Storing Christmas

Today was a lovely, sunny day in the seventies, and we took advantage of it by taking down all the Christmas lights, inside and outside, and putting them away in the attic.  I think the real dividing line between childhood and adulthood is the point at which you stop being sorry to see all the Christmas paraphernalia put away.  My parents used to have to put all the decorations away while I was at school because I'd whine too much about saying goodbye to it all.  Now I look forward to having it all put away.  Not the actual process of putting it away, you understand -- that's always a hassle -- but having it all out of the way and realizing I don't have to mess with it again for another eleven months.

The penultimate post

Because we've been up past midnight every night this week watching old TV shows on Roku, I have two blogs left to go in one day.  I have been eagerly awaiting the finish line of this resolution and still haven't decided what, if any, blogging resolution to make for 2012.  It won't be five days a week, though; that's for certain!  My life simply isn't interesting enough for that.

Christmas debriefing, part the second

The kids had a great Christmas, as well.  They got stuffed toys (Nemo for Eric and Finn McMissile for Faith) and glowing plastic light sabers.  Faith got a plush Rapunzel doll and a Maximus with brushable, styleable mane, and Eric got extra track and a new covered bridge and windmill for his wooden train set....

They both got new clothes, which I wouldn't have been excited about at all at their age, but they really enjoy getting....

But the biggest hits came from grandparents this year.  My parents got them a pair of walkie-talkies (Lightning McQueen for Eric and Finn McMissile for Faith) that they have a grand time calling each other on, and their Grandma Pattie gave them "learning laptops" with educational games which they are really enjoying playing.

Christmas photo

Christmas debriefing, part the first

Had a very nice Christmas.  Got a Kindle and jewelry and season 6 of "Doctor Who" and a stack of books.  Better yet, I made coconut cream pie for the first time, and it turned out delicious.  Got Tommy a new Bible (pages are falling out of his old one) and a Roku that I had to upgrade our wireless router for, but we've been enjoying watching our Amazon Prime Instant Videos on the actual TV from the couch instead of hovering around a 17-inch monitor.

Merry Christmas!

Kaleidoscope Christmas Card

Find unique and Personalized Christmas cards at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

The most amazing holiday lights display I've ever seen in person

This house is in a neighborhood about five minutes from our own, where Tommy delivers packages. He says they started installing lights around Halloween. We went by to see the finished product last week and were utterly blown away. This is just one of about a half a dozen songs to which the lights are choreographed. You can hear the music softly from the house itself, and they provide a radio station to tune to in your car to hear it simultaneously at your choice of volume. I feel like we ought to send this family a thank-you note for their beautiful gift to everyone. The sign in their yard said they had won their neighborhood holiday display contest. You think?!

I knew there was a reason I got the 17-inch widescreen laptop...

...it's just the right size to be a cat bed.

World's worst stocking stuffer

Found this in my e-mail inbox today.

...even leaving aside the fact that it's too late to get this by Christmas Eve.

Me, I want a hula hoop

If only one good thing came out of the existence of "Alvin and the Chipmunks 3: Chipwrecked" (and I'm fairly certain that one is the upper numeric limit for which it can claim credit), it's that "A Chipmunk Christmas" was dug out of mothballs and aired tonight on ABC, in all its Chuck Jones-animated glory.  I especially enjoy that Alvin looks like a tan Grinch on the top of Mount Crumpet when he unwraps the harmonica and Tommy's older sister looks like a grown-up Cindy Lou Who.  (A throwaway little girl in the Alvin-dresses-as-Santa sequence is actually named 'Cindy Lou.')

"Huh?" moment of the day

I learned from the Parade magazine in the Sunday paper that Jami Gertz was 2011's most philanthropic celebrity.  Apparently, she and her husband gave away $10,569,000.  And I'm left wondering where the heck Jami Gertz got ten million dollars to give away.  Has she even done anything since "The Lost Boys?"

(And as I read her IMDB page, I see she's had several TV roles in the intervening years.  I haven't heard of her since "The Lost Boys.")

Happy Meals, or The Irony of Do-Goodism

So, Happy Meals.  I have been a connoisseuse thereof twice in my life, once when I was eating them and now again that I'm buying them for my kids.  (The toys are way better now, by the way.  McDonald's was still producing their own when I was in the target demographic; now they're licensed by different toy, movie and TV companies.  See below Faith's My Little Ponies, each of which was a free toy in a Happy Meal box.)

McDonald's has been under fire, however, for the epidemic of overweight children, so they recently introduced a new healthier Happy Meal.  One used to have a choice of either apple slices or fries as a side item, but the meddlesome forces of good felt that too few parents ordered the apples.  Now there is no more option: each Happy Meal comes with a smaller bag of apples in addition to fries.

The net result for my family is that the new healthier Happy Meal is actually less healthy.  I always used to order apple slices with the kids' McNuggets.  Now, I get two bags of fries and fewer apples with our meals, when I used to get more fruit and no fries.  Way to go, Helen Lovejoys of the world.  Job well done.

A right jolly young elf

Eric made himself a starter Santa beard with bubbles in the bath tonight.

A walk down Christmas Memory Lane

I had all of these but the Supersoaker; it was a little after my time.

Christmas cookies

We got a big Christmas box from here from my brother-in-law's family on Friday: a four-box tower of brownies and cookies.  (Hey! It was food; we had to open it before Christmas.  At least half of it is gone already.  Thanks, Less and Pam!

Seasonal thoughts

Today I asked Eric if he could name the four seasons.  "Spring," he began.  "Fall.  Winter."  He paused to think a moment.  "And cloudy."

A picture is worth at least one blog post.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel

Early this afternoon, I had a really decent idea of something I could blog about today.  Only now that I'm actually sitting down to a blank screen, I can't for the life of me remember what it was.  This resolution will kill me yet, with less than a month to go.  Must remember to jot down a note next time I think of something to type, or I won't remember it when I'm tired and desperate.

Y.M.C.A.

Today (well, yesterday now) was our last day of swim lessons for 2011.  Normally they'd start up again in January, but the kids are doing basketball in January and February and then we're planning to take a vacation in the spring.  It might be almost summer before we get back to it again.  I hope Eric doesn't entirely forget anything  he's learned in his twelve weeks of lessons -- not a lot, really, other than a familiarity with the water and not being afraid to jump in without holding his teacher's hands.  It'll be nice to take a break from the twice-weekly drive to and from the Y, although by the time I sign them up for lessons again, I'll probably be looking forward to the 45-minute reading break I get while one of them is swimming.

