Little gold men...

I think the Oscars were on the other night.

I saw a bit of the hoopla, in passing. This means I was not stapled to the set from the Best Supporting Actor to Best Picture and all the action in-bewteen. I watched it as I was walking by the TV on my way to get a new diaper for Joyboy, while fixing dinner, baking the cookies with LaLa which never did turn out quite right, etc. I caught glimpses of the awards show as my real life provided me time to. It was actually more interesting that way, I think - a little seasoing of it rather than a full course meal of Hollywood-on-a-stick. Which, as we all know, has been known to provide more than a little nausea and tummy trauma.

In order to deliberately sit down and watch this whole thing ALL~THE~WAY~THROUGH, one has to be truly bored out of their dispassionate skulls, right? Or REALLY invested in this whole awards-show process thingy in a more passionate way which eludes me? Does anyone really make a night of this event? Grab some popcorn, a 2-liter of Dr. Pepper (or some inferior drink of choice), and settle in for 3 lightning-paced hours of this?

I personally could care less, but not much less, about the outcome of these things. I see movies because I am invested in their subject matter, or because Joaquin Phoenix or Johnny Depp are in them (the former because he is one of the most under-rated actors of our time and the latter out of sheer morbid curiosity and because he personifies great theatre), or because at the moment in time in which you decide what movie to see (for us, this is as we drive up to the theatre, check our watches, and read the marquee to see if, by some fluke of fated interplanetary alignment, there is a movie starting within the next 20 minutes) something just happens to sound better to you than the other available choices.

Flicks, we call them here. Flicks. "Chick Flicks" for girly movies. For guy-themed entertainment, sometimes - there just are no words. Some of the testosterone fueled flicks out there is just pure crap and thus unworthy of any catchy nickname. This ALWAYS includes anything with Jena Claude Van Damme in it, among other notable diasters. I think I saw something once which was so bad I can't remember it. That counts.

I appreciate being entertained. I REALLY value the blessed people on the planet whose talent can deeply move, make us laugh, and cause us to think. I love to laugh. Ellen Degeneres, Owen Wilson, and the cast of "Best In Show" are heroes to me, seriously. (and on a related topic - the entire ensemble of the TV show "Scrubs" deserves a substantial raise - that show has me howling every week) These guys are so gifted. But RARELY do I feel those people are truly rewarded in such shows like the Oscars. Call me jaded, but I do not see truth in these awards shows much of the time.

In truth, I have no idea who won what exactly, except for the vague concept that Hilary Swank won Best Actress for her role in a boxing movie I am not drawn towards in the least. I will surely miss out on her performance in that one. I don't think my favorite flicks from the year even made it in the running for anything, (because you asked: the newest Harry Potter installment and The Village). Call me easily entertained, but when I have a rare free 2-3 hour time block with Hubby-man ALONE and we are paying a babysitter to afford us this luxury, I am choosing to see what I WANT, not what someone says is fantastic based on the review someone else gave it, which was based on someone ELSE's opinion of yet another person's review of the film.

If you ask me, great acting does not need recognition because it speaks for itself. And in so doing, the audience rewards the actor with our presence, our dollars, our praise, and our loyalty to their work in other films. That is probably more valuable than a gold statue any day. But you never can tell what spins some people's bagels.

I have seen GREAT flicks that apparently no one else shared my opinion of. And I have watched movies win the Best Picture category that caused me to become convinced that in order to have arrived at that award conclusion, the whole Academy is almost certainly on crack. But in the end, no amount of awards or recognition fuels my fiery passion for flicks. And nobody's word on the subject (not even the twelve-stepping Academy) convinces me that any film is deemed excellent by collective opinion or vague criteria of random individuals who don't represent my tastes. I am not sure exactly who the Academy is. But I know I don't know anyone in it.

Oscar's limelight has not convinced me to hire my sitter and run out to see the boxing movie, or the flying movie, or the wine-tasting buddy movie. My little simpleton self is quite content to sit around watching DVD's at home while waiting for the next Harry Potter masterpiece to arrive. That or the next flick containing the work of either Mr. Phoenix or Mr. Depp.

Now that's entertainment.

