Family Vacation or why the hell don't I live in San Francisco?

The family and I just spent February vacation visiting my sister in San Francisco.  I had every intention of writing a post from there because I am trying to get onto this women's blog site called, "Blog Her" and I need to write at least once per week to be considered, but chilling out in the City by the Bay without any animals besides my children to take care of, inspired me to say, "Fuck it."

There were no dogs to let out at 6am;  no chickens to tend to;  no bunnies to feel guilty about neglecting; no dog shit to shovel.  There was just me and my boys visiting my sister in a beautiful city full of the nicest people you could possibly imagine and really good food.

The lead up to the vacation was a little stressful.  I had the dogs all set to go to the kennel, but there are no kennels for chickens and rabbits that I know of.  Luckily, we have a great neighbor with whom we share critter sitting duties and he agreed to come feed the chickens, rabbits and cats while we were gone. I always feel a little guilty when I ask him to watch over the farmette because he is absolutely petrified of one of the animals croaking under his watch. I don't think he could bear the boys' devastation.

Vacation is one of those things that is incredibly awesome and incredibly shitty all at the same time.  When you are going about your normal day to day, you can be pretty happy and satisfied, but when you are on vacation you realize how much the day to day sucks.  It is so much nicer to drink good coffee and visit cool museums than it is to go to work, muck out stalls, get kids off to school or have to kick a cocky rooster in attack mode across the hen house.  The result is that whenever I am on vacation, I want to move to that place.  I could study cooking and sculpture in Paris. I could eat tappas and learn Spanish in Madrid. I could be a beach bum drinking margaritas and fishing in Nicaragua.  I could go hiking in the Redwoods and volunteer at the Marine Mammal Center every day in San Francisco.  When we were driving past the beach on our way to the airport at the end of our week, James Dean looked at me with a puckish grin and said, "Are you thinking what I am thinking?  We should move to San Francisco."

I know wanting to move to your vacation destination is probably a sign of a successful vacation, but I was filled with ennui nonetheless.

One thing I did learn while on vacation is that Prince is in full blown adolescence.  Every family photo we tried to take to prove to everyone on Facebook that we are a happy, loving supportive unit having the time of our lives on vacation, was met with some major tude by the long haired, camera averse pre-teen.

Honestly, these photos are much more what real families are like, but we all want the Brady Bunch fantasy to hang on our walls.  Back when I lived in Boston I met the most boring couple in the world.  Seriously, it was painful to be around them, but they had this photo over the sofa of the two of them, arms entwined laughing like they were having the time of their lives.  It was intoxicating.  I really wanted to cut out a photo of myself and paste it in between their happy faces so I could pretend I had been a part of that magical, fun filled moment too.

At one point on what was supposed to be our Zen-like visit to the beautiful Muir Woods, Prince declared he was going to find a new family to live with and planted himself on a park bench as we were on our way out.  At first I was upset but then got pissed off and was ready to leave his hormonal ass there for good because I hadn't taken my Evening Primrose to deal with my own PMS.  The husband wanted to give some random family $5 to go over to him and tell him they were taking him home, but poor little James Dean and Scrappy were very concerned about losing their brother or possibly that they were going to be the next ones sent off with strangers, so they convinced Prince to get in the car with us.

We came to an agreement that we would not take photos of him if he didn't want us to.  By the end of the week and countless photos of Scrappy hugging and kissing me, Prince tried to squeeze himself between his mother and brother for a photo op.  Score one for Mom!

Many times throughout our fun-filled week in my new favorite city, I thought about my sheep and my dream of cheese making. Of course this week I am on the Mediterranean diet like everyone else who read  the new study, so I am not eating dairy, which makes wanting to be a cheese maker a little weird, but last week when I was eating cheese and bread galore,  I started to have mixed feelings about my cheesy empire.  How would I ever go on vacation again? Having been a milk producer for almost six straight year myself, I am pretty sure you cannot leave a milking sheep alone for a week because she will probably keel over and die from engorgement.

Should I scrap the idea and just concentrate on the chickens and the garden?  Should I forget the sheep and just buy the milk from some other poor sap who can't ever go on vacation?  Neither option seemed quite right because I need photos to hang on the walls and post on Facebook of me confidently tending to my happy loving lambs.  Besides, I really am a sucker for the animals.

