Christmas Morning 2011

We worked hard to make Christmas special in 2012, putting extra thought into our gifts and scraping together what we thought was an impressive and memorable bounty for the holiday. In some cases we bought presents as early as the summer, so as to take advantage of off-season prices. 

Note: yes, I know. Christmas is not about the presents, but about Christ, and family. Agreed. But it also the one time of year we get to go overboard on the kids, and frankly, Lisa and I both enjoy giving gifts.

Anyhow, by late Christmas Eve the presents were in neat little stacks around the living room; Yaya's by the television, Smiley's by the loveseat "Mom's Perch", and the two youngest girls gifts sat by the fireplace.

Come morning, the kids actually obeyed our steadfast rule: come down dressed well enough for (casual) pictures, or do not expect to open any gifts :)

We opened the gifts round robin.

Ginger opened her dolly

Smiley opened his red 'brag' vest for Cub Scouts

LuLu opened her Justin Bieber perfume!

YaYa opened a pair of Taylor Swift CD's

Momma opened up a 45 piece set of flatware (she'd kill me if I showed you the picture I took that morning)

I opened my remote boat (aka remote caddy) WHICH, I might add, I used the dickens of before it broke mid-year

Ginger opened up a stuffed pink doggy and a carrying tote/cage for it

Smiley opened a Power Rangers fighting dress up set complete with mask and sword

Lu got some clothes with her dance studio logo

YaYa got a stuffed owl (she's very into owls)

Momma opened two 12 piece clear glass dinnerware sets

Smiley gave me an ornament he made at school

Ginger got some princess dress-up clothes

Smiley opened some underwear (they all got a package, and crayons too) and Lu got Justin Bieber trading cards

YaYa got an archery certificate

Then, one of the best presents I've ever gotten: a 1st edition Nook from Barnes and Noble!

Smiley got a Ninja sweatshirt

each of the kids got a braided hemp rosary

while YaYa got a Taylor Swift tour CD/DVD

I got Lisa a collapsible backscratcher, while I got a streaming Netflix player that I would soon donate to the kids for use on their TV

Ginger opened a set of earings and necklace

YaYa got some books

Smiley opened up a Pokemon battle toy

LuLu got fuzzy blue slipper boots with a glittery peace sign on the side and a copy of the game "Guess Who?"

Smiley aka 'the flower and garden guy" got a Chia Pet "Shrek"

I bought Lisa a sewing basket and a bottle of Perry Ellis 360

I got a cribbage set (and no one to play it with)

Ginger got pink rain boots that she'd been dying for, and a tea set!

YaYa got dance studio apparell too

Lu got a lamp (IIRC, this is the one that would later wreak havoc with us on the night of the Hunger Games premiere)

Smiley got the game "Hoppers Jr."

Ginger got a journal and a set of six Fairy Angels

YaYa got an owl ring and necklace

Smiley got 'battle armour' for a Zhu Zhu pet

Lulu got a "Tear up this Book" journal and a Lauren Alaina CD

I got an electric razor!

Ginger got slippers

Smiley got a jumbo Bakugan coloring book

Ginger got a My Little Pony book with a set of figurines

Lu got a Selena Gomez journal

YaYa opened a snowboard, which we bought for her months in advance and hid in the basement rafters. We thought it'd be  a great hit, but of course the winter of 2011-12 featured barely any snow at all! She also got a fashion journal.

Here's Ginger's dance studio apparel

Smiley got a Pokemon DVD and pocket guide

Lu got a notebook decorated with hearts and a Justin Bieber picture book!

Ginger opened a $25 gift cerfticate to Build a Bear!

Smiley got a six piece twin bed set for his room

LuLu's big gift - a digital drum kit! She'd been asking for a drum kit for months. Alas, her love affair with the kit lasted all of a few days before she came up with excuses as to why it wasn't good enough, and we didn't we buy her a real set, etc. :(

Ok, this next gift was such a big hit it deserves a post of its own - YaYa got her very own 1st edition Nook!

Then my big gift to Lisa: a Nook Tablet and case. I thought she could check her mail, read magazines, and surf the web all from the Perch, since she considered it a bother to go into our messy office. She loved it! But sadly so did the kids, who steal it at every opportunity. She rarely sees it. :(

When I first glanced at these pictures, I felt in hindsight that it was a big waste of money and that precious few of the gifts were ever used. Upon review, I was wrong. The adult gifts - the Nooks, the Netflix streamer, the razor, the perfume, flatware, etc - were spot on. Yes, the sewing box fell apart soon after but that wasn't my fault; it was pricey enough to last, trust me.

