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December 2nd, 2008
littlereview
 | 12:21 am - Poem for Tuesday
( The Promise )
I spent a ridiculous amount of time on Monday fighting with MS Word and my printer trying to get labels printed for holiday cards, and the rest of the time fighting with the dryer, which has apparently decided to turn off every 15 minutes for half an hour to cool down, meaning that we need to have it repaired after all. It took all day to finish the wash and nothing is even folded yet. Otherwise, all I accomplished was ordering some Cyber Monday holiday gifts and listening obsessively to the new John Barrowman CD Music Music Music, in which he confirms that he is myself at 14 by performing Barry Manilow's "I Made It Through the Rain" and various other insanely schmoopy songs, not to mention an all-male version of "I Know Him So Well" from Chess. Oh, and I got to see the Moon-Venus-Jupiter conjunction! (Here in honor of Boston Legal is a pic from the Boston Herald.)
( Mount Vernon Toward Winter )
We had our last Monday night with The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Heroes and Boston Legal, since next week I'll have to miss Heroes for the latter's two-hour finale and then Boston Legal will be gone. *cries* The other two, I must admit, are largely mediocre. I mean, this week we got Sarah Connor pretty much without Sarah Connor, and were instead subjected to ( spoilers. ) Then there's Heroes, an episode once more redeemed for me by Seth Green and Hiro as the comic relief, although ( spoilers. ) At least the evening ended with Boston Legal, one of whose subjects was the lack of television for adults over 50, and I'm not ashamed to be a fogey and prefer the show with just those demographics, ( spoilers. )
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December 1st, 2008
littlereview
| 12:11 am - Poem for Monday
( The Star Market )
It was a cold, dark, very rainy Sunday and all of us feel like we're getting colds, so we didn't do much that was exciting. I got a four-load laundry half-done. At halftime during the Redskins game, we went out to World Market -- with stops at the going-out-of-business Linens & Things and nearby Toys R Us, though we bought nothing in either place -- primarily to get simmer sauces. Bombay potatoes and pumpkin curry, though I'm afraid a Nestle Aero bar and some holiday gifts snuck into the bags. We made it home in time to see the Redskins lose. Then I got a lovely surprise: ![[info]](http://www.deadjournal.com:8080/userinfo.gif) cidercupcakes had to drive her mother to work, so she was up in my direction and came over for dinner. We watched the Colbert Christmas special while apaulled made the Bombay potatoes, chicken korma and rice. So I had a delightful relaxing early evening. *g*
( National Zoo Sloth Bears )
After dinner we watched Futurama's screamingly hilarious "Anthology of Interest II" -- the one where Bender wants to be human, Fry wants to be in a video game and Leela wants to be in The Wizard of Oz. We also watched the ninth episode of Merlin, "Excalibur," which was definitely the best yet -- finally some backstory on why Uther hates magic and what's going on with Nimue -- I must confess I am really happy to see Michelle Ryan back on TV. And in addition to several women characters I like though I really wish they were given more to do, I love the male bonding. ( Spoilers. ) Later in the evening, we put on Charlie Wilson's War, though I got distracted early on by laundry and the kids going to bed, and never fully got into it as a result. ( Spoilers. )
Happy December!
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November 30th, 2008
littlereview
| 12:04 am - Poem for Sunday
( Prologue )
We made one more attempt on Saturday to go on the National Treasure tour at Mount Vernon, since the tours are apparently really truly ending this month, but when we arrived at 10:30, they told us they had sold out an hour earlier. Even so, we had a lovely afternoon there -- the house and grounds are decorated for the holidays as they would have been when the Washingtons lived there, with greenery hanging in the front parlor and a Christmas camel in honor of the one George Washington had brought to the estate for Christmas 1787. There were also decorated trees and a Mount Vernon gingerbread house in the visitor center. And since it's now winter and the upstairs is much cooler, the third floor was open, where there are lovely views of the grounds, a china storage closet, and several bedrooms including the one where Martha Washington slept after George's death.
( Mount Vernon Holidays )
After touring the mansion, we walked down to the river and through part of the farm to see the sheep, cattle, pigs, and chickens, plus the slave cabin and the sixteen-sided barn. We ate lunch in the food court near the gift shops (not to be confused with the excellent inn on the grounds, but still, pretty good sandwiches, cheese and peanuts). Then we came home and started watching the Terps play Boston College, but when things did not go terribly well, we put on National Treasure 2 to get our tour vicariously. Those movies remain very silly but enjoyable -- is there any other fluff film franchise with so many Oscar winners? And then we watched the Oklahoma/Oklahoma State game, in which we rooted for the latter largely out of dislike for the former.
Belated fannish5: ( Fannish Gratitude )
Belated thefridayfive: ( Ear Worms )
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November 29th, 2008
littlereview
| 12:06 am - Poem for Saturday
( A Map of the City )
Even though we were all on vacation, we got up early Friday to go downtown to the National Zoo. Adam is very fond of the kiwis -- he was bitterly resentful when the baby panda got so much more publicity than the baby kiwi born at the zoo -- and he has wanted to return to the Meet a Kiwi program since we went in 2006 but because the zoo only holds it on weekdays, it's been hard to find a time to take him when he didn't have school. So we went to the kiwi program, then we visited most of the zoo that we didn't see when we were there in September (Amazonia, invertebrates, the North American valley, the gorillas, the farm) and some places that we did (the bird house, the reptile house, the Asia trail). It was a beautiful day, chilly but not really cold, and not insanely crowded though we thought there might be a lot of other people on vacation visiting.
( Meet a Kiwi )
In the late afternoon, two of the cousins stopped by to visit our cats. An hour later we went to my parents' for Shabbat dinner and leftovers. Then we came home so the kids could shower, clean their rooms, etc., and we all ended up watching The Spy Who Loved Me, which is pretty much as goofy as I remember it but still awesome fun -- supervillain trying to destroy the world, hot Russians, cool tech, and I had forgotten the awesome aquariums and underwater shots. Roger Moore is my Bond; I like him much better than Connery or Brosnan and I haven't the writing for the others.
Hope no one got trampled while shopping and hope everyone has a nice weekend.
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November 28th, 2008
littlereview
| 12:03 am - Poem for Friday
( November Sunday Morning )
I spent a quiet Thanksgiving morning shifting my summer and winter clothes in my closet and putting together a giveaway pile from my stuff and Adam's overstuffed drawers. We had a small lunch -- soup and cheese crackers -- then Paul's parents arrived and we spent much of the afternoon looking at their trip photos and working on cropping those photos for their holiday letter. My sister Nicole's oldest daughter, Isabel, came over to play with her cousins; Sabrina, the middle daughter, was at the movies with my father, and the youngest, Molly, was helping (or perhaps that should be "helping") my mother cook. Dinner was delicious, and I had a nice time catching up with Nicole, so I have lots to be thankful for.
( Thanksgiving 2008 )
The Cowboys won, boo, though I only saw about fifteen minutes of the game and fled from the room when the Jonas Brothers showed up at halftime. We had the Detroit game on while we were looking at photos earlier but I stopped paying attention once the Titans were up more than 20 points. And the Eagles were winning (guess getting benched woke McNabb up) when I was at my parents' but we didn't pay for the NFL Channel so I guess I won't be seeing the end of that game. Hope everyone who celebrated had a lovely day and everyone else had a peaceful one. The news here is too obsessed with Black Friday shopping to cover what's going on in India properly, but I'm thinking of people there.
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November 27th, 2008
littlereview
| 12:02 am - Poem for Thursday
( Signing Ceremony )
It was mostly a chore day involving things like having our gutters cleaned and some branches cut off our neighbor's tree that had been scratching our windows. I had to pick Adam up from school before 11 to take him to the orthodontist, who put long-anticipated braces on his lower teeth. Adam was not happy about this, but he did receive confirmation that because his upper left incisor has broken through the gum, he won't need oral surgery, which is good news for everyone! To celebrate I took him to Borders and bought him the new Erin Hunter cat book, Long Shadows. Borders was having a one-day sale for people on their mailing list, so I also bought the first two seasons of Futurama for Daniel for Chanukah -- they've long been on his wish list and they were half-price.
I was not deprived, because I got three awesome things in the mail. The first was my long-anticipated CD from Girlyman of their concert at the Birchmere where I went with psu_jedi last month -- two CDs, actually, containing all their banter and tuning songs, with really good sound quality. Plus I'd met a woman online who had seen my Barbie Tarot and wrote to tell me that she'd created her own Barbie Tarot, using posed dolls and Photoshop so her images are much more creative than mine, and she sent me a CD of them! And speaking of Tarot, the wonderful venturous1 sent me a package with the Gill Tarot deck given to her by her mentor -- my favorite sorts of Tarot decks are those that have been used and loved already -- and an original watercolor painting of Mount Vernon!
( Mount Vernon Harvest Festival )
Pushing Daisies is already feeling sad and nostalgic for me, knowing it isn't coming back and they didn't film any sort of series finale because they weren't sure when they wrapped the last episode. Oh, how I will miss supporting characters like ( spoilers. ) There's been a lot of hand-wringing on my friends list about Twilight, falling into two categories: people who love it but feel guilty about that (or feel like they have to claim to feel guilty), and people who despise everything it stands for. ( A longer comment than I intended. ) And I want to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving, whether you're celebrating in the US or having an ordinary day elsewhere. I hope everyone with loved ones in or near Mumbai has made contact -- what a horrific tragedy.
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November 26th, 2008
littlereview
| 12:05 am - Poem for Wednesday
( Peace )
After doing some work in the morning, I went out to lunch with perkypaduan at the mall, where we had Qdoba pesto burrito bowls and acted like teenage girls (meaning, we went to Sephora and Hot Topic, and I actually bought Sugar Hooker body spray, which smells like Aquolina's Pink Sugar but only costs $9.95). Then I came home, downloaded a bunch of free music from iTunes, Amazon.com, and various holiday giveaways (Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney on their web sites, Sheryl Crow from Hallmark), discovered that older son was watching Armageddon since they were talking about meteors in science class and briefly got sucked in. Plus I read a delightful interview with Joanne Linville, the Romulan Commander from real Star Trek.
( Don Juan and Miguel )
In the evening we watched this week's Sarah Jane Adventures, which I am delighted to see is returning to the BBC for a third season! Part two of "The Temptation Of Sarah Jane Smith" was very nicely done, had my favorite Rani moments so far, and though it wasn't as hilarious in parts as its predecessor, it did have its moments. ( Spoilers. ) After the kids went to bed, we watched this week's Brotherhood, which was mostly focused on relationships this week, all of which appear headed to bad places. ( Spoilers. )
Travel safely if you're going away for Thanksgiving!
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November 25th, 2008
littlereview
| 12:14 am - Poem for Tuesday
( Author's Bio )
I have nothing of interest to report from my morning -- worked on holiday card stuff, looked up a whole bunch of hacks for T-Mobile phones of which I ended up using only a couple, cleaned up after a cat with a very upset stomach -- I suspect she got into her friend's food -- read my camera manual. Nothing to put on the calendar.
( College Park Aviation Museum )
We watched our usual Monday night lineup, most of which will be gone in a matter of weeks but only one show that I actually care about. Sarah Connor is irritating me. ( Spoilers. ) Then there's Heroes...I was talking to an old friend yesterday, a professional science fiction writer, and was glad to hear him say that he could no longer keep track of who could take away powers or absorb other people's powers or how, because I'm more and more confused. ( Spoilers. ) As for Boston Legal...it made me cry. In a good way. Though I suspect the finale will be really, really hard to watch, ( Spoilers. )
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November 24th, 2008
stealthboat
| 06:10 pm - Ficlet: Satellites (M&C, Aubrey/Maturin, PG)
Title: Satellites
Artist: tootsiemuppet
Fandom: Master and Commander
Pairing: Jack/Stephen
Rating: Same as the books.
Disclaimer and Notes: For esteven, who said, "I guess that Stephen might like to talk (?) to Jack more closely after their Ganymede conversation in The Thirteen Gun Salute?" That conversation belongs entirely to Patrick O'Brian, and is included in italics for clarity's sake. Happy birthday, perfect_duet!
( Jupiter is in opposition, you know. )
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littlereview
| 12:03 am - Poem for Monday
( If I May )
Daniel's high school chamber choir performed at a local Barnes & Noble for a fundraiser on Sunday afternoon, so after Adam got home from Hebrew school, that was our major activity for the day -- we met my parents at the bookstore and watched the concert together. This year the guitar ensemble joined the singers, which made the space rather crowded, since the PTSA was also there with a table of books requested for the media center and all the families were attempting to pack in near the small stage in the children's book section. Despite the tight fit, it was a nice show -- a mix of secular and religious holiday music ("Angels We Have Heard on High," a Latin chant, the "Hallelujah" chorus from Handel's Messiah, two songs in Hebrew) and a bunch of popular songs, including the Beatles' "Yesterday" and Seals & Crofts' "Summer Breeze." (You can see a photo of the same fundraiser from last year.)
( Chorus Concert )
In the evening we half-watched National Geographic's Egypt Unwrapped: The Scorpion King while working with kids on homework, then paid more attention to Herod's Lost Tomb, which was very interesting since I remember the discovery was dismissed as a fraud or a mistake for a while. Then we all watched A Colbert Christmas, which was not entirely age-appropriate but we were all laughing too hard to cover anyone's ears. And I'm very glad we were recording it, because otherwise we'd be out buying that DVD on Tuesday. ( Spoilers. ) And in the best news of the season, Adam's impacted incisor, which has cost thousands of dollars in orthodontics and was anticipated to require another thousand for oral surgery, has broken through his gums! Hopefully this means it is finally moving into place! So the fact that the Redskins won is just a minor cause for celebration.
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November 23rd, 2008
littlereview
| 12:03 am - Poem for Sunday
( Try to Praise the Mutilated World )
My new Canon Powershot arrived in the mail right around when older son got back from volunteering at Hebrew school, so without much time to read the manual, I put batteries and a SD card in and took it to the College Park Aviation Museum for the last week of an exhibit on Snoopy as the World War I Flying Ace. I don't remember when we last visited the museum, but it was at least eight years ago, before I had this journal; the first time we visited was the weekend it opened in September 1998, when there was a wonderful air show at the adjacent airport and Adam was a toddler playing on the toy planes. Because I was new to the camera, I couldn't figure out how to set the shutter or flash properly for many photos, and there was too much glare off the glass to get any decent pictures of the Peanuts cartoons; here is one from the touring exhibit at another museum), and here are some photos from the exhibit hall itself:
( College Park Aviation Museum )
When we got home in the late afternoon, I folded laundry and watched the eighth episode of Merlin, which may be my favorite of the series so far -- it gave Morgana lots to do for a change, and it confirmed that the writers aren't planning to turn her into the stereotypical bitch from Excalibur who seduces and betrays Arthur...we're miles off any version of the myth I've ever read, even the revisionism of The Mists of Avalon or David Franzoni's King Arthur, but they're telling entertaining stories, so it's fine with me. After dinner we put on the Maryland-Florida State game, but things were going so badly early on that we turned it off and watched Juno instead, which hopefully the kids saw as a cautionary tale. *g* Put the Terps back on for long enough to ascertain that they would not get to compete for the ACC title, watched Oklahoma humiliating Texas Tech, and now it's time for Saturday Night Live.
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November 22nd, 2008
littlereview
| 12:09 am - Poem for Saturday
( Tears, Idle Tears )
I would have had a very lovely day had I not had a murderous migraine right in the middle. I went out early to meet perkypaduan and gblvr to see Twilight, which we decided was a worthy fangirl excursion so we could all giggle together at the atrocious dialogue. And that dialogue was atrocious: if anyone had sent it to me to edit, trust me, no teenage girl would be talking like a bad romance novel. But I actually liked the movie better than I expected. ( Spoilers. ) After the movie, gblvr and I went out to lunch with a friend of hers at Rio Grande, where I probably had too many chips and salsa when I needed protein, because between my blood sugar crashing and the season cycling, I ended up with a two-pill migraine. I had to write a review of "Remember Me", which may be even less coherent than when I usually warn for incoherence because I could barely see straight.
( Life Around South Mountain )
thefridayfive: ( Feelings )
fannish5: ( Reboots )
Had dinner with my parents, then watched what is no longer my usual Friday night lineup because when Crusoe returns after Thanksgiving, it will be buried on Saturday night, where NBC is apparently sending it to die, turning its spot over to the already-canceled Lipstick Jungle, woe! It wasn't my favorite episode this week because Crusoe and Friday were at odds, but we got a whole long scene with Sean Bean, which makes up for everything! ( Small spoiler. ) I don't have much to say about Sanctuary -- love the werewolf/Neanderthal bonding, confused by the artist-genius killer brothers -- and while SGA made me laugh quite a bit, I have to admit that a show with almost no John, Ronon, or Teyla does pretty much nothing for me. ( Spoilers. )
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November 21st, 2008
littlereview
| 12:03 am - Poem for Friday
( Missing )
My day involved laundry, helping with a science project, watching Blackadder's Christmas Carol (with Rowan Atkinson, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Jim Broadbent, Robbie Coltrane, Tony Robinson -- wonderful), eating leftover Thai noodles (also wonderful), and buying myself a camera...Amazon.com had dropped the Canon PowerShot A590 IS to under $110 (it was $117 on Monday) and I decided that was a sign that I didn't need to waver any further. I still desperately want a superzoom, but I need a camera I can stick in my purse that will take a good photo, and while I love the ancient Nikon that is now my son's, it doesn't have VR and it has a one-inch LCD screen which is nearly impossible to use in sunlight. So, yeah, that's all the news. Here are some butterflies from last spring at Brookside Greenhouse:
( Brookside Butterflies )
I must say, again, that I am really loving Smallville this season after being ready to give up on the show several times during the past two. I miss Lex and Lionel, but really I miss them as they were several years ago, not as they were the past few years. And having Oliver as a regular makes up for a huge amount. ( Spoilers. ) I think this is the most I've written about a Smallville episode in four years -- afterward I watched Next Gen's "Remember Me" because I have to review it and tried not to flinch during the "Jean-Luc, I have something to tell you" moments. Friday bright and early I am going to see Twilight with friends so we can snicker at the high school girls swooning, so I had better get to bed!
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November 20th, 2008
littlereview
| 12:02 am - Poem for Thursday
( Sea Poppies )
I had a lovely afternoon with cidercupcakes and her mom, whom I have not seen since she left for Australia two years ago! We went out to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory because we wanted to make sure we could get good desserts, but then we got too full for dessert eating soup and chili and noodles and things, and we ended up taking the cheesecake to go. Then we came back to my house and they introduced me to Arrested Development, which I had never seen -- I had a brief moment of trauma when I realized that one of the three executive producers was someone with whom I went to elementary school, but I haven't seen him or spoken to him since before college, so it's not really possible for me to connect anything he produces with anything I remember about him, anyway. We all agreed that Angela Petrelli should be way more like Lucille Bluth.
Many of my friends obviously know my family, because several people sent me a link to this article (or the Yahoo version) about a newly discovered penguin species hunted to extinction in New Zealand about 500 years ago and how the very threatened yellow-eyed penguin probably replaced its habitat. And speaking of nature education, I got a belated comment in my blog from rattlerjen, a.k.a. Jennifer of Reptiles Alive, who had seen my photos of her and various animals at Rock Creek Park Day a few weeks ago.
( Rock Creek Park Day )
TV was great this evening -- first this week's Sarah Jane Adventures, the first half of a sequel to an episode from last season, touching on themes from my very favorite new Who episode, Father's Day, and giving us new backstory on Sarah Jane...plus Clyde had fabulous lines, which always pleases me. ( Spoilers. ) Then we watched Pushing Daisies, which made me very happy by having lots of Lily and Vivian Charles, even though I'm sad that they're estranged sisters this season instead of euphemistic sisters. ( Spoilers. )
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November 19th, 2008
littlereview
| 12:03 am - Poem for Wednesday
( Star-Crossed Lovers )
My new phone arrived this morning! And I spent a ridiculous amount of time stripping out the T-Mobile stuff that eats memory (MyFaves and My5), which I'd done on the old phone but then forgot how, so I had to look it all up again. And then I spent even more time importing my contacts, setting my preferences and all that. But now I have a new phone with a new battery, and I have nothing but nice things to say about Asurion's insurance. I also read up on various cameras, but I still don't know what I'm going to do about that -- I won't have any money till my birthday in a month anyway, so I have time to do research. Adam's new Bionicle arrived via UPS as well (bought with a combination of allowance and "yay, you got straight As" money) so he spent most of the evening building it, and Daniel got Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party with the last of his birthday money, so both kids were happy. And we got the first snow flurries of the season! In honor of that, some harvest festival photos:
( Jumbo's Pumpkins )
In the evening we watched Nova's "The Bible's Buried Secrets," which is about archaeological evidence for early Jewish history and events from the Torah, trying to dance around the political implications of the placement of what might be King David's palace or what might be the Holy of Holies. I was pleased that they included a discussion of Canaanite worship borrowed by the Israelites and Asherah's role in pre-monotheistic belief, though they didn't really discuss all the ways in which women were demonized in order to script a patriarchal religion. There were, at least, several awesome women archaeologists. After that we watched this week's Brotherhood, in which there was only one gratuitous murder and I confess: I laughed. ( Spoilers. )
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