shut down orkut

Hey y'all:

There is this website called Orkut. I won't go into what it is but read up on what's going on with it here: click here and click here

And then click here to sign an online petition to get rid of it: petition

It's about protecting our children, so please check it out.

Thanks.

time off

So I just got back from my retreat this weekend, and I have just one word.

Aaaaaahhhhhhh.

I love my annual women's retreat. It comes right after the most hectic time of year at the Tragically Unhip household--right when summer is over and school starts and we're all trying to work out our new routines. Right around now is when I'm just about to go over the deep end--and then comes my weekend away.

Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh.

So yeah. It was fun. We had a speaker, as usual, but this time it was my favorite speaker so far, Priscilla Shirer of Going Beyond Ministries. She spoke the first time I went to this particular retreat too, three years ago. She's a very engaging speaker--nothing is worse than a speaker who has a good message to give but who loses the message through a haze of too-quiet mumbling and foot shuffling. So yeah, she's good. I want to check out one of her bible studies sometime.

There was so much other stuff to do. I climbed a huge new rock wall and almost got to the top of the hard, jutting-out side! I could reach around the ledge and grab on...but then what?! :)

I shot guns: a .22 and a shotgun. I'm pretty accurate with the .22 (at the mind-boggling distance of about 20 feet, hehe) but bad with the shotgun, which kicks. I mean, the guy said there are a hundred bb's in the cartridge, and I only managed to hit the target with two. Anyway, I do have to say that rifle ranges are a good stress reliever! And archery, which I also did and which I also stank at. :) I could hit the target (which, again, was a mind boggling TEN feet away) but that's about all I could say about that.

Lets see, what else. I was wearing my Zumba instructor jacket all weekend so finally my bunkmates asked what Zumba is. I told them and they wanted me to show them. Wouldn't you know I just happened to have my music and a CD player in the car, so w had a mini Zumba class in the bunk, and again after playing volleyball that night.

We were up SO late Saturday night, eating ice cream, dancing, playing volleyball with the group of girls that play every year, Zumbando, talking...til 3 am. I made some great new friends, which is pretty much my favorite thing to do! :)

After coffee on Sunday morning (one of my favorite things on this retreat--all the coffee, tea, and hot cocoa you want, 'round the clock. Genius I tell you.) I had to leave for work.

Hahaha! I laugh just thinking about it.

I was such a grouch at work that day. I'd had like 5 hours of sleep all weekend, and was tired and sore and dehydrated. At least it was busy, which means it went fast.

So that was my weekend. Oh, that and I killed a spider yesterday that was about the size of a small dog, and just as furry. When a spider is big enough to have FUR? That's scary. *shudder*

I hate spiders.

Now I'm off to catch up on all the housework that didn't get done over the weekend. Whee!!

quick post

I have a lot to write about--I just had a blast at my weekend retreat--but for here's something to tide you over until I get back from the bus stop with Devy.

some random observations from the tragically unhip household

1. It doesn't matter how many Zumba routines, kids' birthdays, song lyrics, gossip details, or job prodcedures I can memorize--if it is a dentist appointment, I will forget it.
2. The fake cobwebs we put up for Halloween are competing with the ones the spiders left...and losing.
3. It doesn't matter how long or hard I clean the house all week long--after a weekend of me working and the rest of the family home, it will just look like it did before.
4. Just because a diaper is cheap doesn't mean you should buy it. In fact, diapers are one of those things you should really splurge on. Unless, y'know, you like cleaning up that kind of stuff. Freak.
5. Babies can't digest corn.
6. Goldfish crackers make good last-minute coating for homemade chicken nuggets.
7. I feel guilty spending $30 on fuzzy warm boots I will wear all fall and winter, but it's way easy to spend the same amount on a Halloween costume my kid will wear once for about two hours.
8. I seriously need to hire some 12-year-old kid to teach me how to use my new cell phone. Seriously. How the heck do I text someone? Get my pictures from my phone to my computer? Change my voicemail message? Anyone??!

Craziness!

School is back in session, which means the Tragically Unhip household has been inundated with paperwork.