Of the kids stuff the Build A Bear GC, the Nook, and the pink rain boots were steady producers, but I'd say the other gifts (except the before mentioned drum kit) earned their money.

Anyhow, that was our Christmas morning. Later in the day we treated the kids to a movie, going to see Alvin and Chipmunks: Chipwrecked in the theater.

Hope your Christmas was just as fun!

Quote of the Day

This past Thursday, after each of the kids had their weekly dance class, we treated them out for dinner at an Italian fast food restaurant. Near the end of the meal Ginger asked Lisa the following question:

"Do you like piss?"

Everyone stopped eating in shock. "What did you say?" Lisa asked.

"Do you like piss?" she repeated. LuLu started giggling and Smiley was living up to his nickname.

Ginger, for her part, couldn't understand what all the fuss was about and was getting angry. "Do you like piss? Lot's of people like piss. Stop laughing! Dad likes to eat piss, lots of people eat piss!"

LuLu and Smiley were laughing outright by that point, and Lisa, mindful of the people dining nearby, was frantically trying to quiet Ginger while at the same time understand what she was saying.

(YaYa was involved in a frantic text back and forth regarding an upcoming school dance and was oblivious until we repeated the story. Pre-teens. Sigh).

Finally, it dawned on me.

"Fish? Are you trying to say 'fish'?"

Ginger's shoulders sagged with relief. "Yes. Piss, like the little pissies that swim in the ocean."

Yes. Just like the little pissies that swim in the ocean. :)

Bleep the Refs

Well, that was a crap job of officiating.

Man, I don't know what's worse. The officiating, or having to watch Stephanie Sutton struggle to ad-lib on the news afterwards. It's damn near a toss up.

Everyone please send your comments about the game tonight to:

officeofcommissioner@nfl.com 

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell at (212) 450-2000 

Walking Home from School

'Tis True

Here's a quote, completely unrelated to the show, that addresses the only flaw in the marvelous Dr. Who episode "Vincent and The Doctor": 

"Vincent Van Gogh (pronounced Van-GOCK by the Dutch, and sundry pretentious . . . twits)   - Victor Lavalle.

My Thoughts - In defense of UWM

I notice the Journal is running yet another article blasting UWM students and listing the alleged grievances of neighborhood residents.

 A - UWM will always take a hit in the local press while Marquette would earn a pass even if their students lynched their neighbors. 

B - If you buy a home two blocks from a college, you lose all rights to complain about the inevitable fusses of *living two blocks from a college*, you idiot.

C - if you are a resident around UWM, you and your whining has led to the restrictive parking regulations that plagued me and everyone else for years. Ergo, FU.

Katy Perry: Part of Me

I rented "Katy Perry: Part of Me" for the kids Friday night and caught most of it myself on Saturday. It was a good, uplifting concert film/career documentary, and I'd easily grade it a B. Unusual bit of trivia: the pivotal artist that inspired Perry, leading directly to her abandoning a gospel career for pop? None other than the great Alanis Morissette.

The Broken Ones by Stephen M. Irwin

In "The Broken Ones" by Stephen M. Irwin, on a day forever known as s "Gray Wednesday", every human being on Earth found themselves haunted by a ghost only they can see. Three years later society has nearly crumbled, plagued by alarming suicide rates, spiritual confusion, and economic collapse.

In this landscape Detective Oscar Mariani is assigned to investigate murders that are said to be the result of people driven mad by their ghosts, and he stumbles upon a ritualistic murder that no one seems to want him to solve. The case will threaten not only his career, but his life and the lives of those he loves. 

What did I think of the book? Eh. I'm ambivalent. Great premise, but the ghosts didn't have all that much of a role in the book beyond ruining society, and I'm still not clear on how they did that. The writing was solid but didn't 'zing', but, BUT I think the mystery itself was really developed well, and I liked all the emotional baggage Mariani carried around. 

My grade: B Book#77 of the year.

I'm Moving Shifts

A sad day at work(s) today. At FT job it was my last day on 1st before moving shifts, so it meant saying goodbye to a lot of people I'd grown surprisingly fond of seeing every day. Oh, sure, Justin F I could do without, but I'll miss Kim, Jenny, Kristin, etc. I was also 'traded' from one management team to another, which was a shock. Then at PT job it may/may not have been the last night of work, unless I can find a last minute sub for some of the hours that conflict with FT. So, melancholia abounds.

The Amazing Spider-Man

On a recent Sunday I took YaYa and Smiley to see "The Amazing Spider-Man" at the budget cinema. I wasn't keen on seeing it, despite being a Spidey fan all my life. Why bother, I thought, when it was a reboot of a franchise that ran its course within the last decade? How many times do you need to see a guy bitten by a radioactie/mutated spider? Pass,  I thought.