I pondered this dilemma for some time and came up with a solution most of us city transplant homesteaders who still like a week on the beach seem to do: Interns.  I am pretty sure I will be able to find some sucker, I mean earnest would be farmer who wants to literally get his or her hands dirty on the farmette.  Of course, an intern probably would like be able to learn something from the wise knowledgeable farmer he or she will be working with.  I guess it might be a while before I go on vacation again.

The boys and I left the husband in the city and headed home early Monday morning.  Jet lag, lack of sleep and the grey day left us all a little disappointed to be home.  We picked the dogs up from the kennel and their exuberance upon seeing us again cheered everyone up.  After checking on the chickens and bunnies and changing the cat box, I sat down to look through some of the photos of our wonderful week away.  That night when the kids went to bed I turned off the lights and looked at the newly fallen snow glittering in the light of the full moon.  You don't see that when you look out the window in San Francisco.  It was good to be home.

OMg

This is going to be a quick post, or so I say at this moment.  Things can change very quickly as I start typing.  With only the dogs to talk to, I often find I get diarrhea of the mouth or hands in this case, when I want to chat.

The Odyssey of the Mind competition is coming up on Saturday and I am starting to stress out a bit.  I haven't written much about my first endeavor with this program, but suffice to say my lame attempt to  demonstrate one of the projects to the husband, made him chortle, "Are you really the coach?"  "It should be called Odyssey of the Dipshit,"  I am not the most mechanical person.  I take that back.  I think  I could be mechanical, but I have absolutely no interest.

For any of you who have never heard of OM, it is a program that challenges kids to come up with creative solutions to problems;  the more outrageous the better.  My team is to develop and build three vehicles that are powered in three different ways and they must be able to travel 10 feet.  The kids are supposed to do all of the brainstorming and building and the adults are just there to supervise.  I gave this approach a try but by week four I realized this was not working so well and my patience was wearing thin with a couple of kids, only one of which was mine.

I must take some responsibility for their lack of initiative since half the team is made up of my own children and I can be a rather take charge kind of person both by choice and necessity.  My ADD means I am always running about 15 minutes behind schedule because the kitchen cabinets really do need to be cleaned right now, even though I am in the middle of making dinner.  It is easier to do it myself than spend twice as much time and way too much anxiety trying to get the boys to do it.  This approach helps to keep us on schedule but doesn't do much for turning them into self starters.   My heartfelt apologies go out to their future mates for delivering grown men who don't know how to put their clothes away.  I just couldn't bear to see crumpled shirts shoved into drawers.

As the OM competition got closer, the kids still had not made the vehicles they were supposed to build for their performance.  I decided they needed a little help coming up with their own ideas so I spent countless hours researching balloon powered cars, mousetrap powered cars, rubber band powered cars, etc.  I stayed up until midnight one night trying to figure our how to use wind power to blow a plastic container ten feet across the floor and then figure out how to get the kids to come up with the idea themselves. Oy.

I started bringing all of the materials to make a rubber band powered car a couple of weeks ago.  Instead of telling them, "We are building a rubber band powered car."  I held up a rubber band and asked, "Could we use a rubber band in one of the vehicles?"  My heart started racing and I was thinking, 'Please someone say rubber band powered car.'  I could hear crickets chirping as most of them stared blankly at me. Luckily, there is one smart little cookie in the group who seems to be a classmate of mine at  Youtube University.

They all agreed that a rubber band powered car was a great idea and they were glad they came up with it.  The task of actually building it was now at hand. Despite all of my attempts to have them accidentally find the step by step directions in my open folder, no one got it. After a few failed attempts, one kid decided to make a rubber band ball and the others decided to shoot the rubber bands at each other.  I realized I was going to have take them through the process step by step by asking them not very open ended questions:  "How do we twist the rubber band around the axle to make it move?" "Would you want to use these wheels here and turn it into a Batmobile?"

When one kid started to get frustrated and suggest that we just push the car, I acted as if I hadn't heard him.  "What's another way we could attach the end of the rubber band?" "Could we possibly use this notched piece of cardboard I just happen to have?"

My aggressive questioning has paid off and the vehicles are all done.  Come to think of it, I may be a mechanical genius.  I have learned more about axles in the past couple of months than in my entire life.  Did you know CD's make excellent wheels?  Maybe this is really is my Odyssey of the Dipshit?

One rehearsal left and lots to do. Wish me, I mean the kids luck.

