to an art form. I mean, uh, I know there are grants for artists. But I don't want to be an artist. I just want to waste time *artistically.*

Paper snowflakes only used to make me mad when I was a kid. They never came out the way I wanted them to. Now witness the awesome power of my pretense to adulthood! I finally get it! I'm finally smarter than the equipment!



More snowflakes to be found in my new snowflake vanity gallery!

(Note the cat snowflake, where four out of six cats have two tails apiece but only one arm. And there's supposed to an owl sorta one, too. And one based on a fancy layer cake for my Mailman, who calls herself the Acehole of Cakes. And one that I intended to be Baroque, but which I think came out looking vaguely like lacy genitalia. Yuck! If you can't find it, I'm not going to point it out...!)


In other news, a good sammich: Grilled muenster on wheat with fresh spinach and marinara sauce. Kind of like a Margherita sandwich, only I had muenster instead of mozzarella.


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Dear White Collar,

It's me, remember? I wrote about you last week.

I wasn't ready for the finale to your seven episode fall 'season' to come so soon, but it was a hoot. ;o9 I can tell that you like your adventures far-fetched and sly, same as me, and tonight's episode delivered on both slyness and... far-fetchedry.

( But what was up with that ending? )


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I'm never completely happy with the icons I make myself. Not even with the ones I *like* and decide to use. Maybe those least of all. I mean, every time I look at them I kind of feel proud, but they also kind of drive me crazy with fault-finding!

Anyway, the other day I found a pretty straightforward tutorial on Photoshop curves - which I've never understood even a little bit, an actual copy of Photoshop for Dummies notwithstanding. And it was raining cats and dogs today, and I was at school and needed to walk home, but I didn't have an umbrella or anything with me. In short, I was stalling.

It occurred to me to test out Photoshop curves on copies of some of the icons I've made for myself over the last year - maybe see if I could bump the colors up a notch so I'd find them a little more satisfying. (Most of my icons have been colored, if at all, with the Photoshop 'selective color' feature or with iphoto. I've only just begun using the 'hue/saturation' feature instead, and it does seem to work better than 'selective color,' even if I'm still on wobbly legs with it). I made copies of my icons right out of my allpics, and then took just a couple of minutes with each of them, doing the best I could to improve them, first with curves and then with hue/saturation. The curves feature, I found, does have a kind of magic about it, but it's so hard to control! I know exactly what each slider does in hue/saturation, but all I can do in curves is scoot the little anchor dots around and see what happens. I have no way of *predicting* how the colors are going to change, and that bothers me a little. Which probably explains why I couldn't seem to produce similar results with both features.

I don't save Photoshop copies of any of my icons (since I make them on school computers and then delete them to cover my tracks, LOL), so I couldn't touch text or layers, and I didn't bother to make selections to color separately, which I usually would. (Keeps faces from turning too red and all that rot). Thus, none of my results were bound to be what you'd call ideal. If I had degraded the color variation of the original image with my ham-handed Photoshopping the first time around, no amount of re-messing with the colors was going to put that variation back! But I produced the below: a side-by-side comparision: original, original + curves, original + hue/saturation. I think the hue/saturation ones are winning, overall, but my preference varies from example to example.























And *nothing* seems to make this one look better:



It's kind of anti-climactic how similar they all look on the Lappy, when they looked different almost to the point of tastelessly extreme (hee) on the desktop at school. I have yet to grow any sophistication where colors are concerned. I just see a color and think, 'BUT CAN WE MAKE IT BRIGHTER?'

Muahaha.


ETA: Now that I look at them on the school computer, the all look alike here, as well. HOW? I seriously had them side by side in Photoshop and was all, like, 'I dunno, the profound greenish tinge... too much?' But they're not even all that different from the originals. I don't get it! I watched them change before my very eyes, LOL!


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I have decided this is *exactly* what I want for Christmas. Exactly like this. In a box.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBFcJ_sQHG4&feature=related

Thanks, as always,
thepresidentrix


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So far, any positive comments I've seen about White Collar - including my own - have made a point of saying that it's brainless (if extremely pretty) fun. But I begin to wonder exactly what we mean by that.

I mean, it is tv, which is usually not your high water mark for intellectual stimulation, and by virtue of its very premise, White Collar has little choice but to glamorize - if not altogether approve of - crime. So it's probably not taking the consequences of its action-adventures with the utmost seriousness. Still, other shows have done likewise and still managed to escape the charge of brainlessness, have they not?

Maybe what we mean is that while White Collar can be brisk, charismatic and clever when it's at the top of its game, the quality of its half a dozen episodes so far has been noticeably inconsistent. At least I tend to think so. There's been something to enjoy about each one - take, for example, every time con artist Neal Caffrey and his stuffy FBI partner, Peter Burke, have to have a stilted conversation about Peter's difficulty dealing with open displays of emotion - but where the White Collar pilot engaged me almost instantly with its snappy patter, lingering over characterization, deliberately vintage vibe and, yes, sheer prettiness, I've been irked that some of the episodes since then haven't quite lived up to that promise. As of the last two episodes, though, I think I'm seeing the show pick up in my estimation. Which is good because, to be perfectly honest, I'm rather hopelessly smitten with some of the characters, and I have a long-suffering tendency to let a disappointing tv crush outstay its welcome. ('If I just stand by Heroes a little longer, maybe it can change!')

If White Collar is ultimately going to live up to my expectations and stay high in my esteem, it's going to have to do certain things a lot better as it grows up. Like, 1) explore and make better use of its supporting cast. (The leads are interesting enough, but what about Agent Jones, who's in nearly every episode but still doesn't have a personality? Or the female agent from the pilot, who was both a) quite cool and b) subsequently replaced by another female agent whose role so far has been so much more predictable? Or Neal Caffrey's landlady, the elegant and luminous June, with whom he has such fantastic chemistry, but who has been MIA between the pilot and tonight?)

And 2), work a little harder to make Neal's con-man powers accessible and believable. (Go ahead and let him perform his con artist sleight of hand, but the trick's a lot more fun if he keeps his hands where we can see them!)

And 3), maybe try to make the women marked for Neal's particular attentions seem as interesting as all the other women on the show. (It's the Julian Kestrel problem, all over again!)

But for all that, there's still a whole lot by way of style - certainly - and even substance - possibly - that I see White Collar getting right.

Nothing on the following list will surprise any of you on my flist who, to my knowledge, actually watch the show. Because chances are I have already said all of it to you. The list, therefore, becomes redundant to the only people I know who might have been interested in reading it, LOL. But consider this me saying it 'on the record.' I really like White Collar - brainless or not. And here's why:

1. I like Neal Caffrey. Whenever a show promises the most handsome Count in all the world the most charming con man in all the world, expect me to feel skepticism followed by annoyance, hard upon. But when it comes to Neal Caffrey's much-vaunted charm, well, I think the show delivers. It's not even just the fella's good looks. (To which, uh, I have probably already sufficiently alluded, and which are bound to come up again, if I know myself but at all). It's an aura of effortless warmth Neal projects whenever he's completely focused on one person. I didn't believe in it until I saw it for myself - but now I do! I'm pretty sure Neal *could* talk me into doing just about anything, as disturbing as that fact may be. And yet the show is still smart enough to temper Neal's charm and resourcefulness such that they never seem quite out of the realm of human possibility. He's not impassible, in fact, he's a little heart-broken. And, as I just realized today, Neal's surprisingly like an *actual* dude I *actually* know. Who could also talk you into doing just about anything.