Complaints

It's Monday, and I'm already a day behind on blogging because I didn't post over the weekend to make up for missing a day last week.  Christmas is rapidly approaching, I have presents to buy and cards to send, and this is the last week of swim lessons and Zoo Academy before the holidays.  It's cold and wet and windy, and I have to get out the glue gun and fix the wreath that was stored upright in its box rather than flat so that decorations have fallen off.  Also, have misplaced the box of Christmas books and the toy nativity scene for the kids, which means I have to go back up in the attic and look for it in the aforementioned cold, wet, windy weather.  Remembered to order Christmas stamps so I wouldn't have to go to the post office, but forgot to also order the 20-cent stamps that my cards will need extra because they're a non-standard five-inch-square envelope so I'm still going to have to go to the post office.  Yay for Yuletide cheer!

The periodical table

During Tommy's two weeks off at Thanksgiving, we actually put the kids to bed early one night and made a little incursion into the spare room.  You can kind of walk in there now.  Anyway, of all the things I didn't need to find in there, I ran across a stack of five or six magazines from summer 2010 that I never read.  I sighed but dutifully put them into my big tote bag o' periodicals with all the magazines I've been trying to catch up on since last April.

This morning was my second-to-last Friday morning sitting in McDonald's for three hours while Faith is at Zoo Academy, but since I felt a lot less guilty about merely skimming through 18-month-old magazines than the fresh new ones, I am now down to three magazines to read before my bag is empty.  Granted, a couple of them are fairly thick, as they're the quarterly sort (and one is a special Winter/Spring double edition), but unless I get a whole new slew of them in the mail this week (and most of what I'm getting in the mail now is holiday catalogs), there is a definite light at the end of the tunnel.  I might actually get to read some of the books I got for last Christmas by this Christmas.

Why, Jiminy, what big ... everything you have!

This is apparently the largest known insect in the world, with a seven-inch wingspan.  It is only found on a small island off New Zealand.  Oddly enough, it's kind of cute.  Maybe it's the way it's sitting up on its hind legs and eating a carrot like a bunny with an exoskeleton.

Yup, not near as cute down on all sixes.  Ew.

It's not my fault!

Last night I clicked over here to put up a last-minute blog before bed and got this:

Service Unavailable

Error 503

So blame Blogger that I was a day late in passing on some of the most positive news I've heard for the future of our nation in quite some time:

"A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" beats "A Very Gaga Thanksgiving" in TV ratings.

An auspicious beginning to the Christmas season

For the first time in several years, I knew exactly where both my Christmas earrings and my Christmas music CDs were the day after Thanksgiving.  You don't know how many times I've only found one or the other after the 25th.

Time in flight

Quick: What's the shortest month of the year?

No, it's not February, calendrical evidence notwithstanding.  It's November.  It seems Halloween is barely in the rear-view mirror, and already Thanksgiving is over and Christmas (too) fast approaching.

Of course, it all depends on your perspective.  Today Eric was complaining about how far away Christmas is and how long it's going to take to get here, even pulling out his calendar to show me how long it is until Christmas.  (It's on a whole other page than Thanksgiving, it turns out.)  Honestly, I remember those days.  The school weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks used to seem like years.  (The existence of end-of-semester tests just added to their unpleasantness.)  That's the difference between having nothing to do but anticipate Christmas and being the one responsible for making Christmas happen.

We had a pleasant afternoon here and got the Christmas lights up outside the house today.  The tree is put together and in the window, too, but by the time I got done stringing lights outside, I didn't feel like dealing with the ornaments the same day.  That will be our job tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Eric just came up to me tonight after his bath and told me, "You're the best mommy ever.  You know, even when you make sins, God still loves you.  And you do that, too."

Thanksgiving Eve

I'm farther ahead in the Thanksgiving game this year than I was last.  I got two pumpkin pies baked this evening, and they're already cooled and ready to go into the fridge overnight, instead of just getting out of the oven at ten o'clock like last year; and I have the battery for the power drill plugged in.  We cook our turkey breast on a little electric rotisserie, and finally last year I found a way to put the spit through the breastbone that doesn't involve breaking the plate underneath or driving it into Tommy's palm (both of which have happened previous Thanksgivings).  Last year, after trying to bore through the bone by hand, it finally occurred to me to use power tools!

Entrepreneurship and names

Today we made our first visit to the Five Guys Burgers and Fries that opened up several months ago up the street from us.  Found that the hype was not entirely without substance.  Faith decided that she wanted to open up a restaurant when she grew up and call it Five Hogs Burgers and Dogs, since she prefers hot dogs to hamburgers.  Eric said he was going to have a restaurant called Eric's Restaurant of Spectacular.

Career Day

Eric's ambition

Another reason to despair of Western civilization

It's been a while since I made fun of "Parenting" magazine, right?  The December/January issue suggests Little Critter's The Night Before Christmas on the basis that it "offers a modern spin on the original's archaic language."  Archaic?  Really?  This isn't Beowulf or Chaucer.  It's not even Shakespeare.  And to make matters worse, the example given is that the book changes "Not a creature was stirring" to "Not a critter was stirring."  So "creature" is an archaic word that kids won't understand, while "critter" is "modern," as opposed to, say, dialect.  Who knew Elly May Clampett was so progressive in her speech patterns?

Having a ball

Now that the kids are signed up for basketball, Tommy had to go buy them each their own ball to practice with

The Sporting Life

Faith and Eric have two more weeks of swim lessons before the holiday break.  Eric jumped into the pool without holding his teacher's hands for the first time yesterday.  He was very proud of himself.  Also last night, they both went in for their evaluations for Upward Basketball at our church this January and February.  Neither one have ever played before.  Eric managed to get one ball in the lowest basket and did fairly well at dribbling with his right hand; Faith shot one basket from either side on the medium basket.  Just as we were leaving, her best friend Alyssa came in for her evaluation, so hopefully they will end up on the same team.

I'm so there.

January 13, 2012, as a short before the 3D re-release of "Beauty and the Beast."

Chuck and Tangled

Ever since we saw "Tangled," we've been hoping for in-jokes in the final season of "Chuck," as Zachary Levi plays the titular character and voiced Flynn Rider.  I was really looking to see Chuck fight off some bad guys with a frying pan.



