Beh-old!

Cinematic Moment:  Things that make you go "I'm a dinosaur."

I'm three years older than Pixar and with far less accomplished (unless it's a contest of who has made the most people cry.)  On that note, I'm 4 years older than the contact lens and a whopping 5 years older than crack, though we've caused similar devastation if you find the average.

THIS article.

Pluto is no longer a planet.  Does this mean Disney's Pluto is not really a dog?  Are we supposed to live our lives questioning everything we've ever known?  Now I know what Christopher Columbus's friends must have felt like.  

I can't make it through more than 5 minutes on MTV, even when I'm drinking.

Mountain Dew has like 5 flavors.  When I was a kid, it came in one:  "Mountain Dew."

You know how they make you read Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" in high school because it's a classic?  Well, I was in kindergarten when it was published.  That must make me a classic too.  By classic I mean, OLD.

The high school kids at the deli call me "maam" and the old ass men at the gym try to call me on the phone.

Back to the Future 2 is 20 years old.  And the "future" they are referring to?  Only 5 years away.

Taylor Hanson of Hanson fame has FOUR children.  Yes, four.  And that young one they subbed in for the drum machine?  He has a little nugget too.

I'd be willing to give my ID to someone under 21 who looks like me-with the condition they have to give me theirs.  Also, when I get carded, I look all around to make sure someone's watching.

This was the pinnacle of science when I was young:

Sigh.

Take it---no, put it on!

( Photo by Colby Katz )

Cinematic Moment:  Man dancers.

 I spent the weekend cooking up a storm with friends from the city and dreaming up brand new ways bring booze, fruit and the ice cream maker together with repeated success.  Now I'm rejuvenating on the couch watching Cake Boss and marveling at the bakery owner's refusal to make a bachelorette party cake with man strippers on it. 

 I don't really understand the concept of the bachelorette party and the male nudity that comes along with it.  There's something appalling about a thong clad man gyrating around, rubbing his sweaty appendages on the guests and looking like a sausage smashed into too little casing.  The male form isn't exactly aesthetically beautiful (judging from the one's I've seen on TV, mom.) There's something even more disgusting about having to ingest a cake covered in this visual.  Gross!

Fire.

Cinematic Moment:  Life with Propane.

"Grilling out" has always been a mystifying concept to me, though not unappealing.  As a child, I'd watch my dad carefully pack the charcoal into the grill at the park, throwing lighter fluid on it and striking a long wooden match.  He was like a modern day caveman.  Eventually we upgraded to a propane grill and that was even more intimidating.  I left the actual cooking to the "menfolk" and flopped around on the slip and slide until the burgers were done.  I dreamt of owning a car with buttery leather seats, a house with marble floors that smelled constantly like cinnamon, a rolodex, a car phone (yeah, I'm old as dirt).  The thought never crossed my mind that I might, one day, have a grill to call my own.

Last week, momnpopinlaw decided we needed one so we could eat outside on the deck.  I was taken aback by the suggestion, not because I didn't want a grill--it's just that it was like asking if I wanted to pilot a commercial flight to San Francisco.  I hadn't seriously considered it because grilling was a foreign language.  A foreign language made of spontaneous combustion and accidental fires that could singe off your eyebrows.  Nevertheless, it was new and exciting and potentially disastrous, so of course I jumped on the "let's buy a grill" wagon.

The boyfrianceband and I went and picked one out, hoisting it into the old van.  He had to hold it in place the whole way home as it slipped back and forth on its new wheels, chattering the whole way as if it were telling us a story.  Once we got it on the deck, we installed the propane tank, hung up the sweet new tools we got, unpacked the cover.  Then I wiped it down, centered it on the rug, wiped it down again--anything to avoid actually lighting the damn thing.

After reading the directions about 100 times front to back, I was thoroughly terrified.  Who knew spiders could take up residency in the tubing and cause a backward explosion?  And what's all this talk about propane leaks?  A simple "how to" would have been sufficient without turning the grill into the next weapon of mass destruction that I willingly brought into my backyard.  Eventually, we bit the bullet and my man lit the thing.  No fireworks, no burning balls of propane shooting towards our faces.  Just a smooth even flame, safely contained.  

