refrigerator will spit out a medium sized puddle of cold water onto the floor. The floor, it should be noted consists of about 10 layers of alternating luon and linoleum, going back 100 years to who knows what at the bottom layer. Possibly dinosaurs. So, this floor is not, how shall we say, affected by a medium sized puddle of water. We, however, are. It's especially troubling since we have a puppy and a baby who are both still potty training. When you step in a puddle of water, in this house, you don't automatically think it's innocuous refrigerator drool. You think it's something more toxic. And sometimes you're right.

We just have assumed, lo these many months of puddling, that the cause was something very secret and unknowable. We thought we would finally have to get a new fridge. The problem with that is that the kitchen is old, with weirdly shaped original cabinets, and the fridge just barely barely squeezes into the hole that's there for it, and it's a tiny one. If we get a new one, we'll be replacing a tiny useless fridge when what we really want is a big giant monster fridge or at the very least, one with water in the door. To get that, we have to redo the kitchen. So getting a new fridge will cost about $20,000, and that's not going to happen, at least not this paycheck, know what I mean?

The other night, Dan actually *heard* the water trickling out of the fridge and he was moved to open the freezer and look in. This is something neither of us had ever done (except to get out tortellini, etc) because we just assumed this mysterious leak was deep in the inner private workings of the machine and we couldn't ever see what it is. Which is still partly true. What we DID see was that back in the back of the freezer, there is water dripping down onto a hot metal tube. This water sizzles, falls down onto the floor of the freezer where it then freezes again. I'm assuming that the puddle is formed when periodically a LOT of water falls down onto the hot metal tube, and there is too much to freeze again. The bottom of the freezer is like 2 inches of frozen drippage. Neat.

No one knows what to do about all of this. I just know that when I was making the children's breakfast this morning, a polite trickle of water made its way across each of my toes, one after the other, and I just thought, I've become used to this, which is kind of crazy.

In related news, did you know that it costs the government 1.4 cents to make each penny? Apparently the cost of zinc has gone up, and zinc is inside of pennies. Soon it will be more economical to melt the pennies down and sell them than to use them as legal tender. Don't try this at home, though, because the boiling point of copper is about 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. That's hot! Woo!

Another tale of workbook subversion. He likes to answer questions with as few words as possible. If a phrase will suffice, don't use a sentence. If a word will suffice, don't use a phrase. Etc. Yesterday he surpassed even himself -- he used a status bar. The page was about making inferences and the question was "Why do you think Jeff made cookies today?" Benny drew a long rectangle with a black triangle in one end of it, then labelled that end MIN and the other end MAX and put the word HUNGER underneath it. This makes tons of sense if you play the Sims. Which Benny does. With relish.

Group class

Group class

Seeing Sarah Chang

Chrysler Hall was a lot of fun last night. Thanks to the Academy of Music, we got to see a working rehearsal of Sarah Chang and the Virginia Symphony, practicing for their performances of the Sibelius Violin Concerto this weekend. It was so cool! She was absolutely riveting, in every way, and it was so interesting to watch them work out the tempo and the cues and whatnot. I'd never really thought before about the give and take between a soloist and a conductor, especially on a really romantic piece like this where the soloist is stretching and squeezing it.

Her performance and the piece itself reminded me of my favorite recording -- Perlman doing the Brahms violin concerto -- there was even a part with staggered octaves ascending that REALLY reminded me.

Afterward there was a Q&A downstairs, and she answered questions for about half an hour before being whisked off. Benny asked two questions: "What is your highest note?" and "Which do you like better -- Beethoven or Mozart?" The first question she didn't really understand what he was asking. He was blown away by how far she went up the fingerboard and wanted to know what note it was. She was telling him how E is the highest string on the violin. Which he knows. The second she answered Beethoven. Then she signed things and Benny got his Suzuki book signed -- cool!

He was SPECTACUARLY well behaved throughout the whole thing. During the rehearsal he wrote a book about stringed "insterments" including the "chelo" and the "fiolas." It is pretty hilarious. But he was quiet and good throughout and when it was time to ask his question he did it very clearly. Yay for Benny! I was so proud of him!

Chrysler Hall

Q and A

SC

Sarah chang

A

Kids

Corpse Bride

Corpse Bride was great, just like I thought it would be. In fact, it was exactly as I expected it to be -- which is good and bad.

I like Tim Burton and I like Johnny Depp, but I'm getting a little tired of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, together forever, true love always, etc. This time we have a Johnny Depp puppet. He is great, don't get me wrong, and I deeply understand the fixation, but... enough already. Note to Johnny Depp: More Finding Neverlands. More Pirates. Fewer deranged chocolate magnates. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a magnificent disaster.

Corpse Bride is neither a disaster nor a mess. In fact, it is lovely and charming, in exactly the way you would expect it to be -- no more and no less. The soundtrack is spot on, the visuals are haunting and exquisite, and the storyline is sweet. It did not blow me into next week like Nightmare Before Christmas did. However, this time I felt like I was in familiar territory, and when I saw "Nightmare" for the first time, I'd never seen anything like that before. Maybe if I'd seen this one first, I would have felt the same about it.

As for the love triangle between Emily Watson, Helena Boneham Carter, and Johnny Depp, I was definitely rooting for the Corpse Bride to win. The ending was tidy. The whole movie, in fact, was a little tidy. After the "Ahhhh cool!" moment of seeing how the real world was faded and the afterworld was saturated with color, I didn't see anything else in the movie to really charm me, apart from the usual Burton visuals.