Haven't seen it yet, but in last week's episode, Captain Awesome was left at home alone with his baby daughter for the first time when Ellie went back to work.  She leaves at 9 AM, and we see a montage of Awesome cleaning house, feeding the baby, cooking, working out, etc.  Then he looks at his watch and says "9:45?  AM??"  And I can't help but wonder if it's a sly reference to the opening song in Tangled:




7 AM, the usual morning lineup
Start on the chores and sweep 'til the floor's all clean
Polish and wax, do laundry, and mop and shine up
Sweep again, and by then it's like 7:15...

Building a reputation

I was working children's church today, so Tommy had to stand around out in the corridor until all the kids got picked up by their parents and I was free to go.  Faith's Sunday School teacher came by and told him something that had happened in class this morning.  Every week, they send home a little tear-out worksheet for homework that has some little activity or puzzle or something on it that the kids are supposed to bring back the following Sunday.  Honestly, most of the kids don't even bother taking them home with them; they're always left all over the classroom after children's church.  So, after handing out the worksheets, the teacher asked, "Who's going to bring back their homework next week?"  And a classroom full of second- and third-graders answered, "Faith!"

Playing favorites

A page in Faith's grammar workbook on capitalization (of titles, to be specific) asked for her favorite book and movie.  She wrote that Dinosaurs Before Dark is her favorite book, although I think it's really The Boxcar Children, and that "Doctor Who" was her favorite movie.  (Technically, it's a TV show rather than a movie, but she only watches it on DVD so I can understand the mistake.)  She asked what my favorite book and movie were.  The Count of Monte Cristo was an easy pick for favorite book, but I had a hard time coming up with a favorite movie.  I finally said "The Cutting Edge."  Although it's hardly in the same league with Monte Cristo artistically, it's the movie I can sit down and watch almost any time and thoroughly enjoy even though I know exactly what's going to happen and in fact have most of it memorized.  I'd say it's a guilty pleasure, except that I don't feel at all guilty about liking it.  Now I want to go watch it now, actually....

How others apparently live

Can't remember if I've mentioned it here before, but Faith has been going to a weekly class for homeschoolers on Friday mornings at the zoo this fall.  Eric's been staying with my mom, and instead of driving back and forth and spending more than an hour in the car, I go to the McDonald's I frequented during zoo camp this summer and sit with a Diet Coke and free refills to read the newspaper and magazines for a little less than three hours.  Or at least, that's what I normally do.  Today, a mom and her two young-adult daughters sat at the table next to me and talked about planning a resort wedding.  Learned more than I ever wanted to know about prices of resorts in Barcelona vs. those in Mexico and if you have to wear a wristband (why?) and whether they all thought they could each save $2500 in six months to pay for travel and board. Tried to tune them out but couldn't.  Didn't get much reading done this morning.

It's beginning to look a lot like...

So I'm really falling down on the blogging thing this week.  The closer to the end of the year I get, the worse job I'm doing.  I think it's a combination of blogging fatigue and the fast-approaching holidays.  Our church has a daily schedule for Bible reading, and I kept up with it all last year until the week of Thanksgiving, at which point it just all ended until I got back to it with the good intentions of the new year.  So far this year, I'm about 4 days behind on it, all of which has happened since Halloween.

Halloween is the archway with "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here" inscribed on it in the calendar.  From there, the final two months of the year just turn into a avalanche which gathers speed until it deposits me, stunned and breathless, in January.  Have to buy a turkey; have to make pies; have to shop; have to clean; have to decorate; have to wrap presents sometime before Christmas morning; have to find the Christmas music (the last three years, I have never found my crate of Christmas CDs until after Christmas); have to buy Christmas cards, then have to get them mailed.  And this year, I never even finished thank-you notes from my birthday eight months ago!  And I haven't answered e-mail since Valentine's Day.  And I haven't mailed anyone a birthday card since April when I could never get my hands on photos of the kids, cards, a calendar, and my address book all at the same time, and when I could, there was so much piled on the dining room table, I couldn't even sit down to write them until I cleared it off....

2011.  Tough year for getting things done.  I'm taking the next two weeks off homeschool (except for minimal reading and math to keep them from regressing) and will try to get some of the above conquered.  I will pay with tears when I have to get them back into the daily lesson rut afterwards, but I need some time off.  More importantly, I need not to waste the time off I take.

Upgrade

I type from a new laptop tonight.  My old one got a bad infection several months ago, and while I was able to recover from it, the audio never sounded right afterwards so we had to use Tommy's computer for watching movies or listening to music.  So when my backspace key popped off and the retaining clip broke while I was trying to put it back on, I just decided to upgrade.  So, yeah, I bought a new laptop because a key came off.  Doing my part for the global economy!

Sneak Reviews

Faith had her friend Alyssa over on Saturday, and we took them and Eric to see "Puss in Boots."  It was pretty lame, and that's coming from someone who still has some latent affection for Antonio Banderas' Zorro and thus is willing to cut the movie some slack.  It's astonishing to what extent Pixar has lapped the field in children's movies, even second-tier Pixar like "Cars 2" and "Monsters, Inc."  (I know critics loved it, but I include "Ratatouille" in the second-tier list, while putting "Cars" and "A Bug's Life" in the first-tier slot.  Go figure.)

The game of the century!

So they're billing tomorrow's LSU-Alabama football game matching the #1 ranked team in the country against the #2 as "the game of the century."

Really?  The game of the century?  The game of the year, I'd buy maybe, although even then you're going to end up with another #1 vs. #2 in the BCS championship game, so you're kind of underselling that already.  But at this early point in the century, they're already willing to go out on a limb and say there will not be a comparable game at any time in the next 89 years?  I guess I can stop watching college ball on TV for the rest of my life then.

"I'm a count, not a saint!"

Love little in-jokes in shows, along the lines of Rick Castle's space-cowboy Halloween costume and the way he learned to speak Mandarin "from a TV show I used to love."  Tonight's "Person of Interest" had one -- maybe, anyway.  Reese and his "number of  the week" were hiding out in an apartment where a high school student was reading The Count of Monte Cristo.  Just as he was saying "Edmond's cool," they cut to a shot of Reese giving a little smile in the corner.  Jim Caviezel, of course, starred as Edmond Dantes in a very fun film version of the novel almost a decade ago.  The episode ended up referencing the plot of the novel before it was over, so maybe it was just a coincidence, but....

