Some one get me some eucalyptus

I am nearer my goal of becoming a koala bear.  Yes, I know they aren't really bears.  I like the way it sounds, "koala bear," okay?  You can just get your own blog and use only proper Latin names.  So back off.  See?  I'm already grumpy, just like our marsupial friend.  And I carried my young in a pouch and nursed them until they could digest gum leaves.  Or could chew gum.  I hardly remember anymore.  I enjoy eating, so I've got that part of koala life covered.  But only now that my children are in school, can I near that most wondrous characteristic of our little Aussie friend--16-20 hours of sleep a day.  That first day of school?  I napped for FOUR HOURS.  The next day, a bit under three.  Then two.  Then, today, only one (you get the bends if you go back to a human schedule too quickly).  It rocks, being a koala bear.  I think I'll skip the chlamydia, though.

So yeah.  Kids are in school, full day.  Even wee Lily, who has proclaimed it "long and tiring" even though she STILL seldom drops off to sleep before 10 pm.  Clearly no koala blood in THAT one.  I've volunteered to be a car line helper, opening doors and chirping "good morning" at the fresh-faced little mites.  I'm extra chipper with the sullen ones, of course.  But this means that even on the first day, I was racing around screaming, "Let's GO!  Shoes ON, people!" and only had time for one on-the-porch first day photo.  And it turns out it looks like a suspect line-up:



"The one in the skirt stole my bag, officer!"  (aren't you glad this isn't the sort of blog where I would have said "stole my heart"?  me too).

Steve told me to take the whole week off, to nap, do nothing.  I needed no further prodding.  I've done no more than is necessary to keep everyone fed and clothed.  I haven't even been sewing.  Nuthin.  Felt gooood, let me tell you.  It gave me a chance to play with my birthday present!  I'm coming at you from a schweet little Macbook!  Don't I look cooler now?  I know, hardly seemed possible, but there you go.

And yes, it IS my birthday tomorrow.  So I hope you have my presents ready.  I'll be 40.  So that makes my mom pretty damned old.  Just so you know.  Hi mom!  the fact that I very clearly remember her 40th birthday is...unsettling.  And even more, I remember being out for a walk with her down our road remarking that that year she was 44 and I was 22 and how cool.  It was YESTERDAY.  How did time speed up so?    You wait, whippersnappers.  You'll see.

What am I doing for said birthday?  Well, that fabulous trip to Europe is out, so I'm going to camp out with my friends and then go rollerskating.  Because apparently I'm 8.

too much pressure

And while I have you...My 40th birthday is the 31st of this month.  I have no plans.  The pressure...it's like New Year's Eve x40.  Tell me, oh wise ones.

the countdown starts...

Did that subject line get you singing "Major Tom (Coming Home)" by Peter Schilling?  Four, three, two, one, Earth below-ow-ow us, drifting, falling, floating wei ei eightless... Now are you singing?  Or cursing?

But this has nothing to do with astronauts.  Or David Bowie.  Or the 80s.  One week from today, school starts.  And Lily starts full day kindergarten.  Let me hear an "AMEN!"  School supplies are bought and bagged.  First day outfits are purchased.  And I am giddy, giddy with anticipation.  Is that wrong?  Judge me when you've been trapped with these urchins pick pick picking at each other b/c they're just DONE with summer. 

I'm sure the fact that I spent 16+ hours in the car with them last week doesn't help my need to escape.  We drove to Dayton to see Aunt Carolyn.  It wasn't as torturous a trip as I'd feared, mom came along and the kids weren't horrid, just there.  Always.  As soon as the picking got to bad or the cranky started up (in any of us), I'd just take the next exit or rest stop and declare a bathroom break.   We peed a LOT.  It was like traveling through Israel with Steve's Aunt Lila.  I think we stopped at every hole in the ground in the whole country.  Bring your own TP.  Incidentally, does anyone else have parents who accuse them of looking "like an aunt (ant?) going to Jerusalem" when wearing baggy things?  Mine did.  Neither can explain where this came from, but having SEEN an aunt going to Jerusalem, I can tell you that they favor baggy shorts and Tshirts, cinched with a fanny pack.  A fanny pack containing a pistol.  This is a  look I have never sported.  Ah, right, Ohio...so we drove a lot and saw a cool museum and visited and it was lovely.

