~~ WARNING! PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END SPOILERS AHEAD ~~

Yes, once again I have seen a movie that annoyed me
so much I am now compelled to write about it. It’s sad really. I really
enjoyed the first Pirates movie; and the second one, while not quite as
good as the first, was still a pretty enjoyable way to kill a couple of
hours. This new one, however, retained none of the charm or humor of
the first two films and instead slogs on for nearly three hours in a
fairly successful effort to eradicate the viewers of brain activity for
that discrete period of time.

Maybe while we were all zoning out through what the
filmmakers clearly thought were the more exciting points of the movie,
such as when they were sailing through the doldrums, the director was
really engaging in some form of subliminal messaging experiment. I was
mostly asleep during that part, so if the message was “You need a nap,”
then I guess the effort was successful.

Length and boredom aside, what bothered me the most
about this movie was its ridiculous anti-business stance. You must
understand, I am the wife of a small businessman, daughter of a small
businessman, daughter-in-law of a small businessman, and tend to come
up with entrepreneurial ideas myself about every three weeks (most of
these go nowhere but once in awhile something sticks such as what you
are reading right now). Anti-business sentiments tend to tick me off in
an almighty way!

Lord Beckett, the commander of the
Royal Navy spends the entire movie betraying people, welching on deals,
and backstabbing (I guess that’s three ways of saying the same thing,
isn’t it?) and then pronouncing that this behavior is “just good
business.” Then when justice finally catches up with him at the end and
the ship he thought was under his control turns around to blast his own
boat to slivers, for his epitaph he twice whines in bewilderment that
his behavior was “just good business,” bringing the total number of
times he utters of this vile phrase to four (I think four. I lost track
due to being bored and annoyed).

At that point, he glides down the
stairs as the ship explodes around him and he is engulfed in flames
(and shrapnel which inexplicably seems to miss him at every angle
instead of shredding him which it obviously should). Hello! Nice
imagery there. Why didn’t they just stamp “I am the embodiment of
satanic business” on his forehead to make sure no one missed it.
Considering that the the movie made a record-breaking $404 million
dollars in it’s opening six days, this stance seems absolutely absurd
to me. If business is the devil, what does that make the studios and
executives? High-ranking minions? Okay, that part seems plausible but
odd that they would admit it…. Hehe.

Anyway,
I was so annoyed after the show ended that I had to un-indoctrinate my
children in the car on the way home (and indoctrinate them properly
with what I think, of course). We started off with a discussion of
business and all the good things it does (no business = no grocery
stores, no food, no clothes, no toys, none of the things that we use
every day). Then we moved on to the larger problem with the Pirates
series of films, which is that it paints all the pirates as good guys
and the Royal Navy as the villains.

Yeah
sorry, but pillaging thugs aren’t really my idea of heroes, and the
English Navy did a large amount of good while they were out protecting
people from the thuggish pillagers. The problem with people operating
outside the rule of law is that they become lawless and begin to take
everything they can get with utter disregard to the ownership rights of
the people around them. They do not tend to become noble benefactors to
society.

These movies oddly present both
sides as being nearly equally matched in betrayal (the pirates nobly
call this a “code” though, to leave any man behind and steal one
another’s ships whenever it pleases them), while the same behavior in
the Navy is bad. Operating within the morality of the movie (skewed as
it is), this then seems to imply that the pirates have a higher
morality because they are honest about their buggery while the Navy
does the same thing but wields the power of the state to do so. So now
the pirates are freedom fighters? I don’t think so. They don’t seem to
be fighting for any larger purpose other than to be allowed to go
around thieving whenever they desire. Lofty aims indeed!

Anyway,
as entertaining as the series as a whole is, the entire philosophical
underpinnings of the movie are directly opposed to my own, and it was
an excellent opportunity to point this disparity out to our kiddos lest
they inadvertently pick up someone else’s mutant principles by osmosis.
You know, this whole molding of young minds thing is kind of fun!

Rachel

Yes, my children’s education for the year came to a close yesterday. No more educating them. From now until Fall nothing of value will be crammed into their ungrateful skull cavities, items of potential import will be chased away until their brain stems putrefy into steaming wreckages of mush that will be hopelessly lost to higher function until four days after the next school year begins at which time whatever neurons remain realize that they need to start reproducing immediately if they are going to survive the year at all.