Boys, Beyonce, Berbere and a little kitty in heat

I usually choose one topic to write about every week, but this week has been so chaotic that I am going to attempt to tie together Prince's birthday, the Superbowl,  Itty Bitty's need for a man and a really great recipe for lentil soup.  You may be asking yourselves,  What the hell is berbere?  It is an Ethiopian spice mix I used in the lentils.  I used it in the title because I couldn't come up with a "B" word for lentil soup. So here goes my attempt to write one blog post about four seemingly unconnected subjects.

Prince just celebrated his 11th birthday.  It has been tough on him moving away from the city and his friends, but he is trying really hard to acclimate and make new friends, so in my typical over compensating mommy way, I told him he could invite five of his friends from the city up for the weekend, invite his new friends to a roller skating party on Saturday, and then have a couple of his new friends join the slumber party on Saturday night.  Let's just say, the number of  boys you have under one roof is inversely proportional to the number of brain cells under the same roof.  In other words; they do stupid shit. At one point the husband looked at me and said, "This was your idea," as he wandered back upstairs to watch another episode of "House of Cards," leaving me to pick up Nerf gun ammo for the zillionth time. Have you seen that show btw?  It is really good.

Sunday afternoon the husband loaded the city boys into the car and headed out.  An over tired, over stimulated Prince started to cry at the prospect of peace and quiet, but gave me a hug and thanked me for a fun birthday.  I was brain dead and couldn't wait to crawl into bed and watch the Superbowl or more accurately, the Superbowl commercials.

I am not a huge football fan and trying to decide if I wanted to cheer for the Ravens or the 49ers was difficult.  Do I root for the team with the murderer or the team with the raging homophobe?  Decisions. Decisions.  I quickly sided with the 49ers though because A: Their Harbaugh brother is cuter and B: That quarterback can throw some serious passes!  My geeky science side kept yelling, "That is physics in motion you guys!"

The boys and I were all munching on popcorn by the time Beyonce took the field. I don't really like Beyonce,  though I do love, "Put a Ring on It." Normally I would take the half-time opportunity to mix up a batch of margaritas, but I was exhausted and since I was impressed by what she had to say about gender equality in her GQ magazine interview, I decided to stay and watch.   I soon realized Beyonce doesn't exactly practice what she preaches. As she was licking her fingers to caress herself and shaking her booty in the air, I couldn't help but compare her to our cat, Itty Bitty, who while in the throes of her first heat kept trying desperately to woo our dog with a booty shaking routine of her own.  At one point when the rest of Destiny's Child came onto the stage, Scrappy Doo asked, "Why do they all have boots on with their swimsuits?"

I am all for sexuality.  I think Madonna did a lot for female empowerment, but she owned her sexuality.   Watching Beyonce (the manufactured product of her father and now married to one of the most powerful men in music) prance around like a Pepsi focus group definition of sexy, just made me sad.  It was a live "Go Daddy" commercial.

Speaking of commercials, I loved the Budweiser commercial, but I love anything with baby animals, as do most people obviously since it was shown during the Superbowl.  I also started out loving the Jeep commercial narrated by Oprah.  I got all choked up thinking this was merely an expensive thank you to our veterans until all the vets started arriving home in Jeeps.  I thought this crossed a line.  It is OK to say something about Jeep supporting US troops at the end of the commercial, but it is just plain icky to put their vehicles in the actual ad, as if to say Jeep somehow makes a soldier's transition to home life easier. It also made me throw up a little in my mouth thinking about all the money Chrysler must make selling Jeeps for military combat overseas.

I was also a little nauseous watching the "Farmer" commercial that aired around 10pm.  I know there was a black out so things got pushed back, but most farmers are asleep at 10pm since they have to get up in six hours to milk the cows, so basically, instead of trying to sell huge gas guzzling trucks to people who actually need huge gas guzzling trucks, Dodge was trying to sell huge gas guzzling trucks to suburban yahoos who think it makes them look as badass as a farmer.

