Notorious NPH

It's Oscar night (I think there's supposed to be a "™" or maybe an "®" in there somewhere), and as per usual for the last ten years or so, I am unprepared.

As a former (recovering?) film student, I take the Oscars very seriously. Perhaps too seriously, but what can I do? I love the movies, always have, and -- this is the part that has become the most important to me now, in my "advanced" age -- I also really, really enjoy watching people wearing clothes that cost more than my house.

Also: Neil Patrick Harris. I will watch anything he is in (and I actually HAVE, since I watched every. single. episode. of How I Met Your Mother).

So help me, I am a bonafide red-blooded American woman, despite all my attempts to avoid becoming such a creature for basically my entire life. I'm a stereotype. I make no excuses.

Used to be, back in the days when we were still dating, G and I would go out of our way if necessary to see all the nominated films. It was easier when we were in college and they would show movies on campus for $2. The hardest part about seeing Oscar movies back then was coming up with the $2. Then we got engaged and got jobs and got married and got a mortgage and got a kid ... and now we barely have time to change our underwear, let alone carve out countless hours to spend at the movies. (I won't even mention that $2 no longer buys a soda at the movies any more -- hell, you care barely get a movie theater box of Junior Mints at Target for less than that.)

ANYWAY.

I'll spare you all the long and boring details (TOO LATE, haha sucker!) and just get to the part I think you're waiting for anyway: "So, which Oscar-nominated movies did you actually see this year?" And perhaps as a corollary: "What did you think of them?"

Here you go. This is the entirety of the list of Oscar movies I've seen this year.

• Boyhood. I honestly can't say enough good things about this movie. It's the best movie I've seen in a long time, perhaps ever. Go see it and get back to me. (You can probably still get it at Redbox, which has been a godsend to patient cinephiles with nice TV's at home.) Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke were both beyond fantastic in this movie. I never really gave much thought to Richard Linklater's films (not usually my thing), but I have since reconsidered. I think it would be super if this wins Best Picture, as it is expected to. I usually root against the frontrunner, but I can't in this case.
• Gone Girl. We liked this one well enough. I'd read the book before we saw the movie; my husband didn't. I was not a particular fan of Rosamund Pike in this movie, but I'm not sure it's her fault; could have been the character. Ben Affleck was perfect, which are words I never thought I'd ever say.
• Into the Woods. It was pretty much exactly as I expected it to be. G and I both liked it (me more than him, but that's because he is not always hot to trot on musicals). Chris Pine was a revelation and probably the second-best thing in this movie after James Corden. Maryl Streep absolutely DID NOT deserve a nom for this; they gave her one anyway because she's Meryl, and that's bullshit.
• Big Hero 6. Highly recommended. Will be picking up the Blu-Ray on Tuesday. Okay, Shae? Can we stop with the civil disobedience now? Jesus Mary and Simon Peter. Mommy and Daddy can sometimes bend the laws of physics and space-time, but we just don't have the power to make Big Cinema do what you want it to.
• How to Train Your Dragon 2. Liked it. Basically The Empire Strikes Back, but with, y'know, cartoon dragons. My husband and I very much enjoyed playing our favorite game of "Name That Voice" while watching.
• Maleficent. Yes, this movie got nominated for an Academy Award -- for Costumes, but you know what? An O is an O. It was fine. I like watching Angelina Jolie chew the hell out of some scenery.
• Guardians of the Galaxy. My favorite movie of the year, but I am biased because I love Chris Pratt so hard right now. Not the best movie of the year, but my favorite. Already own the Blu-Ray, and already watched it at least six times. No regrets.
• The Lego Movie. Nominated for Best Original Song for "Everything is Awesome" which you are probably singing right now. I am disappointed that this movie didn't get nominated for Best Animated Feature because I thought it was the best animated movie of the year (and I am absolutely in the bag for Disney).
• X-Men: Days of Future Past. Liked it a lot, but thought Peter Dinklage was criminally underutilized.

That's it. Eleventeen hundred nominated movies, and I've seen nine of them. I suck. I can't make predictions in any categories because I haven't even seen enough to clips to guess what way the Academy might want to go. Although I can say this: I really hope that J.K. Simmons wins for Whiplash -- a movie I haven't seen -- and I hope that Michael Keaton wins for Birdman -- again, a movie I haven't seen -- just because I like those guys a whole lot and want them to have lots of success and stuff.