2. I like Peter. I hope Tim DeKay, the actor who plays Peter, isn't destined to be under-appreciated simply because his co-star is so visually... distracting. I mean, Peter's attractive in his own right, and Tim DeKay beings a kind of texture to his role that feels fresh to me. The g-man may be a type, but I still don't necessarily feel that I've met this particular guy before, y'know? Neal charms by charming, but Peter charms by frustrating. It's kind of adorable how Peter makes such a show of smug superiority at Neal's 'poor life choices,' but still nurses a secret wonderment, even jealousy, at the things his pet convict can get away with.

3. I like Peter's wife. Elizabeth may not be quite as well-developed as Neal and Peter, but everything we know about her, I like. As tv marriages go, Peter and Elizabeth's is pleasantly rational and supportive. Elizabeth sometimes acts as her emotionally-inarticulate husband's conduit to the world, but she does it without belittling him - well, beyond some harmless teasing, that is. She has a soft spot for Neal, but she's not incapable of drawing firm boundaries, leaving him sputtering in an altogether adorably childish way. She has brains and style. She is a woman of consequence. She and her husband clearly adore one another, and they work well as a team. (It was a relief just to realize that casting a card-carrying hottie from Saved By The Bell did *not* mean the show intended Peter's wife to do little more than pose a temptation to infidelity. Nothing, it seems, could be further from the truth). And her hair in tonight's episode? Fabulous! I've been trying to make my hair look just like that, and it never works!

4. I like the overt Rat Pack vibe. As I told my friend Angela, I am not even usually all that into things Rat Pack, but I like crooners and men in vests (and *cough* Peter Lawford), so our interests do intersect, the Rat Pack and I. Will you scoff at Neal Caffrey's implausibly convenient all-vintage wardrobe when you see how beautiful it is? Tonight he was wearing a grey suit with some kind of narrow, dark trim on the lapels. It was extremely neat and attractive! (I wonder if Lewis will be looking into getting one like that... We shall see, LOL). Anyway, if you are going to make a show that subtly glamorizes crime, you might as well do it right - wearing a hat, sez I. With unabashed, unapologetic sixties style.

5. Did I mention I like Peter and Neal? White Collar is transparent about its participation in the classic buddy comedy/odd couple tradition - there's nothing new under the sun, after all - but it's at its best, in my opinion, when it remembers that Neal and Peter's partnership is still, to quote Peter, 'tenuous' and perpetually in flux. Neal and Peter have a way of sneaking up on each other in conversation, and their playful banter often accidentally tips into real tension. Their bond, such as it is, is just important enough to each of them to give them the power to hurt each other, and still only barely strong enough to allow them any interdependence or trust. From one perspective, the two are the oldest of frienemies - Peter, as he is extremely fond of reminding Neal, has now put him in jail twice - but there's another perspective from which they hardly know one another at all. And on their small but significant misunderstandings hangs the question whether Neal will be sent back to prison, possibly for good.

Meanwhile, both men shift between cool professionalism, grudging affection, and blatant immaturity. Peter has reluctant fatherly impulses toward Neal, and he and his wife have been known to talk about Neal as if her were their wayward foster kid, but that doesn't stop him from sniping when Neal wants to change the station on the radio. Neal, on the other hand, mostly takes Peter's needling with unassailable cool, but he also gives as good as he gets, and even sulks and whines like a sad puppy when someone pushes the wrong buttons. This is humorous to me.

6. Finally, this may come as quite a shock, but NEAL IS REALLY REALLY GOOD-LOOKING, you guys. I mean, REALLY REALLY A LOT GOOD-LOOKING. I have been racking* my brains trying to think why this particular thought never occurred to me before, back when the same guy played Bryce Larkin on Chuck. (Obviously one does not *love* Bryce Larkin as one loves Chuck, because while Bryce is noble after a fashion, he is the kind of friend who makes having enemies redundant. Or... you know the expression. But why should my lack of enduring love for him prevent me from noticing that he happens to be STAGGERINGLY GOOD-LOOKING?) After consulting several Bryce Larkin youtube videos, I think I have my answer: Magic Hair. Bryce Larkin did not have Magic Hair, but, oh, Neal Caffrey's hair is Magic! Rumply, tously, wavy and longish! Like piles of delicious taffy! Almost - but not quite - Byronic. It's not even always the *same* Magic Hair - sometimes, only sometimes, it makes a wee little Superman curl across Neal's forehead! - but it is always sooo pretty and I WANT TO TOUCH IT.



Which is a very odd moment at which to conclude, if one aims to demonstrate - whether to others or only to oneself - that one's attachment to White Collar is totally of the mind, haha. But at which I shall conclude, nonetheless. Because it is time for bed, and I have said all that I feel it important to say.

For now...




*How long have I been worrying over whether it's 'racking my brains' or 'wracking my brains'? And I finally looked it up in the thesaurus, and they are both equally correct. Variant spellings for the same verb. Huh.

The other day I learned from Alton Brown that the word 'farce' comes from the Latin 'to stuff', and once referred to the old-timey practice of cooking to impress by stuffing different animals inside each other! Like, wrens stuffed inside lobsters, stuffed inside trout, stuffed inside ducks, stuffed inside warthogs! Well, I made that example up, but you get the idea. It came up last night at Thanksgiving dinner, and mostly all I remember about the conversation, beyond a lot of giggling, was the part where we figured out that a partridge stuffed inside a pheasant would be a phartridge. That's maturity for you.*

Today, my Mailman called to say that she had been impatiently waiting a whole twenty-four hours to tell me about, like, the most exciting thing ever: the French culinary marvel, Roast Without Equal!

"A bustard was stuffed with a turkey, stuffed with a goose, stuffed with a pheasant, stuffed with a chicken, stuffed with a duck, stuffed with a guinea fowl, stuffed with a teal, stuffed with a woodcock, stuffed with a partridge, stuffed with a plover, stuffed with a lapwing, stuffed with a quail, stuffed with a thrush, stuffed with a lark, stuffed with an Ortolan Bunting, stuffed with (finally) a garden warbler."**

A bustard! We have them at the zoo! It had never previously occurred to me to stuff *anything* inside a bustard!

A thrush! A plover! Can you imagine being the cook's assistant, and your boss is all, 'Get me a plover, or it will be your hide! Get me a lapwing, or Christmas is ruined!'

'I'm sorry, Chef, but I've been down the market and there were no garden warblers to be had.'

'NOT EVEN FOR READY MONEY?'

No, not even for ready money.

