Longlegs

Bun

Jasmine

Multimedia message

Park day

Climber

Girl

Leroy

Dog park

Branch

Tendu

Picture

Benny's Book

Benny wrote a story called Benny and Zoe for Reading Rainbow's "Young Writers and Illustrators" contest. I think, looking at his book, that Reading Rainbow will probably drop it out the window or possibly set it on fire, but I'm in love with it. Click here to see the full book on an extra-wide page.

My Blog Log

Kind of sounds like "Bob Loblaw" from Arrested Development, eh?

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Puppets

Car place

Slide

Writing

Wifi World

I used to ask myself what we used to do when we didn't have the internet. How did we answer burning questions like, "How many movies did Tom Hanks do with Meg Ryan?" or "What's the new exhibit at the Smithsonian?"

Now I ask myself what we used to do when we didn't have internet in the car. In the living room. In Starbucks. Wifi has made life so much easier... what's next? Internet in my glasses, so I don't even have to look at a monitor? Wikipedia installed in my brain, so I don't have to type in "Brazil" to find out what lives in a kapok tree?

Last year, when we went to South Carolina, we experienced the utter bliss of having wifi in the condo. I don't know whose wifi it was, and I don't care. Maybe the neighbors'. Maybe some magical unicorn on the roof was emitting the golden signal from its twisty horn. All I know is that instead of putzing around with a dial-up connection that was powered by hamsters running in a rusty wheel, we had smooth, beautiful, glorious wifi night and day.

Here we sit, Dan and I, with our laptops in our laps, watching TV. No wires, no waiting. Whatever's next -- great. In my opinion, wifi is as good as it gets.

Violin

Snow

Tutu

Reading

Sewing leotards

Tea

Bakers

Watching Peter Pan

Authors

Ballerina

Marie Antoinette, Lemony Snicket, and Poor Poor Jennifer Connelly

Marie Antoinette:
Dude, I do not care if it's historically accurate or even socially responsible. This movie was like one looong piece of fancy pastry. Colorful, sweet, and low on dialogue. I loved it.
When I say the movie was low on dialogue, consider that there is almost no dialogue whatsoever for like the first twenty minutes of movie. Merciful! After that, they do make with a little bit of the old talky-talky, but who cares? What we like seeing are the "Oh the excess!" montages, the flossy haired children cavorting in the French countryside, the clothes, the shoes, the wall murals. Punk rock and chamber music, Kirsten Dunst pretending to be kind to that guy from Rushmore. The fact that the French people love Francis Ford Coppola so much that they let Coppola Jr. use the actual palace to shoot the movie. THAT is what we want to see.
Know that I am aware of the weakness of the statement being made in the movie. It's a thin statement, and weak. In a way, it's made in the first scene, and the rest of the movie exists only so we can appreciate the sets, props, and costumes. And the marzipan. Don't expect any stunning revelations or subtle messages. The movie is right there, with whatever it has, in sherbet colors, repeating its simple themes and idea. What saves it? Kirsten Dunst. She's relentlessly good, just sweet enough, just ruthless enough, a tiny bit vulnerable, a tiny bit awful -- she was a fantastic queen. See it. In high-def if possible.

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
I had misgivings. I was so over Jim Carrey, and I had read things about how he upstaged everyone in the movie and kind of took it over. Well, forevermore. He was awesome. This is for sure my favorite Jim Carrey performance. It was smart, funny, varied, interesting... I forgive him for The Grinch. I do not forgive the producers of the Grinch, but I absolve Jim Carrey of his involvement. The best thing about his "Count Olaf" was that he had me paying attention, close attention, to every second of his screen time -- it was that quick and that interesting. Loved it.
Add to this the gorgeous visuals, very Tim Burton, very true to the books. The children did well, particularly Violet, and I loved how Sunny was portrayed in all her biting joy. Meryl Streep was hilarious. I loved the whole thing, didn't want it to end, and Benny loved it too. Sadie wandered off to play on the computer, but she wasn't terribly alarmed by it. There was a pervasive sweetness and beauty in the movie that surprised me. I thought the books were a little violent for the kids, but I read them a while ago. The fact that the threat of violence is actually real and he actually does hit them... that makes it a little bit intense. If you get this on DVD, do not neglect to watch the extensive extra footage of Count Olaf and his theater troupe. Yes, a little indulgent. But hilarious.

Dark Water
Jennifer Connelly is very very good at acting. This movie is terrible, though. Poor, poor Jennifer Connelly.