And if Meryl wins again? I'm flipping a table.

Flashback Friday!

UGH. It's mid-October, rushing headlong into LATE October already, and I haven't put up any pictures in 5,000 years because of reasons (mostly involving ways in which I suck). So today let's celebrate "Flashback Friday," where in this case we'll be flashing way the hell back to ... late August.

OF COURSE there was a slip-and-slide involved. Why wouldn't there be? It's not like we were at my uncle's house, in his backyard, where there is an in-ground pool with hot tub, or anything.

Isn't it kind of amazing how slip-and-slides are, like, the great social equalizer? I mean, sure, they're plastic-coated death traps, but have you ever met anyone who didn't have a great time at an event that featured a slip-and-slide?

I, personally, have not. I wish I had [1] a bigger yard and [2] actual water pressure so that I could put a slip-and-slide in my own backyard during the summer. I mean, we love watching "Adventure Time" while sitting in front of the giant-ass window air conditioner and eating popsicles, but sometimes you need to go out and make your own adventures, you know?

GUH, just looking at this pictures reminds me of how much I miss the summer already, and we have another nine months until it comes back around. This summer was weird, hot in the beginning and cool at the end and many kinds of sinus headaches in between, but the worst day of summer is still better than the best day of any other season except possibly my kid's birthday.

Okay, and maybe Christmas. I like Christmas. And Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving, too. Which reminds me: I just learned about bacon vodka and I am thinking about making bloody Marys to have with my Thanksgiving dinner that I'd make with our traditional V8 and bacon vodka, if I can find any. Doesn't hat sound delightful?

SHUT UP YES IT DOES. A bloody Mary made with V8 and bacon vodka sounds like Thanksgiving dinner in a goddamned glass. Veggies, bacon, and alcohol, all in a Dixie cup? That there equals ZERO clean-up, and if I have TWO I'd be asleep on my uncle's couch before everybody else even got home from the football game.

I also like Halloween, because I love Reese's peanut butter pumpkins. Although I will admit that, except for possibly pumpkin pie, which I adore (just the the crust -- only the pumpkin custard and whipped cream parts), I am kind of over pumpkin everything right now. But pumpkin-shaped chocolates? Yes please.

So here we are, face to face, a couple of Silver Spoons ... no, wait, that isn't right. Here we are, all caught up. Ish. I have more pictures to put up but I need to ease myself into it. For now, just enjoy this little flashback to the Last Major Federal Holiday. Hopefully this will be enough to get you through until next time.

(Oh hey I just realized there are no pictures of me as usual but I wanted to prove that I was participating in the festivities. So, [1] you can either pretend those pictures of my sister are actually me, or [2] you can enjoy this screen print of a Twitter conversation I had with an actual NPR personality. Your choice.)

[ Something Witty Should Appear Here ]

AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH.

It's hot and humid and I have a sinus headache and my kid is watching some trippy "educational" programming on HBO that involves talking dancing shoelaces (!!!) and I have an 8-page Canterbury Tales paper due at 3:00 on Monday and my brain is basically completely fried.

So here: have some random, almost completely decontextualized pictures!

This is from before 4th of July. I may be alone in this, but I think there is basically nothing in the world more adorable than a wet child in neon colors who smells of Coppertone and chlorine screaming for joy. This is pretty much my happy place, right here. The only thing that would making this picture better, IMNSHO, would be if (1) this were my own kid, and (2) neons were not involved. I lived through the original mid-1980s neon fad, and I am not so excited about this day-glo revival, because I have eyeballs, and I'd like to keep them.

I would like to find the bozobrain who taught my kid the word "chillax" and punch them in the neck (unless it's a kid, in which case I'd like to punch his parent in the neck). Otherwise, camp has been a rousing success so far -- even though (1) Shae doesn't quite understand the words "boa" and "constrictor," although she DOES understand the concept of one, and (2) this picture was taken at my grandmother's.

This bubble is approximately 8,000 years old. Shae used to wear it. Of course, I can't find pictures of Shae wearing it because I never tagged any photos or blog posts with "bubble."

These pictures are actually from July 4th. And, it's a good thing my sister is teaching my niece to play pinochle now, at a very young age, because I am 39 years old and I still don't know how to bid. I am basically the world's least competent card shark. (I'm great at spades, though.)

