Ks Are Wild

My opinion on The Other Boleyn Girl film – It was okay.  I was expecting worse.  A film rarely lives up to the book if you’ve read it prior to seeing it, as I’m sure you already know.  This movie was like if they had shot The Lord of the Rings in a standard time format.  They changed some major details about the book and fast forwarded too fast, didn’t develop the Mary Boleyn character (the main character of the novel, sister to Anne) and what they did was portray her almost opposite to the novel’s presentation at times….yada yada.  Being a period film, it was nicely dark and opulent.  It looked great. I liked Natalie Portman as Anne, Scarlett Johansen as Mary, and Eric Banagh as King Henry – I imagined them as those characters as I read the book so that helped.  They lived up to my expectations.  However, I didn’t like a lot of other casting choices, but that can be attributed to what I feel was a bad screenplay adaptation and how they chose to change characters.  Not as historically accurate as the novel either.  See it or don’t see it.  But maybe the good ol’ Anne of a Thousand Days from the 70s would be the better film route to go.  And don’t judge the book by the film by any means.

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I’m behind in seeing modern musicals.  Way behind.  I used to watch the Rosie O’Donnel show because she’d have the broadway casts to some numbers sometimes so I could get a taste of what I was missing and decide whether I’d try to go.  Jekyll & Hyde didn’t sound too appealing to me (did you know David Hasselhoff of Night Rider and Baywatch fame actually reprised the role in 2007?).  However, there was a guest, an overweight woman that became a triathlete.  When Rosie asked how she did it, she talked about Rosie being honest with her weight issues helped, but also, there was this one song that she’d replay on her discman while training that helped motivate her.  It made a striking impression on me because I remembered to go hunting for it the other night with all that YouTube time.

Boy, this song would’ve made a nice motivator for labor and delivery.

This is the Moment from Jekyll and Hyde Broadway Show

Here are the lyrics:

JEKYLL:
This is the moment!
This is the day,
When I send all my doubts and demons
On their way!

Every endeavor,
I have made – ever -
Is coming into play,
Is here and now – today!

This is the moment,
This is the time,
When the momentum and the moment
Are in rhyme!

Give me this moment -
This precious chance -
I’ll gather up my past
And make some sense at last!

This is the moment,
When all I’ve done -
All the dreaming,
Scheming and screaming,
Become one!

This is the day -
See it sparkle and shine,
When all I’ve lived for
Becomes mine!

For all these years,
I’ve faced the world alone,
And now the time has come
To prove to them
I’ve made it on my own!

This is the moment -
My final test -
Destiny beckoned,
I never reckoned,
Second Best!

I won’t look down,
I must not fall!
This is the moment,
The sweetest moment of them all!

This is the moment!
Damn all the odds!
This day, or never,
I’ll sit forever
With the gods!

When I look back,
I will always recall,
Moment for moment,
This was the moment,
The greatest moment
Of them all!

This is the moment for me to get the kids out of the bath and start the bedtime regime.

Which, for Kellen, since his birthday in March, has meant having me read the book Llama Llama Red Pajama and its sequel Llama Llama MAD at Mama every night (thank you Auntie Julie) and every nap and every middle of the night waking (which has been a lot recently).  He’s the kid that likes to watch the same few movies and read the same few books.  He can be very rigid.  His movies of choice are: Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Chicken Run, and sometimes Robin Hood.  He LOVES Star Wars (a highly skipped thru version guided by Kham) but since I don’t know it well enough to know when to skip, it’s not something I’ll watch alone with him.

I finally finished Philippa Greggory’s book, The Other Boleyn Girl yesterday.

It’s a historical fiction, a genre I enjoy, with an extensive women’s study sociology aspect to it, about the Tudor period during the reign of Henry the VIII and Queen Katherine and Anne Boleyn. The formula of history, women’s studies, sociology really speaks to my interests as one with History and Women’s Studies Minors.

I’m one of those people that is careful about starting a book if I know it’s from a series because if I like it, I know I have to follow up with all the rest before I forget the characters, timeline, and details. And I HATE going out of order – a real pet peeve of mine in tv and literary form. I’d rather not watch a tv series at all for the rest of the year than watch something out of sequence. I admit I’m anal in that way. Well this book was out of order but I really had hoped to read it before the movie was out in the theaters. Can’t even tell you the last time I saw something in the theaters. I was supposed to see the Golden Compass too – missed that. I really wanted to see Prince Caspian and Sex and the City but I have a feeling those aren’t going to happen in time either at this rate.

Now I’m going to have to pick up the one that follows this one chronologically and shelve my other “to reads” until I get this series out of my system.

Coincidentally, the film was released to video the same day I finished it. I just had to rent it immediately and began watching it last night. Maybe I can finish it tonight while I finish embellishing fairy wings for the girls from the party (I gave it to them plain with the promise that if they let me hold onto them for a few days more I would return them extra fancy).