Then we got to talking about how Amazon has yearlong subscriptions to Real Simple available for $5 through the first of December, and somehow the conversation circled back around to our idea for a Farce of the Month Club. Like, one month would be Fish Farce, and another month would be Surf and Turf Farce, and another month would be Omelette Farce. (Hummingbird omelette wrapped inside robin omelette, wrapped inside blue jay omelette, wrapped inside grackle omelette, wrapped inside chicken omelette, wrapped inside emu omelette, wrapped inside ostrich omelette? Etc.?) And I don't think my Mailman is going to be satisfied now, until she has 200 different animals stuffed inside a blue whale.



*The theatrical sense of 'farce' comes from the brief, exaggerated comedies that were 'stuffed' between acts of religious dramas.

**You'll note that there is no eagle on the list, and I think the French may have missed out on an opportunity there. Of course, I only had the eagle idea because I mispronounced 'Roast Without Equal,' I was laughing so hard.

I have an important and imminent date with a sinkful of dirty dishes and some angsty, old school Sarah McLachlan (what can I say? watching too much Due South, in all its Canadian glory, has put me in the mood!) but before I get down to srs bznss, here are twoish random icons that I made. I was planning on just using them myself (not that this would ever preclude friends borrowing them and doing likewise), but now I'm not sure if I will.

I wish I could get other people who are better at Photoshop to make the *exact* icons I see in my head. Because I never can seem to do it! At least I can honestly say that these are the best I could do.

Though on a second level, that's kind of depressing, LOL.


1 Doctor Who icon I've had lying around forevers:




1 and a half White Collar icons I made today while trying to keep this guy that annoys me from watching over my shoulder. Grrr:




Now to the dishes, Robin! We need the sink to be clean, or we won't be able to make THREE WHOLE PIES!

Three whole pies for four people. That's my kind of Thanksgiving Feast ratio! :o)


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( with the usual monomania for baby Robins! )

I had to stay late at school a couple of nights this week for logic review sessions, so I messed around on the computers a bit, killing time. ;o9 In the course of the week, I have learned that I should probably, like, wash my face before going places with my logic-induced sooty chimney-sweep whiteboard beard.

Good luck will rub off, when you shakes hands with me!


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I should totally be headed to bed right now, but this topic is on my mind and sort of refuses to geroff. I can only hope to dislodge it through writing.

Here's the thing: As I may have mentioned before, I belong to a comics-themed yahoo list, and one of the members recently posted a friendly survey which included the question 'Who is your favorite female comic book character?' For the first couple of days after his post, I had every intention of finding time to fill out the survey myself. But I just could not get past this question.

I not only know my favorite male comic book character, I can *effortlessly* produce my top five. I mean, they come to me immediately, in priority order. (Nightwing, Alfred, the new Blue Beetle, Batman, Dr. Mid-Nite. Done). With the possible exception of Batman, all these male characters are individuals with whom I identify - and in a variety of ways. But I can't think of a single female with whom I equally identify and whom I can comfortably call my favorite female comic book character.

Now, for the record, I acknowledge all of the following as true:

- I do not read anything like all or most of the comic books available - not even all or most of the good ones. So I have very limited credibility. There are probably awesome characters I would love if only I knew about them.

- Comic books are not traditionally great places to go looking for well-rounded female characters. I should probably know better than to try, especially so long as it continues to be true that publishers want female fans but lose patience with the very characters and kinds of stories that turn out to be popular with women. (It's kind of disgusting that 'lots of women like X' is so often taken to be a bad sign).

- There are at least a few strong female characters in comics of whom I am aware. Barbara Gordon, presently a.k.a Oracle, probably should place as my favorite by default, since she's complex and female and I think she's been written well over the years. But I don't identify with her. Personality-wise, we almost could not be more opposite. (For uninitiates, imagine a female Batman and you're 85% there, imho). I'd kind of like my very favorite female character to be one for whom I feel a deep personal affection, one who reminds me at least a little of myself - not merely An Example of a Good Female Character or even just a character whose added presence significantly enhances stories I enjoy. I could say much the same thing about Lois Lane or Catwoman. Really neat characters; just not for me. (On a near-irrelevant note for those to whom this will mean anything: I also have a preemptive soft spot for Big Barda, though I've read next to nothing about her. If I read about Big Barda, I bet I would like Big Barda).

- There are female characters in comics who do resemble me in some way but who bore me. I'm kind of like Nightwing's sweet gal pal, Donna Troy, but once you get past her notoriously torrid and incomprehensible origin story, there's not a lot to her from what I've seen. (Though she does have the aforementioned function of enhancing stories I enjoy reading by virtue of being present).

- There are female characters I once liked very much and with whom I did identify in the way I have in mind - at one time - but who have since been utterly bent out of shape for the sake of shock value or ever-increasing emphasis on badassery. (Leslie Thompkins and poor Cassandra Cain are great examples from this category, for those keeping score. It's hard for me not to feel a conviction that both characters have been spoiled past rehabilitation. And it's probably weird to say that someone is your favorite when you can't really even stand her anymore).


That part took longer than I meant it to. I must get to the point!

Already badly troubled by my inability to think of a well-developed female comic book character whom I relate to in the same way I relate to the males (maybe Blue Beetle's mom? I'm serious; she might be as close as I get), I went on to mentally work out my meme-list of favorite characters from favorite books and movies and whatnot.

And at the risk of giving away all my incredibly-hard-to-guess answers to the meme (haha), the vast majority of my favorite characters are MALE. Moreover, they are usually males who act as the emotional core of their stories. They are soft-hearted, even sentimental (I hate the whole thing where we automatically call men of feeling and reflection 'emo' now) fellows in whom I am apparently far more likely to see myself than in their female counterparts (presuming, of course, that there are any female counterparts around with whom to compare them).

Now, once again, all the following are true:

-There are more male characters.

-There are more well-rounded male characters.

-There are more male protagonists.

-There are more male POV characters.

-There are more funny male characters.

-There are more prominent male writers, who are probably more apt at endowing their male characters with sympathetic traits, simply by virtue of their greater experience of being male than female.

-Ever-so-many female characters are mainly present in their stories as love-interests, meant to signal to you that the male protagonist is a Person of Consequence (since he can attract him some pretty ladies), and/or to be awarded to the male protagonist following whatever major accomplishment or breakthrough amounts to the climax of the story. (Does anybody really prefer Lucie Manette to Charles or Sydney? No? Not even when she's so pretty and devoted and good at interior decorating on a budget?)

With all those male characters running around out there, it's no wonder I end up really, really liking a fair few of them. (Also, we should probably factor in all of the hormones I have running around on the inside. I am attracted to men, and I like characters to whom I am attracted. *cough* Kestrel *cough*).

Now, there are totally aspects of the broader human experience that can come home to me with depth and poignancy when embodied by male characters. Without question. It's not the fact that I so often identify with well-written male characters that I find troubling or mystifying. It's the fact that when I think about the well-written or stand-out female characters, I mostly don't especially identify with them. Quoth Miss Clavelle, 'Something is not right!'


