Month: May 2008

The house with many rooms

So I have a lot of dreams about houses, usually big ones.  But my favorite house dream is where I keep finding new rooms, all this space I had no idea I had.  I had such a dream the other night.

In my dream, Leif had gotten the blueprints to our house from an unnamed uncle.  He went upstairs and came down shortly, saying, “Can you come upstairs a minute?”  I went upstairs, and inbetween Leif’s studio and the guest room was a door I had never noticed before.  It opened into another room like the studio, except there was a crib.  But there were huge cracks in the floor, and I thought I would never put a baby in this room, it would fall through the cracks!

I noticed off this room was a doorway to the right.  I went through into this beautiful open space that had a line of windows on one side.  I realized we were on the third floor and there was long porch outside, and snow was falling.  I decided immediately that this would be our new bedroom.  I looked to another wall, and there was a staircase going down.  It led into a gymnasium, and I was so excited to have such a large dance/yoga space.  I thought No wonder our heating bills went up, all this time we’ve been heating these extra rooms.

The funny thing about it is I was so deliriously happy to find all these rooms.  Everything was filled with sunny light and I was full of joy.  Then of course I woke up to find my house had not changed.

Happy Feet

So we got the movie Happy Feet from my uncle and Rowan wanted me to put it in.  I knew nothing about it, so when the singing started, I was a little taken aback.  And penguins named “Memphis” and “Norma Jean”?  And then a cutesy penguin chick–ick.  Too saccharine.  Plus Robin Williams plays two characters, and frankly, I don’t know how he went from funny to annoying, but he was definitely obnoxiously annoying in this movie.  So for the beginning of it, I thought, This is parenthood, watching crappy kid movies.

Yet I found myself crying during the end.  It’s sad, the main character gets caught and put into a zoo.  But then he manages to communicate with a little girl by tap dancing.  Okay, so the tap dancing part is a little silly, but there was something so sad about him seeing these vague watery faces of humans, coming and going, behind the glass.  The movie has a happy ending–leaders of the world decide to stop overfishing and everything ends up happy in the end.  I wish we could be so smart in real life.

They also did a couple of cut scenes where they zoomed out to show planet Earth in space.  The image of Earth in space usually makes me tear up anyway.  There is something so vulnerable about us, all trapped together on this one planet, in the vast silence of space.  And in the movie, the main penguin character keeps trying to tell his people about these aliens–they’re the ones that have the caused the fish to disappear, and they put strange objects on the birds and penguins–but no one can understand what it means.  Of course, it makes me wonder too–if there were higher sentient beings than us, would we be even able to recognize them?  Or would just weird stuff happen that no one could explain?  And there’s plenty of that already going around.

The Great Trunk Escapade

This past weekend there were a few garage sales going on.   I didn’t really want to go out, but I thought I might find a few deals.  My friend, Mike, told me to come over Thursday night before they started on Friday.  So I headed over there and found a child’s booster seat, a CD player (yes, I’m so old fashioned I still use these) and an obnoxious green blanket for Rowan (which she loved)

As I was getting out my checkbook, I noticed what appeared to be a snowblower on the side.  I asked Mike, “Is that a snowblower for sale?” and it was.  Actually, there were two snowblowers and three lawnmowers.  I was pretty psyched.  Mike helped me fit it into my trunk and gave me a bungee cord to secure it with.  As you may have noticed, this past winter was the winter FROM HELL, especially if all you have is a shovel.  So I got home, pretty proud of my little purchase.  I told Leif and we went to get it out of the trunk.

A few minutes later he comes back inside.  “Do you know why the trunk won’t close?” he asks.  No, I did not.  Thus began an hour of fiddling and prodding trying to figure out what shifted that would cause the trunk to no longer latch.  This is how is went in my head:

Jesus F’ing Christ, I can’t believe I bought that goddamn snowblower and now I’m going to have to take the f”ing car to the goddamn mechanic and pay twice as much just to fix the f’ing latch.  AAAUUUGGGHHH!

By some miracle of bumbling, Leif finally was able to pry off the plastic cover of the latch to reveal an itty-bitty spring that had unhooked itself.  We rehooked it and the trunk now both closes and locks.  Oh happy happy day.

Prince Caspian

Well, it’s a great May for movies.  Prince Caspian, Indiana Jones, and Sex and the City are all coming out this month.  So even though we’re in a recession, I’m forking over my hard earned cash to go to Star Cinema with the comfy seats.  Friday night we went to Prince Caspian.

I have to say I was pretty impressed.  Of the seven books, Prince Caspian is probably my least favorite.  A good quarter of the book is spent on the Pevensie kids lost on a island, eating apples and bear meat.  And when we finally get to the good stuff, there’s a challenge to single combat between Peter and Miraz, and a short battle afterwards and everyone goes home happy.  Yawn.  The movie added some stuff which worked to make the story a lot less boring.  And the guy who plays King Miraz–well done.  Very believable.

Warwick Davis plays Nikabrik–it must have been fun for him to play an evil dwarf for once.  I have the BBC versions of the first four Narnia books and he played an owl and Reepicheep in those.

Of course, it didn’t hurt the the actors who play Peter, Susan, and Prince Caspian are all pretty yummy.  Who knew Narnia was full of hotties?

Hormonal

So I’ve found that some people actually do read my blog, and a couple mentioned that I haven’t posted in awhile.  That’s because I’m usually pretty pissy these days.  Usually in the morning I’m pretty bad and around 2:30 pm or so I cheer up.  Or get sad, but in any case I’m not as angry.  Don’t take it seriously, (I’m not), its just a phase.

Plus, I’ve had a few moral dilemmas come my way.  Well, actually two.  It’s sort of felt like a bit of a testing lately.  I wish I could get into it more, but part of it actually stemmed from this blog and I don’t really feel like stirring crap up. Mainly because right now I’d probably start a fight and I know that’s really not the best thing to do.  But sadly, I have had to face some disappointment in people.  We all like to think we get along with our friends, that on this journey of life we kind of all are going in the same direction.  It is sad to see paths diverge.  It is sad sometimes to see someone clearly.  There’s a line between a person with flaws and a flawed person, but it’s a very real distinction.

Of course, I’m feeling pretty flawed these days too.  It is really hard to change yourself.  I get older every year, and still no better.  I still worry about providing enough for my family, hate that I can’t for the love of god keep a clean house, hate that I still lose things.  Will I ever come close to the person I want so desperately to be?  Although perhaps I should feel fortunate that I worry about such things.  I used to care much more about finding love, finding friends–now that I have them my mind turns to other things I guess.

As much as sometimes I am disappointed in people, I am usually far more grateful to the wonderful people who have graced my life.  A week or two ago, my friend Amy was in town.  A bunch of us went to dinner, and yet I could not be happy.  There was this great sadness in me, not at all pertinent to the situation, and I excused myself after dinner.  On the way home, I called Stacy and she told me to come over.  There is something so accepting about good friends.  We spent the evening talking and it felt so good to belong.  Everywhere I go, I meet beautiful people.  Most of them look pretty normal on the outside, but there is such richness on the inside.  I wish I could tell their stories.

Well, now I’m sad and sentimental.  That’s the great thing about hormones, you never know what you’re gonna get.