Cuz, y'know, it just wouldn't be school if they weren't sending home requests for volunteers for the school parent association (gag me), the library, the computer room, the school fair, the school store, the fundraisers, and the school walk; reminders to send payments for school lunches, school pictures, book fairs, and student magazine subscriptions (for which the teachers sign up the kids and then demand payment from the parents); memos on a thousand different school policies, and on and on.

Then, for parents stupid enough to provide their telephone numbers, there are the twice or three-times-weekly prerecorded telephone calls reminding parents of upcoming events. The upcoming events that we are also reminded of in the weekly emails we so foolishly provided addresses for.

When, exactly, do I start to just send my kid off to school without worrying about the homework she's going to bring me ?!

And now that two of the girls are in school, it's all doubled.

Sometimes I think those homeschoolers have got something.

Then the coffee kicks in. ;)

In other news...this weekend I am going away on my sweet, sweet annual women's retreat. Roughly 48 hours of no kids, no hubby, no chores, no diapers, no work...and I get to see my good friend Connie who, incidentally, I met on the retreat my first time there three years ago.

We always have such a great time--especially playing volleybally until the wee hours of the morning. Connie usually whoops my behind. I'm not too athletically inclined. ;) And there's crafts, a rifle range, archery, pedicures, quiet time, a talent show of some sort, and all the coffee and hot cocoa I can drink. All in the very beautiful mountain lakeside scenery of upstate New England in the fall.

Can't wait!!

people like me shouldn't blog, redux

I posted this on my weight loss blog but thought I'd bring it over here too. It's two! Two! Two posts in one!

Why do some people just have to try to bring other people down? Are they SO miserable?

That's it. I'm way too sensitive for this internet crap.

I was on YouTube browsing through videos looking for choreography videos for Zumba class. There was this one chick who make a whole series of videos on how much Zumba sucks/is stupid/should tell people they look bad in tank tops before letting them up on stage. She was so mean! I couldn't help wondering what she was doing there if all she was going to do was make fun of people.

Oh. You mean, like, maybe that is why she was there? Do people really suck that hard?

Part of me really, really, wanted to comment and point out that she's no prize-winner herself. The better part of me argued that that would just make me like her. So I totally started a flame-war on her butt.

OK, kidding. I kept my mouth shut.

And then I commented on this other video to tell the girl how great a dancer she was and I would love to try some of her moves in my class. Someone replied and said "whatever, Zumba sucks anyway, it's not real choreography" except they said it in the too-cool-to-spell-correctly way that all the hip kids do (gag).

Like I freakin asked you?

GRR!

I would never dream of trying to cut down someone I don't even know. It's bad enough being mean to people in person who you might legitimately have some kind of beef with. But anonymously online? Pretty tough when you're just some empty faceless voice, right?!

Life is hard. Instead of making it harder for each other, how 'bout we go through life buoying each other up?

Just a thought. Oh, and have I told you I like your hair like that? You look nice. ;) hehe

And oh yeah!! School started today! I'm such a bad mom--I forgot the camera, so there are no pictures of my baby Devy's first day of school. I'm going to dress her up in the same outfit tomorrow and pretend it's today. I kid.

But oh my goodness did I CRY like a big freakin baby when she got on that bus! She just...ran up like she has been waiting for this day for three years or something. Oh wait, she has. I remember so well the day Jo started kindergarten and it was everything I could do to keep Devy from climbing up into the bus behind her big sister. She was only 2 but she didn't care. She wanted to go to school!

Uh...Oh, there I go again. *sigh*

But!! I had a Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino today from Starbucks and while I don't think I'll go the frappuccino route next time--too sweet--the pumpkiny flavor and chilly air and the leaves that are omg already starting to fall made me all fall-ish. Yum.

i wanna be feared and despised when i grow up!

I had a dentist appointment this morning.

The good news is, not only did I actually go, as opposed to the last two or three appointments that I skipped, but only once did I get poked in a place that sent me jumping out of my chair. I thought it was going to be much worse. I credit God for listening to my desperate prayers while squirming in the chair waiting to start. Thanks God, you're the Man.

The bad news is, I have so many freaking cavities that the dentist's office has to call my insurance company to schedule the treatments. You know, so the insurace will cover them all? Yeah. That sucks.

