Super Saturday
Posted: April 26, 2008 Filed under: family, friends, movies | Tags: fitzgerald, margot at the wedding, Nicole Kidman, teletubbies Leave a commentThings kids do that I find hard to understand:
- Drink their own bathwater
- Suck the paste off their toothbrushes
- Watch the Teletubbies
Another thing J does, or I guess doesn’t do, is sleep late. No matter how late he stays up at night, he will always rise with the sun. Even when he’s sick, and I’m begging him to get some rest, he will ask me defiantly, “Mom, how am I supposed to sleep? The sun is up.” He just can’t understand when I tell him that sleeping when the sun is up is one of the greatest indulgences life can offer. There are days, quite a few of them actually, when I feel like I would give almost anything to be able to sleep when the sun is up.
Manfrengensen and I are going to a costume party tonight. The hosts sent out invitations with random letters of the alphabet, and we have to dress as something that begins with the letter “F.” We are going as F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. I told this to my babysitter who said, “Nice. Wow, you really are a literary nerd.”
Another Movie Review
Last night Manfrengensen and I watched Margot at the Wedding, which was rather disappointing. It was basically the story of this woman, Margot (Nicole Kidman) who changed her mind often, and as a result she has these dysfunctional relationships with everyone around her. Her character had no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and I really found myself hating her. She came off as downright psychotic. I felt sorry for her family, especially her son, and at the end of the movie, I found myself wondering what the point of the whole exercise was. It was no Squid and the Whale, and overall, I felt, a waste of my time. Should have watched Thursday’s Lost again.
Back to My Life As Mom
Today Manfrengensen brought J and T3 up to his parents’ house for a visit. Ee and I went out to run some errands, and then we went to lunch at a little diner near our house. She is so much fun! You know, I’ve waited 30 years to renew this mother-daughter bond, and she is bringing it to me in the most special way. We sit; we eat; she talks about the things that catch her eye; she leans over and kisses me in the booth or whispers her secrets into my ear. Then we went to the park, where she called, “Watch me Mommy” over and over as she made her loop up the stairs and down the slide. Up the stairs and down the slide. It’s just the most amazing thing.
Why?
Posted: April 25, 2008 Filed under: Day-to-Day, family, Politics | Tags: Media, obama, Orwell, parenting, Politics Leave a comment
Ee has started asking “Why?” I love that phase. In this photo, I think she reminds me a bit of the amphibious character, Abe Sapien, from Hellboy. Those glasses are on upside down, by the way.
Wednesday, we went to lunch at a diner not far from our house because we had painters working in our kitchen. We were there for a few minutes when an older couple slid into the booth behind us. They must have been regulars, because when the waitress sidled up they exchanged friendly greetings, and the talk soon turned to the previous day’s primary in Pennsylvania.
Not that I was eavesdropping. I was sitting in our booth, trying to keep my monkeys in their seats. 
But every so often, a snippet of their conversation reached my ears, and I was subsequently appalled. The old man said, “I don’t like that Obama…” and the kids had my attention for a second, “They say he’s…” T3, would you sit down and eat your grilled cheese? and then finally: “His name is just one letter off from Osama…” and I was like, huh?... “and those connections really scare me.”
Which connections was he talking about? Were they the ones Obama made at Columbia University or Harvard Law School? How about the ones he made while he was teaching at The University of Chicago Law School, or the connections he made serving in the U.S. Senate? Do those connections mean anything to this guy?
I’ll tell you what scares me: it’s how ignorant of the facts some people can be. How can people go through life so blindly? Again, I have to blame the media, specifically TV, since most people don’t even read any more. It is the TV news networks who are to blame for the sad state of American democracy. It is they who have perpetuated the disinformation and innuendo put forth by Obama’s opponents. It is they who continue to broadcast anything said by anyone without bothering to check for facts. And it’s a shame that some people in our country are too lazy or distracted by the day-to-day to find out the real facts about Barack Obama the Man or Barack Obama the Leader.