 After sampling our first round of delicious meats, it's safe to say momnpopinlaw have created a monster.  A grilling monster.

Let's kick the week off with some inane rants, shall we?

Cinematic Moment:  A smorgasbord of thoughts for a Monday.

After a total of 17 days spent last month all over the Caribbean, nothing is more depressing than coming back to 10 days of rain.  And I'm not talking just a drizzle for 15 minutes--this is 'build yourself an ark' kind of weather where the sun has had 11 minutes of face time in a week.  The lack of Vitamin D makes me depressed and hungry 24 hours a day.  So not only do I really not want to leave the house to go grocery shopping, I insist on scouring every cabinet and pantry for left over chocolate chips, stray granola bars--I even thought about drinking a can of sweetened condensed milk and pretending it was flan.  Some call it a downward spiral.  I call it Seasonal Affective Disorder (just in the wrong season.)

You know that feeling you get when you watch a scary movie and you want to warn the person about to get slashed with that hatchet or know that if it was Friday the 13th YOU would NEVER run upstairs to get away from the killer?  Even though you know there is nothing you can do to change it, the instinct is to try in your head.  It's the same when you watch someone else playing a video game.  Except that you can change it--the control is just in someone else's hand.  Nothing drives me crazier than watching other people play video games.  

Tuxedo shopping was the simplest part of wedding planning.  It also may be the cheapest. What's that all about?  I can't commit to a pair of shoes, but we dressed 7 people in 20 minutes?  

Sometimes you just gotta buy the new Black Eyed Peas album.  I have no shame and furthermore, no remorse.

What kind of landscaper plants two blue spruce trees (estimated growth 20 feet hight) in a flower bed that lines a house?  Oh I know.  The same kind that comes to do a walk through drunk off his ass. 

I still can't get my head around the idea that writing a 20-page long short story is leaps and bounds more difficult than writing something 100 pages longer.  There must be some mathematical equation being defied in the land of fiction.  

Cooking fish of any kind totally weirds me out.  The texture reminds me of what lepers must look like as their flesh flakes off and the smell is the nasal equivalent of a finger down my throat.  That said, I am going to make my best effort to keep my gag reflexes in check and attempt to make salmon for the frianceband.  Wish me luck.

Cinematic Moment:  Something serious.

Some of you might know that I just got back from an 8 day long trip to the Bahamas which was every bit as amazing and insane as you can imagine.  However, last week, I returned home to news which has changed my entire plan for a LOCM post.  A family member committed suicide over the weekend.  I've been grieving in my own way, mostly internally, but have decided to post about it because of the circumstances, in hopes that it will reach someone who's dealt with it before to let them know they aren't alone.  

Death is a very personal thing and when it's at one's one hand, it becomes something entirely different.  You feel a whole spectrum of emotions from complete devastation to shock to anger. Suicide is not an easy way out.  It leaves so many people in it's wake to answer the unanswerable:  Why?  How could we have not seen signs?  The ones left behind hear it like church bells for the rest of their lives.  While they are eating dinner, in the middle of the night, writing an email at the office:  Could I have done something differently?  The pain is something you can't put into words and because the universe can't be held responsible, you carry the blame on your shoulders.  For every suicide, there are a hundred victims.  

In the case of my own family's tragedy, we saw no signs of depression, though perhaps we should have looked harder.  The truth is, sometimes there are no indications of how someone is really feeling.  We all wear the mask we choose to put on that day.  All we can do is remind each other to keep persevering.  Life is all about deep valleys and sky high days on the graph.  If you are at a low point, there is an incline just around the bend.  Please just hold on and keep pushing through.  Life isn't always easy or what we might want it to be, but there's no simple way out.  A better day is coming.  

SUICIDE PREVENTION HOTLINES

1-800-SUICIDE

1-800-237-TALK

Suicide prevention website

Empty nest syndrome.

Cinematic Moment:  Missing a piece.

I noticed their daddy building a nest right outside our front door.  From there a momma bird appeared and beneath her, 4 bright blue eggs.  Taking a peek in that tiny nest became a daily habit.  I'd bring the dogs outside and make sure they were OK around five times a day.  My man would chide me for peeking at the nest through the window, scaring away the mother occasionally on accident.