The other good news is I got a prescription for Valium! Real live Valium! Because if it takes me three or four tries to go in for a cleaning, just imagine how nauseous I get when the words "root" and "canal" come into play!

Now I just have to get someone to take care of my kids all day so I can sedate myself before my Appointment with Hell.

In other news...T-minus 24 minutes and counting until Devy gets on the bus. Somebody hold me!

colors of fall

Signs that I am not ready to send the kids back to school:

1. I'm bothering to blog about it.
2. I still haven't bought school snacks because looking at anyting vaguely back-to-school related makes me all teary.
3. I'm pouting as I write this.
4. I refuse to go to sleep because when I wake up it will be one day closer to back-to-school and don't bother trying any of that "It's coming regardless of whether you sleep" logic crap.
5. There are large amounts of things not normally found in the Tragically Unhip household such as Pop Tarts (which suddenly come in delish ice-cream-y flavors like mint chocolate chip and cookie dough) and expensive sugary brand-name cereals and Oreos and five cartons of ice cream (although one is actually a box of ice cream pops, so there) partly because I want to give my children special treats--and we don't usually use food as reward around here, not healthy, don'tcha know--and partially (OK, mostly) because I'm all emotional and eat-y.

It isn't usually like this. Usually, by the second week of August I'm all, "Someone call the school! They've got to open early! Get these kids out of my house!!!" But this year I'm just not ready. I don't want my babies to leave me!!

Why? Well, I think there are a few things. For one, we had a great, fun summer. Last summer Bek was a little baby and I was overwhelmed and PPD and we didn't really do much or go anywhere or see anyone. This summer she's older, I'm healthy, we did lots of fun stuff, and I don't want it to end.

For another thing, this is the first year that Devy is going to school. She was my baby for four years before Bek was born, and now she's all...big. She's reading and writing and conversing and getting independent and where she used to be a little fraidy-girl princess, she's now braver and stronger and more sure of herself. And I put her hair up for the first time (ever!) today and I swear she looked 7, not 5. Not my baby.

...hold on...there I go...gimme a second...

OK.

And Jo, the oldest. She's 8. She's so great. I love talking to her, and she's not a little girl anymore. She's still young, of course, but you can see the young woman she's going to be. She's matured so much.

I am so, so thankful I get to stay home during the day to be with my babies before they're off to school. Cuz once they go to school it's like you're no longer their primary influence. Their number one concern is no longer whether they're pleasing you. The whole world comes into play. And it's wonderful, and I'm thankful that I can give our girls a solid foundation from which to launch them. It just stinks because sometimes it feels like that's it for me. I've done my job and now, because I work nights and weekends and don't get to spend much time with Jo during the school year, I have to release her to daddy and the rest of the world. Good thing hubby's there--what would I do otherwise?

Oh, the melodrama. I just had to get it off my chest. :)

Now I can concentrate on all the good things about school starting...like FALL!! My favorite season!! And pumpkins, ooh, and pumpkin spice lattes from Starbucks, and sweaters, and tights, and boots, and crunchy leaves, and the smell of fires burning, and HALLOWEEN! and crisp apples and apple picking! and cider and hay rides and haunted houses and hot cocoa... I love fall! Fall fall fall, fall fall fall...

From the archives

Because I'm too sore to think straight, here's "one from the vault" (and OMG if you get that reference? We are totally BFF). And I'll try to write a real post later:

Is there anything quite so disappointing as when you get a craving for iced coffee and then you get some iced coffee and it's all burnt and bitter and nasty?! Then do you go back and ask for a new iced coffee?

What if you were driving thru when you ordered it? Do you go to the nearest dunkies and say, Hi I bought this at the last Dunkies and it sucks so I would like another please? Or do you just open up a vein and stick the straw in so you get the caffeine without the nasty taste?

Today I took Miss D. and Baby R. to McDonalds for lunch. We went to the one with the new playground as a reward for the girls' being so good on our errands this morning. I needed caffeine so I tried the new Newman's Own iced coffee and it was gross gross gross. Burnt and yucky. So I threw it out.