And speaking of farms, I made a killer soup with the last of my kale and sweet potatoes from the fall harvest.  I had never grown sweet potatoes before, but found some plants at a local nursery and decided to give it a try.  I didn't think any would grow, since central New York isn't ideal growing conditions for sweet potatoes, but when I was putting the garden to bed in October I was pleasantly surprised to find a dozen or so of the most beautiful orange sweet potatoes I have ever seen.  I don't think I had ever eaten fresh sweet potatoes before my lucky find, but they are amazing!  Here is a recipe for sweet potato, kale  and lentil soup:

1 large onion
4 cloves garlic
2 medium sweet potatoes diced small
leftover Ethiopian lentils *
1 cup chorizo diced
2 handfuls chopped kale
4 cups chicken stock

Sautee onion, garlic and sweet potatoes in olive oil until soft.  Add chorizo and stir until sweating. Add lentils and broth and cook for 10 minutes.  Add kale to pot and cover.  Simmer over low heat for 20 minutes.

*I have had a love affair with Ethiopian food since my college days in Boston, where there was a great Ethiopian restaurant. The husband does not share my love of lentils or eating food with spongy teff pancakes so whenever I make Ethiopian lentils I have lots left over. Here is the recipe from Saveur:
1 small onion finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic
2 T berbere which is:

2 tsp. coriander seeds
1 tsp. fenugreek seeds
1⁄2 tsp. black peppercorns
1⁄4 tsp. whole allspice
6 white cardamom pods
4 whole cloves
1⁄2 cup dried onion flakes
5 dried chiles de árbol, stemmed, seeded,
   and broken into small pieces
3 tbsp. paprika
2 tsp. kosher salt
1⁄2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1⁄2 tsp. ground ginger
1⁄2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 small tomato chopped
1 C red lentils
4 T butter

Sautee onions in butter until soft, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook about 30 seconds.  Add lentils, 1T berere, tomato and 4 cups water to saucepan.  Simmer over medium low stirring occasionally until lentils are soft and stew is thick, 45-50 minutes.  Taste and add salt and more berbere as needed

The combination of the spice from the berbere and the sweetness of the sweet potatoes make this a really tasty lentil soup.

So there you have it.  Boys, Beyonce, Berbere and a kitty in heat, all in one post.

Mud and shit

There is nothing more glorious to a NYC parent than a clear, 50 plus degree day at the end of January. It is a little gift from God. We don't have to shell out tons of cash going to the Museum of Natural History or the germ infested Children's Museum nor do we have to drink heavily to dull the monotony of endless days spent inside our two room apartments with children swinging from their loft beds because it is too cold to go to the playground.  Mind you, there are a few brave souls; mostly parents of boys, who will brave the windy frigid city weather and force their young men to run around the playground until everyone's feet and hands are throbbing from impending frostbite, but a 50 degree day in January brings everyone outside with a smile and a twinge of Spring fever.

Up here on the farmette, 50 degree days in Jauary suck. You are probably all thinking, "Does this woman do anything besides complain about the weather? She bitches about the 17 below days and now she is bitching about 50 degrees."

It is true that 17 below weather caused me great anxiety but more in the Laura Ingalls Wilder, "Will we all survive?" kind of way and not in the, "The snow has melted and all I see is mud and animal shit" disgusted kind of way.

When we were discussing the purchase of the farmette and our dream of self sufficiency, I envisioned  our kids running around barefoot through the grass in a bucolic scene straight out of a Merchant Ivory film. The day we signed the papers on the place, the kids did just that and images of flower beds and I guess, poop free animals grazing in the meadow, filled my silly head.

The reality is this folks:  Farm life is dirty and full of shit and sometimes you can't tell if that is a pile of shit or a pile of mud you just stepped in.  There is no walking around in bare feet because you will either step on a stinging insect, a nettle or into a big pile of dog, deer, cow, chicken, rabbit, you name it poo.  Oh, and inevitably some of that dirt, mud and poo gets tracked into the house on dog paws or boys' boots.

I am sure that most farmers just put on their Mucks and go about their day without a second thought of whether that is poop or mud they are standing in because it all kind of just mushes together to turn into some sort of rich organic soil that makes the grass lush and green come May, but when you stand outside on a grey, unseasonably warm January day and survey the sludge that was a beautiful blanket of snow just yesterday, you're just not feeling that circle of life moment.

Since it was such a warm day and the snow had melted, the chickens happily ventured from their house and foraged their way up the hill.  I decided it would be a good day to do a little spring cleaning in their coop, which I have to boast is probably a lot cleaner than most.  First of all, there are only a few chickens. Second, I am using a deep bedding method so the chickens basically compost their own manure from scratching around for food. Third, I spot clean their abode every few days.  I cannot have my ladies laying eggs in a poopy nesting box.