Which brings me to the question that originally motivated this post: what do we mean when we ask for 'strong female characters'? Because what I mostly mean is 'Female characters who are treated as multi-faceted persons of consequence.' But when it comes time to say more about what kinds of women and girls will make the cut, I tend to start hearing words like 'tough,' 'plucky,' 'snarky,' 'take-no-prisoners,' 'fierce,' 'outspoken,' 'badass,' blah blah blah. Then there's another class of 'strong' female characters: the subsidiary group who may not be physically tough or, I dunno, intrepid, unsinkable super-sleuths or whatever, but who come across as 'strong' in part because they are remarkably rational, cool, or emotionally distant/illiterate.

It's hard for me to think of very many well-rounded (or otherwise notable) female characters, especially from popular culture, who aren't 'strong' in something like the above respects.


Now watch as I play the 'list a bunch of things I think are true' game one final time:

-It's only natural for us to find the boldest, most dynamic characters especially exciting. Especially decisive and resilient people make for some of the best, most engaging heroes.

-There totally should be plucky, smart, resourceful woman and girl heroines. There totally should be emotionally distant, inarticulate, and reckless female heroines. I personally enjoy such characters, to a point.

- It is also true that I AM NOT LIKE THAT. I am not Elizabeth Bennet. I am not Buffy the Vampire Slayer (maybe Willow). I am not Starbuck. I am not Lara Croft, Tomb Raider. I am not Wonder Woman. I am no kind of fast-talking, charismatic diva. (Well, I do talk fast...) I am not a district attorney or a surgeon or a detective or a cop, and I don't think I ever could be. I am not particularly resilient, bold, loud, resourceful or cool under pressure. I have never confessed to a priest that my primary character flaw was anything like 'simply too wild a heart!'

I tend toward the passive and the sentimental. I hesitate to rival Hamlet. I'm a nurturer and a people pleaser. I'm socially awkward, introverted, and much better at playing defense than offense. I'm a dependent rational animal. Where are the 'strong' women who feel like me to me?* I don't think being like me rules out being a strong woman (though I do hesitate to say I'd read a book or watch a tv show about me...). But it is clearly not the case that persons with my weaknesses make automatically poor characters. 'Cause we apparently allow - and take interest in - such faults when the characters are male.**

Nightwing, with his irritating sense of humor and overly conscientious habit of taking everything to heart, feels like me to me. Blue Beetle, with his uncertainty about his place in the world, feels like me to me. Alfred, dearest of ennablers, feels like me to me. Lee Adama, with his awkward inwardness and feet of clay, feels like me to me. Dorky Chuck Bartowski, who prefers *not* to be shot at, feels like me to me. Sebastian Flyte feels like me to a point that I find frankly terrifying. One does not like to see one's guts spilled out on the page for all to see.

It would probably not be good for the world if the few female characters there are weren't notably plucky and bright and brave and resourceful and badass. Perpetuating female stereotypes and all that. But the fact that my personality accords with certain female stereotypes speaks, in my opinion, not to the essential inferiority of that personality, but to a misguided view that stereotypically masculine traits (boldness, pride, aggressiveness, emotional distance) are the traits that pick out a strong, worthwhile, interesting person. Especially after years and years surrounded by mostly men - and philosophers, at that, pleh - I am definitely an 'it takes all kinds' sort of girl. And as much as I want to discipline myself out of some very serious personal weaknesses, I don't think I need to do it by reinventing myself as a paradigm ass-kicker. Or as a man, for that matter. I intend to stay very much myself - tendency toward passivity and all.


So for anyone who has read all this (and it's really late, so it's entirely possible that the foregoing makes next to no sense; we'll see in the morning...) this is what I want to know:

What do you require in a 'strong' female character? What traits do you personally value in the characters whom you find especially sympathetic? Do you also tend to be more drawn to characters of the opposite sex? Can you think of any really fabulous (but not especially badass) female characters to cheer me up?



*The blind, unbalanced level of affection I have for a certain smattering of atypical female characters begins to make that much more sense to me...
**As tempestsarekind aptly pointed out earlier today (er, yesterday), this totally doesn't mean that emotional male characters don't take a lot of abuse or get called wusses and junk. But they exist. And they don't generally have to make up for their emotional existence by fulfilling the thankless role of damsel in distress.

Alas! I had the most terrible dream! I dreamed that my sisters and I moved to a new house on the Main Street of a very small, dusty, almost egregiously Old Western town. It must have been in Texas. The dream also took place just a couple of days after Halloween - which is, of course, roughly now.

Our house was built on the corner of Something and Main, and the dining room had one window on Main Street and a whole glass wall with a sliding door that looked out on the other little side street. If you went out through the sliding glass door, you'd be standing on a little concrete patio raised a few feet off the street. This patio had metal handrails and extended into a ramp for wheelchair access to the house, and it wasn't much wider than a strip of sidewalk.

When we first unpacked, we carelessly set up this sort of three-story Cage of Mixed Rodents in the corner of the dining room. The cage contained all sorts of small furry animals, most of which were supposedly my sister's pets (she has no such rodent-pets in real life), and a couple of which belonged to my other sister and me. We were moving, see? So we just packed all our mice and hamsters and gerbils in together.

Well, once we had mostly unpacked, it was time to sort out the three-story cage, clean it, and figure out whose pets were whose. We took the cage out on the little patio and started unpacking it. In my dream, I had once had three mice named Piccolo, Waverly, and Mutt, though Mutt had run away or died before the move. I still had my cats, mind you, but I remembered a time before I got them when I thought I couldn't have cats, so I got the mice as a consolation prize and gave them the names I wanted to give my cats. (Then I got cats and gave them the same names anyway, see?) Piccolo and Waverly the mice looked suspiciously like live versions of the flocked toy Sylvanian Families mice we had when we were kids, (for one of which I got caught building a secret furnished apartment in my bureau drawer years later; I was, like, twenty-two or something...)

I found both of my mice fairly quickly, but apparently I trusted the girl mouse more, because I put the boy mouse in a little plastic temporary cage smaller than a lunch box, but I let the girl mouse roam free, assuming she'd come home for dinner. (She never did, at least not before I woke up. So maybe she's still out there!?) My sisters and I got hungry, so we popped into the kitchen for a quick lunch. I left my wee mousie sitting in his flimsy plastic cage (really, it might as well have been one of those old green plastic strawberry baskets) on the patio's edge.

When we came back outside a few minutes later, I wandered up the street a bit and noticed something I hadn't before: a snake like a dull black rope was trying to get back to his hole, but his tail had a knot in it. This is where a heroine in a fairy tale would help untie the snake and get three wishes, but as the Disney Jungle Book says, 'There are teeth in the other end!' I didn't know enough about snakes to feel confident handling one without getting bitten to death, so I left it, mad at the hoodlums who must have tied it in knots while running around on Halloween. But as I walked back toward the house on street level I realized that we were surrounded by snakes, some only a couple of inches thick like the dull black one, and others much bigger. The snakes just weren't immediately obvious, because they were partially buried in the dirt, and you could only see disconnected loops of them sticking up above the surface - like Sea Monsters drawn on old-timey maps.

