I realize that we are probably the last people on earth to have discovered Sherlock, but OMG, are you watching Sherlock?? I've never really understood all the fuss about Benedict Cumberbatch---I mean, fine, he's an actor? Who acts well? And I have always enjoyed this ridiculousness---but now I get it. I GET IT. TEAM SHERLOCK 4EVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. Seriously, if there's an evening I think we're going to watch it and then it turns out we can't for some reason, I become despondent. And I'm probably headed for a full nervous breakdown, because we're almost done with Season 3 and then what am I...
Once upon a time there was this incredible deal at Amazon on the Bond 50 Blu-ray Collection---22 James Bond movies (that's all of them except for the one that just came out last year, Skyfall). And my darling husband purchased it because he really loves Bond films. Truthfully, I think he really loves the CARS in Bond films, but whatever. Details. Here let us pause while I note that of the 23 James Bond movies in existence, I had seen maybe... three? Two or three, prior to Otto and his Bond enthusiasm. We saw Casino Royale together and I think I liked it. I don't really remember anything...
Remember when getting a color TV was a big deal? And when getting a television with a remote was a big deal? Remember when more than a dozen channels was a big deal? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you're my people. (Of course, if you answered "no" to all of them, probably you should get off my lawn.) I cannot tell a lie: I grew up slack-jawed in the glow of the television, wasting countless hours of my life watching reruns. (Some might argue that not much has changed. Heh.) As a parent, I limit screen time. As a person, though, I still have more than a few twinges of "I...
You guys. I... I can't even. Because words fail. A couple of weeks ago someone posted this on Facebook, and I watched it with a mix of horror and delight. Because LOOK: And I made Otto watch it, too. And Otto said, "No. YOU ARE NOT WATCHING THAT WHEN IT COMES ON TV." And I argued, and he kept saying no, and then last night I was channel-surfing and it was on and he was upstairs, so I watched it. With Chickadee. Now, maybe it wasn't a great idea to watch it with her in the room, largely because what teenager wants to hear her mother alternately shrieking with laughter and choking with...
On Friday night I collapsed into bed feeling decidedly off. It had been a long day and we'd been out in the heat and I figured I was just hot and tired. But on Saturday morning I dragged myself out of bed and was considering a nap about five minutes later. Basically, I felt like I'd been run over by a truck. There was no denying it: I was sick. Otto, who was skeptical of my crazy diet plan from the start, was convinced I had somehow poisoned myself with the restrictive eating plan I'd been following. He lectured me about how I had "completely obliterated my immune system" and was now reaping...
The weekend quickly disappeared in a fast-forward WHOOSH of chatting and talking and discussing and many other synonyms for flapping our gums endlessly at one another. True, Kira and I speak several times a week on the computer, anyway, but something about being together, in person, for that one weekend a year makes it suddenly VERY IMPORTANT that we discuss everything from the Good Old Days That Really Were Kind Of Sucky back when we were both single moms and despaired of life ever getting better to how we can possible arrange for her Max to marry my Chickadee and the kids to think it was...
I know it seems like I'm starting this out with a digression, but I promise it's related: Recently someone suggested a girls' night out to me, and asked me what I'd like to go do, and I had to explain that it has been SO LONG since I left the house purely for fun and without my children, I could probably go sit at Taco Bell and watch people consume their not-beef tacos and find that totally entertaining. (Oddly enough, I haven't heard back since I shared that little tidbit. Huh.) The thing of it is, I'm kind of a homebody, and most of the time I'm very easily entertained. I watch a lot of...
We have reached the part of our program---school is closed for the third day in a row, and we are more or less housebound, and the children are crabby and everybody is sick of everybody else---where I am back to my standard coping mechanisms. This means that by the time the kids go to bed at night, I am basically non-verbal and can only handle a bare minimum of human interaction, provided it occurs during the commercial breaks (or fast-forwarding through the recorded commercials) of mindless shows on the television. In other words: The kids go to bed, I go to the couch. I grunt or mutter in...
We have been recording Life on the DVR and then watching it as a family on weekends, as time allows, and everyone has really been enjoying it. What's not to like about slow-motion views of really long, slimy tongues shooting out to grab bugs, for example? Or watching a bullfrog dig a connective waterway so that the tadpoles stranded in a puddle can get back to the pond? Much like Planet Earth, Life has stunning visuals, fascinating tidbits about the animal kingdom, and even gets a pass as being educational. Unlike Planet Earth, however, Life is narrated by Oprah Winfrey. Now, I can probably...