Why did I do that? Isn't my money worth anything? I mean, really, why don't I just take the two bucks and chuck them in the trash? Why am I too embarrased to go up to the counter and demand that the minimum-wage person behind it make me a decent freakin coffee?!

See, now I'm all upset cuz I was forced to get my caffeine from a diet Coke. And it just isn't the same.

I love when you go to Dunkies or Starbucks on a hot sweaty day and you're on your way to work and it sucks to have to work on such a beach day and you get your coffee and it is the perfect balance of coffee, cream, and sugar and you sip it and all your cares just floooat awaaay.

You know, Mickey D's, I'm on a budget here and I cannot afford any more nasty coffees.

I should go work at a Starbucks. Have you ever had a bad coffee from there? I don't think I have. Although I hate when I forget to ask for it "with room," you know, for the cream. Anyway, I should go work there. Although I hear they pay for their WiFi, which kinda blows. I mean, did you not just pay $8 for a latte and now they want to charge for their internet too?

(By the way, I was going to link to the nice blogger who first made mention that Starbucks charged for internet use but now I can't remember which one she was. Just a little sign that I might be addicted to other peoples' blogs.)

When I have MY own coffeehouse one day it will have FREE internet use, and lots of yummy, perfect coffee for less than 8 bucks a cup. There will be no bitter-coffee-induced depression when you come out of MY place. So there

stop the world, i wanna get off

New designer eyeglasses: $300
Glitter paint for the girls: $5
Realizing you just set your new glasses down in the girls' glitter glue art: priceless

Agh, I'm so stressed. Why can't I be one of those together moms who is, like, organized and on time and with it and on top of things?!! I'd kill to be one of those moms.

Devy is starting Kindergarten in three weeks. THREE WEEKS. I haven't even registered her yet.

I agreed to help out as co-coordinator for the nursery and 2s and 3s room at church a while back because--well, basically because I was asked to and I was too chicken to say no because I was afraid that if I got a reputation for not wanting to do the dirty jobs no one wanted to do, I'd never be trusted with the fun stuff I wanted to do. Now you're probably thinking that it's pretty arrogant of me to label the position a "dirty job" because it might be right up someone else's alley and you'd be totally right. Unfortunately I wasn't thinking that way when it came up. And I'm also in charge of publicity for our moms group, which I admitted wasn't my calling but I was willing to help out. (If you're familiar with the concept of spiritual gifts you realize that some bells should have gone off--here I am with two ministries I feel no calling for.)

And now I'm kinda burning out, slacking off on the things I should be doing, and gaining a reputation for starting things and not finishing them. So now that I want to teach Sunday School (and yes, actually feel called to do it), my intentions are being doubted. I don't blame anyone--I've certainly given plenty of reason for people to doubt me--I'm just mad at myself for putting myself in this position.

So now I'm stressed cuz I have things to do that I don't want to do and that I've put off for so long that I need to do them now and on top of that I have other things that I do want to do and other things, like, oh say, cleaning my house, that need to get done...I've been up more nights lately trying to cram more hours into each day--it sucks.

I know I'm whining and that everyone else is busy and all but I should know better than to let myself get into these spots by saying yes to everything and yet I did it anyway.

Can someone just, like, take over for me for a little while? It's not all bad, there are some good things. I have good friends, great kids, plenty of fun things mixed in with the stress things. You can just be me for a while. I'll be back in, say, October. But, sorry, you're not allowed to share the hubby. He's mine.

post secret

Have you ever checked out Post Secret? That's the site where people send their deepest secrets--the ones they've never told anyone--and they get anonymously posted on the site. Sometimes they're happy secrets, but they're mostly sad (and then there are the ones I think/hope are just sent so they'll get posted). They make me want to find these people and hug them. But then, that would defeat the whole anonymous thing.

New ones are posted every Sunday, and today's was in the form of a movie. Check it out: post secret

such a dork

Do you ever find yourself saying "It bugs me when..." or "One of my pet peeves is..." and then thinking Gee, I kinda say that a lot. Maybe I need to lighten up.