I found one half-buried loop of snake that was golden patterned and as thick as my calf. I could tell the snake was alive, because the loop was slithering, very slowly. Keeping a wide berth (I thought) I tried to follow the loops to see where the rest of the snake was pointed.

This snake was at least twenty feet long. And I almost stumbled right into his head. Which was, like, as big as Hagrid's fist. And looked just like Little Foot's head from The Land Before Time.

Finally something clicked in my brain, and I ran back up the walk to the patio, looking for the wee mousie I had left on the edge of the patio. Poor wee mousie...! A snake had bitten through his plastic cage and eaten his face, saving the rest of him for later. (In my mind's eye, he is quite possibly wearing a tiny pair of overalls).

I just know it was Little Foot that did it. I don't care if he only has flat, blunt teeth for grinding Tree Stars. You could see it on his smug dinosaur face. I hate you, Little Foot.

And I'm so sorry brain-mousie, for leaving you on the curb where you could be eaten by brain-Texas. Which, apparently, has more snakes than actual dirt, upon which whole houses are apparently constructed.


.

Memes ganked from kurosawa and queenofthorns!


( meme from kurosawa )


( a fandom meme from queenofthorns )


( a love meme from queenofthorns )


.

All the movies I've seen since the last time I wrote about movies I'd seen. Unless you count last night, when I wrote about these same movies, and lj erased it. Bleh.

(Cuts for moderate spoilers. Where possible, I try to spoil with a light hand, but I find it impossible to be entirely vague).


( Julie and Julia )



( Whip It )



( Where the Wild Things Are )



( Astro Boy )


.

I am resolved to be fun on lj again. I just made an entry with reviews of *four* different movies to get the ball rolling. And I was - seriously, seriously - on the last paragraph of the fourth one, when I selected two words, hit 'delete' and lj (or the Lappy; I'm not sure who to blame) erased *everything* above the point where I inserted my cursor. And no matter how many times I hit 'undo' it just bonked at me stubbornly.

Now it has saved my half a sentence remaining as the entire draft. Why is there no way to go back a minute?

Whyyyyyy?

Whyyyyyy?

It had to be on the *fourth* one, too...


.

Okay, who bothers to make processed food recs? Apparently me, that's who.**

I was in the grocery store the other day, and I happened to stop by the little Buitoni tortellini/ravioli kiosk. I buy these tortellinis sometimes. Most commonly when I am feeling homesick. My poor mom: all the foods that most make me think of home are foods that come in a box. I still remember how wounded she was when she called a couple of weeks before the Christmas break of my first year of college to ask me what foods I was homesick for - and, oh, I was dreadfully homesick - and I told her that what I missed most was her Kraft macaroni and cheese. We still ask for it whenever we come home to visit. My Mailman and I agree: we are incapable of making it taste like Mom's. No one we know can make it taste like Mom's! The woman is a virtuoso of powdered cheese(like substance)!

(She puts ham in it, too, but that's not what gives the cheese its unique perfection. It is, however, what allows us to sing choruses of 'Cheese with Mac and Ham' to the tune of the 'Tea with Jam and Bread' part of 'Do, a Deer...')

Anyway: food. Mac and cheese makes me think of Mom. And plastic boxes of tortellini make me think of Mom. This week, however, while standing in front of the tortellini kiosk I recalled a commercial for, um, some long Italian word I could not remember, stuffed with delicious mushrooms. Now, I love me some delicious mushrooms. (I suspect it is the hobbit dna). These were the Buitoni 'Wild Mushroom Agnolotti.' I still have no idea what makes something an agnolotti, but these were basically big stuffed oval-shaped ravioli. I bought them. And I ate them.

Boy, did I ever eat them! They were SO GOOD, you guys. Robust savory flavorful mushroomy goodness! Best... ravioli-like things... EVAR. I could eat these ever day - if I could afford to buy them, that is.

I had thought about buying pesto for them but was too cheap, in the end. I think that was a good decision, because the pesto would have been over-powering, anyway. I also knew I had a several-weeks-old jar of mushroom (did I mention I like mushrooms?) marinara in the fridge, which still looked and smelled okay, but in the end I decided not to chance ruining my magic mushroom pockets with bad sauce, so I had them with parmesan cheese and a little butter. That was all they needed. Dare I say... orgasmic?

It's a good thing I have resolved to live cheap. Because the mushroom budget alone could easily have gotten way out of hand...



In other news, the other day Alexandra (my friend whose five kids I babysit) and I were talking about whether or not she likes yellow, and she mentioned wanting to have her colors done. I'm not a big believer in the having of the colors done - though I do believe people look better in some colors than others, natch. (So I suppose having a dedicated expert examine you color by color could show you a lot in one go...) I just don't believe that people come in sets, y'know?

Case in point: me. I had a friend in college who was deeply devoted to her (vintage) copy of 'Color Me Beautiful' and tried really, really hard to successfully put me in a season. And when I say that, I mean we would get together primarily on weekends, and a whole week would come and go and she would show up still working on a new theory about what category I belonged in. (I say my skin looks cleanest in 'winter' colors and warmest in 'spring' colors, but my hair and eyes had it in mind that I'd turn out an 'autumn.' This means there are a lot of colors that only flatter one aspect of me at a time, but I prefer to think it opens up more options for me, in the long run. I mean: not looking half bad in nearly every color? I'll take it). The idea that someone might not belong to a 'season' at all was deeply troubling to my friend's worldview.

Today, to kill time after lunch before going back to work, I compulsively googled 'having your colors done,' to see what technological advances might be out there right now, coloring people up. I didn't find much. There's a site devoted to 'Color Me Beautiful' that sells makeup and jewelry by season and has a quiz to tell you what season that ought to be. (This least-sophisticated mechanism ever informs me conclusively that I am an Autumn, because my hair is dark and has a warm undertone. Badda-bing, badda-boom). I also found a site that promises a much more sophisticated and elaborate process - in exchange for money. They will give you a swatch of shopping samples - like paint chips - to keep with you always! The site had this to say:

'Each color on your palette creates a different impression when you wear it - you may appear more formal, more romantic, more exciting, more credible, more quiet and calm, or more "pulled together".'

I thought that was really, really funny at first. Then I realized I was confusing 'credible' with 'credulous.' LOL.

I don't know what color would make me look most credulous. Other than all the colors.

(I also don't know why I am sharing this google-jaunt with the public. The color-palette subculture just intrigues me, I guess.)



*This was before I promised not to buy anything ever again.
**Reminds me of a video my sister once put together when she was going through a video-putting-together phase. (It started with sad montages of Carter and Lucy getting stabbed by Bernard the Elf/hot curly-haired Numb3rs guy on ER). The video featured Han Solo demanding, 'Who's scruffy looking?', followed by the cook from Mary Poppins saying, 'Me, that's 'oo!' Hee hee. Totally ranks among her best work.


.

