One of those days.

When the first Lord of the Rings movie came out in 2001 I went to see it on opening night (the roommate of the guy I was dating had gotten tickets for all the guys in his apartment and their dates). I loved it, and gushed and raved about it at great length to my dad when I went home to visit the next weekend. My dad had introduced me to the books when I was in tenth grade and I could tell he was excited to see it, too.

My mom, because she loves my dad, took him to see it for one of his Christmas gifts. After their date, my dad and I joined in a mutual gush session, and at one point I turned to my mom and asked her what she thought of it.

Now, my mom is one of the cutest, sweetest, most awesome people ever. Period. She doesn't like to say bad things about people or things. She also, if given the choice, prefers to watch things like musicals and chick flicks where the swooning is more the result of hunky Mr. Darcy saying romantic things rather than because someone's head got cut off by a really ugly and probably very smelly orc. Just one of her little quirks.

So when I asked her what she thought of it, she paused for a couple of seconds and then said, "The scenery was really pretty." She thought for a moment. "And Bilbo's house was cute."

* * *

Flash forward to my day today. How was it, you ask?

Sigh.

Well, the scenery was really pretty.

And Bilbo's house was cute.



My mom once observed to me re: Viggo Mortenson: "Why does such an attractive man have to have such an ugly name?" She's got a point there. (Love you, Mom!)

Second anniversary

I've been thinking about two years ago, especially now that we're living in what was my grandparents' house, and thought it would be appropriate to post these once more.


Three for Grandpa, 1914-2009
The Secret

We have a secret, just we three:
The robin, and I, and the sweet cherry tree.
The bird told the tree, and the tree told me,
And nobody knows it but just us three.

Of course the robin knows it best,
Because she built the -- I won't say the rest --
And laid the four little --somethings-- in it.
I'm afraid I shall tell it every minute!

But if the tree and the robin don't peep,
I'll try my best the secret to keep.
But when the little somethings fly about,
Then the whole secret will be out.

- Anonymous


The Swing

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside --

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown --
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

- Robert Louis Stevenson


Icarus

A girl. Arms outstretched, swooping wildly
across the sky, returning mildly
to earth, on the end of a string
madly running, she catches the wind,
rises aloft. She holds the twine
to her ear to hear the wind sing.

A grandfather. Smiling slightly,
weathered hands grip his own string tightly
hovering steadily in the sky,
teaching her to hear the wind sing,
watching her swoop. He is remembering
the giddy new thrill of first learning to fly.

- ELE


Touched you last, Grandpa!

Remembering; or, One Year Later

So I'm cheating a little bit again today for NaBloPoMo by re-posting an entry from last year in honor of this first anniversary. But I still think it counts. :)


Three for Grandpa, 1914-2009
The Secret

We have a secret, just we three:
The robin, and I, and the sweet cherry tree.
The bird told the tree, and the tree told me,
And nobody knows it but just us three.

Of course the robin knows it best,
Because she built the -- I won't say the rest --
And laid the four little --somethings-- in it.
I'm afraid I shall tell it every minute!

But if the tree and the robin don't peep,
I'll try my best the secret to keep.
But when the little somethings fly about,
Then the whole secret will be out.

- Anonymous


The Swing

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside --

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown --
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

- Robert Louis Stevenson


Icarus

A girl. Arms outstretched, swooping wildly
across the sky, returning mildly
to earth, on the end of a string
madly running, she catches the wind,
rises aloft. She holds the twine
to her ear to hear the wind sing.

A grandfather. Smiling slightly,
weathered hands grip his own string tightly
hovering steadily in the sky,
teaching her to hear the wind sing,
watching her swoop. He is remembering
the giddy new thrill of first learning to fly.

- ELE


Touched you last, Grandpa!

The 'phew says hello.

I admit, this is another baby post, but only incidentally.

See, I basically have the best nephews in the world (sorry, anyone with nephews, but mine are cooler). I have a pretty awesome niece, too, but tonight we're going to focus on my oldest nephew. Let's call him Cool Dude.

Cool Dude is my younger sister's son, and we are lucky enough to live within about 10 minutes of their family. Cool Dude is three, a chatterbox (like his mom), a redhead (like his great grandma), a great big brother to his little sister, and one of my best buds. Shallow Man and I have been close friends with Cool Dude since he was born. (Seriously. We were the first people to meet him besides his parents and the hospital staff.)

So this evening we stopped by my sister's place, arriving just in time for Cool Dude to notice that large portions of the popsicle he had just consumed had not, in point of fact, made their way into his mouth and thereby to his stomach, but were instead residing in large patches on his shirt and pants. He therefore requested that I take him upstairs to get him some new pants.

