I Don't Get Out Much, Do I?

We signed up for Netflix a few months ago because we decided that:

1. We have seen or own all the movies to be easily rented around here that we're interested in.

2. If it saves us one trip to town for entertainment purposes a month, it pays for itself.

We've enjoyed it muchly.

So we rented Nanny McPhee for the kids, and I just had a chance to watch all of it. What can I say? There is an impossible and gorgeously colorful house, a large family (although no Mom), loving discipline, Emma Thompson, and Colin Firth.

Now, when my sister showed me Bridget Jones' Diary and was all frothing about Mr. Firth, I thought, "He's all right, in kind of a nerdy regular guy sort of way." I since discovered the six-hour goodness that is Pride and Prejudice (a Bonnet Movie, as my dear husband refers to them) . And there is something about the way he can show off an acid-green velvet tailcoat:

Janet! Dr. Scott! Janet! Brad! Rocky!

Monday night is the night we let the kids stay up late so we can all watch Anthony Bourdain on the Travel Channel at my parents' house. We call it Bad Parenting Night, since it comes on at nine or "bedtime," as we usually term it. Also, who doesn't love a show about food that has a parental advisory after every commercial break?

The Romanian show had its slow points, but one line rings on in my sick twisted mind. How can a Midwestern Mormon mother of four manage to work the phrase "Buck-Rogered by Tim Curry" into more polite conversations? It makes me laugh every time I think of it. Especially since we sad midwestern kids had our own Rocky Horror Picture Show nights at least twice in high school. I made a pretty sweet Magenta, and my little sister made a pretty killer Frank. Seriously. I have pictures. Ahh, good times. Is it wrong for a girl to dress up like a guy who dresses like a girl?

Book Tag (from Lucy)

"...Appalled at the absurdity of my position, I began to thrash about wildly: my shirt collar tightened round my throat; a stream of the horse's saliva trickled down the front of my mac. I could feel myelf choking and was giving up hope when a man pushed his way through the crowd.





He was very small..."



Page 123, sentences 6, 7, and 8. It' s from All Creatures Great and Small, by James Herriot. I first started reading these books when I was about nine. I purchased the first one at a church bazaar (we called it the "Lord's Acre.") There are four books in the series, and all are excellent reads.


I wanted to be a veterinarian for the next several years, until high school. These books are full of backbreaking work and embarassment. They are also full of touching and funny and sad stories about Yorkshire farm life and the lives of the country vets in the thirties and forties. The language is so cozy and British, I always want to brew up a pot of tea and make scones. Maybe it's just the flu I'm recovering from, but I have been laughing and crying by turns this last day, re-reading these old friends.

The King and Livvie

This morning as I was feeding Liv breakfast, we had a little discussion about why drugs are bad. She floored me with this one:

"It's not just bad drugs that are bad. You can have too many good drugs, like Elvis."