Apparently, my sleeping brain has decided it would rather just watch tv; all three of these dreams are tv-themed in some respect. And it's getting harder and harder for me to say upon waking where *I* was in my dreams. In these dreams, for example, I was pretty much an observer, not a participant. But when I try to go back through them, I have distinct memories of emotions and attitudes that only make sense for someone who was present as a participant in a given scene. Only I wasn't in the scene. I kind of miss the days when I used to go actively adventuring in all my dreams. Simpler times, when my asleep-brain wasn't as lazy as my awake one...


Dream the First:

A couple of nights ago, I had a dream about Peter and Horn-Rimmed Glasses from Heroes, only the setting of the dream did not resemble the NYC of Heroes so much as the landscape of a fantasy novel. It was an imaginary kingdom: pre-industrial but not sword-and-sorcery (there weren't any tunics or scabbards to speak of), with a smack of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I think Peter was the scion of a degenerate noble family. He still had powers, but the dream was very vague on what, exactly, these powers were.

HRG came to Peter with a gold pocket watch and said he needed Peter's help to find another like it. HRG showed him that the lid of the watch had a scene engraved on it: an old-fashioned army encampment, sparsely sketched and embarrassingly Narnia-esque. (My dreams are *so* into plagiarism!) A standard flying over a tent in the foreground showed a simple 'P' device. Peter wondered whether it meant something about his own family. He grudgingly agreed to use his whatever-powers of sneakery to find the other watch.

The two traveled out of town on a twisty road cut into a mountainside. I forget some of this chunk, but they got to their destination, and Peter went in alone. He was looking for a large, strangely squarish heap of loose sand under a faded canopy. The heap of sand was about the size of a king-sized bed. Peter had some idea that he might be pursued by others in search of the watch, so he wanted to leave as little evidence that he'd been there as possible. Strangely, as he approached the unmarked heap, he found that he could sense where the watch was buried, and his heightened senses were also telling him there was a *second* watch buried in this same heap of sand. He plunged his hand straight down into the sand exactly twice and came up with a pocket watch each time. He looked at each one. One watch was engraved with the exact same image as the previous one, but it was silver. The other was gold, like the first watch, and the image on the cover was again the same, except for the device on the standard, which was missing the 'P.' Peter had no idea what it meant, but he had a growing sense of conviction (and foreboding! woooo!) that it all had something to do with his family history.

Hearing noises outside the tent, Peter shoved the two watches into his pocket and tried to hide in a narrow groove in the floor that was partially obscured by the draping of the canopy. (Here my recollections become very confused as to p.o.v., since I have clear memories of the feeling of trying to wedge myself into the space in the floor, even though I had at no previous point in the dream been involved). Peter sort of knew that it was a futile effort, and indeed, the new party spotted him right away. He knew, somehow, that they were his antagonists, and he tried to be all casual, like he had just wandered into the room with the sand-mattress by mistake. As one does. The antagonists at least pretended to believe him. They smirked at him and showed him what they had come for, 'another watch like this.' Their watch was another 'P' watch, in gold, exactly like HRG's. (Peter never entertained the possibility that they had overpowered HRG and taken his watch; he assumed the watch-count was up to four: three gold, one silver, three P watches, one non-P watch).

Peter had to think of a way to get past his antagonists and escape with his two watches - preferably without any of them realizing he had ever found them - then come back later and steal the fourth watch. But even though he knew it was crucial for him to draw no attention to the watches hidden on his person, he couldn't stop putting his hands in his pockets. All his intuition told him that they were onto him and would never let him past them. But at just the moment Peter became completely convinced - by means of an evil gleam in their leader's eye! - that the antagonists not only knew he had the watches but knew exactly where he was keeping them... I woke up.



Dream the Second:

This dream was about an outlandish, grandiose, devil-may-care female airline pilot. She looked like Sue from Glee (my favorite character from that show, I'm afraid. I *never* like the villain best, but Sue is actually *funny,* and the other characters will insist on upsetting me week after week. Still, I tune in out of a protracted hope that the show will come to its senses, and because watching the curly-haired guy sing and dance just does things to me. Guh! The curly hair and the gangling gangliness!) and she flew a commercial airliner as if she were more like a taxi driver and/or captain of a booze cruise. By which I mean: a) she saw herself as an entertainer as well as a pilot, and b) she had passengers and a schedule and stuff, but she just landed at any airport she wanted, only to take off again and go wherever she wanted. She would stand on a chair in the airport and shout for everyone's attention, then try to convince the passengers waiting for their flights that they should go with her to Antarctica, instead.

Which is where we were supposed to be going, Sue permitting. I got on a plane - I think - with a bunch of other passengers. We were supposed to be taking a flight to Antarctica with one stop in the middle. After one leg of the trip with Sue, most of the passengers had decided to transfer to flights on other airlines. So the passenger roster diminished significantly, and Sue decided to stop for a couple of days so she could shill for new passengers. Because of the delay, only two passengers total from the original flight decided to stay on and wait, and much of the middle part of the dream was taken up with these two characters flirting with each other ceaselessly. I seem to recall that the man, in particular, was extremely obnoxious, smothering the woman with attention, but to my disappointment, the woman eventually gave in to this guy's advances and decided she liked him back. I sort of wasn't there for any of this, because I was one of the passengers who got disgusted and left with another airline. But then I sort of was one of the new passengers Sue picked up, too, and when we got on the plane and took off, I had serious doubts that Antarctica was where we were actually headed.



Dream the Third

Ando and Hiro from Heroes were in a car with somebody else I can't remember. (The appearance of more Heroes characters probably has to do with the fact that I thought about getting up and writing down the previous two dreams, before falling asleep again). Hiro sneezed and accidentally stopped himself, the car and the driver in time. Ando tried to get Hiro to snap out of it, then gave up, opened the car door and went around back to try to push the car out of the middle of the street. (Hiro was glitching in the season premiere, which - I admit! - I watched; I am hopeless. My brain's version of a Hiro-glitch still doesn't make much sense, however). Somehow, Ando ended up climbing on top of the car, jumping up and down to try to get Hiro's attention. Which meant that when time started up again, the car started going, and Ando was thrown in front of the car.

He got hit - a little. Hiro felt bad, so they both decided to get some cake. Luckily, they were right outside of a local cake restaurant. Supposedly, this restaurant was located in my town, because I remember thinking, 'Oh good, I've been meaning to go to that cake restaurant; now I will know what it's like.' And there is a cake restaurant of sorts that I have been meaning to try out here in town, but it is not built by the side of a railway trestle three or four stories in the air, and this one was.

Hiro and Ando had to figure out how to get up to the cake restaurant. They found an elevator and, quite naturally, assumed it was the way up. But although that seems a reasonable assumption to me (you'd think the proprietor of a cake restaurant four stories up would be glad for whatever makes his business easier to get to - but no!), the elevator was not safe for human use. The doors would not stay open more than a second, and there was no sensor to stop them from shutting on a person halfway in or out the door. Hiro and Ando both made it on, but they had to leap out the door when it got to the top or risk being smushed. Hiro made it through the door the first time, but Ando had to ride it all the way down to the bottom and up again, so he could have his chance to jump out at the top. Then the proprietor of the cake shop told them they weren't allowed to ride the elevator, and as punishment they would have to take it all the way down again and come back up by the stairs. So it was back in the elevator, risking their lives to jump out one at a time on the ground floor.