We went to the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery which was a very fun excursion.  The kids had a blast.  I fought the urge to nap.  I have no idea why, but children's museums are like a sleeping potion for me.  I get through the door and start yawning.  It's all I can do to drag my weary limbs from exhibit to exhibit.  No matter how new and exciting, I'm looking for a soft bench.  Julianna and Lily enjoyed dressing up as animals and climbing under a diorama that had little pop-up bubbles--Lily's a "chickmunk" and Julianna's a bunny:



Ben spent ages polishing this truck in an area set up to look like a garage.  I really hoped that he and the other kids would suddenly break into song and dance about "she's a real pussy wagon," but they never did.  Aunt Carolyn climbs behind the wheel:


My favorite thing was this really trippy room where you dance in front of screen and the camera projects you onto it, only...well, trippy.  I could have stayed there all day. here's all three kids:


And if you care to toke up, here's a bit o' video:



(first time I've tried this video insertion...we'll see if it works).

So.  I'm back.  I'll try to update more.  Thank god it's no longer 152 degrees outside, although I'm sure it'll be back.

The Gift that Keeps on Giving

Steve went to London a few weeks ago on business.  He called the day before he was to return home, trying to get advice on presents for the kids.  I just told him to get Tshirts or baseball caps and they'd be fine, but he's a nice Daddy and wanted to get them something else as well (I already knew he had a suitcase full of Cadbury for me, so what care I of the children?).  He told me he'd gotten Lily a book of Charlie and Lola , Ben a baseball hat, and a stuffed animal for Julianna.  T-shirts for all three.  Yay, everyone is happy.  Ah, but the happy had not even begun.

He got home and gave out the gifts.  And thus, it began, as he handed Julianna her stuffed animal.  "A BEAVER!  Why, it's the cutest beaver I've ever seen!  What will I name my beaver?"  to each new person:  "I have a beaver!" or, better, "Do you want to see my beaver?"  "Would you like to pet my beaver?  It's very soft!"

At the swim meet the next day, to Denise: I have a beaver!  My dad brought it from London.  It's the cutest beaver ever!
Denise, biting the insides of her cheeks: Does your beaver have a name?
Julianna: Yes, I named her Daffodil!
Denise: Not Denise?
Me:  I named MY beaver Denise.
Denise: you better shut up.

And ever since, we'll get beaver related humor.  She's prone to just randomly saying things and sometimes it's "I have a beaver!"  Steve swears he didn't even know it was a beaver when he bought it (that's right, away from home a week and he forgets what a beaver looks like), but it's comedy gold, I tells ya.  Highly recommended.

DONE!!

I finished The Deathly Hallows.  I'll give it a couple of days and then I'll warn you of spoilers.  Meanwhile, enjoy pictures from the party at the library...


Bev and I as the Trelawny twins.  Luckily our friend Lara just happened to have a crystal ball!  You can't really tell, but I smeared my lipstick as if I'd been hitting the cooking sherry and was wearing mismatched socks with slippers.  I do love me a costume.  I was always the kid that went just a bit too far on spirit days in high school.

Julianna was Hermione, of course.  And yes, I did try to be in every picture.  Why do you ask?


Molly was the Whomping Willow.  Genius.  Apparently, it was Julianna's idea, but she doesn't have her mothers tendency toward Glory Hog.  Yet.


But the Ford Anglia on the hat was pure Molly.  And the perfect touch:


Julianna and Blair (as Madame Rosemerta) making quills:


Look! Real Weasleys!


I cast a fortune for Tonks and Harry (Rhiannon and Owen.  Wee Aidan with Weasley orange hair evaded the photo):


Library employees were made up by a local make up school or some such.  They looked great.  Observe!


