Umm.... yeah.

All joking about the "Two Towers" renaming petition aside, the following paragraph appeared in this morning's review of "The Two Towers" by Bruce Newman of the San Jose Mercury News (which last time I checked was a reputable newspaper):

"Even without the obvious connection to the twin towers brought down on September 11 -- a symbolic link which the picture does not seem to shy away from -- Tolkien's "Two Towers" is by any measure a darker story than last year's "The Fellowship of the Ring." [italics mine]

Oh, and the reviewer only gave it two and a half stars. Not that he has any credibility with me anymore....

Note to Self:

If you stop talking to people and withdraw because you feel bad about yourself, and don't want to appear all mopey and whiny in front of others, then other people may think it's something they've done and take it personally. Which may make them feel unloved, even though that is not the truth -- and in fact, because you love them you feel badly about subjecting them to your less than cheery moods.

Communication is a good thing.

(no subject)

"Drops of Jupiter" is the current soundtrack to my interior dialogue. Hmm... that is *very* interesting.

Whew.

After getting little sleep last night, I got up early with the kids. Dealt with three cranky small folks (they didn't sleep well either), fed them waffles, put snacks together, got them off to school. Made phone call to see my doctor tomorrow regarding the nasty recurrent headaches. Made other phone calls, did e-mail and LJ.

Went to see the therapist. Felt better. Arranged for D's meds evaluation in January. Came home and chatted with a friend who was having a rough time. Got invited to lunch by sinboy, put laundry in.

Went out for a lovely lunch of Malaysian food (yum!) with sinboy. Then threw things into high gear...

Got home five minutes after the middle child. E-mailed a little bit and worked on laundry while waiting for the other two to get home. Threw them all in the car, and went (drum roll, please) clothes shopping with all three. The week before Christmas. Got a pair of sweat pants for the middle one, a gray shirt for the youngest (his "ram" outfit), and a nice black shirt and pants for the eldest.

Dashed home, got all three bathed and into their respective outfits for the pageant. Made ram's horns out of aluminum foil to attach to the cute little sheep bonnet for the youngest ("Mom! I have to have horns! I'm a ram! The sheep are all girls!") Grabbed the digital camera as I went out the door (a first).

Drove everyone over to the church. Wrangled the two barnyard animals while the narrator went off and practiced. Commented to two friends "I need a drink." One of them said, laughing "Oh no, now, you don't need a drink.. one day at a time..." frankenboob, on the other hand, said "I think I'll join you in that drink." which I thought a much more constructive response : >

The pageant was, well, a church Christmas pageant. The eldest was faced with a crisis when a two-year-old sheep decided to pull all the hay out of the manger and all the other sheep (and rams) started laughing uproariously. Being the trooper that he is, however, he simply raised his voice so he could be heard over the din of smaller children. I tried to take pictures -- unsuccessfully, but at least I can say I tried.

Afterward, kid-wrangled through a post-pageant reception. Then since everyone insisted that, in spite of eating lots of cookies and whatnot following the pageant they were all still hungry, took the guys to In-N-Out Burger where, of course, they only ate half the food they insisted they were hungry for.

Came home, and wrangled the smaller two (very cranky by now) into bed. Put yet more laundry in. (I have yet to fold any of this... if we have an earthquake tonight my garage will be inundated with clean but unfolded laundry.)

Still have to put out clothes and clean the kitchen before I can go to bed. Phew.

As seen in anotheranon journal...

brian1789 and hopeforyou, have you seen this?

dawnd mentioned Charlie Brown...

The saga of the tree....

On Sunday, we went off into the wilds of the Santa Cruz Mountains to the tree farm to hunt down a tree. Never mind that it was 45 degrees F and occasionally blowing rain sideways -- we're hardy folk (hah!), and this is a tradition. The leader of the pack was perfectly comfortable, but then he was wearing the gear he takes to the Arctic every summer.

After trudging up and down muddy hillsides (with me paranoid that all of us were going to stumble into poison oak at any second), and after having discovered a red salamander in a mud puddle (way cool!) we came across a tree. The bozo who had cut the tree had a) disobeyed instructions to leave a full row of branches at the bottom, so the tree was probably going to die and b) had abandoned the tree cut a little more than halfway across because the trunk had split (not in any way that hampered its usefulness as an ornament stand, mind you). The tree was lying forlornly on its side when we walked up to it.

Sad to day, I was not enthusiastic about getting this tree. I wanted the freshest tree possible. But all three of my kids insisted we had to have this tree because, as the youngest put it "it needs us." (The insidious hand of Charles Schultz strikes again.) "Yeah, mom," chimed in the eldest, "if we don't get it no one will, and the tree will be wasted." So my environmentally conscious children got their way (at that point I would have agreed to pink aluminum if it would have gotten me off that hillside into someplace nice and warm). As it was, the tree farm let us have it for half price, so I was somewhat mollified.

And you know what? I'm looking at it right now, and darned if it isn't a nice tree. Charlie Brown was right after all.