Oh, and Keith Mars in what looks to be a recurring role!

...and Eric's takings

Taking stock

So tonight was the actual night for trick-or-treating.  Last year was cold and windy; this year, it was clear and 70 degrees: a much more pleasant walk.  There seemed to be fewer houses with their lights on this year than last -- maybe it was because Halloween was on a weekend last year rather than  a Monday night -- but, as always, the people in our neighborhood are very generous with their handouts.  By the time we made the loop around our neighborhood and zigzagged down most of the cross streets, both kids pumpkins were almost full to the brim, and Eric was tired and ready to go home.  I took him back to our house when we passed by, while Tommy took Faith on to hit three more streets.  She had to pack her stash down to keep it from overflowing the plastic pumpkin, and Tommy was carrying it for her when they got back.  Last year, I weighed each pumpkin at over three pounds.  This year, Eric's clocked in at 3.5 pounds, while Faith's almost tipped five!  Here she is, sorting her loot.

Halloween weekend

After the Fallapalooza Friday night, the rest of our Halloween weekend activities weren't specifically Halloween-y at all.  On Saturday, the kids went back to the science museum for Saturday museum school classes.  Faith learned about flight and how to fold six kinds of paper airplanes, and Eric learned about stars, comets, and asteroids.  Here they are on the handy photo-op prop just outside the education building, the big metal tortoise.

Premature celebration?

I was sitting in McDonald's yesterday morning while Faith was at Zoo Academy.  They have TVs constantly running a news channel, and I saw my first Christmas commercial of the year.  It was for air freshener.  I know it's silly to expect them to wait until Thanksgiving, but couldn't they at least wait until after Halloween to start with the jingle bells?

Halloween again

It's the first day of our Halloween weekend, which began with Fallapalooza at our church tonight.  Faith was Dorothy again because the only way to talk me into buying her another pair of red sequined shoes was to agree they could be part of a costume.  Dorothy was a popular costume at the festival this year.  Our children's minister was dressed as Dorothy with her husband as Scarecrow and their new baby as the Lion; our music minister's kids were dressed as Dorothy, the Tin (girl) Woodman, (girl) Scarecrow, and toddler boy Cowardly Lion; and there were at least three other blue gingham jumpers I saw over the course of the night.

Eric is a member of Lightning McQueen's pit crew.  Yes, he is wearing pajamas.  I could purchase a Lightning McQueen pit crew Halloween costume which is basically just a shirt and pull-on pants printed with Cars logos, or I could put him in the Cars pajamas he already owns which are basically just a shirt and pull-on pants printed with Cars logos.  I'm cheap and lazy.

Fallapalooza was less hectic than it has been in the past this year.  Usually, we've had Faith going one way and Eric another, and each of us follows after one of them helping them with the games and carrying their candy buckets and prizes.  This year, Faith met up with her best friend early in the evening, and they took off together; we only saw them a few times in passing until it was time to go.  Three more years, and Eric ought to be at that point, too.  No more Halloween stress!

What Faith is reading now

Had my cursor blinking in a blank post last night when Tommy went to bed.  He has a bad cold and is very cranky and started yelling out at me wondering if I was ever going to come to bed because it was 12:30.  Actually, it was 11:15, but I went ahead and shut the computer off anyway and went to bed.  So I'll owe you an extra post this weekend.  We have Halloweenish activities Friday, Saturday, and Monday, so it'll be a busy one.

Faith just finished reading Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.  She enjoyed it and wondered if there was another book in the series.  Dahl did leave it very open-ended.  (Last lines: "Well, Charlie," said Grandpa Joe.  "It's certainly been a busy day."  "It's not over yet," Charlie said, laughing.  "It hasn't even begun.")  I assumed he did so on purpose so that he could write another sequel if it proved lucrative.  I didn't realize that Great Glass Elevator wasn't released until after the Gene Wilder version of the original book.  The timing would indicate that he wrote it to cash in, but Wikipedia tells me he hated the movie (not without good reason).  Perhaps he hoped to distract attention from it.  The same Wikipedia article also tells me he intended to write a third book, Charlie in the White House, which is exactly what Faith thought the sequel should be called.  (Honestly, it doesn't take a great deal of insight to come up with that: They're on their way to the White House when the book ends.)  I have to be relieved he didn't write that book, though; the whole political satire bit is a little unpleasant and quite dated today.

Today she read chapter one of Mary Poppins.  She's also working her way through the Encyclopedia Brown series for "pleasure reading", although my copy of book #5 has been misplaced.  I know I used to have the whole collection through book #13.  Honestly, I didn't know there were any more of them than that.  The latest one was released in 2011!  I suppose Encyclopedia and Sally use iPads now and Google things to find out about them instead of riding their bikes to the library.  Sigh.

Modernizing the Muppets?

From The Hollywood Reporter:

But in relaunching brands, Taylor says, it's crucial to make sure you "don't disenchant their core audience." That is where the path for the Muppets is challenging. The old Muppets guard -- a group of writers and performers involved in creating the franchise -- is eager for the neglected troupe to shine again, almost desperate in their longing for the film to work. But though they have not yet seen it, some wonder whether screenwriter and star Segel -- an obsessed Muppets fan -- has a true grasp of the characters they helped create....

 The concern among Muppets insiders is that Segel and director James Bobin (a writer on Da Ali G Show and Flight of the Conchords) didn't have a complete understanding of the Muppets characters or were willing to sacrifice the characters' integrity to land a joke. "They're looking at the script on a joke-by-joke basis, rather than as a construction of character and story," says one.

 A small example is in one of the many trailers Disney has released, when Fozzie makes a fart joke. "We wouldn't do that; it's too cheap," says another Muppets veteran. "It may not seem like much in this world of [Judd] Apatow humor, but the characters don't go to that place."

There is a list of similar concerns: Kermit would never live in a mansion, as he does in this movie. The Muppets, depicted in the script as jealous of Kermit's wealth, would not have broken up in bitterness. The script "creates a false history that the characters were forced to act out for the sake of this movie," says an old Muppets hand.