On a book reading note, what are you reading currently? Just finished something? What next? An excellent way to view and share this information with others is through a site called Goodreads.com. Ever heard of it? I really like it because you can virtually raid someone’s bookcase of read – reading – want to read complete with ratings and reviews should you choose to go the extra mile. Kham has really put a lot of effort into his. I’ll see if I can put a link here and maybe you can add us as a friend if you want to share information (FYI – You can do this on Netflix too, which is always fun to see what others have in their queue. ) One of my favorite things to do when I go over to people’s homes for the first time is to nonchalantly nose through their book, music, and movie collection. They speak volumes about people.  Maybe I shred the gigantic pile of britney spears related gossip magazines in the corner.  Just kidding.  I’d never shred those.  They need to be framed for posterity.

http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/760587

Woops. I accidentally invited 89 people from my contact list to join this. Sorry people. Did NOT mean to do that. Embarassing. And I don’t think I can reverse it now.

Be prepared to follow my chicken track aimless YouTube wanderings for the Month:

One of the fun things about being married to someone nearly 10 years my senior is comparing what we watched/listened to/did during such and such time. The added bonus, and one of the ways I think our age difference works for us is that I am near the tail end of Generation X (Kham’s) and my brother, Kalani, is six years older so I was exposed to a lot of typical Generation X things.

We had a delightful Saturday morning the other week; after the kids ate breakfast and went off in the other room to play, and we were left to enjoy our coffee in relative peace. Kham got out his work laptop and we just wandered YouTube doing random searches of I’ll show you this, you show me that. Mostly we searched for our Saturday morning cartoons and kids tv shows. YouTube is a wonderful place for this and an absolute time sucker. You’ll find yourself still on the computer an hour later when you were just going to look up one thing. One of the things that has been bugging the bejeezus out of me was this commercial – there was a series of them with this singing and dancing lemon teaching nutrition. Well, I broke down and finally called Kalani and he remembered it being a PSA and helped me find it. Remember this? Do you have a hankering for a hunk of cheese? Or want to make juice popsicles?

Hanker for a hunk of cheese

What started this whole thing was our amusement over our particular choice indoctrination of our kids. Our kids are Lord of the Rings loving, Hobbit, Spiderman, starting to get into Star Wars, Land of the Lost, Electric Company, musical freaks and we love it! For example, we now have foam swords (Kellen makes them out of anything so we decided to go with a safer option). Kosette was playing with Kham and she stops dead, legs splayed, sword at the ready, looks side to side and starts whispering weird things. When asked what she was doing she said that she was calling the horse water. What?! We got it – Arwen, from LOTR, speaking elven calling the flood waters in the shape of horses to take out the Dark Riders. How freaking cool is that?! Proud day for the parents there. Kosette also sings the score to the Fellowship. She sings orchestral stuff all the time which I find very interesting. I think she’s like my dad in being not so great with lyrics but spot on for the musicality.

Arwen Horse Water

They both LOVE Land of the Lost (it’s all KHam – that show scared the crap out of me and I still can’t watch the Sleestaks or hear their hiss) and Kosette knows the tune to it (Kham knows it in entirety PLUS the bonus dinosaur roar at the end – catch him in his cups one time and maybe he’ll do it for you) and gets Kellen to playact elaborate stuff. I’ve noticed though, that she always chooses to be Holly but Kellen can be a Sleestak or Will or Chaka. Which brings me to another point I’ve wanted to share – whether or not to go with pseudonyms for the kids as my brother-in-law does. I know what I’d use because we already use them as loving inside jokes around here. THe funny thing is that they both start with “C”. It seems that we can’t escape that formula for our prodigy naming. Anyway, Kosette = Cybil and Kellen = Chaka. If you’re familiar with our kids and those references then you’d see why. Hmm. Actually, I think the Sally Fields movie character was Sybil. Oh well, you get the picture.

Land of the Lost Theme Song

Kosette and I are currently on The Electric Company kick (thanks to movie rentals via the library). She knows the theme song and considers this mommy time. I just barely knew it, really being on the cusp there. Call me a late blooomer but that show ROCKS! As an almost educator and one who loves etymology and linguistics I love how they teach the phonetics. And boy has it worked. Kosette’s literary awareness has grown leaps and bounds in the 1 1/2 weeks we’ve been watching it. And I was bound to like it because it has Rita Moreno and I just love her from West Side Story (“Puerto Rico, you ugly island, island of tropic diseases……..Everyone there will have moved here…ay! ay! ay!”). I noticed that one of the back up girl dancers looked familiar and sure enough it was Irene ___ she had one of the best songs in the Fame movie musical. And the Asian girl dancer did The King and I too. Anyhooo, here’s some of the stuff from this show that we have had stuck in our head for days on end:

Electric Company Theme Song

And this skit is pure brilliance!  I bow down to the writers: Electric Company Giggles Skit

Electric Company C silhouette skit

Electric Company sketch Morgan Freeman \”I love to take a bath in a casket\”

Rita Moreno Electric Company \”I\’m in Love with a Giant\”

Which ultimately, led me to The Muppet Show where I found this beauty: Rita Moreno with Animal on drums The Muppet Show \”Fever\”

I stumbled on this which cracked me up: \”Mahnahmahnah\” The Muppet Show

Which made me think of my brother and his excellent imitations of Animal and Beaker and look up this diddy: The Muppet Show Beaker Banana