Before this operation could be performed, we had to make a quick stop by the bathroom sink to cleanse his face, hands, arms, shoulders, etc., from the leftover juice of the "wild berry" popsicle (that's what Cool Dude told me it was; his mom, who is probably the more reliable source, informs me that it was actually just grape). In the midst of this operation, Cool Dude paused in his story of wild berries and asked me, "Is there a baby in your tummy still?"

Side note: We'd told him about our baby a few months back, reminding him of when his little sister was in his mommy's tummy, and telling him that now Aunt Scritchy has a baby in her tummy, too, so he gets another cousin (he LOVES his cousins. Cousins are maybe the best thing ever besides wild berry popsicles). He thought this through for a minute and then said, "I have a baby in my tummy, too." (Putting one hand on his tummy and the other on his hip) "She's sleeping right now."

I told him that yes, there was still a baby in my tummy. "That's why my tummy is big right now."

CD: Oh. That's right.

Me: (scrubbing congealed grape goo off his hands) After we wash your hands, you can feel where the baby is if you want to.

CD: Okay!

(Several minutes pass; I finally emerge triumphant with a relatively-clean Cool Dude in tow, who proceeds to choose a new shirt—bright green—and pants—blue stripes—to wear [his mom looked at the ensemble and made a dry remark about how maybe he inherited his uncle's colorblindness]; finally he is clean and fully clothed again.)

I put his hand on my tummy so he could feel where baby was curled up (not kicking at the moment, an increasingly rare occurrence). His eyes got wide and he grinned at me when I told him that was where the baby was.

And then he put his face right up by my tummy, started stroking the spot with his hand, and, in the sweet voice he reserves for his little sister when he's gently telling her not to cry, said "Hi, baby!"

Whereupon I melted.

Yeah, I have awesome nephews. And my boy is going to have a good friend and cousin to help show him the ropes once he gets here. (And I'm sure his other cousins will help, too. I can hardly wait!)

How To

It's no big secret that there are no Little Nibs or Shallow Jrs running about the house here, nor is it much of a secret that we have been wishing this was different for some time now.

But I think I've found something that might help:

How to Make a Baby from Cassidy Curtis on Vimeo.

Ah. Well, now I see where we've been going wrong.* Problem solved! We'll be in Sunday School in no time!


*Boy, were we WAY off on that one!

Three for Grandpa, 1914-2009

The Secret

We have a secret, just we three:
The robin, and I, and the sweet cherry tree.
The bird told the tree, and the tree told me,
And nobody knows it but just us three.

Of course the robin knows it best,
Because she built the -- I won't say the rest --
And laid the four little --somethings-- in it.
I'm afraid I shall tell it every minute!

But if the tree and the robin don't peep,
I'll try my best the secret to keep.
But when the little somethings fly about,
Then the whole secret will be out.

- Anonymous


The Swing

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside --

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown --
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

- Robert Louis Stevenson


Icarus

A girl. Arms outstretched, swooping wildly
across the sky, returning mildly
to earth, on the end of a string
madly running, she catches the wind,
rises aloft. She holds the twine
to her ear to hear the wind sing.

A grandfather. Smiling slightly,
weathered hands grip his own string tightly
hovering steadily in the sky,
teaching her to hear the wind sing,
watching her swoop. He is remembering
the giddy new thrill of first learning to fly.

- ELE



Touched you last, Grandpa!

Fishy, fishy...

First, I'd like to send my condolences to the Daring Young Family on the sad loss of their beta fish, Jack. We feel your pain!

This reminds me of some of my own traumatic fish experiences. (Fish and I seem to get along about as well as plants and I do. I'm not sure why, as goldfish do not have roots, which is the source of most of my plant-strife. Fresh-cut flowers, no problem; I can keep them alive for pretty much forever, but give me something with roots and that's pretty much signing its death warrant. But that's another story for another day.)

My mother is allergic to just about anything you can think of, which meant our pet options were limited. Dogs, cats, rabbits, anything with fur was out. Snakes and lizards were out, too. She was allergic to those in the same way I am -- they cause severe nervousness and shriekage. Spiders of any sort, like 5, were "right out." So we had goldfish. Mine was named Goldie. (I've always been creative that way.)