Once I was finished with the chicken house, I moved on to the rabbits.  In my early thinking, the rabbits  would be used for their manure.  That's what John Seymour told me to do.  I set up a little catch box under the hutch so when they pooped it would just fall through the wire and I could easily gather it to add to the beds in the greenhouse where I am supposed to be growing my winter crops (maybe next year).  Seemed like a good system except for the fact that rabbits like to poop in the bedding in the enclosed part of the hutch so I have to wear elbow length gloves and stand on a chair to shovel the soggy straw out, as little balls of rabbit turd cascade to the ground to the delight of my turd eating dogs.  FYI, it is true that rabbit shit doesn't smell but the piss soaked straw will make you want to slap someone.

I then turn to the dogs.  I wish my dogs were like my cat.   Big Kitty discreetly wanders into a wooded area to relieve himself so I never have to see it let alone step in it.  He is such a thoughtful cat. Not the dogs. No, they just dump right out the front door, or the back door, or next to the barn or if there is snow, on the deck.  My big rugged livestock guardian dog and fearless hunting dog are in way too much of a hurry to track their dirty paw prints back into the warm house so they can snuggle up on a soft cushion.  They can't possibly be bothered to take the time to find a secluded spot to drop a load.

During the recent cold blast I was remiss in my pooper scooper duty and now along with melting snow I had piles of melting dog shit to deal with.  An hour later, after managing to smear as much shit on the grass as I was able to shovel up, I realized I should have waited for the cold weather to come back because poopsicles are much easier to shovel.  The dogs watched my weary disgruntled face with what I interpreted as, trepidation and sincere empathy.  Pepper seemed to be saying, "That is one unenviable chore.  I am sure glad I don't stand on two feet and have opposable thumbs because I am pretty sure you'd pawn that job off on me."

I then went inside to sweep the white dog's fur off of the black stairs and the black dog's fur off of the white bathroom floor.  Note to self:  Really good idea getting a white dog and a black dog.  Wouldn't want any surface in the house to appear clean.

The boys came home from school in the rain and after homework and dinner they started running around the house like lunatics with the dogs in hot, floor scratching, fur flying pursuit.  We all laughed and I was happy and relieved to not have to yell my famous apartment dwelling mantra, "No running! The baby downstairs is probably sleeping!" because the only babies downstairs at the farmette are the baby mice trying to stay warm and I am not too worried about upsetting those little fuckers.

I crawled into bed with my seed catalogue.  Despite my day in mud and shit, I too had a little flicker of spring fever and fell asleep thinking about all the bushels of gorgeous vegetables that will surely grow effortlessly in my garden this year, as well as the poopless sheep that will be grazing on the luscious grassy green hill under the watchful eye of their regal guard dog, who discreetly shits in the woods.

17 below

The chipper news commentator on my beloved local NPR station (shout out to WSKG) cheerfully announced this morning that the temperature in my area would be 17 below with the windchill.  WTF?  What happened to global warming people? Leave it to me to have to spend my first winter with farm animals, petrified that I will find chickensicles and bunnysicles in my barn.  Of course, come July I will be very grateful I don't live in North Carolina where the pavement melts in the oppressive heat.

Last night I put more bedding into the bunnies' hutches and covered their houses with blankets to help hold in the heat.   I added more straw to the hen house, gave them some extra food and hot water, made sure the heat lamp was working and managed to smear some more animal vapor rub between Chicky Rivera's shoulders.  She has the snuffles again the poor thing.

The dogs ran outside to pee and quickly came scratching and whining at the door to come in.  Even Big Kitty decided to stay inside last night; preferring to deal with the two annoying dogs, one annoying kitten and three annoying children rather than face the frigid temperatures.

We all went to bed and I could hear the wind howling through the branches of the gigantic Black Locust tree I am sure is going to come crashing down on my house one day.  I couldn't sleep.  'Are the bunnies warm enough?' 'Should I go get the chickens and bring them into the basement?'   I still can't shake the story Scrappy Doo's five year old friend told me about finding two of his chickens frozen like statues in the hen house one winter day.

I  love having the boys' farmer friends over for play dates.  I pretend I am merely showing interest in these children's lives with my barrage of questions, but in reality I am grilling them for answers to questions I am too embarrassed to ask their parents, for fear of looking like a farming dilettante.  Did you know that the reason bulls have rings through their noses is not just because it looks badass?  You can grab it and pull hard when the bull charges you to avoid being impaled.  I had no idea.