Ha! Don’t they wish. Hehe. They may think they are entirely free to do nothing but watch Disney movies and play on the computer for the next several months, but those children are entirely mistaken. Old Mom has been contemplating a wide variety of summer tortures, errrr educational activities, for them. Plus their teacher is a good friend of mine and she’s got vacation homework plans for them as well. Bwa ha
ha ha! Learning does not end due to external temperature variation.

Anyway, that’s our excitement for this week. Last week’s broken arm
excitement concluded with a green cast that is now covered with large
quantities of hieroglyphics. Lots of relatives plus a small cast on a short arm make writing space at a premium. Anika is handling herself very bravely and so far barely complaining at all.

She only has to have her cast on for three weeks (down to two now), which means it should be off about two days before we leave for Family Camp. Hurray! That means I don’t have to try to keep her out of the ocean for an entire week while her brother and sisters are busy soaking themselves and everyone withing splashing distance.

That’s it for here! Have a great week.

Rachel

Yep, Anika has a broken arm. Actually, a fractured ulna is the technical term (the ulna is the forearm bone on the pinky side of your arm), and the orthopedic doc thinks her radius (the thumb side bone) looks a little bent or “greensticked” too. Greenstick fractures usually have a bit of a break in them, but this one just seems more bowed than it should.

She got her green cast on Thursday, which she was very excited about; and it comes off right before we leave for Family Camp, which I’m very excited about. Overall, if you have to break your arm, I think this is a pretty good way to do it: have it hurt so little that it takes a week for anyone to figure out it’s broken, smile all the way through the the two doctor appointments and one radiologist appointment needed to determine whether or not it was broken or not and to get the cast on, and then time it so well that you get your cast off right before vacation. Not too bad! Well done, Anika.

I took a couple pictures of her in her new apparatus yesterday but haven’t dumped them onto my computer yet. I’ll see about getting those uploaded and posted here for you in the next couple days. Well, I’m off to softball practice. Have a great weekend!

Rachel

Happy Mother’s Day! Well, happy two days late mother’s day. Did you
do anything fun? I had my family and Hubby’s family over here including
Grandparents and everybody, so that all amounted to twenty-five people.
It was a big crowd but really fun.

Oh! Guess what. I’m playing on the church softball team this year. I’m
so excited! I played ball growing up a pretty fair bit and have wanted
to play on a team since Handsome Hubby and I got married (that’s eleven
years ago now). The first couple years it never quite worked out and
then I spent nine years in baby production mode, which isn’t
terrifically conducive to organized sports. This year I am neither
pregnant nor nursing so I get to go show off how horribly rusty I am on
the ball field. Hurray!

Our first practice was Saturday. I haven’t been that sore in years!
Finally today (three days later) I could kind of climb the stairs in
my house in less than five minutes. Every major muscle group with the
inexplicable exception of my calves was mad at me. So depressing. I’d
always heard that once you get over thirty you don’t quite rebound the
same as when you’re younger, but it was all those ancient thirty-three
year olds telling me that when I was twenty-one and what did all those
old farts know anyway? Apparently I have now joined the farty sorority.
Yay, me.

On the plus side, I fielded better than I was really expecting to
considering it’s been over fourteen years since I played ball more than
once every couple years (in the off-pregnant year at Family Camp). I
got to play shortstop, which I love; third base, which isn’t too bad;
pitch a bit, which my skills at seem to have rusted out entirely but
I’m hoping the coach will let me practice on so I can sort that back
out because I really enjoy doing it; and a bit of outfield.

Outfield is nice when you can catch the pop flies and get those big
guys who think they are semi-pro material out, but overall it entails
wayyyyyy to much running back and forth. I was so tired on Saturday
when I got home that I collapsed on the couch for an hour and a half
and when I woke back up, I got straight into the shower just to
de-atrophy my muscles. So pathetic. That’ll be the worst of it though.
I’ll be a bit sore after this coming Saturday’s practice and then
should be fine after that. Actually, I’m glad for the exercise and
mostly just delighted that I get to play.