So one morning I was getting ready to go to school (second grade) and I heard a plop behind me. About a week earlier, a picture had fallen on top of the aquarium and broken the lid so that it was just open, and Goldie had jumped out and was now sitting on the carpet looking very out-of-place. (Note how I avoided the obvious pun there!) I tried to pick her up to put her back in but, being a fish, she was awfully slimy and unpleasant to the touch, which set off my allergies to sliminess. My mother heard me shriek, came running, and assumed that I'd found the fish just lying on the carpet. I was crying too hard to explain to her what had happened and so she carefully scooped up Goldie in the towel she was holding and went to flush her. I followed along, tears streaming down my face (this was the only pet I'd ever had, people!).

As soon as Goldie hit the water in the bowl she started swimming around and exploring her new home. I was overjoyed. I'm not sure if my mother quite shared the feeling, though, as now that my fish was definitely alive it meant that she needed to get it out of the toilet bowl and back in the tank where it belonged. Goldie apparently really liked it in there, though, because she kept hiding from the net when my mom went to scoop her. After several minutes of this, my tears were back in full force, we were running very late for school, my mom was getting more and more frustrated by this crazy fish's attempts (and success) in eluding her, and Goldie was still in the toilet.

Eventually my mom said that we had to leave and take me and my brother to school. I kept crying as we started to leave, and asked her to make sure not to use the upstairs bathroom, but only the downstairs one because I didn't want her to flush Goldie by accident.

I arrived at school in the depths of despair. My poor fish was going to die an ignominious death, I just knew it! (And contrary to popular opinion, no, I did not actually know the word "ignominious" as a second-grader. I didn't learn it until third or fourth at least.) I couldn't pay attention at math (not surprising; never my favorite subject) and couldn't raise any interest in spelling (surprising, actually; I quite enjoyed spelling as a second-grader), and could barely face the thought of recess. How could I be so cold-hearted as to actually go out and play when my fish was in such a fix?

Fortuitously, however, my teacher came up to me at this point and told me that I had a phone call from my mother. My heart simultaneously soared and sank: Was it good or bad news? Had my fish succumbed to fate or had my mother triumphed?

Of course my mother had triumphed. And I give her even more credit for not going the "identical-replacement" route. She tells the story now that she was in the bathroom on hands and knees with the fish net thinking, "This is ridiculous. But I love my daughter. This is extremely ridiculous. But I love my daughter..." Goldie eventually was restored to her rightful home (which was then covered with saran wrap until we could find a new lid) and lived several more months before dying of natural causes. And I was able to enjoy my recess and brag about how much my mother loves me.

(As a side note, Mom, I'd like to take this moment to apologize for anything I may have said or done since that may have made saving my fish seem less worth it. That is still a defining moment from my childhood. I love you!)

What the Dickens

So Gryffinkat had gotten me thinking about this earlier, but last night I was at my parents' house for a visit and got to partake of an old family Christmas tradition.

Every year since I was probably about nine, my dad has read Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" out loud to us. This is a bit of a change from the norm in my house, since my mom is the designated story-reader in the family. So having my dad (who is a wonderful reader) perform for us makes this tradition even more special to us.

We start early in the month and usually finish with the last stave on Christmas Eve. We've started including my grandfather (who lives a block away from my parents) in the tradition and he just loves it as well. It's started to evolve into something aking to the Rocky Horror Picture show (which I have never seen, only heard about), where we all have our parts to contribute.

For example, at several points in the narrative my grandfather will start talking about what an amazing writer Dickens was. In particular, when I was there on Monday my dad read Stave Three, aka The Ghost of Christmas Present, and Dickens goes into an elaborate description of the Cratchitt's roast goose for dinner. My grandpa, right on cue, piped up, "Isn't he so descriptive? Can't you just smell the sage?"

Then we all have to chime in on the out-loud-in-chorus parts. Says Mrs. Cratchitt of the pudding "I had my doubts about the quantity of flour."

And, since our copy is, sadly, abridged, every now and then my dad has to pause and tell us "This part isn't in here, but it goes like this..." I suppose he really needs the full version, but this routine is also part of the tradition now and I think I'd miss it just as much if it wasn't there as we miss the parts that aren't included in our version.

The reason my favorite part is stave three, though, is the visit to Scrooge's nephew's Christmas dinner, and the game of Blindman's Buff with Topper and the plump sister. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of Dickens. This part always gets us in giggles (okay, my brother not so much, but only because he'd be offended if I said that he giggled like the girls do).

I wish you could all join in on this family tradition and hear my dad's reading. He has a wonderfully expressive voice (I always like listening to him "perform," as it were; Sundays when he spoke in church were always my favorites) and his inflections are now permanently in my mind whenever I read A Christmas Carol. I think he should make a recording and sell it to spread the joy around. Does anyone out there have some nice recording equipment?