Sigh… they grow up so fast.

Or maybe you wouldn’t… heh

Still, I worried that she’d end up feeling violated or used or unloved or portrayed in an unfavorable light… after all, she’s 15. At 15 everything’s pretty much an emotional crapshoot. So I paced. I made chocolate chip cookies. I paced some more. I thought up a million excuses to walk by her laptop and see which entry she was on. I organized my books by title, then author, then by title again… all the while silently cursing her for not being illiterate.

And just when I thought I couldn’t stand it a minute more, she sighed, closed her laptop, came up behind me and gave me big hug.

‘I have the coolest mom evvvvur’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘Thanks, you’re pretty great yourself’

*Silence as we both bask in the glow of the moment, and then*

‘Mom?’
‘Hmm?’
‘You’re going to blog about this, aren’t you…’

At first the replies were cordial… ‘we’ve forwarded your email to our accounting/complaints/refund department, you can expect a credit to your bank account within the next days’. Now they hardly even bother to answer at all. Oh, and here’s an irony, once, ‘for our troubles’ we got a code for 10€ off our next purchase… yeah, like I’m ever ordering from them again.

Anyway, what I’m wondering is, do I have any recourse? Is there ANY way to force these numb nuts to refund the €€ they owe us?? Because this is now officially driving me crazy. We’ve been emailing them roughly every 3 weeks for the past seven months, and they continue to give us the runaround. Plus their supposed customer service phone number (0651-4629899 … we’ve memorized it over the past 4 months or so) is never answered by an actual human being.

Online shopping in Germany has been an easy and pleasant experience for us with the exception on this one effing company…

I politely pointed out that we do not go around calling people ‘total assholes’. That ‘asshole’ was a grownup term that she shouldn’t be using for a good 8-10 years still. Besides, I asked, what’s so bad about him?

Sydney: He likes to stick his hands down the back of his underwear and then pull them out and rub the hair of all the girls in my class.’

Me: Jesus! What an asshole!

Syd: Totally…

For now here are a few things I’ve been watching & reading… and, wow, was Paranoid Park ever good. I saw it a week ago and I’m still circling back to it on a daily basis. I highly recommend it.

Paranoid Park:
Paranoid Park serves to remind how life can be ruined by an unfortunate chain of events. But it’s the telling of the story that makes it so unique. Alex (played superbly by Gabe Nevins) is a typical teenager - smarter than he’s given credit for but incapable of verbalizing even the simplest of things. His parents are going through a nasty divorce, his girlfriend’s a nag, and school sucks. The only thing that makes sense is heading to Paranoid Park in Portland to watch the skaters.

Then one night something goes horribly awry and Alex finds himself culpable in the death of a security guard. And though (depending on how you choose to view it) it technically wasn’t his fault, what we witness is his struggle to come to terms with what he’s done.

Let me just say - the visuals for this film are stunning. Beautiful shots as Alex deconstructs while washing away blood in the shower, or disconnects as his girlfriend seduces him. And skating is mystically transformed from a primal teenage ritual to something achingly beautiful and graceful. Add to that a moody and thoughtful musical score, and you’re just beginning to scratch the surface of how incredibly good this film is.

Final thought - Paranoid Park isn’t one you shake off easily. I found myself turning it over for days, dwelling on the moral issues and reveling in how perfect I thought the ending was. Absolutely worth watching…

Across The Universe:
The first 10 minutes or so I was convinced Across The Universe was mediocre at best. But then it found its footing and became something unique and, ultimately, very watchable. This is an absolute treat for Beetles fans and, I suspect, not so thrilling for those who aren’t fond of the band. Still, on an artistic level I’d like to think most viewers could find something to appreciate.

A film like this is best viewed as a journey - don’t try anticipating what comes next, just take it on faith that it’ll lead you somewhere great… and it does.

Run, Fat Boy, Run:
After reading all the negative reviews I had low expectations going in. That said, I really enjoyed Run, Fat Boy, Run. The jockish, locker room humor was kept to a minimum, and what we were left with was surprisingly funny & fresh.

Simon Pegg plays an affable security guard convinced he has nothing to offer to the girl he loves but left, pregnant, at the altar five years prior. He’s an attentive, if misguided at times, father who fears he’s about to lose everything he holds dear to another man - played wonderfully by Hank Azaria. Never finishing anything in his life, he sets out to prove to his ex-fiancée he’s changed man by running a marathon. Not an easy task for an out of shape layabout.

Surprisingly (I really wasn’t expecting much) I found the film to be equal parts sweet, charming, funny and silly.