Hiro and Ando didn't remember any stairs, but that was because the bottom stair was a block away. Instead of flights of stairs twisting back and forth at each floor, this wooden staircase was designed in a giant arc that gradually ascended to the railway trestle and shook and swayed when you stepped on it. Very harrowing. I didn't like this part, because I'm afraid of heights (of slipping and falling from them, anyway), and I worried that my weight would break the old rotten wood steps. Of course, I shouldn't have worried because *I wasn't even there.* Hiro and Ando, however, made it just fine.

At the top of the staircase, Hiro and Ando finally found the cake restaurant. Inside, it was like a dingy little diner with an old-fashioned refrigerator and no kitchen behind the counter. Hiro and Ando (and I) were disappointed to learn that the cake guy didn't make his own special cakes, he just bought frozen cakes from the grocery store and defrosted slices of them in his grimy fridge.

The End.




In other news, I am trying to get excited about cooking again, after a summer spent wilting in the heat, too hot and bored to eat, much less cook. Last night I made this recipe for a chicken pie (it is made in a casserole dish) with cinnamon, rice, raisins and yogurt in the filling along with the vegetables, and it was a very good start:

http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/indian-spiced-chicken-10000001586998/

I used phyllo for the first time ever to make the top crust. My phyllo turned out a lot uglier than the picture, but the pie is delicious. Very tender chicken and rice, with a nice blend of sweet and spicy! Hobbitastic dining, indeed!



In other other news, I finally looked up how to make boldface in html. Yay me!


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On the happy side:

1. Happy birthday to my sister, argel39, and also to litlover12! I have known argel39 for twenty-six years and litlover12 for less than twenty-six days, but I wish you both the best in the coming year! (And I hope you quickly find something to stonk with your awesome six-shooter and THREE KINDS OF DARTS, argel39! Maybe something... Pingley?)

2. Texas doesn't fool me; I'm not letting myself get too excited for Real Fall yet, but this was a lovely morning! I layered out the wazoo, and my walk to school was still cool and sweet. Also, the cats are growing their thick, velvety seal fur already, whether they need it or not. I do so love the thick, pillowy winter furs! It makes hugging cats against their will even more fun than usual.

3. I get to go see Angela's new baby tomorrow! I have been hesitant to mention New Baby's birth, because I figured it was Angela's news, but it's been over a week now, and Lewis said I could tell anybody I want, so flappity flap flap, already! My favorite part of the Angela's New Baby story is the part where we were at the zoo a Friday or so ago, and Angela announced her intention to have the baby on Sunday - for a variety of reasons and by wholly natural means. Then I got a call on Sunday morning announcing that she had already accomplished exactly what she set out to do. (Though, Angela admits sadly, Sunday meant the baby was not born on Talk Like a Pirate Day). Now that's efficiency for you!

I was just in my room a moment ago picking out clothes to wear when I go over to visit tomorrow - the better to get a prompt and early start, see? And right when I was at the point of making finger guns of approval at myself in the mirror, I realized with sudden horror: YOU CANNOT WEAR YOUR VEST THAT IS STUDDED ALL OVER WITH METAL NAILS when you go to pet your friend's brand new baby! I like this vest very very much, my friends - it reminds me of Balki from Perfect Strangers, and I call it my Lonely Goatherd Vest - but there is a time and a place! I need to go back and try again - this time look for something soft...


.

Ever since I moved into this place I have suspected that my apartment is actually *made* of dirt, with a thin veneer of old whitewash dripped over it. Not that I have been the most scrupulous of housekeepers, mind you, but there have always been places in the corners that simply will not look clean, no matter what I do to them.

Now I have been here going on five years - well, we are still pretty close to the beginning of the fifth year, so... whatever - and it seems like whenever I need to go get something out of a mostly untenanted corner or I have occasion to view my room from any angle other than the typical, I am stunned and embarrassed by some new cache of cat hair and dirt. Bleck.

I mean, gee, I know we all live in a very enclosed space, and there isn't a lot of room for moving the furniture so as to clean, but we do (sometimes) clean, and HOW MUCH GRUB CAN ONE GIRL AND TWO LARGE HAIRY CATS GENERATE, ANYWAY??? There is dirt in places I can't even reach, you guys! Not even when I am already standing on my bed and covering it with a sheet and jumping up and down to knock dust bunnies down off the ceiling!

Normally dirt doesn't bother me much. I see it as part of the human condition, see? I *expect* dirt. But right now, I just want it to be cleeeeean...



In other time-wasting news: Has anyone else seen these lovelies before?

http://www.paperdolls.com/pages/dressem.htm

I remember this paper doll collection from years past, when I found the Austen heroines and some of the other early additions (insert magic cat homonym joke?), but apparently the gallery has only grown over time, and now in addition to being able to view (and purchase, if you so choose) the dolls, there is an additional feature that lets you dress any doll in any of her outfits instantly, just by clicking! Whee!

I especially enjoy the wit of the Scarlet Pimpernel doll, the joie de vivre of 'French Market', 'Italian Kitchen' and 'Coppelia' and the wonderfully inventive details on dolls like Frida Kahlo and The Little Mermaid. Oh, and there are many very sweet editions featuring your classic literary heroines, too.

So tally-ho, fellow time-wastrels! Tally-ho!



Finally, opinions: If it is two-thirty a.m. and someone is knocking at your door over and over again when all the lights are off and you are already asleep in bed, and you fully intend to ignore him or her but he goes away and comes back again a couple of times so that you finally end up getting up, putting on presentable clothes and going to the door, and it turns out to be some kid who is looking for your neighbor, who, obviously, does not live in your apartment, haha, and this kid is reasonably polite but does not seem to see anything wrong with waking people up in the middle of the night just for the sake of finding your neighbor: Is your neighbor some kind of drug dealer? Or one of those secret doctors you go to when you get shot and don't want to report it to the authorities? (The kid did not appear to be shot...) Or a guy who falsifies dental records so that the cops won't be able to identify the body in your trunk...?


.

I had a series of strange dreams last night. First I was tooling around with my family in our old red and white Dodge van. (Eventually, we came to refer to this van as 'Old Chugger.') It was some kind of family vacation, driving from site to site, and all I remember is that I became hugely attached to some kind of a drink involving lemonade, chili powder, and lots and lots of green herbs thrown in. I bought a kit to make this drink in the gift shop of a museum, was charged an unexpectedly high amount, and then accidentally left my kit by the side of the highway. I kept seeing commercials for a series of direct to video X-Files specials, possibly starring only Gillian Anderson. I formed the intention to go home and look them up, to see if they would have David Duchovny.