"I'm very hopeful the characters are as warm and loving to each other as they were when Jim was directing," says Bonnie Erickson, executive director of the Jim Henson Legacy, dedicated to keeping his work in the public eye. Erickson, who designed and built the original Miss Piggy, says she's "very excited" that Disney is putting so much energy into bringing the Muppets back but acknowledges that she's nervous. "I'm hoping the standard of excellence that Jim set is maintained," she says.

Frank Oz, the most famous living Muppets performer -- known best as Miss Piggy -- spoke more harshly in a recent interview with the British paper Metro. "I wasn't happy with the script," he said bluntly. "I don't think they respected the characters. But I don't want to go on about it like a sourpuss and hurt the movie."

The irony is that Segel wanted to make the film because he is such a passionate Muppets fan. Even the old guard acknowledges that Segel wants to do right by the Muppets, but many feel the pervasive attitude on the film was dismissive of those who originated the characters....

 It might be that some of the original Muppets crew are overly possessive. But so great are the concerns of some Muppets performers who were involved in making the film that sources say a couple of key players -- including the performer behind (or beneath) Kermit the Frog -- considered removing their names from the credits. But they didn't, and a Muppets veteran says the gesture would have been costly to the performers and fruitless. "It doesn't send any message," he says. "[Disney] wouldn't care...."

Then-chairman Dick Cook couldn't interest his own movie executives, so Kermit and friends were assigned to the studio's special-events group. Cook engaged Oz to develop a script, which Oz was to direct. (He had directed The Muppets Take Manhattan as well as live-action movies includingLittle Shop of Horrors and What About Bob?) But as that film was on the brink of getting a green light, Cook was ousted.

While the special-events unit was developing the Oz script, Cook's executives were talking to Segel. When he pitched the idea for a Muppets movie, those previously unenthusiastic executives became more interested. The fact that Disney moved ahead on the script Segel wrote with Nicholas Stoller left the old Muppets pros suspicious, as one puts it, that "this is a case of Disney wanting to get into the Jason Segel business," as opposed to reviving the franchise. This insider adds, "My biggest hope is that it comes across as a Muppets film and not a Jason Segel film that the Muppets happen to be in."

 

Hey, ride.

Tonight we all went to a hayride with some families from church.  I haven't been to a hayride since youth group and enjoyed the chance to eat a hot dog blackened from the fire and a real s'more made on a coat hanger rather than in the microwave.  (Side note: The new flat square marshmallows are a terrific innovation; makes s'mores much less sticky and likely to burn your fingers due to squish-over.)  The kids had a blast.  Lots of little boys there right around Eric's age for him to run around and play with, and they were thrilled with the ride sitting on a haybale in a trailer pulled behind a pickup.  They apparently do this every year (this is our first year in this Sunday School class), and the kids are already looking forward to going again next year.

It's beginning to look a lot like...

My daily trip to the mailbox tells me the holiday season is gearing up: The catalogs are starting to pour in.  Our first toy catalog of the season was HearthSong, which was one of my favorites when I was a child.  Faith and Eric have already been through it several times, picking out all of the things they want, virtually all of which are impractical: trampolines, big inflatable balls you can climb into, zip lines which I explained had to actually be attached to something, puppet theaters, giant bowling games, chairs that hang from the ceiling....

Two babies!

Since shortly after Eric was born, Tommy has been beseiged with requests for "two babies!", that is, when he's holding one of the kids, the other one wants up as well.  I've taken a lot of photos of him with two babies over the years, and lately every time I do, I say it might be the last time he's able to carry one in each arm as they grow bigger.  He keeps managing it, though.

Hello, World Series!

I have, since Saturday evening, been enjoying some carefree time between the end of the American League Championship Series and the beginning of the World Series when I don't have to worry about the fate of my team.  Tomorrow, the anxiety begins again....

I wonder if Mr. Reynolds will give me extra credit for Bio class....

As a follow-up to the bean-in-a-milk-carton-with-a-fold-down-flap experiment, we were supposed to move on to sprouting beans in three cups, then putting one in a dark cupboard and stopping giving water to another to show that -- *gasp* -- plants need light and water.  

But I did that experiment when Faith went through the kindergarten curriculum, and Eric had the benefit of having already been through the preschool book and learned that plants need four things: sunlight, water, soil, and air.  So I decided to switch up the experiment a bit by planting beans in four cups and depriving each of one of the necessities from the beginning.  I wasn't really sure if any of them would sprout, but here's what we got:

These beans got sunlight, soil, and air but no water.  After a week, we dug them out of the dry soil to see that they didn't start to sprout at all.

These beans I put in a cup on a wet paper towel; they got sunlight, water and air but no soil.  To my surprise, they sprouted!  They look kind of like little aliens, but they sprouted.  Today, three days later, they've even poked their heads above the edge of the cup.  On Friday, I had to lift the wet paper towel out of the bottom of the cup to get a good photo of them.

These are the little albino beans from the dark cupboard: water, soil and air but no light.  This evening, the furthest-along one has a freakishly long stem in a vain effort to grow up high enough to find the sun.

And these are the beans that got sunlight, water, and soil but no air.  Of all our four cups they grew the healthiest.  Of course, being shut in a Ziploc gallon freezer bag isn't the same as being in a vacuum in a bell jar, and I did open it once to water them so it's not overly scientific.

Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley Grow (well, mainly just beans)

See?  Here I am again, putting off my Friday post until Sunday, just like I said.  You give me an inch, I'll take a mile.

Here is Eric with his bean plants, now grown even taller.  He has the flap of the milk carton open, so you can see the roots beneath the soil.  You could see them even better, if I had had clear plastic wrap on hand instead of using purple.

If it's Thursday night, it must be "Person of Interest"

One little detail that bugs me about this show: Finch built his computer for "the government" to conduct surveillance on ... well, it's assumed on the whole country.  And yet, whenever someone's "number comes up" for them to investigate, it's invariably in New York City.  Are people in the rest of the country not worth saving? It's better on my sanity to assume that the machine is, in fact, only surveilling people in NYC until the assumption is proven wrong.  Honestly, I don't think the show's creators are at all clear on the concept yet themselves and are leaving it intentionally vague.

