I loved Sharon Creech’s heartbeat.
Not sure if it’s a novelized poem, or a poem-ized novel. I was hesitant to read it, but it looked short. I am glad I did.
The parts I want to share with my childrens:
Saturday night, we took the childrens to see a local high school perform the musical “Bring It On”. I was impressed by what high school kids can do.
Sunday night, I went solo to see the latest Aliens franchise movie. Meh.
If this was a normal movie review, I would say “Spoilers Ahead”…but if you’ve seen Alien and Aliens then there’s no surprises. IF you haven’t, STOP, right now, and go watch Alien, and then tomorrow night watch Aliens. Two different movies. Two wonderful movies.
Alien:WhicheverMovieNumberWeAreOn…the big fight scene, not really believable, so I wasn’t really invested in it. There was one scary idea… Alien spread by fungal type spores. (Seriously, if you don’t want to sleep, google the zombie ants of the Amazon. Ant gets a spore, grows a mushroom out of its head, still walking around, doing normal ant stuff, until it’s time, then goes up, and mushroom explodes, spreading spores all over. Fungi are weird. And we have no idea how weird, because we don’t really study them.) But we didn’t spend much time on the implications of death by spore. It was drawn out, to get to the classic Alien stuff,…no surprises for us in the audience, we’ve seen the face-huggers, the chest-bursts, the acid-blood. Nothing new here.
I wonder, if you are gonna colonize a planet….why send men? Men are bigger, and so need to eat more, plus have all that extra testosterone which might not exactly make a situation better. Send women. And maybe a -80 freezer with large variety of sperm. I thought about this, while they were looking at the embryos on the space ship in Alien movie.
Yup… Lin-Manuel Miranda -vs- Alien… surprise, surprise… Miranda won.
And the tickets were cheaper, too!
I love that Soundgarden took noise, and made something beautiful. Feedback, rumbling bass, out of tune guitar, dissonant guitar riffs, screaming & screeching vocals… all those ugly pieces, into wonderful music. I heard they used a lot of non-standard time signatures, but I never noticed it, and I appreciate that, if the audience notices something complicated your doing, you’re doing it wrong. (Aaron Copeland is like this, very easy to listen to, very difficult to play.)
I tried to take the childrens to the Soundgarden at NOAA recently. It was closed. That place was cool. If you were lucky enuff to be there when the winds were blowing just right, you would be surrounded by haunting beautiful noise.
Rest in Peace Mr Cornell.
finished up the family book club book, Sharon Creech’s “Walk Two Moons”
I had to pause reading it, because I didn’t feel like crying at a restaurant, just saying.
There was a sentence that I liked, I shared with MrG and he liked it too: “We walked through the tiny living room into the miniature kitchen and upstairs into my father’s pint-sized bedroom and on into my pocket-sized bedroom and into the wee bathroom.”
A good book.
watched HBO’s “Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” last night with our friend Meighs.
An important story.
Well made movie.
Friday, April 14th:
MrCuddles declared this “the best day ever. I had two parties, one in class, one in reading group. I had an Easter Egg hunt (afterschool). Three recesses. I watched a movie (“Into the Woods”). And I went home. Eight things!!!”
MsSqueaky & MrGrunty walked home after school. By themselves without any adult supervision. Are you proud of the parents for being so brave. When asked if he wanted to, MrG’s face just lit up like Christmas.
Saturday, April 15th:
MrG had a football game, so we rudely forced MrC and MsS to go. While there, during the practice, they entertained themselves by playing on a huge empty soccer field, jumping in the long jump pit, climbing over a steeple-chase-hurdle, going to top of the stands and kicking their shoes down.
Easter Sunday:
Church. And then the childrens were very helpful in getting the house prepared for company to come over. I thought the dinner went well. I did some prep the night before. I tried to go with a Mediterranean theme… yeah, I know, that’s a big area… Moroccan spices on the beef, Greek spices on the chicken, hummus, tatziki, fruits, vegetables, … it was a relaxing dinner and evening with our friend Meighs.
Monday, April 17th
We did some chores, some reading, some gardening… and then grabbed a couple friends and headed south. Played & watched a tree get cut down at Seward Park. Had baklava. Went to GasWorks. Then Fremont & The Troll. Told them about Stalin, and asked “would it be fair if Messi & McDonald’s worker got the same pay?” No!!!! “But if McDonalds worker messes up, somebody could get sick. If Messi messes up, then it’s just a game.” But anybody can cook a burger, and nobody can play like Messi. Had gelato. Home to watch “MaryPoppins” (or maybe “Willy Wonka”).
