Funny Friday

Cause I've now declared every Friday to be Funny Friday. This is particularly hilarious, I may find more to post as I continue searching but it's Nader and I love me some Nader. Oh, by the by, there's a little shout out for my SIL Mrs. Redpants about 42 seconds in, that I think will slay her. I hope it will anyway, I consider it a true accomplishment if i can make her laugh. (Granted, it's not me making her laugh but Mr. Nader but hey, I still get points for finding it right?)


Here's another one...they'd be better if Obama girl wouldn't start laughing at the end of every shot and hunch over like she's puking up her Tasti-D-Lite, but it beats watching a McCain ad right?

Friday Night Movie Night - Star Wars Clone Wars TV Series

The title should sum it up for you. B has been waiting for this to come on air since the adds started the end of August. I didn't watch much of this, to no one's surprise. I busied myself with making Banana Bread and Organic Rice Krispie treats for the hour that his was one. (BTW, using Organic brown puffed rice cereal really doesn't offset the 1/2 cup of margarine and marshmallows - next time I'm going to do it the 'right' way aka fully processed and refined crispies) Anyway, Ben and Tim seemed to enjoy it. Nate and I enjoyed our time in the kitchen, mixing ingredients and waiting for things to finish.

I think we're going to try to have movie night tomorrow since tonight was really a bust. We tend to watch our movie when we're ready, after we've all eaten, settled into comfy spots in the living room. Tonight, it was a constant chorus of Ben asking "Is it 9 yet?" And he was the only one really looking forward to what we were watching. Generally speaking we try to have something that we're all at least mildly interested in.

So, tomorrow we will begin the first of the Halloween Movie Nights! Halloween is huge for us. It's easily our favorite holiday and we are determined to make it the boys' favorite too. Tomorrow night we'll have a complete review for you of either Pooh's Heffalump Halloween or Clifford's Big Halloween. Tune in to find out which one we pick!

Register!!!

Terrifying......

Ok, I'm not trying to be a liberal bitch here, but I don't think I can help it. The more I read about Palin and her views and the more I watch her interviewed the more I realize that she is dumb as all get out. I'm not a scholar by any means; in case you weren't sure. You're reading blog by a stay at home mom who dropped out of college twice ok? But you know what? I'm not running for the second highest office in the land! It'd be one thing if they were just interviewing this lady and she couldn't answer the questions, but come on! She's in line to be the VP to a man who would be the oldest president in our history. So, you'd think she'd be reading up on some stuff before sitting down with Katie Couric right? Evidently not.

If the goal is to get voters she certainly has an odd approach. I'm not talking about the die-hard Republicans, they will vote with their party no matter what. I'm talking about the undecideds, the female undecideds who may seriously be considering McCain and Palin. Then the thought crosses my mind that she's not working very hard to seduce them with her intellect and that it really might not matter too much anyway - they may still go to her because she has that "every woman" appeal. Ahhhhhh!!!!! Nightmares ensue or worse yet, I can't sleep because I'm up fuming about her latest answer to "What are some other Supreme Court decisions you disagree with?" That's tonight's problem.

Make no mistake, there is no chance in the world that I was ever going to vote for McCain. But there are a lot of undecided voters out there, and a lot of female voters. For McCain to assume that "all we women" would be so mad at Obama for not adding Hillary to the ticket that we'd jump ship and run to him because he selected the pitbull in lipstick is just disgusting, insulting, and infuriating. We are a country of PEOPLE, not sexes. I will not vote for Palin because we both have vaginas and breasts. (Not to mention that she doesn't use her breasts for their intended purpose for her special needs, four month old baby- but that's another post.) I also wouldn't have voted for Hillary just because she has the same anatomy either. I want to vote for MY representative. The person who best embodies my beliefs of how this country should be. McCain and Palin are doing all women a great disservice by treating us like a homogeneous group. You don't have to do a lot of studying to realize that America is an enormous blend of people and an even larger variety of values, faiths, and ideals. To attempt to fit us all into a few simple categories is a mistake and a clear sign that McCain is truly out of touch with real Americans. Even a two time college drop out knows that.

Friday Night Movie Night - Pom Poko

Every Friday night for the last few months we've declared it Movie Night and have made our own pizza and picked out a movie to share. We always use either Netflix or our library to borrow movies that we'd all like to see. As you can imagine, it's kind of challenging to find a film that both parents, a fiver year old and a two year old will enjoy.

We've had great luck with most of the Hayao Miyazaki films though. You may have heard of Spirited Away or Howl's moving Castle. Kiki's Delivery Service and Our Neighbor Totoro have been classics in our home for quite some time. So we've been trying to find more recent Miyazaki films but it's not easy; they are hand drawn animated films which means they take a while to make to begin with, then you have to remember that they're Japanese films so they have to be translated into English. There are few films we haven't seen yet but this Friday we watched one we hadn't seen called Pom Poko. First, let me clarify that Pom Poko is not directed by Miyazaki but by Isao Takahata but it is a Studio Ghibli film (Miyazaki's studio).

Here is the brief online summary of the film: Isao Takahata's outré ecological fable Pom Poko was the no. 1 domestic film in Japan in 1994, and the first animated feature to be submitted for the Oscar for Foreign Language Film. In 1967, the raccoons in the Tama Hills find their homes are threatened with destruction when developers turn the rural area into suburbs. Under the leadership of their tribal elders the animals fight back with every resource at their disposal. Raccoons are shape-shifters in Japanese folk tales, and the members of this tribe can transform into objects, other creatures and even humans. Unlike Takahata's deeply moving The Grave of the Fireflies, Pom Poko (the sound made by thumping the tummy of a comfortably full raccoon) is a broad comedy. The raccoons' efforts to understand humans, their evocations of traditional ghost stories to frighten construction crews, and their internecine quarrels offers plenty of laughs. But the story rambles, and the characters lack the depth needed to sustain the audience's interest until the film's belated, downbeat conclusion. The extras include Takahata's storyboards, which are interesting, but lack the magic of Hayao Miyazaki's drawings on other Studio Ghibli discs. Note: male raccoons have prominent testicles, which are shown in Japanese art, including the designs for Pom Poko. When the characters grow desperate, they swell their scrotums to enormous size and use them as weapons. (Rated PG, Parental Guidance Suggested: violence, scary images and thematic elements) --Charles Solomon


Here's what we thought of it:

Ben - The racoons are funny, and lazy and they eat a lot. They're good at tricks.
Nate - Totoro, totoro- he says this whenever he sees the Studio Ghibli logo at the beginning of the films. He also said "they running!" when the racoons ran. All in all, I think that's a thumbs up.
Tim - What is up with the racoon scrotums?
Me - Tim, are you a transforming racoon ? You drink a lot of energy drinks and that's what racoons drink to maintain their stamina when transforming.

It's not bad, but it does leave a lot to be desired. It runs about an hour too long and so the plot that would normally be captivating just leaves you wondering if you're missing something because they're taking a long time to get a simple message across. The message is to be kind to the earth, be aware of how humans impact the world around them. I'd recommend this film if you've seen all of the other Studio Ghibli films and you're craving more. I'd warn against showing it to kids who are sensitive to animals being hurt, (some racoons get hit by cars) there is also a big scene where the racoons transform into scary spirits in an attempt to spook the humans and stop them from developing the forest. Also - this warning is for parents - for some odd reason all of the male racoon's scrotums are drawn in and you can see them. it's odd and a little disturbing. Our kids didn't notice but others might and if you're not ready to answer questions about racoon male genitalia then you might want to skip this one for now.

Fairy House Pics - As Promised

One of many fairy houses.




The boys near a HUGE fairy house - a fairy compound really.



There are fairy houses at the bottom of each of these trees and there are more trees than would fit in the picture. This was in a little cove area of the park and it was just perfect...it really felt very magical and I'm sure the faieries were quite happy.



One of our favorites!



On the path back to the car. Blurry pic but cute boys.

Merry Mabon!

I love this holiday, but I can't pinpoint why exactly. It's a combination of the lovely autumnal elements coming together, and the parting of summer and the appreciation of the harvest and our good fortune to have food on our table. Tim & I agreed that we've been really slacking about observing the holidays as a family & just in general, we haven't been keeping up with it. So, I daresay that we are attempting to get back on track with Mabon. I feel encouraged after today's activities.

It was pretty cloudy and cold here most of the day so I didn't get the boys outside as I had planned, but we had fun playing inside and they both helped me do some cleaning in the kitchen ~ I don't know how or why this happened, I'm just enjoying the fact that it occured at all.

When Tim got home we all threw on an extra layer or two (it is fall in Maine after all) and went down to Pierce Island in Portsmouth. There's a great playground there right near the water that we like to visit but the draw tonight was the Fairy Houses. Each year on the weekend before the equinox (sometimes on it) people build elaborate Fairy Houses in this area and you can pay to go on a tour of them. We drove through it yesterday but the parking was ridiculous so we gave up. I thought we had missed them and then thanks to our homsechooling group I got an email today saying that a lot of the houses that people made, especially those made by kids, are still up and you can see them whenever you want. So we drove down and took a look. Ben brought apple slices to leave for the fairies at their homes. He was really into it and so full of praise for every house we saw, and we saw a lot! I'll post pics of it tomorrow or possibly later tonight if Nate falls asleep soon enough. I really want you all to be able to see what we did - it's just beautiful!

We came home and had our traditional Mabon dinner which is just a roasted chicken with root vegetables, some acorn squash and cornbread. The boys feasted mainly on applesauce, raisins and cornbread. At the end of dinner the boys each got to blow out one of the red dinner candles which was very special and important to them. After dinner we finished decorating our altar and lit the candles on it, so as I sit here writing to you all I'm enjoying the lovely glow of the orange, red and yellow candles near me. I really appreciate how this holiday inspires me to observe the many blessings in our lives. It's certainly a blessed Mabon for us. I hope that it is for you and yours too!