This what July 4th looked like -- an ENTIRE DAY of my crazy kid being crazy. It was pretty awesome, actually, although it was too damned hot.

I included this picture for no particular reason except that I love these two.

The Life Aquatic with Boo Zissou

I make no secret of the fact that summer is my favorite season of the year: long days, grilled food, iced tea, fresh lemonade, freeze pops watching fireworks, catching fireflies.

I am not really the sort of person who loves strenuous activity -- I'm a Taurus, after all, and we are better known for our love of sensuous things like basking in the sun with a good book and an icy cold beverage -- but even I can appreciate the well-earned kind of exhaustion that comes from a day spent playing cards, chasing the kids through the yard, getting sticky from eating juicy watermelon in the grass.

And, of course, the pool. We all already know that summer is Shae's favorite time of the year because she has pretty much unfettered access to an assortment of swimming pools.

Summer is our happy place. There is a specific set of smells that makes me unbelievably, almost intoxicatingly happy. I catch a whiff of it sometimes when I hold my niece these days. I smell it on Shae every day when she comes home from camp. It is a combination of things that signifies summer and instantly transports me to a time when I was a kid myself.

Chlorine and Coppertone. Add in some bug spray and nail polish remover, and it's like a drug for me. It's a high that's can't be matched by legal or illicit pharmaceuticals of any stripe. It just ...

... it's what summer IS.

Adventure Time

Shae has a bunch of stuff coming up this week that is probably a much bigger deal to me than it is to her: first flat-ironings, dance recitals, graduation, stuff like that. Milestones are kind of meaningless when you're six and your whole life is literally ahead of you. Of course, I'll be a total cracked-out mess, as usual, with all the pictures to prove it. In the meantime: a story.

= = = = =

We don't watch a lot of superhero shows in our house. We're not really opposed to them, in theory, but Shae is highly suggestible and we're just trying to be proactive about any potential behavioral changes that might result from exposure to stuff she's not ready for. Others probably call this a symptom of the "pussification" of our children; they're probably correct to a large degree. But at the same time, these Others don't have to live with a kid who thinks that all adopted children -- e.g., Superman, Hercules, the Power Puff Girls -- have either super powers or Daddy Warbuckses.

But like every kid ever born in America ever, my kid is at least aware of your major superheroes. Batman, Iron Man, Wonder Woman, etc. It might be a while before she understands why funny sideburns and yellow Spandex sometimes makes Mommy weak in the knees (by the old gods and the new, I hope this remains the case), but she knows who the X-Men are. And she already knows that when she grows up, she's going to be the superhero who saves everybody, "not just some silly boy who only saves the pretty girls with down hair."

So why is this blog post all pictures of my niece running around my uncle's back yard wearing a scarf around her neck, superhero-style?

Because more than once, when someone asked her who she was pretending to be, while she was doing this very thing ...

... my niece said, "Super-Shae!" And Shae would reply, "Makayla is my hero." And they were both right.

Frosty the Snowman

I can't speak for anyone else, but my week has been absolute BUTT, except for my niece's impromptu birthday bash at Chuck E. Cheese's yesterday -- I KNOW -- so I am sharing this with the world because it gives me so much joy.



I hope it does the same for you.

Wish You Were Here

On Monday -- just three days from now -- Shae starts kindergarten. I KNOW. Didn't we just have her first birthday party like a week ago? They weren't messing around when they said time flies. Like, it was JUST Memorial Day, wasn't it? And now here we are, face to face, a couple of Silver Spoons ... WAIT. Wrong song.

ANYWAY. Shae and my sister and my niece and my parents and I played hooky on Wednesday and went to the beach, to soak up some sun and splash in the surf while we still can. (Also, we knew someone who was down there for the week, so we could stay overnight.) And you know what?

It was kind of a last-minute, game-time decision, but it was exactly the right one. It's funny how sometimes you don't realize how much you just need a mental-health, stress-relief, photosynthesizin' kind of day until you're in the middle of one and you're already 90+ pages into a book and you're sort of half sunk into the sand and you find yourself thinking, "Where has this place been all my life?"

And it was pretty much the perfect day off, too. Temps in the low 80's, low humidity, bright sunshine but not too hot, hardly anybody on the beach really, nice warm water, waves a little rough but nothing we couldn't handle. If you open the dictionary to "perfection," there is probably a picture of a day just like that.

I'm not the sort of person who normally just takes off on a Wednesday, just because, but you know what? I can be convinced.