Well, anyway. One of my pet peeves is when I go to a place that says "Open til Midnight" and I get there at 11 and I just got out of work and I'm starving and I have a lot to do and need some caffeine so I order a bagel, toasted, and a latte, but the bagel toaster is shut off for the night and the latte machine has already been cleaned so I have to settle for just nasty burned iced coffee and a stale sliced-but-not-toasted bagel instead and still have to pay the same amout I would pay for good food at 8 am.

I mean, I know you want to go home. But if your sign says you're open til midnight then I should be able to get what I want until midnight. And if you have to stay til 1 am to close up afterwards, well, that's what you're getting paid for isn't it?

Is it because not a lot of people come by for that sort of thing so late at night? Well then, why are you open so late? Is it because you get a lot of coffee orders that late but not much else? Then, maybe your sign should be "Open til 10. Just-coffee from 10 to midnight." Then you could just make it drivethru only from 10 to 12 because no one needs to go in to order just-coffee.

Is it just me?

Oh! And that reminds me of another thing that irritates me! Earlier today I went to get an ice cream cone before work. (I know, I need to stay away from the fast food places but it was a crazy day.) And I was helped by this guy who helped me the last time I went for ice cream in this particular place. And the last time I was there for ice cream, I licked it and it went plop! right on the pavement so I went back inside and ordered another one and was very thankful the dude didn't make me pay for it because it was his fault.

Why? you ask?

Because he didn't push the ice cream into the cone. He just let the big round scoop of ice cream sit on top of the cone. I hate that. You can't do that! Because then, when you lick it, what happens? Plop!

So today I went in for an ice cream and I was so excited because they had coffee-Oreo which combines two of my all-time favorite flavors so I got a single-scoop cone and was helped by that same guy and I walked out to my car and licked the cone and sure enough--plop! And of course I looked into the cone and there was no ice cream in it.

I was about to storm into the store and give the guy what-for--and now, thinking about it and getting all mad all over again, I wish I had--but the complacent part of me was pleading with the angry part of me, convincing me that we really had to get to work and did we really need that ice cream anyway?

So your lesson for today, kids, is push the ice cream into the cone, and don't tell me you're open if all I can get is burnt coffee.

no sleep for me tonight

We've been having trouble with the air conditioning lately. Trouble as in, it's just not working. And we've called the landlord about a billion times, and he's called the A/C guy a billion times. Trouble is, we're on the bottom of the totem pole because for some reason that I've forgotten already, the landlord doesn't have to pay the A/C guy for service. So we get the shit end of the stick even when, oh, say, it's been 90+ degrees for like a week and there's no A/C.

So today, FINALLY, the landlord comes over and says the guy should be here to fill up the coolant tank or whatever and he's dying the coolant so he can come back in a couple of days and see where the leak is. Sure enough there was a noisiness at the back of the house indicating that either a small plane had landed in our nonexistent backyard or a very obese air conditioning service man was trying to fix our unit.

Then said service man came into the house to ask where the filter was so he could change it. I told him I didn't know where it was but my husband had already (gotten sick of waiting and) changed it himself.

That was about 3:30 this afternoon.

It didn't hit me until just now, at almost 11:30 at night as I was just about to fall asleep:

A/C guy didn't knock, or anything, to get in the house. He just opened the door to our garage from outside, and then went through our garage and opened the door from the garage to the house, and came in.

This is not a happy thought when it's late and dark and your hubby and children are sleeping and all your windows and doors are unlocked because it's been so hot that you've been keeping everything open all the time.

I just ran up and down the house in lockdown mode, visions of news stories in which children are snatched from their beds by skeevy service people running through my head. I was somewhat comforted by the fact that this guy would never fit through any of our windows, until I thought of accomplices.

It's times like this when an imagination is a curse.

Now I can't sleep.

I can't wait to see my landlord. Man is getting an earful. Friggin walk through my house.

mind yer p's and q's

Is it just me...or is politeness way out of style?

It seems like everywhere I go nowadays, people don't look at each other. Don't smile as they pass. Don't say "excuse me" when they squeeze past you in the aisle at the store.