Loved me some Reese tonight, though.  After "24" ended, I read an article that opined that the appeal of the show was not, as some liberals feared, the ideology (simplified in their minds, at least, as "the furriners are out to get us, let's waterboard some Arabs") but the illusion of competence.  Millions of viewers would love to believe that, if imminent disaster did threaten, there would be someone like Jack Bauer willing and able to do whatever was necessary to stop it, rather than the more likely scenario of someone filing some paperwork in triplicate, passing the buck, and figuring out a way to blame it on the other party or the previous administration.  The character Reese projects that same sense of uber-competence, of always being in control and one step ahead of the bad guys.  It's a lovely little fiction: There's no one really that capable and that ruthless in protection of the innocent, but wouldn't it be nice if there were?  He's like Batman, and his physical resemblance to Christian Bale doesn't hurt, either.

Up late watching baseball tonight...

...so I'll just leave this here.

If you can read this blog, why can't you whistle while eating crackers?!?

So I'm reading a newspaper article about "Five," a film about breast cancer, and I get down to the end and find the obligatory line from executive producer Kristin Hahn:

It's our way of saying, "We've put astronauts on the moon.  We've accomplished the unthinkable as a country so many times.  If we can put astronauts on the moon, surely we can find a cure for cancer."

This is one of the dumbest lines that keeps getting trotted out like it's oh-so-insightful.  And it's not; it's not at all.

Would anyone ever dare ask this question in any other context?  "Roger Bannister, you broke the four-minute mile.  Why can't you play the piano?"  "Michael Phelps, you won eight Olympic gold medals.  Surely you can also climb Mount Everest."  "Dr. Crick and Dr. Watson, if you could discover the structure of the DNA molecule, surely you could have also written the great American novel."  "Mikhail Baryshnikov, come on now; you're holding out on us."

What does building a spacecraft capable of delivering humans to the surface of the moon have to do with stopping a process occurring inside the human body at a cellular level?  And what's with the smug insinuation that sending astronauts to the moon is a childish waste of time that could just as easily have been spent curing cancer, like NASA is fooling around doodling in the margins of their notebook or texting their girlfriend when they should be studying for finals?  What prevents me from turning it around on the filmmakers?  "Geez, Jennifer Aniston, if you can make millions of dollars pretending to be someone else in front of a camera, why can't you cure cancer?  I'm pretty sure no one would miss The Bounty Hunter or Love Happens.  Couldn't you have spent your time and energy with a little more thought about the betterment of your fellow human beings?"

Feed the Muppets!

So Sesame Street is introducing a "food-insecure" Muppet.  Where even to begin?  Well, obviously, with the very descriptor.  "Food-insecure?"  What kind of adjective is that?  What's wrong with the English language these days that we have to come up with nonsensical hyphenated words to express ourselves?  I mean, parse that "word" (and I use the term loosely).  Would anyone have had the slightest idea what it was supposed to mean fifty years ago?

Secondly, does Sesame Street really want to go there?  This is a neighborhood where no one pays for anything. Muppets just waltz into Hooper's Store and order food, and Chris or Alan puts it on the counter in front of them.  No money ever changes hands.  How the heck does someone manage to be "food-insecure" in this place?  Are they just too stupid to walk into Hooper's Store and ask for free food like everyone else does?

Finally, Sesame Workshop's endless self-congratulatory press releases on their new Muppets (the first female Muppet main character!  the first HIV-positive Muppet!  the first "food-insecure" Muppet!) are cutting to ribbons their defense against the Bert-and-Ernie-should-get-married crowd.  Their lame response has been "They're Muppets, and Muppets don't have a sexual orientation."  Well, Muppets don't need to eat, either.  If they can get all proud and pleased about the introduction of Abby Cadabby (first female Muppet main character! (totally dissing Prairie Dawn, by the way)), then Muppets can apparently have gender.  And if Elmo's World can treat us to a scene in which a red furry Muppet in a hospital bed gives birth to baby Elmo (obviously under the effects of the universe's best pain medication, judging from her cheerful laughter just before the doctor announces it's a boy), then Muppets can have biological functions I don't even want to think about.

There's no U in "irony"

Growing up, I went to a private school that required a uniform so whenever I went somewhere after school -- piano lessons, church, Campfire Girls, etc. -- I was always wearing my dorky little plaid jumper while all the rest of the kids were in real clothes, and I hated it.  Yes, I could shed the plaid and wear the gym shorts that went under them for modesty and ease of changing for P.E., but I wasn't fooling anyone.  Gym shorts with my school's name on them and a white button-down shirt with a Peter Pan collar do not a fashionable ensemble make.

Flash forward to today, and now all the public school kids are wearing uniforms.  My homeschooled kids are now the one standing out in the crowd at the McDonald's PlayPlace because they're wearing real clothes while all the rest of the kids are in khakis and solid navy or white polos.

More about Person of Interest

Watched the third episode last night.  From what I've read, the second episode had a notable drop-off in ratings after the premiere.  Perhaps I am once again being taken in by my residual goodwill for a cast member.  Then again, there have been some excellent TV series that have suffered from low ratings.

I find myself more interested in Finch's mysterious backstory than in Reese's.  Tonight we saw another flashback to Reese's old girlfriend who supposedly ends up murdered sometime before the present day.  She approaches him in a chance meeting in an airport in 2006, obviously still hung up on him but sporting a really chintzy engagement ring.  Obviously as unimpressed with the diamond as I was, she offers to dump her fiance if Reese will just ask her to wait for him (which, naturally, he does sotto voce after she walks away).  Very cliche.  Just once, wouldn't it be nice if the ex-girlfriend turns out to be happily married and not just settling for some architect who'll keep her warm and fed and dry while still pining after the action hero who got away?  Oh, well, we know she ends up dead anyway, so why bother giving her a more interesting life?

The most interesting facet of the episode to me was the appearance of the late, lamented Captain Montgomery from "Castle" (sorry, but Sherry Palmer has yet to do anything but annoy me as his replacement), playing a bad guy who owns a bar and sets up bank robberies by military veterans on the side. I swear the bar they shot in is the same one from last season's finale of "Castle" where Ryan and Esposito discovered the photograph that implicated the Captain in the Huge, Convoluted, All-Encompassing Conspiracy which the show feels necessary to include.  (Really, going to do a post on "Castle" one of these days.)

What Faith is reading now

Faith finished The Cricket in Times Square and chose Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator for her next book.  I had forgotten how Strangelovian (or perhaps, in a more contemporary vein, Monsters-vs-Alien-ish) Dahl's portrayal of the U.S. government was.  It's really a bit cynical for an eight-year-old.  Of course, I remember thinking it was hilarious when I read it as a child.  She likes it because it has short chapters.

