Overture, Curtains, Lights...

I miss movies. Daniel is finally of an age where he would sit through one in a theater, but I highly doubt we could get away with having a 1 year old there as well. A good action / escape flick like Cowboys & Aliens sounds great about now. H may try to take Daniel and his cousin Nicholas to the Drive-In in the near future. A great summer adventure!

Wonder if I can get away with making popcorn while I am up at 3am with the little guy surfing the On Demand selections on cable?

Bits-o-Bliss

H has been setting me free for some bits of "me time" lately, and I must say that it has been kind of delicious. There was a night out with the Moms at the local pub, that involved many drinks, munchies and lots of laughs. Pamela and I spent another night feeding our girlie sci-fi geek selves by seeing the new Star Trek movie. (Go see it! Great action! Excellent cast!)

Hoping to grab some outdoor fun today. Perhaps the beaches of York, Maine again. Daniel loves to run on the sand, in the wind, jump the waves. I grew up by Michigan lakes, and love the water. While I find the Maine coast a bit cold for my taste (see: jumping into an ice bath) - I do enjoy strolling the beach and breathing in the salty spray.

Wishing you a Sunday - and a summer - chock full of your own blissful moments.

Rambling

I learned to type on a real, honest-to-goodness typewriter. I'm occasionally finding it a bit disconcerting as I watch my 3.5 year old zoom around Noggin.com playing computer games with Diego or the Backyardigans. He's become pretty adept with the mouse, and even remembers where to click off and on various pages and how to print! There are so many things that I grew up with, that my kid may never see (except for Mommy reminiscing): Real LPs (heck, even cassette tapes), VHS (remember your first VCR?). The list goes on. Just another of those Mommy Moments where I wonder: Where has my baby gone?

Reading: Just finished The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry. A mystery set in Salem, MA about a woman with a gift - a seer - and her unique family. I have a soft spot for books set in familiar places, and Salem is a wonderful place to visit.

Listening: Free* by Jim's Big Ego. Erin introduced me to Boston's folk music scene, and JBE is a long-time favorite. They used to do a big Halloween show every year at Club Passim where audience and band members alike showed up in costume. Great music with a quirky sense of humor. Great fun!

Watching: Many shows are gone for the summer (LOST, Heroes) or gone for good (Battlestar Galactica, Terminator:TSCC). I've recently been enjoying In Plain Sight, and Burn Notice is back in early June - Yay!

Hoping to see: Pamela, my sci-fi partner in crime, and I are trying to carve time out of our schedules to get out to see the new Star Trek. It looks fabulous!

Happy Memorial Day weekend everyone!

Yesterday, in a museum not far from here...

It was Star Wars Day! We went to the Higgins Armory Museum - heaven for a knight-crazy three year old. A glass and steel building, the place is plastered with suits of armor, swords, shields and all manner of weaponry. On Saturday the invasion force consisted of stormtroopers from the Emperor's 501st Legion and members of the Rebellion. They were closely followed by loads of Star Wars crazy kids. There was a battle demonstration between a Jedi Knight and a Sith Lord, many costumed characters roaming the hallways for photo opportunities, and Daniel and his cousin Nicholas were thrilled to try on stormtrooper helmets.

Star Wars touched off my journey towards loving science fiction and many things "fantastic." I'm tickled to see Daniel enjoying it too.

A Treat

I love my little guy to pieces, but there are moments where my switch always being in Mom Mode just becomes a bit exhausting. H gifted me with a few hours of time to myself this afternoon by taking Daniel for a visit with his Gram and Uncle Bruce.

It was a delightful smorgasbord of things to do - some necessary like a load of laundry, but most were not and just completely my aimless wandering. A power nap, computer work without the guilt, nibbling a snack of avocado, reading a chapter of Driving Sideways while curled under the bedcovers, watching non-kid approved programs such as a documentary on Hollywood folks who escaped Nazi Germany, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, and Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-ins and Dives all at the same time. I also got the chance to sneakily wash Daniel's much-loved blankie while he was gone.

The boys returned, and we bustled about dinner. As is typical of late, Daniel was more interested in his robots and coloring and wrestling his father than eating. We all had hysterics when one of us exclaimed: Let me see Daniel! Preparing to scoop him up, only to have Daniel reply: Dam-el isn't ON right now! As though he were a TV show we were all happily watching. Then there were Curious George stories and bedtime.

Buzzing about at my own pace was refreshing. I must work at finding small concentrated moments to do this more often.

The SciFi Legacy Continues...

In 1977 my whole family took a jaunt to the local movie theater to see this little movie called Star Wars. So began my love affair with all things science fiction (and a huge crush on Harrison Ford). I began reading and watching anything and everything I could get my hands on... these ran the spectrum from watching The Twilight Zone and Star Trek, and reading any book by Harlan Ellison (I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream). Even, (I shudder now) watching Buck Rogers in the 25th Century... pickings were sometimes slim.

It tickles me that Daniel has now discovered Star Wars. I think it started with the release of the animated movie recently, but instead of jumping on that bandwagon I showed him the original Star Wars. Having my three year old run around the house talking about Artoo and Chewbacca and how he really has to find Darth Vader's helmet has brought me no end of chuckles lately. If you check out my "reading" and "watching" sidebar items, I still gravitate towards things fantastical. I wonder if Daniel will continue to take after his mother...

Not again...

I'm doing laps in Toddler Rerun Purgatory... Daniel discovered Cars this past Christmas. He got the DVD, some books, some of the little cars to push around, etc. It's actually a very cute, well-done movie. But I have officially lost track of how many times we have now watched it.

