Beckoned Nature

We’ve made it a habit of stopping by the nature center near my mom and dad’s house when we’re up there visiting. There the kids get a lesson on the ways of yesteryear—spinning yarn, attending classes in a one-room schoolhouse—and caring for domesticated animals. The grandparents, in turn, get a lesson on how tiring it is to chase grandchildren for two hours at a nature center.

Vow Renewal

The other night, Beni and I tried to watch The Vow, a romantic drama that’s based on a book by Nicholas Sparks that’s based on a true-life story. While the movie provides enough eye candy to sustain a sugar buzz through Halloween, it wasn’t enough to overcome the extreme exhaustion that hits us around ten each night. We set the half-watched movie aside when we retired for the evening, and I resumed it today only because I spent the entire day sick in bed—and not because I had to see the resplendent (and amnestic) Rachel McAdams learn to fall in love with her man all over again.

A wow-er, it wasn’t—the film, not McAdams, of course—it should have taken its storytelling cues from Like Crazy, a movie featuring a cute couple by which I was utterly charmed, even in my afflicted state. Whereas The Vow oozes Hollywood—Tatum Channing is seen cuddling a kitten on his bare chest at one point—Like Crazy stole my heart with its subtlety, montages set to indie music, and standout performances from Felicity Jones and Anton Yelchin.

Like a Sprayer

We don’t need a lot of excuses to get out to the spray park, but a high of 88 degrees seemed to be a good enough one.

High-Water Mark

The second graders at Olivia’s school earned a pizza picnic and afternoon of water games for being second graders at Olivia’s school. (Actually I think it was for collecting box tops or can tops or something like that.) Family members were invited to dine with the kids for lunch, and many of us stuck around for the first round of games.

In this one, the two classes squared off in a race to pour water from a small cup into a plastic soda bottle while a classmate balances it on her forehead. After the water is transferred, the student pouring the water ends up as the bottle holder, and the student on the ground runs the cup back to the line to await her turn. The first class to get their bottle to overflow was declared the winner.

It looked like great fun. We’ll have to try it at Beni’s family reunion this summer.

Wand-erlust

Take a blue sweater, white collared shirt, red tie from Dad, Hermione sticker from newly acquired sticker book, newfound love for Harry Potter books, and most importantly, a black wand—a lacquered chopstick will do—and you’ve got Olivia Granger.

Big Night Out in the Not-So-Big City

Olivia’s birthday is less than a month away. One of the celebration ideas was to take a train trip with her buddy Adrian to the big city, where they would head up to the American Girl store, dine at a nice restaurant, and then come back on the late train—all of this with parental supervision, of course. Well, an opportunity came up for her and Adrian to have a staycation (which, in my humble opinion, is a terrible portmanteau) here in our not-as-big city: an overnight at our fanciest hotel, a swim in its lovely pool and hot tub, snacks from a vending machine, frozen yogurt from their favorite spot, and no set bedtime. (Not to mention being able to order something from the American Girl catalogue.)

So the girls and Beni packed their overnight bags and drove the 1.1 miles to the hotel for their evening of fun.

Dragon Tale

Another soccer season has come to a close. Our squad’s nickname is the Dragons, fitting in that our girls showed all year the fire and fierceness associated with the mythical creatures. Olivia claims that she wants to continue playing—and having me as her team’s coach—which is UEFA Champions League music to my ears. (The trophies are a strong incentive, too.)

Bittersweet, Indeed

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is the debut novel by Jamie Ford that tells the story of a Chinese-American boy who befriends a Japanese-American girl with whom he attends a mostly-white private school in Seattle during World War II. Keiko, the young girl, eventually gets interned along with her family as part of the federal government’s mass roundup of any persons of Japanese descent. The boy Henry defies parental orders, societal norms, miles of separation, and years apart, ultimately, to remain connected to his childhood love.

I’m encroaching on a professional reviewer’s remarks when I say that this book was both bitter and sweet for me. I so desperately wanted to love it: Ford’s description of the wartime persecution of American citizens by their own country is a cautionary tale worthy of being told and retold (not to mention something that resonates deeply with someone, like me, with Japanese ties), his examinations into the relationships we’re born into and choose for ourselves are fraught with possibilities for readers, and because his book is a finalist for my university’s 2013 summer reading program. (The other two finalists, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles and Outcasts United, were excellent.)

Well, it accomplishes the first artfully, misses somewhat on the second point, and we’re waiting and seeing on the third. Ford’s prose is predictable and often cliché, which hampers much of the human-interest story. The sweet parts are the moments shared—albeit predictable and cliché—between Henry and Keiko, and overarching message that love shines brighter than the dark forces of prejudice, hate, and injustice.

Tempest in a Tea Spot

Reed’s school invited moms to come in over lunch today for a tea party as an early Mother’s Day celebration. As you can see, he was all smiles during the party, but his cheerful disposition turned stormy when it came time for Mommy to leave to go back to work, resulting in an outburst of tears that could have filled a teacup.

Tickled Pink

We got back an evening walk to a flock of flamingos in our front yard. We’d been “flocked,” which seems to be a new—to us, at least—and creative fundraising strategy for local businesses. This effort was for a preschool where one of our neighbors works, and we were more than happy to flock it forward to our friends. But before the birds migrated to other lawns, the kids took turns galloping around the front with the plastic birds as if they were stick horses.

Rated Arrrr!

The Pirates! Band of Misfits is brought to us by Aardman Animations, the same production studio that produced the Wallace & Gromit movies my kids enjoy. We watched their newest production from the back of our car—we decided late in the day to make the forty-five minute drive to the nearest drive-in theater. The two-screen outdoor theater is a real treasure, and fortunately for us, as it turned out, the other screen was showing the ever-popular Avengers movie, and so we had our pick of spots even though we got to the drive-in just before the movie started.

This was Reed’s first drive-in experience in which he was actively watching the movie and snacking on cotton candy. In past years, we made the trip so that he’d fall asleep on the drive out there, and then stay asleep throughout the movie and on the trip back so that Beni and I could watch new releases with Olivia. And while managing a three-year-old on a sugar high who’s staying up past his bedtime is as difficult as capturing the coveted Pirate of the Year award, the fact that it was accomplished with minimal disruptions means that there will likely be sequels for us this summer.

Bring the Payne

Screenwriter and director Alexander Payne, the brains behind Sideways, About Schmidt, and Election (one of my favorite movies), next brings us The Descendants, a movie set in Hawaii and starring George Clooney. But the story is far from glamorous; instead, it’s about the ways Clooney’s character navigates the moments that are thrust on him by tragedy (he can no longer be a detached father after his daughter’s mother is involved in a boating accident that leaves her in a coma) and circumstance (he becomes a key player in his extended family’s considerations into selling the land they inherited from their family ties to Hawaiian royalty and Christian missionaries).

A movie reviewer states that “The Descendants captures the unpredictable messiness of life with eloquence and uncommon grace.” I can’t say it much better than that. The movie is definitely worth watching, unless you have an aversion to well-acted dramatic comedies, beautiful scenes from Hawaii, or Clooney's handsomeness.