Ironically, after reading her one required chapter a day in that book, she sat down to re-read The Boxcar Children, which she finished and then started Surprise Island.  I've blogged before about my concerns about her reluctance to read one chapter a day when she'll turn around and pick up another book off the clock and rush right through it. I've realized it probably has to do with the fact that I make her tell me about what she's read when she finishes a chapter of a "required" book: She's hesitant to read more than one chapter for fear that she'll forget some of what happened when she has to tell me about it.  I'm hesitant to drop the requirement because there have been more than a few occasions when she hasn't really paid attention while reading and hasn't been able to answer basic questions about what she's read.  I suppose that's just the difference between required reading and reading for pleasure.  Perhaps I shouldn't worry about it and just let it be.

Free speech triumphs ... for now

An update to this post.

Simon: Are you always this sentimental?

Mal: I had a good day.

Simon: You had the Alliance on you, criminals and savages... half the people on the ship have been shot or wounded including yourself, and you're harboring known fugitives.

Mal: We're still flying.

Simon: That's not much.

Mal: It's enough.

A Little Princess

Faith was invited to the birthday party of the little girl across the street last Saturday.  It was a princess party at a little tea room and foofy children's boutique, and all the girls had their nails polished and eyeshadow and blush applied and dressed up in fancy dresses.  She got to keep the crown and fairy-princess wand as a party favor, and she didn't wash her face for two days to keep her pink eyeshadow on as long as possible.

Breaking the Fourth Firewall

So, today we're going to get a little meta and blog about blogging.

You might have noticed that this blog post is being typed today (Sunday) and not on Friday like it was supposed to be.  Friday night, after I'd gotten the kids bathed and pajamed and brushed of tooth and flossed and ointmented of gums and have-you-gone-potty-I-don't-care-if-you-think-you-don't-have-to-try-anywayed and bedtime storied and kissed and tucked in, I was left staring at a blank New Post screen.  There are several times I think of something reasonably clever to write about during the day, but by the time I have the time to actually sit down and blog, I'm just too exhausted to try to squeeze a few paragraphs out of an idea.  That's what happened to me Friday night.  I knew I had two off-days coming up in the weekend, so I decided to grant myself a reprieve and blog on Saturday.

Only obviously it's not Saturday.  It's Sunday.  Because once I'd granted myself one reprieve, it was easy to procrastinate again and grant myself another.  Which leads to some thoughts about this blogging resolution:

First, I need to take better advantage of the weekends to "pre-blog": get some posts typed up over the weekend so I can just grab one, polish it up, and post it on those weekday nights when I just want to turn the computer off and go to bed.

Second, this daily blogging is murder.  Can't keep this pace up next year.  Which leads to...

Point the third: if I don't have the pressure of (week)daily blogging, what can I use to motivate myself?  I obviously need the motivation a resolution brings, but without a set schedule, I'm prone to procrastinate.  A commitment to, say, three blogs a week won't work, because as much as I may have the best of intentions to post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the very fact that I can put it off to one of the other four days in the week will most likely equate to not blogging until the end of the week and a great deal of effort put into semantical issues like, Is Sunday technically the first day or the last day of the week, because it depends on which calendar you're using?

So, is a puzzlement.  I have three months to think about it.

Young McFadden had a farm, E-I-E-I-O

...and on that farm he had a bean plant, E-I-E-I-O.

Last Friday, Eric and I planted some beans in an old chocolate milk carton, and as of this morning, they were already this tall!  They're in a milk carton because, although you can't tell from the picture, we planted them up against the side of the carton where a flap is cut so we can open up and watch them sprout, the roots going down and the shoot coming up; there's plastic wrap taped on to hold the dirt in when you're looking in the "window."

And the kids really do wear other clothes than these flag shirts; it just seems that every time I take a photo of them for the blog happens to be a day they're in them.

Baseball Tonight

Up late watching all the extra-inning games with playoff implications.  And to think, a month ago, all the sportswriters were bemoaning the fact that the playoff races were all but wrapped up and there wouldn't be any drama in September!

Lazy blog posts this week; I'll try to do better tomorrow.

Browncoats vs. speech codes

Take my love, take my land 
Take me where I cannot stand 
I don't care, I'm still free 
You can't take the sky from me 
Take me out to the black 
Tell them I ain't comin' back 
Burn the land and boil the sea 
You can't take the sky from me 
There's no place I can be 
Since I found Serenity 
But you can't take the sky from me...

Wonder why?

Whooo!

Rangers clinch tonight, thanks to the Angels' loss in Oakland!  Going to buy my AL West championship shirt tomorrow, if I can find one.  When you're a fan of a team that's not one of the usual suspects, you have to buy your memorabilia when you can because you never know when you'll get another chance.  I'm very glad to have bought my Wake Forest Orange Bowl T-shirt from 2007 because the Deacons aren't going to be back in a BCS bowl for a long time.

"Person of Interest" (Spoilers!)

We watched the pilot tonight because I have plenty of residual good will for Jim Caviezel after "Frequency" ($7.19 at Amazon at this writing?  If you don't have it, buy it; it rocks.) and "The Count of Monte Cristo" (Bears very little resemblance to the book, which is beyond excellent, yet the movie somehow manages to be excellent on its own terms.).  Tommy almost talked me out of it ("We can just wait for the DVDs!"), but I tuned in anyway.  Honestly, with "24" off the air, we have our weekly viewing pared down to just "Chuck" (which is in its last season itself) and "Castle" (about which a separate blog post soon), and we hate to muddy up our schedule with any more "must-see" shows.

I thought it was pretty good, but I don't much trust my own judgment in situations like this.  I tend to let my affection for an actor bleed into my opinion of a show; it took outside intervention from Leslie to break it to me that, despite my "Frasier"-based loyalty to Kelsey Grammer, "Back to You" wasn't a good show.  Pilots tend to have a weak "A-plot" due to the amount of time they have to spend setting up the premise (My one quibble with "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" was the two-dimensionality of the love interest, but once I got to the end and realized it wasn't an episode but an origin story, it all made sense;  the love interest in an origin story is supposed to be paper-thin.), but I was pleased to see that the supposed victim turned out to be the perp instead of the damsel in distress.  And I got my Jack Bauer fix from the scene where the lackey thinks he's about to kill Jim Caviezel's character and Caviezel laughs and tells him not to worry, he's going to let him live before turning the tables on him.  For now, they've got me willing to tune in again next week.