One morning, the eggs were gone.  In their place, 4 tiny pink bodies pulsed.  I yelled out--"We're grandparents!"  It was so exciting to see them there, breathing itsy bitsy breaths and squirming around while their parents went out to get them food.  Every day I watched them grow a bit more--new feathers popping up each morning.  I tossed out breadcrumbs and seed.  I took photos and gabbed to my own mom about their birth and progress, taping up signs to warn the landscapers of their presence: "***Please do not disturb the baby birds or run them over with lawn equipment***!!" 

Finally, they opened their eyes, nearly spilling out of the nest with their quickly growing wings and mass.  I spoke to them gently.  "Welcome to the world little babies."  They opened their mouths wide for a snack.  I was in love.

A few days ago, as I took the puppies out for the evening, I checked in on them to say goodnight.  My heart stopped when I realized there was one lone baby in there, huddling into himself to stay warm.  His mother chirped to me from a nearby tree, getting nervous at my presence.  My first instinct was sheer panic.  Then I started to cry.  Had something gotten them?  If they had indeed become groundlings, why was there one left behind?  I stayed in the rocking chair for almost an hour in the dark waiting to see if a cat or hawk came back to get the last one.  I was ready to attack and defend that baby.  But nothing came except the momma, who nestled in on top of the remaining bird. 

I couldn't sleep all night wondering if they were going to be alright.  When I woke up, I ran out to check on him.  The nest was completely empty. 

 It's funny how something so ordinary can have such a profound effect.  I sat on the front porch, pulled down the landscapers sign and crumpled it into a ball.  I felt alone in every sense of the word.  I can't imagine being a parent who has to let their children go.  It must be the most difficult thing in the world.

I'll never know what happened to my little bird babies.  I prefer to think they are learning to fly.

Trek to the stars.

Cinematic Moment:  A real cinematic moment.

Do you remember being a kid and going to the movies?  For me, it was magic.  The theater wasn't so far from my house that we couldn't walk there and when our parents were feeling desperate to get the kids out of the house, walk there we did.  Pulling open those glass doors at the entrance was the pitchers breath before throwing a 90 mph ball towards the mound.  In real life, I was a slow bloomer and still bordered on the possibility of Santa Claus and unicorns while all my friends assured me otherwise. Each time I handed over a ticket to the attendant, I could simultaneously hand over disbelief for 2 hours without feeling immature.   Everyone in that theater was on the same page--it didn't matter if Batman wasn't real or lions couldn't sing in real life.  At the movies, you could age as quickly or slowly as you wanted to.  And I wanted the world to stay surreal forever.

Today the frianceband and I went to see the newest Star Trek movie.  Though I am by no means a "trekkie", my father certainly was and dragged my brother and I into the world whether we liked it or not.  At first I loved it, but eventually turned against the series when I was a teenager and growing increasingly concerned with others opinions of what was cool.   "Star Trek" was just above "going to the movies with your dad" on that list.   In those teen years, something else happens.  Your willingness to suspend disbelief becomes more selective.  Sure, I'd accept that the Prince of some made up country could easily meet and fall in love with a hot dog vendor in some romantic comedy, but throw in an alien or a sword and you lost me.  

At the ripe age of 26, having attended more comic book conventions than I can count, learned the difference between "fantasy" and "sci-fi" and begun co-writing a series myself,  I could give a shit what anyone else thinks and decided to give Star Trek another shot.

We went to the 10:30 am showing--one that was nearly full to capacity.  The enthusiasm of Trekkies is contagious and walking up to the concession stand, I felt like a kid all over again.  The anticipation, the banter over how it will be...holy shit the concession stand sells chicken fingers and Bon bons??  My childhood movie snacking was confined to popcorn and stale butterfingers!  I'll take one of everything.

I won't go into detail, but the movie (along with the chicken fingers) was phenomenal.  Great casting, great script,  just the right amount of nostalgia and a secondary love story.  I think what makes a lot of people turned off by science fiction based movies is the intimidation factor of spacecrafts and foreign things blowing up and I don't know, nebulas--but not once in this film did I feel intimidated or out of my element.  Rather than leaving me on Earth, Star Trek took me along to the final frontier.  And the movies were magic once more.