Tuesday, April 18th
Chores, reading, …then to Volunteer Park. First stop, the botanical conservatory. I liked it. The childrens got bored pretty quick. So I told MrC “find ten different flowers”, and MsS, “find ten different leaf shapes”. And MrG was looking at cactus, and I told him to look for Fibanacci numbers on the rows of spines. That kept them busy for a few minutes. Climbed the water tower, then got bored. I told them to look around. Then I sneaked down, they didn’t notice for a few minutes, but I’m proud they used teamwork, didn’t freak out, MsS & MrC took one flight of stairs, MrG the other, they kept calling out to each other checking on each other. MrG was not amused and scolded me. Then we wandered down to Broadway for lunch, a quick drop by an appartment building, “Look, mommy & papa used to live there.” (They didn’t care.) Treats. Home for watching “Willy Wonka”.
Wed – they went to Mariners game with MyBetterHalf, I had to work.
Thursday – they went downtown wtih MyBetterHalf.
Thursday night: MyBetterHalf went off to bookclub, me and the childrens had a fight over doing chores. After a bit, MrC told me, “chores are kinda fun”. After it was over, MsS told me, “my teacher tells me when you get upset to take a moment to breath deep.” Then we played a map game. Then they wanted to put on a show for me, they wanted to sing “Sweet Home Alabama” but kept laughing to much to get past the second word. I pulled up the video, and then showed them a bunch of vids of songs I like. They picked some too, MsS “Fight Song”, MrG “24k Magic”, and MrCuddles, Journey’s “Separate Ways”
Friday, they went for a hike at Snoqualmie Falls.
Saturday – we forced them, they protested the whole time getting ready, but eventually we got to the March For Science. They seemed alright with it. We were chilled by rain, but powered by donuts. My favorite sign: “All the good signs [Ar].”
the evening of Wednesday, April 5th
the evening of Thursday, April 6th… me and the childrens spent a bit of time drawing together at the dinner table.
the morning of Tuesday, April 11th
Morning of Wednesday, April 12th, on ride to school MrG asked who was going to be in the family book club. We all said “yes” and he was happy that we would participate. I pointed out that we had already read a book as a family, “Ivan” and “HarryPotter” the fourth graders said. “And ‘Goodnight Moon’, I added. They laughed.
<sadness warning>
Wednesday evening, fears from a ominous & vague post on TheFacebook confirmed, an ex-co-worker had committed suicide. We worked together in the kitchen for a few years, he was surly, and loyal to his friends, loved to shock people with his jokes, loved the SuperSonics and heavy metal. I hope and pray, that after “Guido” insulted St. Peter for an hour, then told St. Peter a bunch of offensive jokes for an hour, that Guido was allowed into heaven, so he could finally play with his daughter who was born asleep less than a year ago. I still don’t know what to say. We weren’t close, even back when we worked together. I’m more sad than I would have thought. Sometimes demons win and humans lose. Sometimes it’s not fair. And it’s scary, I have had a pretty good life, how would I react to depression, death of a child, war, debilitating disease, death of a loved one… I dunno. Sometimes people do stupid things. Rest in peace, Guido.
Candidates for song of the now:
Wow, that’s a nice little bunch of songs.
The current song of the now, “Freedom” by the one, the only, Beyoncé.
PS Fuck the Grammys. But we knew they were a bunch of idiots when Jethro Tull beat Metallica’s best “…and Justice for All” (YES I’m STILL bitter about this!!!) and when the Grammys suddenly remembered this year “oh no, we never gave David Bowie an award while he was alive, better give him one now”.
MyBetterHalf had a race.
MsS had a soccer game.
I forced the children to do chores with much weeping and gnashing of teeth.
MrG had a soccer game. MsS went to girl scouts, and MrC went to visit his BFF.
That doesn’t seem like much, but we are tired.
I did find time to play basketball with MrC and MrG.
MsS is working on a super-powers for our family collection of cards/game. I will have water power. MrC will have fire power. (Is MsS saying we fight!?!) MsS has heal powers. MrG has grass powers…uh…I hope the bad guys have hay fever. MyBetterHalf has sun powers.
Hey Sports Fans,
all I gotta say is Mr. Russell “Triple Double” Westbrook is this year’s NBA Most Valuable Player.
