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Nighttime

At night is when I sleep.

When I sleep, I dream.

When I dream, it makes me happy.

When I’m happy, I don’t want to wake up.

But alas,

We all have to wake up in the morning.

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“Mom, when you want to say like somebody mustered up their courage, how do you spell that? I mean, not like mustard, right?”

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Sharpies

Have I ever told you about my obsession with Sharpies?

Well, here goes…

I love Sharpies so much, I wish they made

Sharpie pencils, because I would use them.

I love how they come in a variety of

Colors so I can color things.

So this morning my phone was deluged with breaking news about the military coup in Honduras today. Right on cue, Ninja Kid asked me if it was breaking news. I told her there had been a military coup in Honduras, and then I proceeded to explain what that means, etc., ad nauseum, you get the picture. Of course, this whole time she had the look of someone who’s recently visited their local methadone clinic. Not that I’d know what that looks like.

All day long my phone is bursting with the minutiae of the coup and nothing else is mentioned by Ninja Kid until about two hours ago, when I got another alert and the following conversation ensued:

NK: Is that breaking news?
Me: Yeah.
NK: What is it?
Me: Oh, you know. Still more stuff about the military coup in Honduras.
NK: Oh. [thoughtful pause] What’s a military coup?
Me: Don’t you remember the conversation we had about that this morning? I explained the whole thing to you.
NK: [cowering] No…
Me: Okay, well, it’s like when the military decides to overthrow the government in power and install a new ruler. It’d be like if our Army decided they didn’t like President Obama anymore and they wanted someone else to be President before the next election, so they just roll into Washington DC with tanks or whatever and kick him out of the White House.

At this point I look over at Ninja Kid, expecting to see the usual blank stare. Instead, a slow grin starts to creep over her face and I can almost literally see the wheels turning in her little Ninja Brain.

“I see the look on your face. A military coup is NOT a good thing. Repeat: NOT a good thing.”

I’m afraid I may have created a monster.

Oh, and by the way, just kidding about the whole “cowering” thing.

Check out what Ninja-mo gave me for Mother’s Day today. I heart it the mostest!

Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms out there!

The basic story is this: Fifty years ago, an elementary school class draws pictures of what they think the future will look like and then they bury them in a time capsule to be opened fifty years later. There’s one spooky girl who doesn’t draw a picture but instead writes out a page full of seemingly random numbers. Flash forward to the present day, when John Koestler’s son is in the class that gets to open the time capsule, and every student is given an envelope containing a picture drawn by the original class. Everyone except this kid, that is, who is the unlucky recipient of the numbers sheet. Oh, also, this little boy is generally misunderstood and unhappy because his mom recently died and his dad is an emotionally unavailable alcoholic wallowing in his own misery. Anyway, in the throes of a drunken revelation, Koestler figures out that these numbers aren’t random at all but actually predictions of disasters. Hey, look at that! According to these numbers, the next disaster will be… tomorrow!?!? Yep, turns out Koestler’s hunch was correct. So, like any normal alcoholic/widower/single dad/MIT professor/atheist, he sets out to solve the mystery. Oh, did I mention he’s an atheist? He is, and it just so happens that his father is a minister of some sort. Needless to say, they are estranged, but thankfully Koestler has a sister whose sole mission is to look concerned while hugging her brother and trying to get him to reunite with their father. In the meantime, these weird Matrix-looking wannabes keep stalking Koestler’s son and whispering to him (through his hearing aid?). Along the way, he tracks down the original spooky girl’s daughter and granddaughter, who reluctantly join him on his quest to solve the mystery. And, of course, they do solve the mystery. And it’s sooooo lame. I won’t spoil the ending for you, but I will say that I previously thought M. Night Shyamalan was the master of the stupid ending. No longer.

Nic Cage does a decent job as Koestler in this movie, even though it seems like all he does anymore is these follow-the-clues movies. Rose Byrne, who plays the spooky girl’s daughter, Diana, does one of the crappiest acting jobs I’ve seen in a while. I liked her okay in Troy, but come on. She’s just not able to pretend to be scared very well. Koestler’s son, Caleb, is played by a cute little boy who really needs to work on his scared face, too. The spooky girl’s granddaughter is adorable, especially when she’s cuddling with white bunnies.

All in all, the movie was scarier than I thought it would be. I got worried at times that Mini-Me might want to start sleeping in my bed again, but luckily she considers herself to be way too old for that kind of behavior. The language isn’t too bad and there’s absolutely no sex, so it’s rated PG-13 solely for the scary factor and some violence. I’d say it’s worth renting if you’re a fan of Nicholas Cage, but otherwise save your money.

Oh, and one last little mini-rant. Why does every new movie preview have to have a quick flash of two girls about to kiss? I’m very particular about what sort of sexual content Mini-Me is exposed to (pardon the pun) and I allowed her to see this PG-13 movie specifically because there wasn’t supposed to be any sex involved. And there wasn’t any in the actual movie. But two of the movies previewed had some pretty racy scenes, including brief flashes of two girls obviously getting ready to kiss. In the previews. What up wit dat?

Fast forward to Monday at 3:15. Mini-Me gets in the car after school and says, “Guess what? My science fair project is due tomorrow.”

I was obliged to provide Mini-Me with the necessary lecture regarding responsibility and schoolwork. Her rebuttal was that she had been absent on the day the information was handed out, and in the days following her absence nobody walked up to her, grabbed her hand, and gently asked her if she’d like to know the due date for her project. Therefore, according to Mini-Me’s reasoning, she should be exempt not only from the aforementioned lecture, but also from the looming due date.

You probably think I dropped all my plans for the evening to help Mini-Me with her research and tri-fold display board assembly. You’d be wrong. See, Monday night TV is must-see TV for me: House, 24, and Intervention. Let’s not get our priorities out of order! I helped Mini-Me with the printing and I pointed her in the direction of the colored paper and tape, and she was on her own for the rest of it. I sat smugly watching and heartily enjoying my TV programs while she slaved away at the kitchen table, cutting, taping, and drawing.

The result? True to her namesake, she turned out a great-looking project done at the last possible minute, did her math homework, and managed to get into bed at a decent hour. Mini-Me is perfecting the art of procrastination. I couldn’t be more proud.

POLITICS
Camelot? More like Sham-A-Lot. For all his promises of bipartisanship or even postpartisanship, where parties are completely irrelevant, President Obama landed himself an almost solely one-party “stimulus” bill this week. It would have been a totally one-party bill except for three particular RINOs — Arlen Specter of PA, and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of ME. Those are the only three Republicans in all of Congress who signed onto this stimulus sham. Kudos go out to the Republican leadership on this one for being able to somehow keep everybody on the same side for once. Too bad they didn’t muster this kind of backbone with the first stimulus. I might have some respect for them if they had.

Senator Judd Gregg withdrew his name from consideration for Secretary of Commerce this week, apparently taking the Obama administration by surprise. I believe the source of Senator Gregg’s attack of conscience has to do with a provision in the “stimulus” bill that puts control of the 2010 census under the White House instead of the Commerce Department. One of the things I’m hoping to get done this week is to clarify why this is such a big deal. Will keep you posted.

MOVIES
The Mexican (2001)
Full disclosure: I’ve never met a Brad Pitt movie I didn’t like. So, true to form, I liked this one. It’s kinda quirky in a Pulp Fiction sort of way, and I was entertained by it. There will never be anybody any sexier than Brad Pitt, so I’d be entertained watching him tap dance.

Juno (2007)
I’ve been waiting a long time to watch this one, because I knew for sure I didn’t want Mini-Me to see it, and I was also under strict orders not to watch it without my friend F.C. The stars aligned properly finally and Mini-Me had a sleepover on Friday night, so F.C. and I watched “Juno.” I loved it, but I won’t be letting Mini-Me watch it until she’s at least 30.

Gremlins (1984)
This was Mini-Me’s pick off her Netflix queue. She laughed and laughed and laughed at the scene where the Gremlins are watching Snow White and they all sing the “Hi Ho” song. It’s always funny to me to see special effects from older movies because they’re so obviously fake compared to today’s movies, but I can remember as a kid being convinced Gremlins were real.

BOOKS
Still working on The Great Gatsby. I really think something may be wrong with me. Okay, okay, you can stop laughing now.

me: Number 30 is wrong.
her: Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that one.
me: Okay, well, the shaded part represents a fraction of the whole.
her: I don’t know how to multiply fractions.
me: You haven’t studied that yet?
her: [look of utter disgust that I didn't already know that] No.
me: Well, you really don’t even have to do that. You can figure it out just by looking at it.
her: Didn’t you just tell me that area equals length times width?
me: Yeah, but in this case you just look and see that 3 of the 8 squares are shaded.
her: Mom, that’s not how you do it!
me: Okay, then how do you do it?
her: I don’t know! They’ve never taught us how to do this!
me: [struggling to keep from laughing] Then how do you know I’m not doing it the right way?
her: [look of disgust returns] Because!

You get the picture. Finally, I had to actually multiply the fractions of the shaded area to get the area and show her that, indeed, it works out the same whichever way you do it. Of course, if you’re in 5th grade and you haven’t yet learned how to multiply fractions, it would make sense to just take the easy route, but then again… we are talking about Mini-Me.

Speaking of not being productive, I realize I’m many years late jumping on this bandwagon, but lately I just can’t get enough of Law and Order — all iterations of it. Between NBC, TNT, and USA, all of which I get in HD at no extra cost (!), there’s almost always an episode on the air. Don’t you just love it how those lawyers use these cool little tricks to get around legal barriers? I want to write them all down for future reference.

I didn’t watch one second of the Super Bowl. Not even one commercial. Does that make me unpatriotic?