The Moat, Episcopal Bread, Suburban Soup, Cheese Cubes, & Movie Reviews

Here is our lovely moat, which surrounds the Yoga Room. A water lily bloomed and just before I took this picture there was a bull frog sitting on a lily pad staring at it. We also have red-eared sliders (turtles) and some sick-looking goldfish.


Today I went to an Episcopal church and boy do they have good bread. The priest yanked the chalice away before I got a good slug of the wine, but the bread was enough to make up for it. It was like bakery-fresh, still warm, multi-grain sourdough with butter all over it. Yum, yum. And the body of Christ to boot. I do feel redeemed.

After church I began cooking a pot roast and then took the Goose to the YMCA's Splash Bash. This was a free pool party where they had one of those rented rock-climbing walls and all sorts of germy children running around followed by their moms in tankinis with matching wrap skirts. The Goose and I did not look very cute (I had forgotten that dressing up might be necessary given the location of the Y). He had on a pajama top and some shorts with dried biter biscuit and his swim diaper hanging out; I wore some linen capri pants and my swimsuit top without a shirt. After I saw the state of the pool, I whipped that stroller around and went straight back to the parking lot. It was like suburban soup in there. But it is such an ordeal to get out of the house that I was bound and determined to have fun while we were out. There was a library close by, so we just walked there.

When I first put The Goose in the stroller I failed to strap him in because it was just a short walk from the car to the pool and can you tell where this is going? It was really sunny, so I had the sun shading device pulled down over his head and even though there's a mommy peep hole in the back, you still can't really see anything that's going on up there. Just as we pulled up to the library door, I saw this Asian man waving his arms wildly and saying, "STAND UP BABY! STAND UP BABY!" I pulled down the sun shade to look and sure enough, there he was standing up facing me grinning like a cheshire cat.

Then when we got inside I realized that we were yet again underdressed as there was an art show going on and to get to the children's section we had to stroll right through the middle of it. We got some dirty looks as I snagged a cheese cube off the buffet table, but at this point in my life I do not care about dirty looks anymore. This library is so snotty that it costs $45 per year to get a card. But they did have some lovely fake oak trees and an entire Thomas the Tank Engine train track system.

While I watched the prize baby crawl around and suck on trains with first names, I was thinking about the movies I have seen lately and here are my thoughts:

The Aviator
Synopsis: Leo Decaprio = Howard Hughes, a rich movie maker and airplane designer who also could have been an extra in Girl, Interrupted.
Review: Boooooooooooooooooring! Cate Blanchett does a great Kathryn Hepburn, and Leo will make you feel better about your minor mental illnesses, but overall I'm sorry that I wasted the 3 hours.

Madagascar
Synopsis: NYC zoo animals break free and accidentally end up in Madagascar where they meet a band of monkey-like creatures who like to have dance parties and conk each other on the head. They are eventually rescued by penguins and return to their zoo life changed forever. David Schwimmer is the hypochondriac giraffe and I'm not sure about the other characters ... a lion, a hippo (Beyonce?), and a zebra.
Review: Mildly amusing at best--definitely not as good as Monsters, Inc. or Shrek.

Star Wars III
Synopsis: The middle link in the epic ... this is where you find out why Darth Vader becomes a part of the Dark Side.
Review: Cheesy it is. Good cast but bad acting it has.

Spanglish
Synopsis: Through the narration of a Mexican-American girl's (Christina) college entrance essay, we hear the story of Flor (gorgeous actress with last name Paz?) and her daughter Christina, who immigrate to the U.S. -- Los Angeles. Flor takes a job as a housekeeper for Tea Leoni and Adam Sandler and their two kids. The families collide in good and bad ways.
Review: Ok, I have many problems with this movie ... first, there is NO WAY Flor could've learned English as fast as she did. Second, Christina looks East Indian, not Mexican. Third, Tea Leoni is not funny. I mean, I think she is supposed to be funny, but I just found her character to be a sad reflection of suburban women. Fourth, I hate that at the end Christina decides that the most important thing for her is to be true to her roots for her mother's sake. I have a problem with the fact that so many parents seek validation for their own lives by wanting their children to be like them. Finally, I just like Adam Sandler better when he's being funny and singing that Hannukah song.

That's about all I can muster right now. It's time for my Sunday night ritual: P.M. Yoga with Patricia Walden. As my friend Mamabird would say, "Namaste y'all. But not in an 'I love satan' kinda way."