That's Mr. Engale to you

Eric: I know a bird; it's called a night ... thingy.
Me: A night bird?
Eric: It's a bird; it's called "night-", but I don't know its last name.
Me: Nightingale?
Eric: Night Engale.  That's it.

What we're reading now

Faith finished reading The Silver Chair and has moved on to The Cricket in Times Square.  Her art curriculum had a section on collage last week, and the activity was to make a collage illustrating a scene from a story.  She chose to make the main characters of The Cricket in Time Square: Chester Cricket, Harry Cat, and Tucker Mouse.  As a rule, I don't think she has any great talent in art, but I thought this turned out quite nicely.  I helped her with Chester's back legs, but she did all the cutting and pasting herself for the rest of the figures.

Eric has started reading some of Faith's old Curious George books: He read Curious George's First Day of School on what would have been his first day of kindergarten and has now moved on to Curious George Takes a Train.

As for me, I'm still working on my stack of magazines, trying to make progress as new issues keep coming in to add to the pile.  Now that swim lessons are back in session, that gives me a bit of reading time two days a week, although I generally end up spending that forty minutes reading the newspaper I didn't have time to get to in the morning.

Truth in advertising

Eric saw the new lightsaber toys when we were shopping today.  He desperately wants one, although I'd give him half an hour before he forgot he couldn't actually hit anything with it and broke it.  What gave me pause, though, when I picked up the box was the blurb on the side: "Looks and feels just like a real lightsaber!"

Really?  A "real lightsaber?"  What does that statement even mean?  Who knows what a "real lightsaber" looks and feels like, since there aren't any?  It's like advertising something that "looks just like a real dragon" or "feels just like a real unicorn."  If the claim were true, the toy would be invisible and intangible.

Mandolin Rain

I'm typing with the window on the screen door open, listening to the sound of rain falling outside.  It's been a long time since that sound has been heard around here.  I was just thinking this afternoon how badly we needed a good rain.  We had the roof replaced at the end of the July, and the driveway was still covered in asphalt grit because we haven't had any rain to speak of since then.  It's been raining off and on since about 6:00 this evening, the first rain to send more than a trickle through our new gutters.  The first half-hour or so, the water pouring out of the downspout was absolutely filthy with the dirt of a long, hot summer.  It could rain all week and not make much of a difference to our poor, dead lawn, though.  I'm afraid we're just going to have to wait until next spring and see what comes back.

As long as I know where I stand...

Faith slept over last night at her grandparents' house up the street.  She loves sleeping over at other people's houses.  She never wants to come home again afterwards.  Tonight, when I was reading bedtime stories, I noticed she was quietly crying.  When I asked her why, she said because she missed her Mawmaw.  I said, "I'll bet you didn't cry like that last night because you missed me."  She said, "Well, no, but Mawmaw's better than you.  But I still love you, Mommy."

More swimming

After Eric's swim lesson on Monday, today was Faith's first swim lesson of the fall.  Yes, I could have scheduled them both on the same day, but not at the same time.  While it would have meant fewer miles on the road, I would have had to entertain the one not in lessons while the other one swam.  This way, I get my forty minutes of sitting and reading while I wait, not just once but twice a week!

Boys don't make passes at girls who wear glasses

We got the call yesterday evening that Faith's glasses were ready, so we went and picked them up and had dinner at Cici's.  Faith is very excited, even though she only gets to wear them when she's watching TV and she says she can't tell the difference between having them on and having them off.  At least she's making a fashion statement!

In the swim

Eric went to his first swimming lesson today.  Here he is with goggles and Thomas the Tank Engine swim trunks.  There are five students in his beginner's swim class at the Y: four boys and a girl.  One of the little boys (younger than Eric) can already swim on his own.  Eric, similarly to most of the rest, just lets himself be held up and moved through the water by the teacher, while he makes ineffectual paddling motions with his arms and kicking ones with his legs.  He said he had a good time, though.

How about that weather?

From the AP:

Texas' heat wave has surpassed Oklahoma's Dust Bowl years to become the hottest three months on record in the United States.  Texas' 86.8-degree average for June through August beat our Oklahoma's 85.2-degree average in 1934, the National Weather service said Thursday.  "This is a record we're more than happy to let Texas have," said Gary McManus, associate state climatologist in Oklahoma.

Under the Sea again

Another photo from the aquarium.

Vision quest

Faith had her first real eye exam today.  My parents took me to the eye doctor for the first time when they realized I couldn't read the name of a town on a water tower on a trip to my grandparents' house at the age of seven.  With Faith, I just knew genetics were in play.  (My uncorrected vision is 20/400 or something ridiculous like that.)

The doctor found her vision to be 20/40: nearsighted and likely to get worse, as I did.  She's very excited about getting her new glasses and was disappointed it will take them a week to make and ship them, and Eric is jealous he's not getting glasses (yet -- his first visit to the ophthalmologist will come).  I'm regretful.  While I'm glad she's excited about getting glasses, I know the hassle will eventually overcome the fashion statement.  At this point, the doctor says she only needs to wear them for distance, like watching TV or going to the movies, but I used to only wear mine to school when I started out.  And I can't help the nonsensical notion that if I hadn't taken her for the eye exam, the problem wouldn't have existed.  Of course, it would have; we just wouldn't have known about it for a while.  Still, if it bought her another year or two of not wearing glasses...?

Under the Sea

I took the kids to a new aquarium that just opened up 45 minutes from here this summer.  Here they are in the 360-degree ocean tunnel, with fish, including sharks, swimming all around, over, and under them (none of which obliged by being in the background when I snapped the photo).  Also a fake dinosaur skeleton.

Labor Day

We didn't tell the kids that Tommy was going to have the day off today because we thought it would be a nice surprise for them to get up and find him not leaving for work.  Sure enough, when he got up this morning (and I stayed in bed because, come on, it's a holiday!), I could hear Faith's squeals of excitement through the door from the living room.

Eric, however, was more concerned with the disruption of routine and not at all sure Tommy should still be there.  He had to wait for me to get up; then he ran to ask me, very seriously, "Does Daddy stay home on Mondays?"  (Obviously, Tommy's word wasn't good enough for him.)