Gavotte in DM

Reading

Portrait

Paint

Family Time

Dad: Sadie is a nut. She has a rubber butt.
Sadie: MOM, HE SAY I AM A RUBBER BUTT.
Me: He did???
Sadie: Yes, he say I AM A RUBBER BUTT.
Me: Did you call him a rubber butt?
Sadie: No, I SAY DAD YOU ARE A RUBBER BUTT!
Dad: Sadie is a nut. She has a rubber butt.
Me: Dad!
Sadie: NO I DO NOT HAVE A RUBBER BUTT. I HAVE A PRINCESS BUTT.
Dad: And every time she turns around it goes "Putt, putt."
Me: *laughter*
Sadie: Stop laughing at me, YOU MAYNARD!

Reading Undercover

My mother read ridiculous things to me.

Every night of my young life, I heard a chapter of the Bible, and then I heard a chapter of a novel. But what novel? In my preschool years, it was The Borrowers, or Stuart Little, the Little House books, or Narnia. But then as I got older, she read preposterous things. Ivanhoe and Bleak House. The Vicar of Wakefield. Lorna Doone. Did she actually read Henry Esmond, by William Makepeace Thackeray, to an elementary school student? Did she really read Adam Bede?

Mother sat next to me with her shoes off and her feet up, on the spot at the edge of the bed where I would later fall asleep. She propped the book on her stomach. She read through the bottom part of her bifocals. She was a school teacher by day, and by bedtime she was tired, so sometimes while reading she fell asleep and her chin sagged down, her mouth went slack. I could see her eyes closing. At these times I would read out the next word, or ruthlessly and gently poke her in the arm. She never complained or skipped ahead or closed the book and said, "For Pete's sake, I made your breakfast and your dinner, drove you to school, washed your clothes, supervised your homework, and oh by the way earned a living today, and if I want to fall asleep after wow fifteen paragraphs of George Eliot, then it's a right I have earned." She would just clear her throat and continue. She never phoned it in either. If the eighteenth century angst was flowing, then it was flowing. I honestly can't remember how she put so much life into those texts, but she did.

There were limits, however. One chapter only. Then the lights went out, the goodnights were said, and the book was left on my bedside table.

"Under no circumstances must you read any of that book without me," she would say darkly. "Go to sleep immediately so you can get up for school."

But I really wanted to get on with the book and find out what happened. Stopping after just one chapter was agonizing. Even if the book was about the plight of coal miners in Wales, and I therefore had no hope or capacity to understand it at all, I wanted to read those books, desperately. Lights out, however, was firm in our house.

Now, for some reason, all of us in our house slept with heating pads in our beds. I'm not sure why. The heating pad, however, was useful in that there was a tiny light in the control box. Low, medium, or high, it still shed a tiny orange splotch of illumination on my book. Is it possible that I was reading Dickens at age 8 by the light of a heating pad power switch? I did. A lot. With the dog under the covers. Until I fell asleep.

So I read ahead. Whole chapters. The next night, when Mother cracked the book, I would casually tell her that I'd read on without her, like I'd say, "Oh, I read that. I'm here now." And she'd glower at me and grumble vaguely and move to the new place. Wow! I thought to myself: She is totally buying this! I am so super stealthy! Silently, in the dark, I kept peering at my books in the orange light. Now that I am... rational... I understand that my mother knew exactly what she was doing and exactly what I was doing. Weird! This was the woman who turned on lights behind me every time she walked into a room I was in, because reading in the dark was tantamount to doing a bleach eyewash in her book. How did she let me continue with my heating pad habit?

I do, I must admit, wear glasses now. But she made a lifelong reader out of me, with Dickens and Thackeray and Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Swiss Family Robinson. Now I let my child read until he falls asleep, with the light on, after I finish reading to him. Yes, I've taken away the element of stealth and transgression, but I hope the effect will be the same. She showed me how to immerse myself in reading, and that has made my life immeasurably more interesting.

This post was written as an entry in the Crazy Hip Blog Mama's book giveaway, because I want to win a book from the Kane Miller Publishing Company, specifically one called "Flusi the Sock Monster." I must investigate what's been happening to Sadie's lacey ankle socks.

Gracie McGracerson

Feeding

Yorkshire pig

Maybe Neil Young

I need to work on another impression. The only one I can do is Aaron Neville and that's bad. I don't mean my impression of Aaron Neville is bad -- it's awesome. But it's bad that my only one is him. He's not exactly... representational. Of me. Or my potential as an impressionist. Which is, I believe, extensive if not limitless.

*wan smile*

I think I will do Neil Young. I can do like... Helpless. Or Heart of Gold. I believe I can do a very convincing Neil Young.

Wait. Can *I* do Jimmy Stewart waking up in a pool of his own sick? Or was that Dana Carvey doing that? Or my college roommate?

Holding sister up

Playing zebra and hippo

Moon

Constellation

Bats

Aquarium

Medal