Snail Invasion

I've decided I really do hate snails. There is nothing existential or particularly monnumental about this decision, it just IS. And come to think of it, this is not a decision - it is a REACTION. An EARNED response to a weekend spent gardening and encountering many hundreds of the little varmints clinging to every carefully planted and tended agapanthus, rose, flower, and plant we have in our yards. They are destruction masterminds, chomping the heck out of our once lush foilage and making it look flimsy, holey, and pathetic - like something Bjork might wear to a major televised event.

Where did they all come from? Holy Moly. Snail bait is such a misnomer. I filled a box with the over 300 snails we pulled off the foilage today (one day = 300+ snails. Ugh), and sealed it up for the trash collection on Wednesday. Then (and this is pure me) sat around wondering if it was legal to actually throw something ALIVE away in the trash? Is that OK? I asked Hubby-man, who giggled at me and reassured me that it is NOT illegal to toss snails in the garbage. Kittens, no, Snails, yes.

So there is a line. See? I knew I was not worrying for nothing.

Just watch, though. I will be discovered and prosecuted by some fringe animal-rights action group for depriving snails of their civil liberties by disposing of them in such a manner. It would be my luck, I tell you. Where would you find legal representation for a case like that?

I am going to be checking the snail version of Expedia.com - because I am now sure our house is listed as a primary destination.

I hate snails. Gods' creations reveal his immense sense of humor. I know this personally by watching my pregnant body change in bizarre, odd, worrisome, and just plain funny looking ways every day for 9 months. Twice. But for the life of me, I am still trying to figure out the whole snail thing. Snails and black widow spiders. And stinging ants. And hissing beetles. And this scary-looking banana spider my Texan girlfriend once emailed me a photo of...

I'm starting a list.

...and a partridge in a pear tree. Sort of.

OK, so Christmas is over.

But if my Christmas tree is still up (and it is), that kind of dedication to keep the Christmas spirit alive all year long (are you buying this?) certainly buys me some slack in borrowing this tune long after the holidays, right? Don't think too harshly of me now - we aren't sitting here with a large fire hazard a-la dead Douglas Fir in the Family Room - we have a fake Christmas tree. But I'm not sure our non-living version, which has half of its once glorious decorations removed and is listing slightly to the left, is any better. I am pretending we have a secret reason for leaving ours up indefinitely - perhaps in efforts making it into the Guiness Book under a brand new category: laziest Christmas decoration removal process.

Although...my neighbors who leave their lighted reindeer out on their front lawn year round would give me a serious run for my money in my bid for that title. They keep changing the lights and decorations on the reindeer slightly to fit the various holidays as we come upon them. It was fine to have him decked out in hearts at Valentines Day, and I fully expect a Shamrock or two to pop up around him in a few weeks. But if they stick sparklers in his ears again on the Fourth of July, I am putting my foot down. That just violates basic principles of right and wrong. Celebrating the birth of our great nation is NOT cause to stick sparklers in ANY orafice of a lawn reindeer.

Scruples, people. Please.

Ah, but I digress. We now rejoin our previously scheduled program in progress....

May I invite you to join me in celebrating the last 24 hours in Casa Lachen with a song. To the tune of the "Twelve Days of Christmas" - here we go:


In the early, early morning my daughter said to me, "There's a teeny dead bird on our balcony"...

In the later early morning my cat threw up on me. Sick and Wrong and Icky...

CHORUS
"... and a teeny dead bird on our balcony."

Even later in the morning my lawn guy says to me: Broken water main...

CHORUS
"Sick and wrong and icky...
... and a teeny dead bird on our balcony."

In the early afternoon, my daughter says to me: Cat fell from the landing...

CHORUS
"Broken water main...
Sick and wrong and icky...
...and a teeny dead bird on our balcony."

At the veternary office, the doctor said to me: TWO HUN--DRED BUCKS!...

CHORUS
"Cat fell from the landing
Broken water main...
Sick and wrong and icky...
and a teeny dead bird on our balcony."

Coming home from the vets place, a neighbor said to me, "Looking kind of scruffy..."

CHORUS
"TWO HUN-DRED BUCKS!
Cat fell from the landing...
Broken water main...
Sick and wrong and icky...
and a teeny dead bird on our balcony."

At the park with my two children, my son bit into me. Bleeding from my leg now...