I tossed and turned for a while and decided I was too warm and lazy to traipse outside into the black tundra to relocate all of the critters.  I lay there feeling guilty and started rationalizing my decision with Darwinian thoughts such as: 'Surely chickens would have become extinct ages ago if they couldn't withstand freezing temperatures.'  'Which one of the bunnies would I put in the Pack and Play I have set up in the spare room? If one died outside while one survived inside, I would forever feel guilt for my Sophie's choice, and I couldn't possibly put both of them in the Pack and Play because that would lead to sex which would lead to babies which would lead to BFF or Baby Bunny eating the babies and killing each other in a Wagnerian climax!'

 These thoughts soon led to others about how the hell wild animals survive in the winter.  Not too many of them have crazy women who serve them hot water with apple cider vinegar and molasses twice a day or double insulate their dens. Besides the mice and ladybugs that seek refuge in my house, where do wild animals go?  Do they build little fires to melt the snow for drinking water?  I know they are not all hibernating because I see their footprints all over the one to two inches of new snow that seems to magically appear every morning.

Mostly it is the deer.  I know this from another friend of the boys' who told me the big impressions in the snow that look like a meteor hit, are actually from the deer who just lie down in the middle of my yard at night trying to stay warm.  I don't know how they do it since their fur doesn't really look too warm.  I do know if you are lost in the woods in winter you can cut open a deer and climb inside to keep yourself warm.  No, wait, that is a tauntaun.   If you are lost outside on the planet Hoth, you can cut open  a tauntaun and climb inside to stay warm.  My bad.

I woke this morning and was a little reluctant to check on the barn critters for fear of what I might find, but to my relief, everyone was fine and while I wouldn't say the barn or hen house were warm, my nose hairs did manage to thaw out while I was tending to the flock.

 The sun and the winds are now fading and we will enjoy lows of 0 degrees tonight.  Time to bring some hot toddies to the chickens and bunnies and tuck them in for the night.  I think I will sleep a little easier tonight, but if anyone knows where the snakes go during winter, please tell me so I can bomb the location.

Family Movie Night

 

When a woman with a degree in film production and film history tops her list of favorite movies she has seen this year with "21 Jump Street" and "Pitch Perfect" one may think that she received her degree from Cartoon Network online, but it is probably more likely that she has young kids.  This is the story of my fall from Cassavetes film series in Paris, to weekend Amazon movie rentals in my bed, and an unending quest for "family" movies that don't require a stiff drink to be able to sit through.

When I was a film student many moons ago, most of my free time was spent sitting in a Cambridge movie theater watching the work of all my favorite filmmakers: Wim Wenders, Atom Egoyan,Terrence Malick, Roman Polanski, John Cassavetes, Jafar Panahi to name a few.  One of my film history professors had actually been friends with Hitchcock and Jean Cocteau.  I couldn't believe I  got college credits for sitting in an auditorium watching classic Hitchcock movies and listening to interesting anecdotes about the legends of cinema.

My love of film brought me to New York City where I would sneak from one movie to the next at the Angelica Film Center, sometimes emerging six hours later.  The husband shares my love of movies though not my love for Malick.  I have to admit, "The Thin Red Line" tested my devotion.

 When I was pregnant with Prince I would waddle into the movie theater and Prince would jump into my throat when the music or SFX got too loud.  Being a first time mother I started bringing a blanket with me to cover my belly so he wouldn't get scared.

When Prince was a newborn, it was still pretty easy to go to the movies albeit, not a six hour marathon. He would nurse and nap in the dark and I got to see grown up movies.  Little did I know, that would all soon come to an end.

Right around the 8 month mark, all civilized activity ended in my life.  The cute little Prince who would sit sweetly in a high chair at our favorite restaurant or nap in a movie theatre, turned into a banshee who  was obviously sneaking out to the corner store to buy himself a six pack of Red Bull every day.   My movie going days were put on a long hiatus.


You may say, "Well, you can still rent grown up movies and watch them when the kids go to sleep."  One would think that true, but when you have spent most of your day responding to requests and statements such as : "Mommy, can you wipe my bum?" "How do you spell suck because I want to write that this dinner sucks." "No.  I want to read 'Everybody Poops' again tonight just as I have every night for the past three months,"  it can be a little difficult to muster the stamina necessary to watch anything more taxing than "American Idol."

