Live and Let Di

Spring Fever

No, I am not going to bore you with the itchy, mucusy details of my Spring allergies.

Friday my friend Stef took a much-deserved comp day. In recent weeks, she has traveled to London, India and San Antonio, TX and in between travels has worked her A** off preparing for the next trip. When I went to sign up for a tee time, I found that they were booked solid until 2 p.m.

Then I got an e-mail from another friend who declared the onset of a serious case of Spring fever that required her to leave the office at noon. She joined us along with another friend whose wife was working hard and ignored her Spring fever which spiked to 105 and stayed in the office.

My question:

DOES ANYONE WORK AROUND HERE????

I guess I am just harkening back to my pre-retirement days. (I love saying that I am retired...it's so much more interesting than stay-at-home Mom...especially since my kids are in school so most of the stuff I do isn't necessarily Mom-related and I'm rarely home during golf weather.) When I worked, back in the day when someone had to explain to me what a fax machine was and we had an actual Head Teller who doled out money instead of a machine that kind of rains hundred dollar bills (I kid you not) I just didn't have that kind of flexibility. I guess all of my flexibility was sucked up by kids' doctor visits and staying home with a kid who still looked sick no matter how much Motrin I gave him to make him able to go to school. Oh...and pink eye...I think a lot of my flexibility was sucked up by conjunctivitis.

Now that I am retired, I feel it is my DUTY to my friends to be as flexible as possible so when the fever hits them, they have someone to golf with. Just doing my part to make the world a better place! My selflessness knows no bounds!

Di

P.S. Another "Di" has a book giveaway going on that you might want to enter.

A Stunning Revelation

It is rare that a news headline takes my breath away in shock. Headlines that come to mind are the end of the Communist Party in 1991 (the day after our wedding reception), the destruction of the Berlin Wall, the Florida Marlins winning the World Series and the disclosure that movie theater popcorn was terribly unhealthy!

So when I saw this headline this week...I gasped...

Firstborn Children Get More of Parents' Time

Who would have ever imagined? I guess someone must have seen me leave my son in his carrier by the benches at the park while I rescued my dangling daughter from the jungle gym. Someone must have counted the hours that I spent reading The Secret Garden to my daughter while someone else counted how many pages I skipped over reading One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish to my son. Maybe they noticed that my daughter had her first McDonald's french fry at the age of two while in the clutches of her adopted grandmother Mo-Mo and that Rory probably sucked on his first french fry on the way home from the hospital.

What about Moms? We got more time and attention when we gave birth to our firstborns. 22 visitors the day after Haley was born. Nary a one the day after Rory was born (OK, it was Christmas Eve...but still!) Surrounded by friends and family bearing gifts and offering meals when we arrived home with #1. Husband and his best friend sitting on the couch watching football asking what was for dinner when we arrived home with #2. (OK, it was a Sunday...but still!)

Could the people who devoted all this time, energy and money on proving this self-evident truth please get to work on the soundproof divider between the driver's seat and the annoying children in the back of the minivan? At least that would be USEFUL!

Di

Thursday Thirteen (Vol. 74)

13 Things I'm Doing in the Next 13 Days

The kids get out for Spring Break this Friday, so it's going to be a busy time for us. Here are just a few things I will be doing in the coming week or so.

1. Playing in the Ladies' Team Match Play golf tournament at Bentwinds. There are two teams, the Red Team and the Black Team. I am on the Red Team and am very excited because I just got new red shorts last weekend!

2. Finalizing the kitchen design and cabinet selections for our new house.

3. Driving (well, really riding since my husband usually does the driving) to Florida for Spring Break.

4. Going to the Marlins/Mets baseball game on April 2.

5. Going with my daughter, my friend and her daughter (Casey if anyone remembers her from her hospital stays when people were so wonderful about sending her e-mails from all over the world) to South Beach for a night.

6. Standing on the second floor of the new house and laying out the walls for my daughter's room and bonus room.

7. Hanging out with my friends at the Cantina and working on my dart game.

8. Finishing Fieldwork...which is really good but I just haven't had lots of time to devote to reading it and I'm kind of savoring it.

9. Possibly giving away a second copy of Fieldwork that I have. I'm accepting suggestions for how to do the giveaway.

10. Creating origami birds for the ladies' locker room at our golf course. Each lady who makes a birdie gets an origami bird with her name on it, the hole she birdied and the date she birdied it. The birds are suspended from the ceiling.

11. Starting to read Eat, Pray, Love because it has sparked so much love it/hate it controversy and it seems like a good book to read on vacation.

12. Wishing my BF Amy a happy 46th birthday!

13. Coming up with a less lame Thurday Thirteen for next week.

Di

Is this a sign that Baseball season is starting?

I got the following error message when I tried to set up something on my checking account on Quicken:

An exception has been thrown that has not been caught.

My son turned on the TV at 6 a.m. to watch the Red Sox game in Japan...so I guess it really is Baseball season!

Di

House

Sorry...not the Hugh Laurie House...my house-to-be. It's been a while since I posted about our progress. I think the last one was the port-a-john. Since then, we've progressed to:

The dimensions are deceiving...it didn't look right. So we actually went out there with a tape measure to make sure everything was right.

Here is my son, walking up the front steps onto the porch.

Here is me! Notice how blurry I am. My son just can't stay still long enough to focus the camera.

They are starting to frame tomorrow and it looks like by the time we are back from Spring Break, it will have a roof on it!!! Woo-hoo!

Di

Monday Meandering (Vol. 3)

In honor of my tres gauche faux pas of leaving my Thursday Thirteen up just a tad too long, I am going to start my meandering at the Thursday Thirteen site.

I'm going to visit the 13th poster from this past Thursday and then visit the 13th blog on the blogroll. (If there are fewer than 13, I will visit the last one.) And we're off...

My Life in the Urban Zoo is inspired to write about flowers. I agree that flowers are beautiful and fraught with emotion...but right now all I can think about is how they make me SNEEEEEEZZZZZE!!! Yes, it's Spring allergy season for Di!

How exciting! My second stop took me to Tinkerbell in the Netherlands! I love to meander abroad! She starts off with a somewhat mundane accounting of recent events including the purchase of a lovely computer desk and ends up in a godess-y fantasy that was quite interesting!

When I came upon Stainless Steel Droppings, I was immediately drawn in by the beautiful, distressed, antique-y books in the graphic. And just when my eyes had adjusted to the beauty before me...I saw that the blogger is offering a reading challenge!!! Oh, serendipity. I think I might just join up.

For All the World to See is author Colleen Gleason's blog. She writes The Gardella Vampire Chronicles which, if the book covers tell the story, is a cross between Ann Rice and Philippa Gregory...except that several of the cover models are WAY hunkier than The Other Boleyn Girl. Apologies to Ms. Gleason if I reduced your books to one glib sentence without even reading one! When I glanced at the header, I fully expected to see some shameless self-promoting blog that would end my meandering on a cynical note. Instead I found a post about the merits of Drew Barrymore as the heir apparent to Meg Ryan. Now this is a topic to which I have not given much thought, but upon further reflection, I see her point! I may just have to read a Gardella Vampire Chronicle!

Next stop, Quixotical: Chasing a Fallen Star... In her understatement, "What a week" she tells of climbing out of a relaxing bath and going to the door to find an EVICTION NOTICE!!! She sounds so calm. Turns out her landlord has stopped paying the mortgage. Staying calm seems to have worked, because by post end, she found a new place to live and was consuming comfort reads in her bed!

Orpheus Sings the Guitar Electric details 32 things "learnt" in her 32 years. Uh-oh...am I behind? Not sure if I could detail 45 things that I have learnt. Well, maybe 45 things I have learnt, but not 45 things I necessarily abide by. Two of my favorites: "Life is too short for long, boring books. So it's okay to die without finishing Moby Dick." and "Everyone has something to teach you. Even the people you hate and don't respect. Especially the people you hate and don't respect." That is SO hard to remember when you are very busy dwelling on why you hate and don't respect someone!!!

Berkeley-ite Bloglily gets philosophical about traveling to Texas with her boys and some friends. There's nothing like flip-flops and a new pedicure to give you some perspective on Spring Break travel. I'll have to remember that next week when we head to Florida for Spring Break.

My meandering is so literary today...next stop A Century of Nerve, author Emma Bolden's blog. Besides a prismatic take on the writing process, Emma offers this wonderful kernel: "I’ve been thinking a lot about change, how, perhaps, the most important part of it is just being ready, and being patient enough to wait."

And now, alas, a cul-de-sac at the end of my meandering...Creative Writing Contests. I hope that some of my writer-ly readers will visit there...but it doesn't really take me anywhere. So I'm off until next Monday's meandering....

Di

 

Monday Morning After

And what were YOU doing this weekend?

I was gently reminded that someone said leaving one's Thursday Thirteen up over the weekend was like leaving one's Christmas lights up until February. Well...since I'm guilty of the latter, I guess I can deal with the former. But actually my answer was, "Obviously that was someone who doesn't golf and isn't experiencing the most amazing Spring weather!"

Friday was an absolutely glorious day. I played with my friend Tony and we ended up hooking up with three of the best lady golfers at my club. My game rose to the occasion an I hit some shots that shocked me. We had a great time playing together. Now THAT was a good Friday!

Saturday started with a thorough house-cleaning since there was a real estate showing that afternoon. Yes, even though we have no desire for the owners to sell this house until about May when we would be assured that the new owners would not want us out before July, we must prepare it as if it were our own to sell. My friend Carol called to ask me to golf which prompted me to clean faster (and maybe make a few shortcuts). Another glorious day. Another good round of golf. More good times with friends.

So brush up on your golf lingo folks...it's that time of year again!

Di

Thursday Thirteen (Vol. 73)

Mommy Wars...13 Reasons a "Mature" Mommy Reads Non-Mommy Bloggers

OK...I don't take any responsibility for this. A fan of Live and Let Di sent a private e-mail to me indicating why she liked to read my blog, dooce, verbatim, Serious Eats, Amateur Gourmet, Musings of a Highly Trained Monkey and Pioneer Woman and in the interest of full disclosure, I agreed to allow a guest blog.

1.  They rarely talk about nursing, toilet training, getting toddlers to eat or co-sleeping except in the very past tense.  If at all.

2.  There is no mention of God, Our Lord Jesus Who Will Save Us All If We Just Let Him, and Why We Should All Be Praying To My God, Who Happens To Be The Right God.  Not the God of those yuppie liberals.

3. They talk about cooking, food and eating food.

4.  They talk about the latest news, have opinions that can and may differ from other opinions, and solicit opinion different from their own without attacking the different-opinion-offerer (I guess Bush would call that a "diffinianator").

5.  Their lives revolve around something other than their children.  In some cases, a working ranch, taking pictures of cool things, golf, books, medical issues, cooking and food.

6.  Do you see a food theme here?

7.  Oh, I forgot this one, which is only about fashion and lack of food:

Go Fug Yourself

8.  They are all snarky and witty and sarcastic, and use multi-syllabic words.

9.  They refer to their husbands by name, or by nickname, or  by the delineation "husband".  NOT "hubby", which makes me think of Farmer Hogget's wife in "Babe".  Internet, is that honestly the mental picture you want me to carry of you?  Then stop with the "hubby!".

10.  I've learned something new from all these blogs.  Whether it's golf terminology, all about Mormonism, calf nuts, how to cook bone marrow, how crazy the methodonians and fibromyalgians are in the blogosphere, or why Leggings Are Really Bad, it's almost always educational for me to read these blogs.  Again, I've been there, done with that with the kid stuff.  And I didn't do it to the extremes that people seem to be doing it now.

11.  I'm entertained by the bloggers. They write well, use proper grammar and have a way of telling stories without spending inordinate sentences on minutia.

12.  New content is added nearly every day.  If they're going to take a break from blogging, they let their readers know.  I appreciate the respect these bloggers show their readers.

13.  I have little in common with any of them.  This may sound surprising, but it is the very reason I enjoy reading them so much--they are a group of women who live different lives from me.  They live in different parts of the country, none of them are in my line of work, their kids (when they do write about them) are different ages than mine.  This, to me, is the beauty and wonder of the internet.  To "visit" every day with these women, none of whom I would meet in my real life-that, folks, is why I appreciate living in an age where such things are possible.

signed,

Sardine Fiend

Brought to you by Di...who LOVES the diversity of fans and foes in the blogosphere!

Movie Madness

On Monday morning I grabbed the News & Observer out of my son's hot little hands as he withdrew the coveted "morning after" Sports Page. He announced that he had already completed his bracket "for better or for worse." Oh, the drama! I topped off my morning meal of national and local news (in that order...never stray from my OCD reading habits) with a glance at Lifestyles where the headline of "Movie Madness" and the appearance of a complex bracket of comedies jumped out at me.

If the onset of March Madness has you updating your Netflix queue so you have SOMETHING to do while others in your family are planted in front of seemingly endless basketball games, then Movie Madness is for you. Office productivity has been way down as employees labor over their brackets instead of their in-boxes.  Now those who are as passionate about Caddyshack and It Happened One Night have their own brackets to work on and their own reasons to shirk their work responsibilities.

OMG...my son just said, "Come on Mom, Wayne's World HAS to beat Blazing Saddles." This is going to get ugly!!!

Just think of the water cooler discussions. Two hours of broad farce, nuanced dialogue and sight gags to argue about rather than a couple of missed free throws and an overlooked flagrant foul. A multi-generational team of actors and actresses to mull over rather than a bunch of pimply-faced soon-to-be NBA millionaires. Let them talk about Coach K, Roy Williams and Jim Calhoun. We'll muse on the leadership skills of Billy Wilder, Mel Brooks and Cameron Crowe.

I did my brackets and while my winner isn't exactly Cinderella, it's also not a favorite by any stretch. I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours! Click here for your Movie Madness online bracket. Ooooh....and the winners will win DVDs in addition to major bragging rights. Ahem...Vicky, Donnie, Elinor & Donna, if you are reading this, I expect the Duffy's Trivia Team to kick butt on this!