I’m not saying you have to vote for Obama, but I do think that if you decide not to vote for him, you should base that decision on the facts, not some slanderous allegation or sleezy “slip of the tongue” made by John Ashcroft, Mitt Romney, or Wolf Blitzer.
The moment has really stuck with me. Sometimes, I think I’m too cynical, but other times, I think, no, I’m right.
I know Orwell was right. He was just off by 20 years:
War Is Peace Freedom is Slavery Ignorance is Strength
It’s time for change.
Update on Banana Bread: Serious doorstop material. Yesterday T3 began to ask for a piece, and then thought the better of it, “Mom, can I please have a piece of ba– um, some other kind of snack?”
Renouncing Plastic
Posted: April 23, 2008 Filed under: Day-to-Day, family | Tags: BPA, plastic bottles Leave a commentThere’s that line in The Graduate where the older man gives Benjamin one word of advice: Plastics.
But that was the 1960’s, and here we are forty years later, and it turns out that we’re ingesting the stuff, and that’s most likely not a good thing.
From today’s NYTimes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/health/22well.html?em&ex=1209096000&en=8a1d4bc01b9099f4&ei=5087%0A
And I quote:
“The 2003-4 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found detectable levels of BPA in 93 percent of urine samples collected from more than 2,500 adults and children over 6.”
93 percent. The focus is mostly on water bottles, but it turns out that the stuff is used to line aluminum cans, in which you find the soup, vegetables and other edibles you’ve been consuming since childhood.
And even if you don’t eat that stuff, 93 percent of other people (according to this random sample) are peeing it back into the water supply.
There are some things you can do though, according to the article. Eat frozen or fresh produce and use glass or aluminum bottles. I just bought everyone plastic water bottles like two weeks ago, thinking I would help the environment, etc…oh well. I threw away the labels, so I am not sure whether they are BPA-free. Guess I’ll go back to the store and check.
Another interesting point in the article is that there are hundreds of kinds of plastic containers that people routinely wash in their dishwashers. No testing has been done on what effect this has on the plastic. Hmmm…
I think he means “litter”
Posted: April 21, 2008 Filed under: family | Tags: Earth Day Leave a commentClooney has reminded me that tomorrow is Earth Day. “Tomorrow is Earf Day, Mom. We need to clean up glitter.”
He’s been bugging me to make banana bread for a week, so today I tried my hand at making it from scratch. It’s not bad on the inside, but it’s so hard on the outside…it’s the kind of thing you wouldn’t be able to get past airport security.
Don’t Believe The Hype
Posted: April 21, 2008 Filed under: Media, Politics, TV | Tags: Bush Administration, CNN, Iraq War, Media, military, New York Times, News Leave a commentYesterday’s New York Times ran an article about how the media has been using analysts with ties to military contractors to comment on the war for the last seven years. The result has been effective in skewing the media’s coverage of the War on Terror, and specifically the Iraq War in the administration’s favor.
This is why punditry is not news, and the American news corporations do a great disservice to the people by using pundits to fill their hours. If you really want news in the United States, the closest thing you can get is NPR or the BBC (which I think CNN should look to as its model instead of FOX.)
Some highlights from the Times (underlining and bold is my emphasis):
“Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.
“The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.
“Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration’s war on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which inside information and easy access to senior officials are highly prized.
“Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.”
You can read the whole article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20generals.html?ref=arts
Keep your vomit bag handy.
You can’t see me now, but I have to tell you that reading this article really affected my nerves. I can feel outrage running through my veins, and I sincerely hope you do too. It’s saddens me that more people in this country want to talk about last night’s results of American Idol than they do what’s going on with the war.
If you ask me, not that anyone will, this entire administration should go straight from office to Attica.
Green Momster
Posted: April 20, 2008 Filed under: friends, movies | Tags: edward Norton, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, friends, Incredible Hulk 1 CommentWent out with my girlfriends last night. Some of the few things I remember:
Awesome dessert. Peanut butter ice cream covered in chocolate and sprinkled with nuts. Mmmmm.