The Mist:
Ugh. Terrible. Just terrible. Set in a fictional town in Maine, THE MIST is about a, well, mist that rolls into town one day after a particularly bad storm. A cross-section of townsfolk end up trapped in the local grocery store where they must battle a tentacled monster, super-sized vermin, and each other.

The only thing decent about this film is its ending. And while the ending’s a nice surprise, it doesn’t make up for what overall is a very mediocre offering. Other than that it’s chockablock with lame allegories, tired gore and an army of over-sized bugs. My advice - skip it and save yourself 126 minutes.

Horton Hears A Who:
A sweet film with a good message; Horton Hears A Who features a not-over-the top Jim Carry as the voice of Horton, savior of all the Whos in Who-Ville. The film showcases the need to make your voice heard, even if what you’re saying happens to fly in the face of conventional wisdom. A lesson everyone (young and old) should take to heart. There are plenty of jokes for Mom & Dad (a particularly funny JKF reference comes to mind) and lots of giggles for kiddos. Sydney was thoroughly entertained throughout, even cheering and chanting “We are here!” at the pivotal point of the film.

I can’t help but think Dr. Seuss would be proud…

Now books:

Girl, Interrupted:
While this was unquestionably entertaining and well written, I felt it barely scratched the surface when it came to her mental illness. Painted with broad brush strokes, this novel (to me) read more like a screenplay than a book. It was almost too disjointed and random. Some chapters felt a little indulgent and contrived (velocity-v-viscosity & mind-v-brain both come to mind) - almost as if the author was trying to prove how clever she was.

That said, there were some nice elements to the book. I enjoyed the conversational tone, almost as if Susanna Kaysen was sitting across the table telling stories from her past. I thought her description of the motives (or lack thereof) for suicide were fascinating and, scarily enough, probably true in most cases.

State Of Fear:
When it comes to Global Warming I only know what I’ve heard on tv. Experts tell me it’s bad… Brad Pitt uses solar panels to heat his home, and the evening news reminds me global warming is responsible for the extreme weather footage I see on my tv each day. Surely that’s enough to prove its existence, right? Perhaps this is why I didn’t mind the reams of notes, charts & graphs Michael Crichton provided in STATE OF FEAR. He was dumbing it down for novices like me - something I actually appreciated.

State of Fear tackles the high stakes of eco-fundraising and the lengths both industry and environmentalists go to in order to prove their point. It’s fast-paced, full of action and adventure, and manages to educate without leaving the reader feeling as if they’ve been talked down to. Kudos to Crichton on those points.

However, what takes a hit (and this is my constant of Crichton novels) is character development. He introduces us to potentially fascinating people and then leaves us hanging. Perhaps he felt that with such a political novel something had to give… and robust, likeable protagonists got the ax.

All in all I don’t regret the time spent reading State Of Fear (and it was quite a commitment - it’s a looong book), I just wish I’d come away with more of an attachment to the leads.

These adorable little flowering trees are EVIL. I so much as look at one and my eyes swell up, my mucus production goes into overdrive, and I can’t stop sneezing. Right now Benadryl is only thing standing between me and certain death.

Yeah, fuck you Spring…

My new mantra.

*Update: Hmmm, comments can only be left using the Litmus skin. I’ll need to get that fixed…

‘Sometimes it looked like love : But it’s not love’

I asked her what she had in mind when she wrote it and she just said “nothing really, it’s just true. and lots of people can’t tell the difference.”

My little Zen guru…

And let me tell you, this cooking stuff is the bomb. Most of the hot & spicy dishes I’d been missing for 2+ years I could’ve had all along. Here’s the kicker, though… Jim and the girls hate most of the new stuff. Their idea of ‘exotic food’ is americanized italian pasta dishes. In the past few weeks here’s what I’ve come to learn about their culinary preferences:

worcestershire sauce: good / soy sauce: bad
garlic salt: good / fresh minced garlic: bad
paprika: good / curry: bad
cinnamon: good / ginger: bad
macaroni noodles: good / rice noodles: bad
french toast: good / shrimp toast: bad
spaghetti sauce: good / fish sauce: bad
bananas in muffins: good / bananas in coconut milk: bad (is it just me, or does ‘bananas in muffins’ sound naughty??)
potato salad: good / cucumber salad: bad

I couldn’t be more diametrically opposed to this setup if I tried. However, they do outnumber me, which means I usually end up making at least two meals per night. The other day I suggested we each write down what we wanted for dinner that evening and I’d draw a winner. Here were the entries-

Robyn: ravoli
Sydney: macaroni & cheese
Jim: baked chicken
Me: pad thai with shrimp

As the Sesame Street song goes: