Last week at a small gathering, a friend posed the question to everyone sitting around the bonfire: "What is your favorite movie quote?" Some had to think; some knew right away. I am of the "right away" group. What's yours?
And just in case you're interested to see if anyone else agrees with your choice, 100 Most Memorable Movie Quotes will answer that question.
Mine? Comes from my favorite contemporary movie:
The line is: "Swing Away." Simple, but when you watch the movie, you realize how multi-layered that phrase is, just like the movie itself. There are so many themes in the movie I won't even go into them in the interest of brevity. But here is my choice, for all posterity, in case the Great-Great-Grandchildren want to know which movie Granny liked.
I hope you had a great weekend; I sure did. Saturday, I went with my lovely mom to her church for a Mother's Day luncheon.
At 84, she was the oldest mother there, so they asked her to say the blessing before we ate. I was so appreciative to spend another Mother's Day with her. Yes, she is 84, but doesn't look it, I know.
I'm a convert to her skin care regimen now because I am a believer. However, the first and foremost reason her skin looks so good is that she never sees the light of day for more than 20 seconds or so. My dad has been dropping her off and picking her up at doors since about 1950. I cannot abide the "no sun" rule, even though I know the consequences. Other than that, I'm adopting her guidelines. Let's hope the genes are strong, that's all I'm saying.
Saturday night, we sent our baby off to her first junior/senior prom. She wore a dress that Katie wore a few years back in the Delaware County Junior Miss Pageant, and I think she looked great. They both happen to be petite girls, so it fit perfectly. She even had shoes to go with it.
In fact, the only items on which I spent money were a clutch, some makeup and the prom pictures. Am I cheap for mentioning that? Perhaps. But she went with a friend and was not emotionally invested in the event at all, just went as a fun thing to do. So I was glad not to have spent a ton of money on the dance. Maybe this will not blow you away like it did me, depending on where you live and what the prom custom is, I suppose, but I was floored to learn that one girl spent $500 on her dress. That's actually more than I paid for my wedding dress.
The best part for me was watching Katie do Kristin's hair and makeup. I don't have a sister, so witnessing this tender, fun-loving moment meant the world to me. It was an early Mother's Day present. Katie has been acting as a 3rd party mediator lately, and I appreciate her so much!
You'll notice one picture features my toilet. I'm sorry about that, but Katie snapped a pic of Kristin texting in the middle of preparations, and I loved that picture because it so represents her and kids nowadays that I had to include it. Sorry for the toilet and the wall mirror that makes it appear as though I have double toilets in one bathroom.
After that, Jorge and I drove to the nearby town where Katie (graduate) and Jordan attend college because Jordan's girlfriend graduated Saturday. We are SO happy that she is in his life; I could not have chosen a girl any better for him. And thrill upon thrill, we met her parents, brother and grandparents. They were completely lovely people and made us feel so welcome. We were even treated to dinner at Ruby Tuesday's. In short, it was a wonderful evening, a real blessing in so many ways.
By the way, Jordan's girlfriend's mom confessed that she occasionally reads this blog. (GULP!) You all know I get a little wacky on here sometimes, and who knows what she expected when we would eventually meet, but I think she bestowed grace upon me for Jordan's and her daughter's sake!
After dinner, Jordan took us to see his new apartment in an old house on campus where he will be living for the summer. (Gulp again.) Very old, slightly scary at night for me, but he seems happy enough. Their fish is still alive, by the way, but we've had a cold spell and his house has no heat, so the fish is doing that playing possum thing where you'd swear it is dead but it's not. I know you appreciate the grandfish update.
By the way, what a relief to know that my grandfish's other set of grandparents is fabulous.
Sunday morning, we went to church, then I chose where we had lunch, which was Pizza King, a place I've mentioned once or a hundred times on here. It's an Indiana thing, and if you're born and bred here, you love it like nothing else. The piece de resistance is called the "Royal Feast," and that's what I ordered, as you will see in the pic. Also, you will see that when you sit in a booth, you pick up an old fashioned phone to place your order. And then when the pizza arrives, you have to decide which is better, the edge pieces or the center, and you can never decide, so you just keep eating.
After that, Jorge took me to see the movie "Babies," which I highly recommend if A) You like babies B) You're interested in learning about other cultures. Four babies are featured from Tokyo, Mongolia, Namibia and San Francisco. I happen to be partial to the story of the Mongolian baby because the culture is so near the Kazakh culture, which is of Mongolian descent.
The only thing is, the movie had not yet come to our town, so we had to drive to Indy to see it, about 60 miles. Then when we got there, it was sold out, so we bought tickets for the next show and shopped in a mall and got a skinny vanilla latte until it was time for the show.
I received lovely gifts from the kids, but the best part was seeing each of them and putting my hands on/arms around them. Oh, how I love those three people and their father.
I am a blessed woman--a blessed daughter, wife and mom. I don't deserve my life. I am so thankful!
Oh, and look! I have the exact same number of hairs on my head at 47 as I did at 2! Isn't that precious?!
1. Which physical trait do you now accept--maybe not love, but accept--and no longer feel extremely self-conscious about?
I shall choose one: my nose, which, as you can see in the pic above, was fine as a child. But when puberty hit, so did the ugly. My kids told me I had a witch's bump once. Niiiice. A doc told me it has definitely been broken at least once, maybe twice. He said he could fix it for me. And I have large nostrils, for some reason. My whole life I was self-conscious, and I still don't love it, but I've accepted it. Now, in reference to last week's question about cosmetic surgery, let me reiterate here that I have nothing against it. And if someday I want to do something to myself, I would appreciate not being judged by the more "pious" community, if you know what I mean. Keepin' it real here.
2. This week Meredith Baxter Birney, best known as the mom on the favorite 80s sitcom "Family Ties" came out of the closet, which led me to formulate this question: Who do you think is/was the best TV mom?
You know, none of them seemed really "warm" to me. I guess they couldn't match my mom (who, in oxymoronic fashion was both warm AND critical of me, including critical of the nose. Hard to reconcile, I know, but it's true. She was lovingly critical?) Anyway, I pick Shirley Jones on the Partridge Family. I loved her demeanor.
3. Do you speak any foreign languages? Are there any you'd like to learn?
I can read French and I remember small phrases. I could not conjugate a verb, though. Yes, I'd like to learn French and Spanish.
4. Who is your personal hero?
Right now, there is a little 16 year old girl whom I've written about here who is hospitalized for critical care as a result a grave immune deficiency disease. You can read her sister's blog, Dancing Through the Rain if you would like a swift kick in the rear that will make you appreciate your life today. Both girls are fighting for their lives. Only 11 people in the world have this disease. Karly Koch, you are my hero. Kelsey, you too, Sweetie.
5. What is one holiday food that you find extremely difficult to resist over- indulging in?
How many times can I work the word "Buckeyes" into consecutive posts? Tomorrow, I post the recipe. They are killing. me.
6. Tell me about a Christmas decoration that has special meaning or sentimental value.
Last year, my sister-in-law Cathy asked us to take a photo of our house and send it to her, without any explanation. At Christmas, she presented us with a hand-painted ornament that was an exact representation of our house. I will always treasure it.
7. How do you feel about snow?
I love it. I will be tired of it soon, but I get excited every year when the first fall happens and when the city virtually shuts down due to heavy snow. The older I get, though, the more I notice my enthusiasm waning. That's oldness for you.
8. On average, how many hours of sleep do you get each night? Not that I'm jealous of any number over three or anything.
Probably 6, which should be enough, I know, but it's not.
9. Tell me about your first crush.
OH Lid. Do you want the first one or the first real one. Because the first one happened when I was so little I don't even know how I knew he was a boy and I was a girl. He was our pastor's son, and I'll bet I hadn't been to kindergarten yet. That sounds crazy, but I can honestly aver that I have never had any confusion about gender preference. My poor parents. I was born crushing on someone. But later there was a Brett S., a Bryan W., a Bryan C., a Brett A. ... and a couple more before Jorge the Jabanero.
10. You're stuck in a room for 2 hours with only a chalkboard and chalk. What will you write/draw?
When I doodle in staff meetings, I draw wildflowers and squares. But if I'm gonna be there 2 hours, I might write a blog post. Only ... how would I get it transferred?
11. Do you dress for the current temp or for the day's forecast?
This question stems from a conflict of opinions I shared with a high school friend years ago. She dressed for the forecast. I dressed for the moment I was walking out the door. She was smart. I was ... inevitably too cold, hot or wet.
12. Favorite Christmas movie is?
It's a Wonderful Life. And for the record, the moment at the telephone when Sam Wainwright calls and Mary and George are face to face at the phone? They don't make passionate scenes like that anymore. Woo. Hoooooo. Sometimes less is SO much more! I also love The Bishop's Wife with Cary Grant.
Saturday morning I went to my 2nd-ever cross country meet which I found out is abbreviated by all the cool people as "XC."
My daughter has just started "XC" this year, after giving up many years of dance. So since our son never participated in this sport, I'm still learning so much about it.
Like, there is no regular, obvious way to follow them because, well, it's cross country, not cross asphalt. So they run around cornfields and into woods and around schools and through crowds of screaming parents at various points en route to the "chute" which is not a slide as in "Chutes and Ladders" at all, but the finish lane.
And, all parents of all teams at invitationals wear T-shirts with pithy, sassy sayings on the backs of them, like, and I quote:
XC Parents Need: No bleachers or chairs, only comfortable shoes. No announcers, only coaches screaming out splits. No shelter from rain or shine, only a poncho or umbrella. No popcorn or hotdogs, only a snack in our pocket. No cheerleaders or mascots, only a loud voice. No time outs, only a straight 5k. And, at the end of the chute, all we need are our runners.
Yes, Jorge and I actually wore shirts with this manifesto on Saturday and will be expected to wear them every Saturday through October. Not to mention that I ordered a size too big for myself, so I'm wearing a frump shirt with all that wise-crackin' talk on the back. I would like to amend mine to say:
Some XC parents need: Lawn chairs, because we are older than you young parents in skinny jeans, not that we're bitter. To know what the "split" is that the coach is screaming out. Some of us thought those were things you did in cheerleading. Shelter because rain makes us cranky. More than a "snack in our pocket" which should instead say "pockets" because there isn't one giant universal parent pocket, but that's nit picking. Also, I would like a hot dog, thank you.
I do appreciate that there are not time-outs, though. Time outs are torture, as I remember from our son's sports.
Once again, my intrepid daughter was thrilled that she did not come in last place and that she beat her own time by a few seconds. I always knew she was awesome, and now she has proven it to the universe. She is awesome and very cute, but she doesn't like for me to say those things, so let's just pretend I told you, "My kid is totally average in every respect. More accurately, she is merely one teenager in a nebulous cloud of teenagers."
Saturday night, I went with three friends to see "Julie and Julia," which was a great little entertaining movie, even though, as you know, I cannot cook. J & J contains both funny and sweet moments, but it wouldn't be "Lid the Prude" talking about the movie unless I mentioned that there were also a few bad words and overly sexy scenes in an otherwise pleasant little diversion. I'm sorry, but you just don't need the images of sex and Julia Child within five minutes of each other in any context.
However, Bloggers, this is a movie about blogging among other themes, and I think you will enjoy it. From the time Julie creates her blog to getting her first comments to getting bigger recognition, you will relate and/or fantasize. When tension grows between her husband her because of blogging, you will relate. When she worries about not having a post for her readers, you'll understand her anxiety. When she realizes the narcissistic nature of blogging, you will recognize that truth once again and laugh.
My friends often leaned forward in their seats to see my reactions to the blogging parts of the movie, and I'm sure the row behind us behind us wondered what I must have done to inspire this group action.
This is the first time I've seen blogging featured in a movie. It made me think a lot about why I do this and why you do this and how long it will last for all of us.
Here's a good article on Julie Powell and how her blog "The Julie and Julia Project" inadvertently made her famous, and since I didn't give a true plot synopsis, here is the trailer:
Welcome to cawfee tawlk. I'm your host, Linda Richman. Er, Crow. Tawlk amongst yaselves; I'll give you a tawpic: Weekends. Discuss.
Ah, the weekend. Allow me to Back it up, Barkus.
Meandering Moment: Pre-retirement, my dad was a trucker. He drove an 18-wheeler, which meant loading and unloading at docks was a huge part of his life. One of his closest co-workers was a guy named Don Barkus, whom I believe is now passed on.
When my dad would talk in his sleep, even years after retirement, one of his most common exclamations, and I do mean exclamations in the sense of !!!!, was a phrase oft-heard at the docks:
"Back it up, Barkus!"
which completely cracks me up and causes me to look for opportunities to say it.
Thus, "Back it up, Barkus," has become synonymous with A) Physically step back, Dude B) Rewind mentally/verbally.
Where was I? Oh, backing up the weekend, Barkus.
I fell down Thursday night. It was bedtime, and I was walking through my fam room to the one step up which leads to a short hall which leads to the bedroom, when the step reached up and wrenched my ankle, which caused me to do what this model does in the video, although I wasn't carrying a watering can. And by the way, I feel sorry for model Kamilia Wawrzyni, one, because of the way I'm sure people butcher her name and B) There is actually water in that can (Why?) and III) That had to hurt.