Prince was almost two when he was ready to move past his usual PBS and Nickelodeon shows to actual movies.  He was heavily into Thomas the Tank Engine so the first movie he watched was, "Thomas and the Magic Railroad."  To say this movie is bad is like saying George Washington is  dead.   It is an indisputable fact.  I am not sure what it is about the surly British engines that attracts so many celebrities with less than lilly white reputations? My guess, from the cast of characters associated with Thomas, they were all looking for a community service gig to avoid jail time for narcotics possession. The original show starred Ringo Starr and the American series was narrated by George Carlin.  Peter Fonda and Alec Baldwin star in the Academy Award winning film version.  Peter Fonda's last line in the movie is an ear worm forever implanted in my auditory canal: "The lights are green for you now Lady.  Green for glory."  Forget water boarding. This movie should be used in CIA interrogations.

The first movie we took Prince and James Dean to see in a movie theater was "The Incredibles."  I later discovered that it is actually a very a good movie. I wouldn't have known that while at the movie theater since I spent the entire time chasing James Dean up and down the aisles and in and out of the theater.  In his defense he was two and really way too young to go to the movies.

The husband and I then began our trip down celluloid memory lane and started renting all of the movies that we loved as kids to share with our kids.  "Star Wars" was a big hit.  "Raiders of the Lost Ark" was well received until the end.  I kind of forgot about the melting Nazi faces.  Shouldn't the woman from "Big" have been arrested for child molestation since she really did know he was a kid? The boys gobbled these movies up and as a result we were soon out of ideas and had to turn to the Mouse.

There are definitely some good Disney movies out there but I can only stomach so many and while I loved "The Incredibles" I am sadly disappointed in most of Pixar's offerings.  I am probably one of the only people who didn't like any of the "Toy Story" movies and "Cars"  made me want to throw acid in my own face to avoid having to watch it.

The diabetic coma we were slipping into due to a heavy dose of kid movies soon proved too much for the husband to bear.  I came home one day to find him watching, "Pulp Fiction" with baby James Dean. Before you call child services, it was edited for television and JD was probably too young to be affected, though he has turned into a very sensitive child.  I now refer to "Pulp Fiction" as patient zero as we began our quest to find that rare movie that grown-ups can actually enjoy with their kids without scarring the little ones for life.

Skip forward about seven years and most of our weekend nights are spent at the farmette.  After dinner we usually all go get, "comfy cozy" in the bed as the husband likes to say, and watch a movie.  We rotate who gets to choose and as a result my demand that the movie be G or PG rated has gone out the window since not all talking animal movies are as funny as "Ice Age" or "Shrek." When it is my choice I sometimes try to offer a little film history class and choose movies like "The White Balloon" or a Hitchcock flick.  It is a little difficult for a four year old to read subtitles however and any movie before 2000 James Dean describes as "blurry," so I am limited.

The one genre we all enjoy is comedy, and while "Beethoven" was very funny; "Beethoven's Fifth" was not.  So the husband and I began our slippery ride down the road of inappropriate but funny movies we watch with our kids. It hit a climax this summer when I was trying desperately to find something I wanted to watch for my family movie night choice.  The husband insisted that, "21 Jump Street" was absolutely fine for the boys.  I am not sure why I took the word of a man who thinks, "Alien" is OK for a five year old, but we had already bonded in fits of laughter while watching "The Bad News Bears" so how much worst could it be?  Quite a bit is the answer, but despite the drugs, sex and bad language, I will always cherish the memory of the five of us laughing hysterically at Channing Tatum's meathead character navigating his way through the halls of the high school.  Although I was the only one who nearly busted a gut at the end when Johnny Depp and Peter De Luise appear, I saw the joy in JD's face watching me laugh until I cried.  And since most of the sex and drug references went over their heads and to my knowledge Scrappy Doo has not dropped the F-bomb in Kindergarten class, I would say this made for a perfect Popcorn Bowl Moment.

*So here is my list, in no particular order, of the top ten family comedies most parents would never watch with their kids and probably shouldn't:

1. Pitch Perfect
 Maybe because I just saw it, but very cute and not too many cringe worthy moments.

2. The Bad News Bears
The original.  All of the racial slurs, smoking and drinking are good conversation starters about bad behavior.

3. 21 Jumpstreet
After looking at some of the quotes from this movie, I might be horrified by this choice if I watch it again.