CHORUS
"Looking kind of scruffy...
TWO HUN-DRED BUCKS!
Cat fell from the landing...
Broken water main...
Sick and Wrong and Icky...
And a teeny dead bird on our balcony."

At home with doorway open, my daughter got the hose. She watered down the carpet...

CHORUS
"Bleeding from my leg now...
Looking kind of scruffy...
TWO HUN-DRED BUCKS!
Cat fell from the landing...
Broken water main...
Sick and Wrong and Icky...
And a teeny dead bird on our balcony."

While drying off, my son pulled a new one on his Mom. Stuck his head into the toilet...

CHORUS
"Watered down the carpet...
Bleeding from my leg now...
Looking kind of scruffy...
TWO HUN-DRED BUCKS!
Cat fell from the landing...
Broken water main...
Sick and Wrong and Icky...
And a teeny dead bird on our balcony."

Later in the day, the act of walking eluded me. I fell hard on my keister...

CHORUS
"His head is in the toilet...
Watered down the carpet...
Bleeding from my leg now...
Looking kind of scruffy...
TWO HUN-DRED BUCKS!
Cat fell from the landing...
Broken water main...
Sick and Wrong and Icky...
And a teeny dead bird on our balcony."

Cooking dinner for the munchkins, our smoke alarm went off: Burnt the garlic bread to ashes,

CHORUS
"Fell hard on my keister...
His head is in the toilet...
Watered down the carpet...
Bleeding from my leg now...
Looking kind of scruffy...
TWO HUN-DRED BUCKS!
Cat fell from the landing...
Broken water main...
Sick and Wrong and Icky...
And a teeny dead bird on our balcony."

Bathtime now, my son turned and smiled right at me. And Peed all over Mama!!

CHORUS
"Burnt the garlic bread to ashes...
Fell hard on my keister...
His head is in the toilet..
Watered down the carpet...
Bleeding from my leg now...
Looking kind of scruffy...
TWO HUN-DRED BUCKS!
Cat fell from the landing...
Broken water main...
Sick and Wrong and Icky...

AND A TEENY DEAD BIRD ON OUR BALCO-N--Y---Y----Y!"

Cheers.

And for heavens's sakes, take your pathetic Christmas trees down. It's almost March already.

Speeding tickets on the parenting highway

I am going too fast.

All this periphery stuff in my day can just wait. Why is it SO critical to me that my house be clean every second of the day, that my clients all feel "personally attended to", that my laundry be done - and folded a la the 1990's GAP stores ridiculolus T-shirt display racks and smelling fresh and clean to boot? (Tide Glacier - tell me, what DOES a frozen tundra of ice smell like anyway? This seems not to be a good marketing idea, but on we go...)

WHY do I get hyperfocsed on these stupid, peripheral things to the exclusion of the much more meaningful (and OBVIOUS, sadly) choices I can be making as a parent? Why? Why? WHY?

Even though my Lovely does the laundry with me now on a regular basis - she is quite the amazing and willing helper - I still am meeting more of MY needs than hers with that task because I enjoy it and it is one of my daily "have-to's". Why don't I let HER choose the activity to involve us in more often? You can bet your frozen tundra laundry detergent it would not be the art of the tri-folded sweater. It'd be Candyland, or Go Fish, reading the Three Trees, or making cards for Harry Potter and sending them to Hogwarts Castle (which is quite amazingly close to Grandma and Grandpas' house). I know those would have been more special ways to spend this afternoon than washing, drying, fluffing, folding, and putting away a series of clothes that will just require this exact same routine again in a week's time. My daugther was my helper but I was not her playmate. I keep missing these incredibly potent moments by not pursuing them and making them happen. Because I am running too fast from task to task - I am just going too fast, period. The parent-police should have given me a speeding ticket today. I absolutely deserved it.

I think parenting becomes more about surrender, more about submission of will, and more about listening and ministering to your childs' heart by getting your own agenda out of the way so you can actually HEAR it. I think it is about grace, it is about selflessness, and it is about recrafting your life around another little person's so that a childhood is artfully created - not haphazardly experienced as a random series of days during which one happens to be a child. There is a difference between living day to day and choosing to live deliberately, making the moments count. Somewhere in the Tide Glacier-induced laundry haze, I forgot that lesson today.