And then the book!  Woo!  Luckily we were in the first 20 or so people.  There was ONE register open.  Borders had come to the library to sell, but didn't send enough registers for the task.  Or perhaps they could have let us buy tickets for a book throughout the night, to be exchanged, swiftly, for a book at midnight.  but no.  Anyway.  I cannot imagine why people waited when a few hours later, there's be truckloads of them at every store on earth.


Okay, now go read it so we can chat!

My life as a 12 year old girl

So I saw that stupid Harry Potter movie.  I made the mistake of rereading Order of the Phoenix too close to seeing the movie.  I'm reasonably certain it sucked anyway, but having been that close to the book made it extra painful.  I went to see it with Julianna, my friend Bev and her two oldest girls, and an extra 10 year old.  Bev and the extra kid hadn't read the book recently (kid hadn't read it at all).  They were not party to the outraged squawking that characterized the drive home.  I, however, was in full angry-fan mode.  "But what about the..."  "And the...!!!"  "I KNOW!!"  "And there was no...!!!"  It's a wonder none of us stroked out.

First, and most trivially, the effects were terrible.  This wouldn't matter if the movie were good, but it wasn't, so they sucked.  Grawp, the giant, was just wrong and awful and meh.   I will admit that the too short battle at the end between Dumbledore and Voldemort (don't flinch!) was pretty cool.  I'm gonna miss ol' Dumbledore.

Of course much of the story was dropped.  Understandable, the book was the size of a paving slab.  But for the last movie, they did a good job of it. They just focused on the Tri-Wizard Tournament and dropped everything else.  Fine.  So there was no S.P.E.W, but I let it go b/c they had a coherent story to tell.  This one?  I cannot imagine how it made even a little sense if you hadn't read the book.  Huge chunks of plot were missing and what WAS there seemed to be on fast-forward.  There were so many characters that few got any screen time.  Only Harry and Umbridge (great casting btw.  I wanted to set her on fire, so she did a great job) get much more than a few lines.  Oh, and Daniel?  Please stop building up your neck muscles.  It's too close in size to your head and you are being to resemble a bespectacled penis. 

I felt that what was important about OotP was the mental connection between Harry and Voldemort.  Occlumency, Legilimency, the Prophecy.  Instead, the focus was almost solely on Umbridge's tenure at Hogwarts-- her growing power and ultimate downfall.  That story should be the backdrop against which Harry's interactions with Snape and realizations of his father's fallibility should have been played.  Instead, the Occlumency lessons are a throw away, and the introduction of James-as-asshat hardly noticeable.  The other major theme--that makes the whole Umbridge thing possible, really--is the adolescence of Harry and pals.  The ANGST! as the girls kept shouting.  Harry sets himself apart from everyone, foreshadowing how he will have to go it alone in the new book...Crap. I just turned into an English major.  Sorry.  Anyway. Because he's decided he's all misunderstood (what 14 year old isn't, pal, get over yourself), he won't go to Dumbledore for help.   The movie did address the Cho Chang infatuation, but having her betray Dumbledore's Army was just wrong.  Luna Lovegood was terrific, but the whole thread about The Quibbler was dropped.  And...NO QUIDDITCH.  Hello?  Lifetime ban for Harry, Fred, and George (oh, yummy, yummy twins)? hrmpf.

So it's over two hours long, but too short by half to tell the story properly.  A&E or BBC need to do a miniseries of each book.  Using children who can actually act this time, please.  Meanwhile, I have to go re-read The Half Blood Prince in preparation for Saturday's read-o-rama.  yay!

Polly want a lighter

First, just so you know, my hair no longer looks like that.  It's still cute, but much bouncier, due to the fact that I mysteriously got wavy hair sometime in the last decade.  Today it looked like I'd slept on rollers.  I'll take it. 

Look what we found in the yard yesterday:




It's lined in cigarette filters. I'm not sure whether I'm charmed or saddened.  But I worry about the little nicotine-addicted sparrows trying to bum smokes off the crows.