K, telling us more than we wanted to know about the Kardashians. I still don’t understand why they are fodder for reality television, but then, I don’t get the genre in general.
That all moms can, at any moment, turn into the Incredible Hulk. I’m not the only one. And I need that reminder from time to time, because I only remember my own mom from a child’s perspective, so I have no reference point for her faults. My cousin, who’s older than I am, tells me that I remember her just as she was. That she was, in fact, the perfect wife and mother. And I kind of believe that, because we are talking about a woman who ironed absolutely everything. I can remember her ironing sheets, my father’s handkerchiefs, his boxers. But I also remember a few fleeting moments when she went Incredible Hulk on us as well. Any mom with kids, at any time, can turn into the hulk.
I am often reminded, whenever I drive a certain on-ramp of the interstate, of a moment 40 years ago when my brother and I were arguing over a rubber wrench in the back seat of the car. It was green and it had a little pin in the center that allowed the jaws to open and close. It went with a whole rubber tool set my brother had. But I liked the wrench. My mother must have gotten sick of hearing “It’s mine,” “No, it’s mine,” etc. So she called to us from the driver’s seat. “Let me see that,” she said innocently enough, and so we gave it to her. She then rolled down the window of the Impala, threw it out onto the highway and gunned the engine. We were left dumbfounded, looking out the back windshield as the thing skipped in the dust in our wake.
Manfrengensen and I went to the movies tonight to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which was very funny. But I don’t want to talk about Sarah Marshall. I want to talk about the preview I saw for The Incredible Hulk. Now, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m really looking forward to this movie. I don’t have any problem with Edward Norton as Bruce Banner. I don’t know why some Hulk fans are up-in-arms about the casting. I think Norton will be awesome as Bruce Banner. 
See, Bruce Banner is not some muscle-rippled athlete. He’s a scientist. I’m not saying that there aren’t any muscle-rippled scientists out there, but I do think, when you think scientist, you don’t think of this guy:
So, my problem is not with Edward Norton. My problem is with the size of this Hulk. He looks too big to me. How are they going to cover his gnads? In the 70’s show, he wasn’t that big, he was just an extra-large man. Bill Bixby’s jeans turned into cut-off bermudas for Lou Farrigno, and everything was on the up-and-up so to speak. When Edward Norton’s Bruce Banner turns into the Hulk, what’s he going to wear? I’m not a reader of the comic, so maybe this question has already been addressed, as I am sure the Hulk has increased in size over the years. My guess is that in the film Banner’s always wearing pants with Spandex. Lots of Spandex.
LOST in a Dream
Posted: April 17, 2008 Filed under: family, TV | Tags: LOST, Sawyer Leave a comment
In the dream, I am out in a yard filled with lush tropical vegetation. I hear someone call from inside the house, but I can’t go in because Ee is with me, and she wants to keep playing on the swings.
“Hey,” I say, “can you watch her?”
Kate turns around, she’s all sweaty, but her hair looks great. “No problem,” she smiles.
I enter the house, which is filled with all kinds of tchotchkes that I have to wade through. Finally I get to the second floor, and I realize: this is my grandmother’s house. The first door off the landing belongs to my great uncle. I turn the knob and crack it open, and immediately I’m hit with that old man smell, a kind of mixture of old sweat, old shoes and hair tonic with a pinch of doily on the dresser. I open the door a little further and there’s Sawyer. going through my uncle’s drawers, sifting through sepia photographs.
“He-ey!” he calls in a sing-songy tone.
“Stop that!” I say.
“He-ey!” he repeats, exactly the same way, with the second syllable an octave higher than the first.
“Stop it,” I plead.
“He-ey!” He just keeps doing it, and I keep telling him to stop until finally, I open my eyes, and there’s Manfrengensen, asleep next to me. He’s on his back, and he’s snoring in the same loud, sing-songy tone Sawyer was using.
Time to start my day.