And the cold that Never Officially Went Away is resurfacing. I was up from about 3am this morning: coughing, coughing, coughing...

Mix this liberally with a toddler who has yet to figure out how to blow his nose (and said stuffy nose is driving him in-sane!) and I'm starting to fray a little bit at the edges. I'm glad that the stuffy nose is all he seems to be sick with, but help!!

Hubbub-bub

The days of Christmas around here have been sort of a merry melee. Daniel and I were blessed with a cold each (a re-blessing for me, harumph). H worked Christmas eve - day, and then that evening we traveled out to his mother's house to spend some time with her, an auntie, a cousin and another uncle. A crank on his home turf, the change of scenery did Daniel some good. He bopped around the house looking for the trucks that his uncle keeps stashed away for just such an occasion.

We tried to gift H with the opportunity to sleep in on Christmas morn, as the sleeping in thing doesn't happen much these days. Daniel still hasn't quite copped to this whole presents / celebration thing... his reactions were pretty funny at times. What? More presents? For me? Cool!!! I hope H enjoyed the sleeping-in thing because I thoroughly anticipate that Daniel will be into the pre-Christmas buildup next year and that probably won't be happening again!

Another trip to the mother-in-law's house on Christmas Day resulted in a nice meal, twice as many people in her little house, and yep, more presents! (We have doubled our car collection, including a ride-on dump truck, among many other nice things.)

I got a big giggle out of Daniel sitting side-by-side with his three year old cousin Nicholas in their Gram's rocker watching Shrek the Third. Nicholas spilled some water, and his auntie popped off his shirt to haul it off to the dryer. Daniel thought that looked pretty cool, so despite being pretty dry he insisted that his shirt had to come off as well. Two blond shirtless monkeys giggling and watching movies was a cute picture indeed.

We're in cold recovery, and trying to keep H well. And trying to get back on a schedule again.

Reporting in, and wishing you all a Merry Christmas.

Kick-Butt Mama

One of my favorite shows has always been Alias. I don't own the DVDs, but I can imagine myself watching and re-watching Jennifer Garner as kick-ass agent Sydney Bristow.

Out of the celeb Moms that are out there/in the news, Jennifer has always seemed the most down-to-earth. Married to Ben Affleck and Mom to Violet, the main paparazzi shots that I've seen are of them out in the park, at the grocery store... just being a family. I find that refreshing.

It looks like she is returning to the action scene in a new movie opening September 28th and starring with Chris Cooper and Jamie Foxx. The Kingdom: A team of U.S. investigators set out to find the perpetrators behind a deadly attack in a Middle Eastern country.

And it appears Alias co-star / hottie Michael Vartan also has a new show premiering this fall.

Peeved

As long as I am on a roll:

I was blog-surfing recently and read a funny post about Dunkin' Donuts having it out for the author... I'll be darned if I can remember where I saw it, and I'll be back to link to it if I can figure it out. If it's you, drop me a note and/or just know that you tickled my funny bone. We've been visiting DD on a regular basis this summer as the two year old has developed a real yen for their smoothies or "hobies" (?) as he calls them. Our order is nearly always the same, only the price constantly changes. Can't figure that one out... But with an antsy kid in the backseat I'm not gonna argue too loudly, particularly when it's in our favor. What I find particularly irritating however is the fact that I place my order over the "squawk box" only to reach the window and have the person ringing me up say: Now what did you have? Why do I bother? And there is always at least one thing not right. Today's order was: a small tropical smoothie, small iced tea with sugar and lemon, a glazed donut and six munchkins (2 plain, 2 glazed, 2 sugar). What I got was the smoothie, the tea minus the sugar, a powdered sugar donut and 4 munchkins. Go figure.

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I am, shall we say, a bit lax on the issue of the two year old and TV. The whole "No TV Before Two Years Old" movement is great in theory, but it just didn't work out that way around our house. And part of my whole "Dirt Makes Fat" philosophy is all about ditching the Mommy guilt, because goodness knows I certainly don't need any more.

I do, however, try to keep an eye on what is on TV. Nothing too violent or racy, and our lack of stereo equipment sometimes means that we have the country videos on in the background for a little music around the house. Daniel and Trace Adkins, Gretchen Wilson, Rodney Atkins and others are really becoming best buds.

There should be the same restrictions on commercials as there are on TV shows, though. We will have something pretty innocuous on the tube and suddenly there is a commercial for Halloween or The Ring II or some such movie on... and the commercials are just as bad as the flicks. They have their place, but I shouldn't have to go diving for the remote to keep these images away from my kid.

That's all I'm saying.

Geeked

OK, so I know the major topic of conversation these days is Harry Potter. But for me - I am so jazzed to hear that they are making a new Indiana Jones movie! Star Wars had instilled in me a serious crush on Harrison Ford. When Raiders of the Lost Ark came out in 1981 I had somehow managed to hear nothing about the movie. Of course these were the pre-Internet days where I would simply show up at the local movie theater with family and/or friends and say: OK. What are we going to see tonight?

Raiders promptly blew me away. It still holds the record (8) for the number of times I have seen a single movie in the movie theater. Perhaps not surprising given today's ticket prices, but still...

In a previous post I commented on the series of books The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. Given the fantasy movies that have been filmed of late, I had wondered if anyone had considered making movie versions of these. Turns out they are... These books were my Harry Potter as a kid, so I am pretty jazzed about this too. They are making some changes that are stirring up some of the fans: main character Will Stanton is now an American in Europe, as opposed to being a British boy. Perhaps they are trying to distance themselves from Mr. Potter? There are five books total in the series, so I am sure they are hoping for a franchise here. I'll reserve judgement. I'm just excited to see this on screen!