I think that with the Legend of Sleep Hollow, Burton just lifted the bar so high that even he has trouble climbing over it any more. The one thing that did completely enthrall me was the fact that this is stop-motion animation. At the beginning of the film, I said to my husband, "It almost looks like stop-motion animation, but it couldn't possibly be. They must have used computers to kind of simulate it, for nostalgia purposes." No, it is really the genuine article. Which is stunning and beautiful. If you watch the "making of" featurette on the DVD, your teeth will fall out of your head with admiration for the effort that goes into this stuff. It is truly amazing.

Violin

Puzzle -- What is it?

I made a puzzle for you -- who can figyer out what it is?

Go HERE to see.

BREAK

We played hard all morning. Benny worked hard. He's learning (again) about fact and opinion. Again, the workbook is so weird and he reasons his way into giving the wrong answer, which could actually be right. Again, I'm trying to show him how to figure out what the book wants him to say, but I'm only doing it weakly, and in reality I'm just letting him go with his own idea. Later, he can figure out what the book wants him to say.
12:00 the contractors packed up and left for lunch. 12:01 the baby was asleep in her bed. I hope she gets a full hour before they commence pounding on the house again.

Bunnies and Sheep

Sadie

Real Dog

Pretending to be a Dog

Happy Anniversary

Siding guys are at it again. Sadie, in her little lemony dress, holding a small piece of bread in her dimpled hand, pointed at the man standing outside the window on a ladder, banging on the walls, obviously intent on tearing down the house. She said, "Hey. You doppit. Hush now."

*cackle*

Today is our anniversary! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO US. Nine years. This morning as Dan gave me my card he was humming the Song of the Volga Boatmen. The card was printed in black and white on a computer printer... and folded over. The outside has a picture of two people getting married and it says

Happy Anniversary

To someone so pleasant
And happy but not coarse
This card is your present...

And on the inside it says...

Dammit.

I love you!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think he's trying to top the Valentine's Day card that was a money card with two dollars in it. I just don't think that could ever happen. Not even by tormenting me with the possibility of being given a HORSE. I like him anyway. He's a nice man. Sometime we're going to go see V is for Vendetta in the theater as our anniversary date.

The back of the card says "Made especially for you by Your Husband!" in really special curly fancy font. *cackle*

The Squid and the Whale

This was billed as a comedy. It wasn't. Unless it's funny to watch miserable, irrevocably damaged people doing horrible things to each other, themselves, their children, and your own youthful idealism. For me, it was like getting poked in the eye with a pencil -- over and over. I kept standing there, expectant, hopeful, naive, thinking maybe I wouldn't get poked in the eye any more times, but inevitably it came -- the eye poke.

The movie is a long gauntlet of awkward situations, and unforgettably dreadful moments. There is no forgiveness, no redemption, no hope -- there is only wound heaped upon scar, from parent to child and back again, and from spouse to spouse -- kind of like the tennis that is a motif in the film. If you feel the need to cringe, here is your opportunity. I don't think my shoulders relaxed once throughout the movie, although their were many times when I stopped cringing with horror in order to clutch my mouth and say, "He did NOT just do/say that."

I am not a person who needs things to be all joyful or demands the happy ending. I have never said, nor will I ever say, "Can't we all just get along?" However, tomorrow is my ninth wedding anniversary, and this movie makes marriage, parenthood, or really any relationship at all with another person just seem like a toxic prison, from which there is no escape but nihilism. NEAT! Happy anniversary to me!!

For what it's worth, I also predicted everything that happened in the film as we went through it, including the development of the motif in the title. It was predictable in the wide view, but as for the many little barbs and spears that are thrown along the way -- unless you're as bloodless and depraved as the characters in the movie, you'll never see them coming.

I think, as a sidenote, this is the best acting Jeff Daniels has ever done. Pity it's in such a bamboo-shoots-under-the-fingernails of a movie.

John Malkovich

Pirelli Tires made an eight minute film to advertise their tires. It has John Malkovich in it. You can watch it in Flash... fullscreen... Click HERE.

Non Sequitur Award

Tomorrow night we're going to see Sarah Chang play the Sibelius Violin Concerto. We've been listening to it, and talking about it... preparing for it...

Me: Benny, do you remember when you went to see Hilary Hahn, with Daddy?
Benny: Yes. She played some very loud music.
Me: Are you excited? Tomorrow is the day we go see Sarah Chang!
Benny: Oh YES!!! I'm so excited because I love to meet new people!!!
Me: Oh, okay!
Benny: I love to chew on sleeves and towels!!!!

UH!? First, I love the fact that goign to see visiting violin prodigies really feeds his need to meet new people. I'm sure Hilary Hahn, Joshua Bell, and Sarah Chang, et al, would be glad they were making such an impact. Second, sleeves and towels? Is there some sort of... line that can be drawn, connecting those things? I mean? Really?

Alright!

Well I have been back on the detox diet for one day and I already feel better. And day one is always the hardest. When you get a day of dieting under your belt you feel like you've got a stake in it. And you don't want to lose that small gain. I really do feel better. Apparently, this insane dogma about nutrition has some foundation. Apparently, what you eat has some effect on how you feel. STRANGE. During the month of February, when I was so pristinely virtuous, I felt great, started 15 new projects, and basically ruled the world. Then March came, I went back to my old ways, and lost my zip. I need the zip back.

Last night we watched "The Squid and the Whale." Imagine if you're having a conversation with someone, and periodically they keep putting a stick in your eye, and you just sit there looking at them intently, expectantly, waiting for the next poke, and then it comes, and you open your eyes back up and wait for the next one. That's what watching that movie was like. We just sat there going "Ouch!" and "Ouch!" and "Ouch!" until the end. Which was unsatisfying.

Now I can't find my mobile phone.