So all weekend I have been dealing with "water can ankle."
But I didn't let it stop me from running, and Friday I ran 5.5 miles + walked a mile home. When I collapsed in the grass of my neighbor in Halteman Village, it may actually have been one of the proudest moments of my long life.
Jorge's flights from Ft. Lauderdale and Atlanta were both delayed, so I had one more evening by myself which I spent with Barbara Stanwyck.
On Saturday, I went to the beautiful wedding of the daughter of my friend, Diane, whom I've written about before who is battling cancer:
Saturday evening, my father went into the hospital with chest pains, and I stayed there until 1:00 AM when they admitted him. I went to bed at 2 AM, rose at 7 AM, went to church, then took my mom back out to the hospital and sat with them most of the afternoon. (I knew via staff he wasn't in apparent danger or even in severe discomfort. The chest pains come and go.)
Dad is 87 and is in remarkable health for his age. So far, all of the test results are good, don't think he had a heart attack. Monday morning at 8:00, cardiolyte Dip and Echocardiogram. Say a little prayer. He's such a sweet man and so incredibly hard of hearing.
Final note on the weekend--Pet peeve list addition: Docs with foreign accents who will NOT speak up nor slow down when speaking to obviously deaf elderly people. What is up with this?? Where is the bedside manner? I kept telling the hospitalists how hard of hearing Dad is, and they would repeat the question with the same speed and volume. It was incredibly rude and ridiculous.
Dad would stare blankly at the doc, then turn his head to Mom for help who is also hard of hearing and not accustomed to foreign accents, who would either answer incorrectly or look to me, then I would speak VERY LOUDLY to demonstrate what you have to do for him to hear you, and then the doc would say, "OK," and then ask the next question in the frustrating manner. We did this absurd scene over and over. I was a loose cannon by 1:00 AM.
I was ready to shout, "Back it up, Barkus, and turn it up, too!"
First of all, thanks to all of you who offered opinions yesterday on laundry room decor. That was fun for me. Let me know if I can ever return the favor. I think I know a color/theme, but I'm keeping it under wraps until the big reveal. Fun!
And for the record, I like the wrinkly Rupert, too. Which is a sentence I never, ever expected to say for any reason whatsoever in my life, but there it is: "I like the wrinkly Rupert."
Each Friday, Susanne at Living To Tell the Story invites us to share a list of ... join me now, Julie Andrewses: a few of our favorite things.
If you are new to this blog, the joke is that I hate musicals, and one of my blogging buds, Dena of Green Acres made me this button during the height of Musical Madness.
Back to Friday's Fave Five. And the categories this week are:
1. Favorite Food: Fresh green beans from the garden of my friend, Cindy.
When I was a kid, we ate our haricots vert (ooh-la-la! Honh, honh, honh!) after they had simmered for hours with ham and potatoes, and then we put butter all over them. Now I like them a little crisper and greener so that you can actually tell they're beans and not just a conduit for "seasoning," otherwise known as "fat and starch."
Honh, honh. I make zee joke.
2. Favorite exercise: Ball Hamstring Curl. This exercise is kicking my derriere.
But it's so worth it because now I look like this:
3. Favorite movie I've seen lately:
There is one spot that contains bad language near the beginning of the movie; after that, it's a clean, funny movie. I love Ricky Gervais AND Greg Kinnear (a Hoosier). Ricky Gervais plays the museum curator in Night at the Museum, and he wrote or produced or somethinged the BBC's "The Office." Greg Kinnear is rottenly cute as he was in Sabrina. No one does "the cad" like Greg Kinnear.
4. Favorite gift-blessing of the week:
These beautiful hand-crafted cards from my blogging friend and Co-Lid, Linda at A Merry Heart, given to me for no reason at all except to bless me, and I promise you, I appeared to be very blessed as I opened the box and saw the sweetness. Even my 22 year-old girl said, "I want to make these!" Thank you, Merry Lid!
5. Favorite song this week and maybe one of my all-time favorite videos ever:
Have a wonderful weekend; I'm going to Lake Tippecanoe with my girlfriends!
The line is: "Swing Away." Simple, but when you watch the movie, you realize how multi-layered that phrase is, just like the movie itself. There are so many themes in the movie I won't even go into them in the interest of brevity. But here is my choice, for all posterity, in case the Great-Great-Grandchildren want to know which movie Granny liked. 