If only you could go to traffic school for these kinds of speeding tickets to erase them from your permanent parenting record. Instead, they get etched as painful, deeply-grooved scrapes on your heart. But it is the pain that will remind me of a lesson I have hopefully forever learned. I am aching for the sunrise right now, just to be able to begin a new day with my babies and redeem my reformed formerly-hurried self.

May the laundry rest well in its' little hamper for a little while. It can just sit there quietly, unheeded, until I have actually slowed myself down enough not to care so much.

Carefully Worded

My husband gets it done.

He doesn't say nearly as much as I do, well - at least by sheer volume of of words emitting from his mouth. But if the best measure of communication is being able to convey your exact self while conserving both words, airspace, and the sensitivities of the audience (and usually your wife's heart), Mark is a master at the art of communication. His skills eclipse mine, but quite by accident. He does not orate, he just puts himself out there with a direct, no frills, but brilliantly lucid series of words that allows everyone who hears him to sincerely just "get it".

My words are complex, carefully crafted and melodic. I have sought beauty and joy in the written word since my earliest memory. It is a far superior method of communication, leaving anything I could muster verbally a distant second. I have a love affair with manipulating thoughts two-dimensionally, and especially with the way words dance and play on paper and allow what I am feeling, dreaming, thinking, or pondering to spill out - legitimating my mind.

Or, better put, legitimating that I choose to I spend quite a bit of my moment-to-moment time simply thinking, creating arguments, considering the thoughts of others or the happenings of the day. I am in thought almost constantly, and from this constant process, my words spring to paper. My stream-of-consciousness style of writing has always been for me an accountability tool of sorts. And though I embrace it and find it freeing on occasion, I am unable to express even a measurable ratio of my thoughts out loud or on paper in words, despite my lifelong effort. I LOVE the journey, but I am always left wholly unexpressed.

Mark is rarely left unexpressed in written or oral versions of his thoughts, unless he curtails himself for the sake of others. As he speaks or writes, his thoughts are accurately conveyed ~ simple as that. Communication and understanding is achieved and without the fanfare and craftmanship that so often accompanies my efforts.

His words often fall out so quickly that one wonders if his most desired audience is a group of medical transcriptionists or court reporters. He speaks with hurried exasperation and writes as though he is running a race. But his simple style of eloquence has NEVER failed to move me, never failed to miss it's mark, and only rarely caused residual confusion or need for clarification.

Writing,for me, is a sheer joyous ends to a mean. For Mark, it is a somewhat enjoyable means to an end. Where I may get lost along the path to my point and enjoy the detour, Mark finds an even faster route by cutting new corners. But his point is never missed. Mine tend to be buried in more important periphery (case in point this particular journey whose destination eludes even me).

Mark gets it done. I just get it.

Done.

cooking lessons

My cookbook says if I don't have 2 eggs, I can substitute with 3 egg yolks. I don't think my cookbook understands my problems.

2 more "Things That Give Me Pause"...

1.) Carl's Jr. is now offering Fish and Chips on their drive-through menu

2.) The written instructions that came with my extension ladder included the following useage guidline, "Do not mount ladder while wearing improper footwear, such as rollerskates."

"Wife" Swap

OK, so where exactly are they finding these people?

Leave it to Hollywood to spoon feed us shards of glass in the name of entertainment. Good grief.

The show "Wife Swap" has taken a walk off the map. Billed as a decidedly wholesome premise for educational, entertainment, and life enrichment purposes, this half hour of television has been teetering closer and closer to the description of "circus freak show" lately. And with this latest installment, it has firmly cemented its degradation as a 30-minute excuse to conjure increasingly toxic doses of shock value for an audience that is clearly disrespect.

In a prior episode, a traditional wife was swapped with a single Mom and asked to live her life, sans any kind of marriage relationship, and the complete absence of a"wife" role. I'm sorry - where is the "husband" in this "wife" swap scenario? Is a HUSBAND not a critical element to marriage relationship between a husband and a wife? Apparently not in the minds of ABC.

Tonight, a conservative Christian cum-Tony-Robbins-esque Texas transplant was dropped into the home of a lesbian couple in Arizona, and one woman from that lesbian couple moved into her home to assume the "wife" role there. We are, I gather, supposed to be enlightened and to enjoy the awakening experience as our minds and hearts open by watching the dynamics that ensue.