Then I signed up for some kind of church camp on a last minute whim, knowing I would be 'the oldest kid' - by which I mean an adult - there. I spent the whole time conniving to find a place to eat dinner alone and thus arrived at dinner after everyone else had gone through the buffet line, when all that was left were two or three varieties of nearly-identical soggy salad. And chocolate cake. It turned out the chocolate cake had been mailed to camp as a late birthday present for me. Only the camp leaders were frustrated about this, because it really was an actual child's birthday that day, and there was no cake for her. I told them to say the cake was her cake and not to worry about it. (I didn't really think about the likelihood that the truth would eventually come out; it seemed like a foolproof plan to me).

Then, finally, I dreamed I was on a show that was like a cross between Mythbusters, The Muppet Movie, and The Prestige. I was joining some kind of punk experimental team (no doubt to thrill them all with my ENORMOUS TALENTS IN SCIENCE!), and we had a big lab/workshop for doing all our punk experiments. Our leader, who really did look like a younger version of the man from Mythbusters (and I make note of the youngerness, because we also seemed to be some sort of tribe of 'Lost Boys'; we lived in the lab, because we were all orphans with no one to care for us! *sob!*) was asking for volunteers to stand on this little grate in the floor. The kind of grate where the whole floor tilts toward it, so that water can run off instead of standing in puddles.

Our leader had his new device aimed at the grate, and when a volunteer stood on the spot, he would shoot a beam of energy at him. Once hit with the beam, the volunteer would shimmer brightly and disappear - but just before the disappearance, we would have a grief glimpse of the volunteer transformed - into a human-sized foam puppet. Punky Mythbuster, you see, had invented a device that could send people into a parallel dimension - Puppet Land! - but in order to survive Puppet Land conditions, you had to be a puppet yourself. So his device did that, too.

Then there was a sort of accident in the lab. A volunteer was standing on the grate, the device was set to go off, and someone else wandered in to talk with the fellow standing on the grate. Punky Mythbuster rushed over to push the hapless individual out of the way and was accidentally caught in his own energy beam. He puppetated and then disappeared - transported to Puppet Land. Now we were in trouble. Punky Mythbuster was the only guy who knew exactly how to work the device, and he was supposed to use it to bring everyone back and un-puppet them. Especially unfortunate in his absence was the would-be volunteer, who was knocked over before the device went off, but who still had one foot on the grate at the time. A foot which turned into a puppet foot, even though the whole of him stayed in our dimension. Somewhat dazed, the fellow got up and tried to walk around on his exaggerated purple foam foot, but a puppet foot isn't meant to support the weight of a full-grown man, and it kept buckling under him when he tried to move around.

Meanwhile - random but also true - a mysterious woman had infiltrated the lab and was trying to incite us to war against Puppet Land, while, unbeknownst to us, denizens of Puppet Land were also crossing the barrier between our worlds every time the device was used. A puppet sting ray (Yes! A puppet sting ray!) was secretly watching this woman as she hawked for war, and he took her opinion to represent us all. So he crept back to the other puppets to warn them: they would have to find a way to return to Puppet Land so they could raise an army to destroy the threat to their world!

To be continued...?

Aren't August and September supposed to be the cinematic elephant graveyard? Where movies go to die? Because suddenly all the movies I've been waiting for all summer long are coming out all at once, to the point that I bought tickets to two movies in a row the other afternoon, just so that I could be sure of seeing both before either went out of the theater.

Now I have thoughts.

Normally I try to SPOIL with the light touch of your typical movie reviewer, but this time I'm not sure I can make sense of my reaction to either movie without reference to specifics. So: cuts, cuts, cuts!


( (500) Days of Summer )


( Ponyo, Ponyo, Ponyo, Fishy in the Sea! )



In other news, yesterday I brought some cards printed with famous paintings to the kids I babysit. I've been starting them on art history/appreciation with simple games and exercises in observing and describing works of art, and I asked them to choose cards at random and tell me stories about what they saw happening in the paintings. I told them they didn't have to arrive at any right answers about what their paintings depicted, but that they might want to look for little clues in the paintings themselves. I wasn't sure this game would catch on - what if they were just bored and embarrassed and didn't know what to say? - but I shouldn't have worried (or expected them to react so much like I probably would under similar circumstances, LOL). I was astonished at how unhesitatingly they posited delightful scenarios for each picture, and if I asked them questions like, 'What is he telling her?' or 'What season do you think it is?' or 'What do you suppose is about to happen next?' they always had amusing answers at the ready.

Regarding a Goya of two boys and a dog: 'This boy is rich, because he's wearing shoes, and this boy is probably a servant, because he doesn't have any shoes. One of the boys lost his dog, and they both looked for it together, and now they've become friends."

A Gauguin of three little girls dancing: 'Their father has been away at the war for a long time, and now they're happy, because he's coming home, so they're dancing. But one of them sees a wolf off to the side of the picture, which is why she looks scared.'

A Manet of a man and a woman sitting on a dock in front of some fishing boats: 'These two men are going fishing. This guy really likes fishing, and he's asking the other guy if he has any fishing poles and fishing stuff.' (Me: 'I think that's a woman.' James: 'No, no. It's definitely not.') 'The other guy doesn't even like fishing, and he's thinking, "Are you kidding me?"'

An Eakins of one man standing, one man banjoing, and a little boy dancing: 'The little boy did something bad, and this man (the standing one) is singing him a song about how he shouldn't do that any more.'

And my absolute favorite, regarding a Dutchish-looking painting of two people laughing, one of whom is holding something up outside the frame of the painting: 'They found a stray dog, and they are so happy that they are shooting off a gun to show how excited they are!'



In also-other news: from now on I must NEVER GO SHOPPING AGAIN. But today I swear I found the most amazing coat EVER. It is an ORANGE and RED and ESPRESSO PLAID car coat, my friends! ORANGE *AND* RED *AND* PLAID! It looks good both open and neatly belted. The brown is so close to black that it harmonizes with either color. And though it's obviously new, the fabric and the cut could pass for vintage. It's like somebody made this coat WITH ME IN MIND. I mean, it's even (somehow) scaled to my five foot, two inch body. (Sorry, all the other normal height people who will want to wear my coat but who have normal-length arms and legs!) The only thing they forgot when they set out to create my perfect coat was to scale it to my pocket-book. Not that it was unreasonably expensive, LOL, but I'm so much better off the closer the price tag is to 'free'!


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Today I found out that you can play 'Twenty Questions' online. There are actually a whole bunch of different themed games under the auspices of the 'Twenty Questions' site. On a whim, I picked the Harry Potter game. The game instructed me to think of something or someone from the world of Harry Potter.

I thought about a goat.

The game guessed 'Aberforth's Goat' very handily. I'm not sure just how, but I think it was onto me by, like, the sixth question. Since the game functions by keeping track of other people's answers and storing the information up for later, the game proceeded to inform me how my answers to its questions differed from most people's answers.

The last notation was as follows:

'Are you female? You said Irrelevant. 20Q was taught by other players that the answer is Probably.'


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