Salty Piece Of Land

More pictures from the beach, because of reasons.

Boogie boarding: you're doing it wrong. And still, somehow, doing it right.

Shae says that at the next Olympics she's going to win first place in all the swimming events. I don't think she'll be ready for Rio in 2016, but maybe by 2024 she'll be the new Missy Franklin. And if that is the case, I hope that when Costas and company does a package on "how it all began," they include this picture.

Somebody is not sure whether 64°F is quite warm enough for civilized people. (Glad it wasn't just me.)

Now I really wish that I had put Shae in her suit that matches Makayla's. This is what I get for letting her pick her own clothes out - my perfect shot is ruined. RUINED.

We did a lot of jumping. Shae likes to jump. I hope she never discovers the pole vault, or we'll all be in trouble.

Those eyelashes KILL ME DEAD, every time.

It should be reassuring to me that EVERY.SINGLE.FAMILY.PICTURE. turns out like this, because it means it is not operator error, and yet. AND YET.

THOSE EYELASHES AGAIN. Gaaaah. Who do I need to speak to about an upgrade?

Deep Blue Something

My sister mentioned on her blog the other day that My Nephew The Elder is not much of a swimmer -- yet. In so many ways, he and my own kid are so much alike -- what with the silly Pop-Pop faces and the general excitement about everything and the camaraderie and the matching superhero T-shirts -- but when it comes to the pool, he and Shae are total opposites. She is a cross between a goldfish and a mermaid and a (very skinny) great white, what with all the swimming around while singing and eating everything that isn't nailed to the concrete patio. And he ... is not, so much. He is perfectly happy to sit on the side under an umbrella and eat his freeze pop in peace. (Not unlike his Uncle G, actually.)

UNTIL.

I don't know what caused the turnaround -- the heat? some rare disease? too much to eat? or maybe it's fleas?* -- but Joey went all the way in the pool when he was "back East," for the first time maybe ever. The first time I can remember, anyway.

And I can tell from the look in his eyes that maybe he is not quite sure about this whole life-under-water thing, but I can also tell from the fact that he actually did not want to get out of the pool for a little while there that perhaps the next time we go out and visit the Midwest in the summertime, Shae will not be going down the great big waterslide by herself.

Resistance is futile, little man. You will be assimilated.

Attaboy!

Where's Perry?

According to Phineas and Ferb, there's 104 days of summer vacation 'til school comes along just to end it, so the annual problem for our generation is finding a good way to spend it.

 

 

  

  

Looks like the next generation has it all figured out, though.

I'll Take Blurry Pictures Out Of Context For $200, Alex

On Sunday night while we were in Illinois, we went to a community carnival -- the kind with kiddie rides and red velvet flavored funnel cake. (Which, incidentally, was fine, although I thought the traditional flavored funnel cake was better, and in any case, I will always prefer good old fashioned fried dough because COME ON.)

Joey found a ride he really liked. Actually, he liked several of them, but the car ride was by far his favorite, I think.

Sorry for all the blurry pictures, by the way. I did use the Magic Camera but the combination of low light, fast motion, and my complete and utter inability to hold the camera steady all conspired against me. (Even with vibration reduction on the replacement telephoto lens!)

I took Shae on my favorite ride at any carnival anywhere ever: the Tilt-A-Whirl. Yes, I know I am an Oldy McDustybones, but I can't help myself. I love the Tilt-A-Whirl. I have no shame about this. I can whip that suck around pretty fast, too. That's one of my more marketable skills, actually.

The kids went on four rides total -- the cars, the Tilt-A-Whirl (Shae only), this thing that was a spinning dragon thing that we didn't get any pictures of, and a kiddie coaster called the Dragon Wagon, which is possibly the greatest amusement park ride name ever. Say it with me: Draaaaaaaagon Waaaaaaaagon. See? AWESOME.

Shae is on this kick right now where she wants to scream all the time on all the rides. SCREAM. ALL. THE. TIME. It's cute for the first ride. It's even kind of cute for the second one.

But poor Joey had to listen to my kid AND HER GIGANTIC LUNGS screaming for like two hours, so yeah, I kind of understand that face he is making in that last picture. I imagine I was making the same one.

= = = = =

For the next couple of days there might be duplicate photos, but I promise we'll get past them soon. Your patience is appreciated at this difficult time. Thanks! -- Ed.