And the Oscar goes to

Watching the Oscars with my sister and I is akin to playing the violin in a death camp orchestra. You probably don’t really relax.

We have two strict rules:
There’s no talking. (Except for us. We’re the exception to the rule.)

All ballots have to filled out prior to the actual ceremony. (Poor, tiny KeeganNiece asked in her still-little-12-year-old-girl voice, “Maybe next year we can place our votes after we see the clips? I mean I haven’t even seen these movies…” To which we shrieked in unison banshee, “Nooooooo!”)

We haven’t missed an Oscar ceremony our entire adult lives. Our father died on Oscar Night 11 years ago. We still watched. (Not that we can remember anything about the 1996 Academy Awards. Not. One. Thing.) We try to watch them together though that hasn’t always worked out. Sometimes we’re at a viewing party (horridly disappointing, those– filled with yakking people who ask, “Who’s she?” or “What’d he say?” at all the wrong moments.)

This year we watched with a trio of 13 year olds and a pair of 12 year olds. It made for an interesting evening– a definite generational gapping. A sample:

Terri: “Poll time! If you were going to the Academy Awards– and you were wearing a beautiful gown worth thousands of dollars and wearing thousands of dollars in jewels… how would you wear your hair– in an updo or down?”
The two of us over 25 and one 12 year old immediately answered “Up” whereas the younger set rolled their eyes and said, “Down” with a definite “Duh” in that d.

Still. They did well. They only flinched a little after the first half hour of Trish and I shushing them into silence.

Our observations:
Best dress: Helen Mirren. Perfectly glamourous and age-appropriate.
Worst: “Meryl Streep has no friends,” declared my sister. It’s true. She’s so talented and yet noone loves her enough to say, “Hey, Meryl, let’s do something with your hair, make-up, and dear God, you’re not wearing THAT, are you?”
Best speech: Alan Arkin. It was sweet and short.
Worst speech that we didn’t fast forward through*: Jennifer Hudson. We expected something better from her. We also thought her little ode to Battlestar Galactica was an odd fashion choice. If you’re in the front running for an award and so many eyes are assuredly going to be on you why wouldn’t you go for a bigger oomph fashion wise? She looked so pretty at the Globes. It’s a shame.
* we started fast forwarding through the little award’s winner speeches. We did our own in place of them.
Best Filler: We’re very lenient when it comes to show fillers. We’re huge fans of the In Memorium Popularity Contest. But this year, hands down, it was the nifty dance segments of each of the Best Picture Nominees.
Best New Oscars Innovation: A tie; Love, love, loved the way the costumes were present and accounted for on stage. Really brilliant addition. And big applause for the way the original and adapted screenplays were handled. Very clever morphings between the script and the actual movie shot.
Best Host Moment: Ellen’s Kodak moment with Spielberg and Eastwood. And bonus points to the two of them for being such good sports.
All other hosts were horrid in our opinion. Trish could blow away any of the E correspondants on the red carpet and (oh, fear the purple wrath of Oprah) I don’t so much enjoy the Gayle King interviews.
Worst Fashion Trend: Stupidly low strapless gowns. I don’t mean purposely low cut– I mean strapless dresses that seemingly start about 7 inches below the armpit. It looks terrible on everyone. All hail the girls who got it right– ie; Reese and Penelope.

Anyhoo. It was a fun night. One of these years we’ll be there in person. We’re working on it. In the meantime we’ll figure out what to do with our hair.

One lump, or two?

I learned today just why it is that little boys don’t do tea parties.

My Momma and I have had our share. We both like tea and tea sandwiches and tea cakes. We make decent cucumber sandwiches. And we’re prone to declaring it time for tea at any given hour of the day.

She’s taking a belated honeymoon this summer on the Queen Mary 2. Since most of our knowledge of North Atlantic crossings are tied up in Walter Lord’s “A Night to Remember” and Kate Winslet prying dead Leo’s fingers off the door, well, it was necessary to beef up our knowledge a bit. I’d TiVo’d a special last week on the QM2 and invited her over… In the preJack years I’d have made Robby haul in a couple of deck chairs for our viewing– but the couch had to suffice.

So there we were– Mom and I with hot cups of tea and a plate of tiny sandwiches and Peter Greenburg. Jack snatched a cheese sandwich off the plate and declared, “Hmm! Yum!” before abandoning it for a more manly bowl of a sliced apple. He doesn’t get to eat lunch away from the table very often so he was a little jazzed up about eating in the living room (or, as we affectionately call it, The Pit). He proceeded to bounce and climb and roll while we did our best to keep the tea in the cups and pot and not on ourselves, his head, or the furniture.

“G’lled Cheese!” he chanted in protest of our silly little girly lunch.

I don’t suspect he’ll be invited to dine on the Queen Mary anytime soon either.

Not so California Dreaming

I’ve been dreaming about England and the Isle of Man again. It happens every once in a while– I’ll wake up almost disoriented that I am in my own bed at home.

My dreams tend to be pretty vivid. Vivid and either completely realistic or ridiculously absurd. Nothing too much in the middle of those extremes. So when I dream about Britain it’s all plausible– down to the hot, proper tea and Cadbury chocolate bars.

Sometimes I dream about the bananas drenched in chocolate and whipped cream that were sold by a little vendor near the Covent Gardens tube stop. On the last trip the little cart was nowhere in sight and I almost wept.

I’m anxious to take Jack to the Isle of Man. I want to dip his toes into the fierce sea and run down into a green, green glen with him. I want him to see the old tombstones with our name on them– run his fingers across the moss and ruin of them before they aren’t anything but smooth rock again.

I want to take communion in the little church where his great-great-great-great grandfather was clerk and pray with the kind people there the same prayers with our odd accents.

It’s all a bit out of reach right now– the mighty Pound versus the lowly Dollar keeps us here… but in my sleep I slip off to walk the long way to the V & A or into the shadows of St. Paul’s and my little son tastes his first true scone.

Sigh.

Tackle

Jack has an oversized inflatable football that is a frequent source of amusement around here. He’s prone to carrying it as he runs across the living room– heedless of the fact that it blocks his view– and then spikes it into one of us, the poor pup, the television, or some other obstacle. It bounces off and usually then knocks him over. He’s got a way with prat falls. We’ve got high hopes if they ever stage a pint sized Hamlet. The kid has a flair for drama.

Thank our stars for Jack today during the horrid pre-game show for the Super Bowl. What the hell was that? First that weird “Let’s take a moment and remember the people lost in the tornados” bit that segued into the drug trip bouncing balloon people? Weird.

Our pre-game show was better– Jack running to and fro with his giant football while sneaking fritos with his apple slices. (For the big game we made a feast of bad for us foods including Baby Pigs in a Blanket, Taquitos, and a dip that starts out with ketchup and mayo– need I say more.) Jack, in his red footed jammies, yelling, “‘ootBALL! ‘ootBALL!” at the top of his lungs was really the highlight. Though I am also partial to the second quarter break he took to crawl up on the couch to color with us. I’m trying to teach him to share. Trying is the key word in that sentence. He doesn’t really care to. I had the crayon he wanted and– since it was the only one he DIDN’T have clutched in his hot little hand I wasn’t about to just hand it over. He pulled out the big guns, “Peeease?” he said with his little hands under his chin.

Who am I? Fagan? Of course I’m going to give the kid the crayon.

Sigh. Go team.

Jack can tackle, too. We have this thing where I’ll fling out my arms and he’ll fling out his and he’ll come running to give me a hug. Sometimes I’ll pretend to be knocked over. He loves that.

Come to think of it, I do, too.