Man, was I wrong. It was great. Much better, in my opinion, than the Tobey Mcguire version. Why?

a. They kept the timeframe compact, starting and ending with Peter a high school student (presumably in the same school year). So instead of the mandatory regurgetation of the origin story, followed by what feels like a seperate good vs evil story a year or two down the road, it felt like a single, cohesive storyline.

b. Gwen Stacey. I can't tell you how peeved I was that the Tobey movie retconned her away.

c. The script was more mature. Not 'mature' in a 'violent/sexual/brooding' way, but fleshed out beyond the basic respect due the mythology. Uncle Ben dies, yes, and he dies in a roundabout way because of Peter's inaction (although no indication is given that the guy is armed or violent at the time, which I thought should have been foreshadowed ). But unlike the prior filmed version Peter's inaction seems well, natural, and Ben isn't killed as a bystander, but as a man living and dying by the code of responsiblity he instilled in his nephew. Likewise, I liked that Ben called him out on his revenge against Flash; later that insight comes back to shake him out of his narrow pursuit of Ben's killer and gives birth to the true Spider-Man.

d. Sally Field. Martin Sheen.

e . Somehow the script manages to bring in Peter's parents and their (presumed?) deaths, hint that Flash may become a friend, leaves Ben's killer  still on the loose, and has Norman Osborn in the background yet still controlling all the  bad karma of the film, and yet I never got the sense that they were setting the table for sequels. Of course that's what they were doing, but it was integrated well enough where this one stands as a legitimate one-off.

f. Spidey is sarcastic and talkative in a fight. Man I missed that.

g. I never bought Tobey as Spidey. Yes, he played the geek well, but remember, Peter was a geek only in high school. By his mid-twenties he was a confident man (barely) making a living in the city and dating a model. I could never see that transformation taking place with Tobey. But Garfield? Brother I buy that hook, line and sinker.

h. SPOILER:  At the end of the film Peter has promised Gwen's dying father that he will no longer see her. The two are now estranged. Peter arrives late for class and takes a seat behind her, and the teacher chastises him for being late. He promises it will never happen again, and the teacher says he shouldn't make promises he can't keep. Peter replies, just loud enough for Gwen to hear: "But those are the best kind," signifying that he will break his word and resume their relationship. Without turning around Gwen breaks into a small but lovely smile, and I just about said "awwww". What a wonderful, subtle, heartwarming scene.

Grade: A

Change is Needed

Junie on a good day - Just Kidding!

The Anderson Platoon

A few weeks back I watched "The Anderson Platoon", a 1966 French documentary that follows a U.S. infantry platoon in Vietnam. The hook, for that era, was that the platoon was led by black West Point grad Joseph B. Anderson. The film is well regarded and often praised, but I thought it was a poorly edited mess. 

Yes, there are poignant images (the body of a U.S. soldier we met earlier is left out in the open on a tarp awaiting transport/a chopper crash is caught on film/a GI on leave blows his earnings on a prostitute) but it's all just random images pieced together with little narration and no real sense of a narrative thrust. 

Sure, someone can argue that the documentary mimics the chaos and uncertainty of the Vietnam war itself, but that's academic gobbbledegook; I don't think that was the intent here, I simply think the filmmaker was content to let the film roll without a guiding hand.

I give it a C as a film, a B+ as a historical time capsule.

The Cabin in the Woods

I just got done watching "The Cabin the Woods", a horror film about a group of people who are the unwitting pawns in a complex sacrifice to ancient, hungry gods. Five minutes into it I knew the writing was strong enough to craft a winner, but my oh my did it exceed my expectations. It's funny when it should be ("Good work zombie arm!"), wickedly original without being obnoxious about it, and just plain good. I loved it. Grade: A+

Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu" by Lee Goldberg

Today I finished reading "Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu" by Lee Goldberg. When San Francisco's cops go on a work stoppage Mr. Monk is drafted by the mayor to become the temporary homicide Captain. I liked the story, and the dialouge, but dang nabbit I still feel using Natalie's voice to tell the tale is wrong, in part because I don't think Goldberg has enough flair to pull it off. Grade: C+ Book #76 of the year

A Sad but Honest Quote

The ugly truth was that these [psychiatric] patients weren't here to be cured. There were no cures for them. They had illnesses that had to be managed, by them and by those who treated them. They were like ships that would never find a shore. The most you could do was bring them supplies; the most they could do was get used to the rocking, the unpredictability, of the vast, impenetrable ocean below them," - Victor Lavalle, The Devil in Silver

Victory

The Sad Sack Slapjacks won this past weekend, bumping me up to 1-1 on the year. Final tally: 134.50 to 115.40