What actually resulted was unmitigated disgust as we watched the values collide with unapologetic force and predictable results. When asked to speak candidly at the conclusion of her stay in the lesbian home, the traditional Christian mother revealed her true feelings about her experience. She said that she found homosexuality depraved, an illegitimate lifestyle, against her core Biblical belief structure, and something she did not want her children exposed to. She sharply sputtered that the experience of living in that home added nothing to her life.

In response, the lesbian couple individually expressed emotional retorts, asking her "why people like you hurt people like us?" and stating that the intentions of the transplanted "wife" were to add something of value to the lives of her swapped family - not as a sexual predator or someone seeking to cause upset or chaos. There was genuine heartache and mutual frustration on the part of these women as they were faced with outspoken disagreement about their opinions, dynamics, and life choices.

Though words were uttered that made me cringe and shake my head in chagrin, I was not surprised at the overall substance. OF COURSE there was conflict and hurt within a manufactured situation like this. These people are different in ways that a network television show cannot "fix" with saccharine enlightenment in a half hour dedicated to that goal. Realizing this, ABC chooses to exploit those differences. Well, it certainly is predictable - and profitable. All the tears and tension combined into stereotypical slug fest during which we could actually hear the ratings wratchet up.

I have found myself increasingly jaded about most offerings on TV these days. Anything produced by those who focus on making the pretend seem real loses its credibility in my estimation long before it hits the air and begins to slowly choke us with this kind of pollution.

In this case, I am angry that the religious stance of the first couple was not respected and was used to create a situation in which hurtful confrontations were inevitable. I am angry that the creators of this show additionally disrespected all the participants in their obvious and deplorable grasp at ratings and the appeal of audience shock value. I am angry that the feelings and lives of the participants were secondary to the DRAMA that was aimed for when these two very polarized lifestyles were artificially thrust together.

Obviously, the Christian wife in tonight's' episode does not believe that the lesbian relationship is legitimate and, thus, that it does not include a "wife" as part of the structure. The producers deliberately kept her in the dark about the fact that this was a lesbian household she was about to become a temporary part of. The very basis of the household she would be immersed in involves a sexual orientation/choice/lifestyle/preference that CLEARLY violates the religious principles of this woman. That should have absolutely been respected and understood by ABC. None of these people should have been placed into a situation like this without their prior consent because family dynamics, real lives, and children are involved. This "wife swapping" was created specifically to create ratings-generating fireworks. The trouble is, they used 3-dimensional real people as pawns to achieve 2-dimensional goals. That overt duplicity is appalling, not entertaining. Nor was the result, which was the anger of one woman and the heartbreak of another. Are we having fun yet?

Also in evidence was the typical categorized, whitewashed, portrayal of these families. The lesbian couple-led duo was portrayed as being careless, messy, self-involved, undisicplined people - dismissive and unfocused on their child who was allowed an inappropriate degree of choices in her own upbringing. The Christian family was portrayed with a overly-structured, dominant wife at the helm, obscenely ordered home, rigid spirituality which seemed to center around prayers for prosperity and the amorphic goal of "excellence" which is outside the scope of my personal Christian understanding and practice - I must have missed a chapter. Probably right after Leviticus or something) and sweetly robotic, sheltered children.

Hmm. We get it. They are not alike. People are, apparently, quite different from one another.

But not if you are a Christian. If you are a Christian, you find yourself portrayed over and over and over again in exactly the same inane manner by unlikely, fringe elements of your faith. People whose prayers are not for the victims of the tsunami disaster, but for prosperity. People whose lives are ordered around creating excellence-in-dining experiences but who are controlled by their possessions. People whose lives are unlike those of any I know who share my love, pursuit, and passion for the Cross. People I cannot relate but are supposed to represent me. These are people I am supposed to identify with? Please.

The Christian "wife swap" participant and her family represent for me an all-too-familiar stereotype which permeates the modern media, emphasizing further the already shockingly well-subscribed sentiment that all Christians are judgmental, hurtful, discriminatory, mean-spirited, control freak bigots. That if they would only get out of the way with their bothersome traditionalism, this country could progress and evolve. That they live lives of quiet desperation instead of complete and utter freedom found only by standing in the shadow of the Cross. That their unpopular moral beliefs are worthy of ridicule and highlighted as cause for divisiveness and labeled discrimination.