At my job there are a bunch of new hires--kids, all just out of high school. I smile, try to act friendly so they'll feel welcome in their new jobs, but apparently I am just too old and uncool to react to because they just stare straight ahead like I was Kimmy the Uncool Ghost.

And at the store! Just the other day I was looking for some stuff in Michaels and their aisles are really tiny and this kinda big tall lady squeeeeezed past me and didn't even acknowledge that there was another person in the aisle with her.

And at work the other other day I was helping one woman and there isn't much room at the counter so when she backed up to get away from the desk the other woman who was right behind her almost got stepped on and instead of saying "excuse me" she just gave the backing-up woman a rude look. When she came up to me I said "You could say excuse me," and she went off on how she wouldn't be stepped on by rude people. Is it just me? Is it too much to just be polite even if the other woman could have been more careful? I mean, the second lady was kind of up the first woman's butt--she was kind of asking to get stepped on.

So your assignment for today is to go out into the big wide rude world and go out of your way to put some politeness in it. Hang up the cell phone before going up to the clerk at the counter, rather than forcing her to guess what you want while you chat to your other party. Say excuse me even if the other person was wrong. Smile and make eye contact when you pass someone in the store aisle. Just be nice for cryin out loud!

I swear, it will make your life, and everyone else's, a whole lot better! Do it for me, OK? ;)

We just got a call yesterday telling us that the father of one of Jo's classmates was killed in a really bad car accident. He wasn't even 40.

The phone call was to ask if we wanted to donate to a group donation in the daughter's name. Then we got another phone call today asking if we wanted to come to a big birthday dinner for the daughter. I guess her dad was planning a huge bash for her.

It's so sad.

I want to do something for the family that's a little more personal, and that might help with with what they really need the most, like making dinners or taking Jo's classmate out with us to the zoo for the day or something. But I feel awkward asking, since we really didn't know the family besides Jo going to last year's birthday party.

What do you think that family needs most? Money? Food? Time alone? Fun time? Right now, I'm just praying for their peace.

i'm done!

Finally done with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and it was SO SO good. It ended just exactly the way I wanted it to.

I don't know anyone else who has finished it yet so I'm dying for someone to talk about it with. If you read the book and want to discuss, email me at kimberlypaine at comcast dot net and we'll chat. :) I'm reading it again, slower this time. That's how good it is--as soon as you finish you want to go back and do it all again. ;)

Well the downside of all this (besides no new HP books) is that I seriously have to go clean my house. Three days of reading nonstop except to pee and possibly eat means that my house is a total disaster. Fun fun!

get mad

I am so mad about this. The New York Times somehow got its grubby paws on a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and has published a review, complete with too much information for anyone who wants to, oh I dunno, wait until they can read the book for themselves.

Who'd'a thought the NYT would stoop to scooping a story like HP#7 and spoiling it?! I'm in disbelief. That's something I'd expect from some trashy tabloid. Not that I read those. Well, OK, I might. I might even use them as my main news source. But anyway...back to the NYT.

The Leaky Cauldron has posted a letter you can send to the paper at letters@nytimes.com. You can use theirs, which I am reposting here, or you can write your own. Theirs is pretty good though. Here it is:

To whom it may concern:

I am writing to express my disappointment that your publication printed an early review and details of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This goes against the express wishes of the author and anyone that calls themselves a true Harry Potter fan.

It is hard enough for a Harry Potter fan to avoid spoilers on the Internet and news stations now that the book appears to have leaked; now we have to avoid trusted outlets as well. You’ve not only disappointed millions of children around the world with your actions, you have disappointed the millions of adults who look to the New York Times to be a bastion of good taste and standards. When the New York Times succumbs to such tabloid tactics, who won’t?

Many ask why we care - why fans aren’t all so rabid to get the book that we’ll sop up any illegal download or purchase. There’s one simple answer: We respect the author. We thought that a newspaper like yours, where so many of your reporters become authors themselves, would understand and respect that. We’re so saddened that we were wrong. We feel let down by you and your editorial board.

Sincerely,

Your name here
Harry Potter Fan, and member of Jo’s Army

So, go now, send the letter. It's your duty as a fan!

book 7 is coming. be ready.