Which led me to Sesame Street. And, as a parent of youngins I’ve actually been known to sit down and enjoy an episode or two with them. Here’s some newbies that I bet you haven’t seen:

(I actually was working for her when she did this spot):Melissa Etheridge Sesame Street Like the Way U Do

REM Sesame Street Furry Happy Monsters

Norah Jones on Sesame Street Don\’t know why

I haven’t even touched the musical front! That’s like a whole other post. Nevermind, I’m already here and on a roll so those who are overwhelmed can return to continue another day…Background:

I read the book WICKED and desperately want to see the musical and will soon get the chance with my best girlfriend from preschool, Emily, and my sister, Kelli – we’re going to make a girls’ night of it and I am SOOOOO looking forward to it. Can’t think of any two women I’d rather see a live musical with. Well, I’ve become a huge Kristen Chenowith fan (she’s on that new tv show Pushing Daisies – which is great by the way) [more on her later] and she was the original broadway role of Glenda in New York. Kosette heard me playing two of the hit songs of the show (thanks again to youtube) and she took to them immediately. She likes me to surf YouTube for random musical snippets. “Popular” is now my ring tone for Kelli. How I first discovered her singing songs from this musical – she was in the bathtub making this sliding note of a song over and over until it dawned on me that she was doing “Grabbidy” aka Defying Gravity.

Popular from Wicked by Kristen Chenowith

Defying Gravity from Wicked on Tony\’s

A thing you should know about me is that I am a Sirius radio subscriber and I listen to the Broadway station a ton.  Thanks to Seth Rudetsky’s Totally Ahmaazing show, so she has been exposed to and loves two songs that are unusual for her age: “Everyone’s a little bit racist” from Avenue Q and “Bobby” from Company. She makes her mama proud, that one does. Kellen nary sings a peep. Been shy about singing from day 1 despite my doing the same encouragement and openness and tomfoolery as I did with her. I warn you, these songs are like Disneyland’s “It’s a Small World” song for your brain:

I couldn’t find one of these with good quality video but the sound is pretty clear: (There’s a lot of original videos of this musical on YouTube that are pretty funny too)

Avenue Q\’s Everyone is a Little Bit Racist

I had a tough time finding good sound or video for this too. I suggest dragging the time ticker to 1 min. 50 secs. so you get the idea. Bobby or Company from Company Kellen even likes singing Bobby. On a side note, they both love it when I rock out to the 70s “Me and Mrs. Jones” song in the car. They want me to crank it and go off as I’ve been known to do every now and again.

Lastly, here’s a song I’ve had totally stuck in my head since I saw the movie a few weeks ago. I liked the movie by the way. It was horribly violent and bloody – not something I like to see normally but I found that if I looked around the room at something else while the music played I was fine. Now it makes me want to familiarize myself with the Angela Lansbury version and I want to own the cd to learn all the music; especially this song. And the Johanna song gives me the chills it is so haunting:

Helena Bonham Carter sings (just song, lyrics with stills) By The Sea from Sweeny Todd on YouTube

Hope you enjoyed the show. Now to get back to my painting before the paint is totally dried on the brush.

Okay, so the timing of my starting a blog to coincide with Kosette’s 5th birthday party was not the best for maintaining post consistency. However, that was an extreme event and it was for a very good reason – I had higher priorities. Having never celebrated in any way besides us chickens for all these years, I tried to make up for the lack of the previous four in this one. I can honestly say that seeing the gigantic grins and hearing tons of giggles and excited/happy/polite talk made me feel that it was all worthwhile. When your daughter says to you, “You know what? You’re the best birthday surprise giver ever” and “gift picker” how can you not feel like it was worth it?! But she ain’t getting another one of these types of parties until she’s at least 10 or 13.

We are drop dead exhausted. Still. I had been staying up ’til the wee hours, hand making many of the favors, cleaning, and planning the food and activities. I’m gonna get our scanner up and running shortly as well as start posting photos this week so I can explain and show the details. Now I just need to finish cleaning up. There are cupcake frosting stains to remove and glitter to vacuum. Oh yeah, and thank you notes. Those darned thank yous. I dread them worse than I did when I was little because now I have mine own to do as well as Kosette and Kellen’s and the joint family ones. It definitely feels overwhelming at times but I truly believe in their importance and don’t want to allow that polite practice to fall to the wayside in modern times. It just takes me much longer than Ann Landers would every deem socially appropriate. But better late than never right?

For those eager to see photos, my lovely and kind-hearted neighbor, Herma, took photos at the party for me. She posted them here, so if you click this link you should be able to browse through all 313 of them. Enjoy. Explanations to follow; after some sleep. http://picasaweb.google.com/hermaornes/kosetteis5

The main thing is that it was Fairy themed: I dressed up in my Ren Faire clothes, threw a fall on my hair, squeezed on Kosette’s fairy wings and acted the character of the Birthday Fairy who sent them on a multi-step quest in order to become honorary fairies for the day. I had my basket of goodies and I pretty much kept them occupied with crafts and games so there was no time for pouting or bickering. And they each went home with an individualized basket of related things and the things we created while here.

Well, off to catch up on my sleep, if that’s even possible.