Momma’s Got a Brand New Blog
Posted: April 16, 2008 Filed under: movies, TV | Tags: Giamatti, HBO, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, John Adams, kimba, marine boy, movies, Speed Racer 1 CommentManfrengensen and I are really enjoying this show on HBO:
Very interesting series, and we’re learning a lot about America’s second president. Though I thought the sex scene between Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney was gratuitous. Kind of like some executive at HBO thought it had to be added to give the series that HBO signiature. “If it doesn’t have gratuitous titties, it doesn’t say HBO.”
Upcoming movies I’m looking forward to:
Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, War Inc., Dark Knight, Wall E.
T3 is psyched for Speed Racer, but my hopes are not high. The cast list credits one actor
portraying Rex Racer, and then Matthew Fox is Racer X. Um, what up with that?? I really hope the Rex Racer actor is playing him as a child.
Here’s the thing I don’t understand about some of these remakes of nostalgic series. Why don’t they just take pages from the originals? If you really want to get a franchise out of it, take what people liked about the series and build on that. Most of these remakes are too kitstchy to catch on. And like most pieces of kitsch, it’s mostly just crap. Like if you are going to remake Speed Racer with live action, why not just take the first four episodes of the cartoon and bring them to life? You can’t beat campy lines like the one where the villain tells Speed, “You’re tough kid, but you’re no match for Ace Deucey.”
My brother loved Speed Racer and Ultra Man, both of which used to be on in the afternoons when we got home from school. I loved this one in kindergarten and first grade:
I think Marine Boy was my first crush. My best friend and I used to take turns at recess pretending one was Marine Boy and the other was the mermaid, Neptina. Occasionally someone else would play along, pretending to be the dolphin. You can learn more about Marine Boy at:
http://www.nostalgiacentral.com/tv/kids/marineboy.htm
I also loved Kimba the White Lion: http://kimba.rightstuf.com/
Nope, they don’t make ’em like that any more.
Family Hour
Posted: April 15, 2008 Filed under: family | Tags: 30 Rock, family programming, How I Met Your Mother, MILF Island, New York Times, The Office, tv schedule Leave a commentThere’s an article in today’s New York Times about how last week’s episodes of 30 Rock and The Office pushed new boundaries of what is considered acceptable for “family hour” television. You can read the article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/arts/television/14curs.html?_r=1&ref=arts&oref=slogin
The basic premise of the article is that by revolving a storyline around a fictional show called “MILF Island”, 30 Rock pushed the boundaries of vulgarity for what has been traditionally considered “family hour” 
television. The Office did the same when it portrayed characters cursing with the word bleeped out, though the implication of what was said was clear to the viewers.
Are they kidding me? I didn’t even realize there was an hour of television still considered to have appropriate entertainment for all members of the family. How can 8-9 p.m. be considered family hour, when you have Friends, Seinfeld and other mature-audience sitcoms running in syndication between 7 and 8 in half the local markets in the country? I’ve even seen edited versions of Sex and the City during “family hour” on TBS. Yes, it’s edited, but still, it’s a show about S-E-X in the city. When I was teaching middle school, more than half the kids watched Seinfeld. They would joke about “The Contest” and mastering their domains. Sure they didn’t fully understand what it all meant in many cases, but believe me, they were on their way.
But that got me thinking — What else is being shown during “Family Hour?” Hmm, let’s see:
Sundays, NBC is showing old episodes of MONK these days, a show that originally aired Fridays on the USA Network at 10. Saturdays, NBC has LAW & ORDER: Criminal Intent. Wasn’t that originally a 10 p.m. show? My guess, is that unless some thug on these shows has murdered a teletubby, there’s nothing resembling appropriate viewing for children in their contents. Other nights, they’ve got reality programming, including Deal or No Deal and The Biggest Loser. Don’t even get me started on what virtues the latter has to teach America’s youth. 