If you've been living under a rock for some time, I'm going to tell you: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the 7th and last book of the ten-years-in-the-making Harry Potter series, comes out at 12:01 on Saturday.

I'm very excited.

I get like this with any series of books in which I'm all invested in the characters. To me, any writer who can make me feel like I know his or her characters personally is a good writer--even when it makes me look superdorky, talking about (and caring about! and crying over!) the characters like they really exist. Like, they're real live people whose lives will continue on even if we don't get to read about it.

But this one gets me even more excited because there are movies! And merchandise! And book release parties! And billions of other fans who want to do nothing else but theorize on what's going to happen in the very last book!!! So, it's all pretty intense. Which cracks me up because if you're not a fan, you probably haven't even noticed.

"Hm? Harry Potter? Are those books still around?" :)

So yeah, the hubby and I went to see Order of the Phoenix the other night, which just served to feed my pottermania, and as I watched the movie that tried to cram the longest book of the series into the shortest movie of the series I couldn't help but glance over at hasn't-read-the-books hubby and wonder if he had any idea what was going on. Cuz, you know, there is just so much to everything. He said he liked it OK, but of course that's only because he has no idea of the vast array of information he is missing.

Like, OK. Where to start.

[Oh, and Spoiler Alert in case you haven't seen OotP yet, or read the book. In which case, get a move on already.]

[Ready??]

[I warned you.]

[OK.]

• We never see Sirius's dear old mum. We just hear her mumbling behind her curtain. Frankly, I think this is a good thing. But still.
• There's no sense of how they spend the entire summer cleaning the house, and how Kreacher sneaks stuff off.
• The whole bit with Molly and the boggart? Not there.
• No indication of the new Divination teacher or how he got booted from the forest.
• No Quidditch. I know!!
• Cho is substituted as the squealer, revealing the DA, courtesy of Veritaserum.
• The fight at the Ministry is cut super-short. There's no brains trying to eat Ron (poor kid gets no scenes nowadays), no spinning hall of doors, hardly any evidence of all the kids' hard work in the DA paying off.
• The whole bit with Rita Skeeter and the way Hermione blackmails her? Gone.

[/spoiler alert]

Basically, everything is on fast-forward. I know that they didn't cut out anything superimportant, but jeez, I could have standed it being like twice as long, at least. All the fun stuff was gone, like Ron taking the lucky potion (that was OotP, right? crap, I'm all confused. better read them all again.) All my favorite actors (Emma Thompson! Helena Bonham Carter!) and characters (Mad Eye! Tonks!!) were on screen for like, two seconds.

The wierdest thing about the movie, though? Everyone looks so old! I mean, of course the kids do. But in one scene there was a close shot of McGonagall and I wanted to cry, she looked so old! And Hagrid, and Snape...(My apologies to the actors--I should say you look older, not just old. It's just weird. It's like seeing your aunt when she's 38 and not seeing her again til she's 58.)

Ugh, I have to go. It's 1am and I have lots of ebay posting to do and I just don't make any sense at this time of night. But anyway, if anyone in my area is going to a release party on Friday night, take me with you!! Just give me notice so I can grab a Mischief Managed tee shirt beforehand. :)

summer movies

Summer. I have a love-hate relationship with it. On one hand, summer means squeezing into shorts and tank tops and bathing suits and worrying about who sees me in them. It means sweating a lot. It means mosquitos. But on the other hand it means school's out, daytrips with the kids, summer camp and my favorite summer thing: summer movies!

I'm not really a huge moviegoer. Too much other stuff to do to get to the theater. But there is so much coming out that I just have to see.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Do I even need to explain this one to you? You know what it is. I'm dying to see it, and then to read the last book.

Pirates of the Caribbean 3
Just saw this. Loved it! I'm really really hoping there will be a fourth. Note to Hollywood: you keep putting Johnny Depp up on the screen, I'll keep paying hard-earned cash to see him.

Transformers
My boss says this is the best movie he's ever seen. While I do think that might be overstating a little, I am excited to see this. Which surprises me because hello! Transformers are a boys' toy. Barbies are for girls. Duh.