4. The South Park Movie
Yes I did, but not with the five year old.

5.Office Space
Really nothing too wrong with this one.

6. Tommy Boy
Who doesn't love Chris Farley?

7. Moonrise Kingdom
No reason to not watch this with your kids but one that most people wouldn't think of.

8. Caddyshack
A little dated for the younger folks but still funny.

9. Bowfinger
Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy are fabulous.  My kids loved it.

10.  Some Like it Hot
Because I had to get some of my love of old movies into them.  10 thumbs up for Marilyn.

*There are no Farrelly Brothers movies on this list because I am sorry but they are absolutely not funny.

A truly black friday

I have nothing funny or cute to say about my animals, children or husband this week.  Last Friday was truly the darkest day I can remember.  I have felt anger, dismay, sadness and guilt just as most of us have over the past days.  There has been a lot of misinformation out there, and I don't suppose to know the hows or whys or whom to blame, but there are a few things that seem to me to be pretty obvious next steps in this situation and none of them involve having school principals carry M-4 assault rifles as the fine Texas congressman suggested.

I was substituting in a 1st grade class last Friday.  I couldn't help but think, "What if that had been here."  I know kids "on the spectrum".  They struggle with their behavior and find it hard to fit in with their peers, and while it has not been confirmed that the shooter in Newtown  actually had any form of autism, the fact that many people described him as such paints a picture to most of us of a smart kid without many if any friends who was probably teased a lot at school.  When I think of the sweet kids I know just starting out on their journey through what can be a pretty harsh world, I can't help but think that Adam Lanzer was probably a sweet little six year old boy once whose parents had great dreams for him.

When I was in grammar school, there was a loner boy who was very unkempt and liked to fart in class. We all kindly referred to him as Scurvy.  I don't know who came up with the name since scurvy isn't usually a disease 8 year olds are familiar with, but this was the name we all called him, even to his face.  This went on for several years.  One day in sixth grade, this boy was absent and the teachers sat the entire class down and told us how hurtful it was for us to call him this name.  It never really dawned on most of us that we were being mean.  I think we actually thought it was funny and probably even thought the boy found humor in his nickname.  The name calling stopped, but the ostracization did not.

I heard several years later that this boy was in prison for something horrible like rape or child molestation.  I don't even know if it was true or just a vicious rumor.  Being a self absorbed 20 something at the time,  I didn't really think about it. I know I believed the story and assumed that since he was weird that this was probably an inevitable tragedy.  Was it?  If we had treated him with kindness and respect would he have turned into a criminal? I will always wonder.

My brother is both mentally ill and on the spectrum the lucky bastard.  He was teased at school.  He didn't really have any friends.  He is a mild mannered guy who would not hurt a fly.  Luckily for him he has my mother who has always worked tirelessly to see that he receives the services he needs and deserves. It has been a nearly forty year struggle for her.  As the Republicans cry to cut services to the needy so we can give tax breaks to the "job creators," many of these people who require costly life long care, are thrown to the curb. Even those with insurance often find themselves at the end of their mental health coverage after a few years and have nowhere to turn.

As for the Newtown killer, his family had money and I have no idea what his problems were or if he was receiving any professional help.   It would appear that his mother's decision to home school him in high school speaks to her devotion to her son, though why she would have assault rifles in a home she shared with this troubled kid is beyond me.

Many people will say that there will always be mentally unstable people who will carry out violent acts. Would all of the mental health services in the world change the determination of this guy to perpetrate such an evil act?  I don't know.  I do know if he did not have semi automatic weapons at his disposal things would have ended much differently.  Just as I know that if James Holmes hadn't been able to legally obtain his weapons and high capacity magazines that situation would have also ended differently.

I don't suppose to be an expert on any of this and feel kind of like a shit to even be voicing my opinion on a situation I know very few facts about. I do so because I believe that we need to keep up the conversation and make sure we continue to pressure our politicians to reinstate the assault weapons ban.

 I don't want to take any guns out of the hands of hunters.  I have guns.  I think hunting is a great sport and a humane way to be a meat eater. I enjoyed a lovely venison the other night, but  "gun enthusiasts" who want to pretend they are in the Special Ops can get their ya yas out playing "Call of Duty" on their Xboxes.  There is no reason for anyone outside of the military to be able to purchase these weapons of mass destruction and no 2nd amendmenter out there will convince me otherwise.