Di

 

Top 100 Movies

As a prelude to the VERY COOL movie bracketology I am going to post soon, I thought I would steal this idea from Nicholas who stole it from Lillasyster's Life. Of the top 100 movies as posted on IMDB, the underlined ones are those that I have seen, the bold ones are those that Nicholas and I have seen and the bold and underlined ones are ones that both Nicholas and I have seen.

1.    The Godfather (1972) - seen so many times that I can't count
2.    The Shawshank Redemption (1994) - cannot flip by this movie, must stay and watch
3.    The Godfather: Part II (1974) - ditto The Godfather comment
4.    Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il (1966)
5.    Pulp Fiction (1994) - first saw this in pieces, then all at once and realized seeing it all at once is like seeing it in pieces.
6.    Schindler's List (1993)
7.    One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) - saw this, lived this, kidding, kind of.
8.    Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) - how can this be above the original?
9.    Casablanca (1942) - so many wonderful quotes!
10.    Shichinin no samurai (1954)
11.    Star Wars (1977) - saw it when it first came out with my cousin Mark
12.    The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
13.    12 Angry Men (1957)
14.    Rear Window (1954)
15.    Goodfellas (1990) - you've never really seen it until you've seen it at Cafe Martarano in Fort Lauderdale.
16.    Cidade de Deus (2002)
17.    Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
18.    The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
19.    C'era una volta il West (1968)
20.    The Usual Suspects (1995) - Kevin Spacey is amazing.
21.    Psycho (1960)
22.    Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
23.    Fight Club (1999)
24.    Citizen Kane (1941)
25.    The Silence of the Lambs (1991) - read the book...no WAY I was seeing the movie!
26.    North by Northwest (1959)
27.    Memento (2000) - saw it, loved it, saw it again when I was suffering from short term memory loss, forgot I saw it again.
28.    The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
29.    Sunset Blvd. (1950)
30.    It's a Wonderful Life (1946) - Nicholas, how could you not have seen this???? It's a Christmas Eve staple at our house.
31.    The Matrix (1999) - I still don't really understand it!
32.    Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
33.    There Will Be Blood (2007)
34.    Se7en (1995)
35.    Apocalypse Now (1979)
36.    Taxi Driver (1976)
37.    American Beauty (1999)
38.    Léon (1994)
39.    Vertigo (1958)
40.    Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain, Le (2001)
41.    American History X (1998)
42.    The Departed (2006)
43.    No Country for Old Men (2007) - how does this get on the list when it's so new?
44.    Paths of Glory (1957)
45.    M (1931)
46.    To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
47.    Chinatown (1974)
48.    The Third Man (1949)
49.    Leben der Anderen, Das (2006)
50.    Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
51.    A Clockwork Orange (1971) - too weird for me
52.    Alien (1979)
53.    The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
54.    Laberinto del fauno, El (2006)
55.    The Shining (1980)
56.    Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001)
57.    The Pianist (2002)
58.    Double Indemnity (1944)
59.    Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
60.    Forrest Gump (1994)
61.    Saving Private Ryan (1998)
62.    The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) - I think my Dad can't flip by this one.
63.    L.A. Confidential (1997)
64.    Das Boot (1981)
65.    Requiem for a Dream (2000)
66.    Reservoir Dogs (1992)
67.    Untergang, Der (2004)
68.    Aliens (1986)
69.    The Maltese Falcon (1941)
70.    Raging Bull (1980)
71.    Metropolis (1927)
72.    Rashômon (1950)
73.    Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
74.    Modern Times (1936)
75.    Hotel Rwanda (2004)
76.    Singin' in the Rain (1952)
77.    Sin City (2005)
78.    2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
79.    Rebecca (1940)
80.    Sjunde inseglet, Det (1957)
81.    All About Eve (1950) - it's going to be a bumpy night!
82.    Some Like It Hot (1959)
83.    City Lights (1931)
84.    Amadeus (1984)
85.    On the Waterfront (1954)
86.    Vita è bella, La (1997)
87.    The Great Escape (1963)
88.    Touch of Evil (1958)
89.    The Prestige (2006)
90.    The Elephant Man (1980)
91.    Jaws (1975) - saw this in the theater when I was 14.
92.    Full Metal Jacket (1987)
93.    The Sting (1973)
94.    Nuovo cinema Paradiso (1988)
95.    Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
96.    The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
97.    The Apartment (1960)
98.    Braveheart (1995)
99.    The Great Dictator (1940)
100.    Blade Runner (1982)

I guess that's 55 out of 100 for me. If there are any that I've missed that you feel I MUST see, please let me know. Keep in mind that I have a very difficult time with movies that are excessively violent.

What have you seen?

Di