Live Free or Die Hard
Love Bruce Willis. Love Die Hard movies. Probably wait to NetFlix this one though. Sorry Brucy, I can only shell out so much for movie tickets. I'm on a budget, y'know.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
I know, I know. I'm a sucker for the big summer blockbuster. It's not my fault; you think I could get my man's-man hubby to some indy film? Heck no. That's my story and I'm stickin to it.

A Mighty Heart
I'm not sure this one is still in theaters. I really want to see it though. In the beginning I was kind of like "eh, whatever!" But I've read the things that Marianne Pearl says about the movie and about her friend Angelina Jolie's part in it and, taking into consideration that I'm getting my info from drugstore tabloids, I really want to see it now.

The Bourne Ultimatum
I had no idea they were making a third Jason Bourne movie until it's practically out. I liked the first two...but I'm going to have to watch them again right before I go see this one just so I can remember what the heck is going on.

Stardust
I've been a fan of Neil Gaiman's stuff since high school and, while I haven't invested as much time reading him as say, Stephen King (such highbrow, literary reading I'm into, no?), I just started a collection of his short stories that has reignited my interest in him. So I was excited to see that they're making a movie out of this book, Stardust. I'm going to have to find my copy, dust it off and reread it. Gaiman is producing, and we all know that including the author in his movie adaptation is a good thing, right?

It's kind of funny to look back on my days as a movie reviewer for my college newspaper. Seriously, I like pretty much everything. So every week I'd have to find a different way to say "I liked it." I'm just no critic. I do have to make time to go see something low-budgety, though, before the blockbusters rot my brain.

i'm back

Well finally, after a whole week of lovely, lovely vacation, I am finally home with my family where I belong. Don't get me wrong--I had a blast in Orlando, hanging out with my hubby, going out exploring on my own, meeting new people and all. But it is so good to be home. Pretty soon I will be asleep in my own bed with the sleep-sounds of all my kids as evidence that we're all together, safe and sound and happy. :)

Actually, I don't think the kids wanted to come home. Bek, my little baby who is a total mush for all things mommy or daddy, barely even moved when we came in the house. I was expecting an ambush! And the girls had tons of things to tell me about their week--I hope they're not bored to be back to the everyday routines.

I missed them so much! I was pretty good most of the week but by the time Saturday night came, just watching someone else's kid cry about something or be happy about something or really, just exist and be cute, was enough to send me into melt-down mode.

Hey, on Saturday before we went to Universal (which was fun but I wish we'd had more time for Islands of Adventure next door, with its wicked-looking roller coasters), hubby and I went to a rock gym. I'd wanted to go the night before while hubby met up with an old colleague for drinks, but you needed to bring your own belay partner so he said he'd come with Saturday morning. We had so much fun! Fortunately we've both had a little bit of climbing and knot-tying experience, because the kids running the rock gym were kind of like, "OK, here's how y'do it, now go do it." I don't know how someone with no prior experience would learn so fast, but they must do OK because the kid pretty much expected us to know what to do.

Belaying hubby was way easier than I expected it to be, although I didn't know it was going to be such a workout on the arms. He fell off the wall once and I hardly even felt it. I wasn't sure if I was going to have to strap myself down so I wouldn't go flying up, slapstick-style. :)

We got a good workout. Right now my shoulders and legs are feeling it still. We're going to check out the rock gym near us and see about memberships for at least me and Jo, if not hubby and Devy too. I'd love to get the kids into it; there were some girls there who looked younger than Jo who were really good!

It's way past my bedtime so I'm not sure if this post is coherent, or if there's a point, or anything like that. ;) Just wanted to give you the lowdown on the last part of vacation. I really had such a good time. It was an adventure. Going out by myself during the day while hubby had his thing, and other stuff like riding single rider on the theme park rides and the plane, and going to unusual places and doing new things--they all allowed me to meet people and have experiences I wouldn't have had if I'd played it safe and stayed in the hotel or waited for hubby to hold my hand all week. And it was so, so incredibly good for the two of us to have time together as hubby and wife without also being mommy and daddy. I'm very blessed to have married him--my sweetheart and my best friend.

Sigh...that's the danger of letting me post this late. I get all corny. :)

So--whacha doing for the fourth?