Mean old Christians. Let's stick our tongues out at them. Maybe we should print that on T-shirts and auction them off on Ebay.

If no one were buying into this, I would not waste my time ruminating on it. But because people ARE buying into this toxic, strange, one-dimensional version of Christianity portrayed so willingly by so many mass media sources around us, in DROVES, I am concerned. Being a Christian has quite interesting societal connotations these days. Most perceptions of us are conjured out of imagery created from the most bizarre element of our ranks which are perpetuated as the NORM. To continually portray Christians as hateful, greedy, obsessive, or crazy people is not only complete bunk, it is just plain scary and deeply offensive. But more and more, the vilification of Christianity is being served up on a platter as regular fare for audiences who just gobble it up. In this case, it is being promoted as "Reality TV" by those who seem to think the Osbourne family best represents the epitome of modern, utopian American family life.

Pardon my language, but that's just plain bull%@&*.

Ozzy would be proud.

Bermuda Triangle Blogging

There is one particular hallway closet in my house that represents a big, ridiculous mystery to me. It has a narrow door and I am almost afraid to open it everytime I do. What is inside there at any given time, I have no idea. Somehow things just seem to migrate there without my knowledge, approval, or even participation. It is always a bit of a surprise - not always pleasant, like the sippy cup my daughter "hid" there which once housed a beningn liquid (not so when I found it) that solved the latest game of "what's that smell?" - what lies behind that door. I try to clean it out several times a year and it won't cooperate. I am being undermined by an inanimate object. A HOLE in my wall where things accumulate. It's like the Bermuda triangle for CRAP but also for the most amazing items that I almost become convinced are lost forever and feel elated to find again. There are gems in there - even right now, I am sure - but the mining involved in seeking them out is daunting. By the time I find what I was looking for, I've usually upgraded the importance of the search entirely in my own mind because of the sheer effort involved. Never has a pair of woven mittens (in California, mind you - I was just REALLY cold that morning) been so incredibly vital to my survival as when I knew they were buried in the Bermuda Triangle closet and it was going to take a pith helmet and an ample supply of Dr. Pepper and Balance Bars (honey yogurt peanut, but I digress) to survive the expedition required to find them.

But I admit...

I have developed a fondness for this stupid closet, despite my protestations about the fact that is exists in my admittedly obsessive compusively CLEAN and sterile world (anyone else routinely "buff" their carpeting on a regular basis? Issues, issues...). It has become a souce of secret shame and delight that there is this area within my world that is so... untidy and deliberately standing against the tide. It is a closet of rebellion, this Bermuda Triangle sanctuary. But it is where you find everything that does not ever-so-neatly fit into an otherwise very ordered life. It is where a package of shotgun bullets lies alongside a broken Japanese toy I hid from my daughter there two years ago because it looks like one of those "Gremlin" monsters from the 80's and it freak me out to have it at all. And there is a strange harmony in such discord. Even when it annoys the devil out of me to have that closet, I find it more and more neccessary in my life to have that Bermuda Triangle hole in the wall closet. I still enjoy trying to clean it out, but the effort is increasibly halfhearted.

A blog is a bit like my closet of mystery for me. I have heard about them for awhile and resisted. It's a journal, right? A diary? This is NOT new, y'all. Maybe the online presentation is catchy and seems unique, but this has nothing on Anne Frank. Seriouly.

But I kept getting drawn to the doorway of the closet and I have finally opened it - hoping not to find the UFO ("unidentified foul odor") in the sippy cup. So far, I can only see darkness and realize suddenly that this is part of the point. I am creating my own path and can put whatever I want into this place. I can create my own HOLE IN CYBERSPACE where things accumulate. I can be deliberate or whisical here. But I can be honest and drop off whatever I have in my mind or heart at the moment and then SHUT THE DOOR by leaving the words here to etch on pages and thus release from myself a bit. I guess I get to take my own expedition here into the layers of blogging and eventually find my voice in the reverberating chambers of cyberspace. Maybe my voice will end up acting as a boomerang and will find it's way back to me eventually somehow. I do hope it doesn't smack me in the head when it does. Where was that pith helment again?

In any case, I have my Balance Bars and my endless supply of Dr. Pepper. Bring it on.