CBS has Big Bang Theory (Hmm, wonder what the joke is about there) and How I Met Your Mother on Monday nights between 8-9. Now I love How I Met Your Mom, but I must say that many weeks I think, this show is hilariously funny, but it should be on an hour later. Not that I’m watching it with the kids, but if I didn’t have TIVO, I wouldn’t be able to. Tuesdays they’ve got NCIS (that show is still ON???) and Wednesdays — big honkin’ no to family-appropriate here — Big Brother 9. (Are you freaking kidding me? 9 ???…seriously – 9 ?) And the list goes on: Thursdays: Survivor, Fridays: Ghost Whisperer (Hey, Kaitlin, why don’t you watch this show with Mom and Dad? You’ll enjoy it almost as much as the week’s worth of night terrors that will follow!) Saturdays: Cold Case, and Sundays, because it’s the Lord’s day: another helping of Big Brother 9: Satan’s Crib.
Honestly, not a one of those would I consider “family programming.”
Do I really need to even tell you what’s on FOX? Also, ABC’s not too bad, as they are, after all, owned by Disney.
Here’s the thing though: None of this bothers me. The real issue is that no matter what your kids watch, you should know what it is they’re watching. Ultimately it’s not up to the networks to offer programming for kids — and hey, most of them don’t even program cartoons on Saturday mornings any more. It’s up to parents to be the gatekeepers of what’s appropriate for their kids. If you’re a parent, and you don’t want them exposed to “MILF Island” or its ilk, there are hundreds of other choices. Take them over to Animal Planet, or National Geographic, Noggin, or Cartoon Disney. The possibilities are almost limitless…assuming, of course, you are not of limited economic means and therefore confined to network programming…but that’s for another post.
One last thing about my weekend
Posted: April 14, 2008 Filed under: Day-to-Day, family | Tags: Britney Spears, bullies, Target, Wii, working out Leave a commentI did workout today. I go to this little gym near my house. I like it, because it’s usually pretty quiet, at least during the hours of the day when I go. It’s laid back. Today, the front door was broken and propped open with a weight. I signed in, and as I usually do, I left my car keys at the far corner of the front desk.
There was nobody there. Just the girl behind the desk but no personal trainers. One woman was on an eliptical, and a man was doing some work on the weight machines. I did what I usually do and 45 minutes later went to get my keys. The girl at the front desk hadn’t gotten up once from her seat, and it kind of looked like she was doing a report for college or something. As I was grabbing the keys, something caught my eye on her computer screen, and I had to do a double take. It was a photo of a hairless, uncircumcised penis. Just kind of…not what I expected to see first thing Sunday morning.
I picked J up from Sunday school and took him out. He kind of had a rough week with another kid at school, not bullying per se, but general unkindness. 
I think the other kid has academic frustrations, sees J doesn’t, and kind of takes it out on him. I have been talking to J about his feelings and plan to see the teacher this week. But you know, it’s tough on a seven-year old. Plus, when you add what’s going on at school with the fact that he’s been going to bed too late and getting up too early, J’s basically been as emotional as Britney Spears.
So, I wanted to spend a little one-on-one time with him. We went to lunch, and then stopped by Target to pick up items I had left there in a bag last week. They were really cool about it. Turns out each register keeps the receipts from items left behind, and then the customer service rep told me to go get them again and I took them home. But I got to thinking — she had a HUGE stack of receipts in that binder. How much stuff is paid for every year and left behind that goes unclaimed? Target just puts it back on the shelf for resale. It must mean lots of $$$ for them and other retailers.
Anyway, here’s the big news: While I was in line at customer service, the woman in front of me returned a Wii. That got me thinking about my unrequited Wii search. J’s birthday is coming up, and that’s what we’ve been saying we were going to get him, but we haven’t been able to find one. After we finished up at customer service, we did some shopping and wandered into the electronics section where I looked wistfully for Wii. A woman in a red shirt, who’s nametag said DOREEN, asked me if I needed anything, and I asked if she could tell me if there was a particular day when Wiis came in, when I might be able to stalk this elusive prey. Doreen said, “Hang on a sec. One just got returned to customer service, let me make sure there’s nothing wrong with it, otherwise you can have it.” Five minutes later, I bought a Wii. Thanks, DOREEN! Wee!!
Not that I think material possessions can cure any woe, but J is feeling a lot better tonight. He kicked his father’s butt in cartoonish boxing.
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