Not too much else going on over here. Georgie (age 8 ) and Anika (age 5)
had a little bump on the trampoline last week involving Georgie landing
on Ani’s arm. She couldn’t rotate it when it first happened and I
thought she might have fractured it; but there was no bruising, she
recovered pretty quickly, and she could rotate it almost all the way by
the end of the day. She didn’t complain any more after that and has
been bouncing around playing and doing all her normal rowdy kid stuff
with no problem, so I didn’t think much more of it after the first
couple of days.

Last night when I put her to bed I was teasing her and had her arm up
by her head. She squawked “ouch” and told me that it hurt right in the
middle of her forearm and hadn’t really gotten all the way better from
last week. She was a bit paranoid
about going to the doctor’s even though I told her they would just be
taking a picture, not giving shots.

So I spent a good part of today emailing back and forth with the
doctor’s office trying to decide whether or not to take her in and get
it X-rayed. She’s complained about it exactly once in the last week and
it doesn’t seem to be bothering her under most normal circumstances,
but it’s weird that it is still bugging her at all.

The doctor said that contusions and bumps heal by about the seventh day, so if there is any pain
or problem left after ten days to bring her in and have them check it
out. It’s not quite been ten days yet, so I’m going to try to let Anika
forget about it and then check on her again at the end of the week and
see if it still is giving her trouble. I’m hoping it will be nothing,
but I’m a bit suspicious. Guess we’ll see.

Rachel

I’m not terribly domestic. I don’t mind my house being messy (until the kids are in bed and I can actually sit in one place long enough to notice the sty), hate doing laundry, and loathe cooking. Well, that’s not exactly true.

I hate having company over when my house is doing its most impressive toxic waste dump impression; and since we have people over every week at a minimum (my family is over every other week for Family Dinner night, and my girlfriends come over on the off weeks to play cards), the house gets what my Mother colorfully refers to as “a lick and a promise” type cleaning done with some regularity. I’ve always wondered exactly what is being licked and/or promised and by and to whom this is being done when this de-griming is occurring, but I don’t think I want to know the answer.

Lately, however, I’ve been feeling oddly housewifely, which has naturally made me ponder the age old question, “WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH ME???” I have been actually enjoying my ancient nemesis The Skillet, and courting my primal foe, The Oven. Artisan bread, a whole stack of newly acquired (and disturbingly tasty) dinner recipes, and home baked breakfasts ~ what is this newfangled obsession? Maybe I’m the subject of some bizarre government experiment in which masked men sneak into my house at night and inject me with genetic material appropriated from Betty Crocker. No, that can’t be right. I’ve decided instead to blame my apron. Well, aprons plural.

You see, I’ve never been an apron person. They’re frumpy and tacky, and a woman who has five children constantly spitting and spilling on her all day (among other things) needs no help in feeling tacky or frumpy (the woman in question may or may not be me). Wearing stylish clothes (well, sort of) with drool on them is infinitely better than covering my only moderately dorky clothes with a blob of faded fabric that would make Vanna White look like she was wearing a very badly tailored potato sack (I can’t think of anyone more recent than Vanna White?? Oh neural synapses, how I miss thee… Also, I think there must be a large market out there for tailored potato sacks. Someone should look into that.).

A couple of years ago I was off procrastinating doing something constructive (probably cooking) by bobbing along on the internet, and I came across a site selling aprons produced by some lady named Jessie Steele, who I’d never heard of. Apparently Oprah’s heard of her, but lacking that oh so important direct link into The Oprah Brain, I was happily swilling around in apron ignorance… until that black day.

Not frumpy, in no way reminiscent of a misfiled potato sack, this apron was fantastic! Stylish, flirty (always important in an apron because ovens get very temperamental if you aren’t cheeky with them occasionally), and earning the Mary Poppins seal of approval by being practically perfect in every way, I had to have one. Well, if it hadn’t cost $40, I would have had to have one. Since it did, in fact, cost $40, I simply saved the link so I could return to the site and drool at it whenever I desired while my apron dream languished as a sadly overlooked item for two years on my Christmas and birthday lists.

Then in November my Mother and I were discussing Christmas shopping and what to get for my sister-in-law. Mom said that my SIL had some crazy $40 apron made by Jackie Steele or somebody or other on her list, and what could possibly make an apron worth that much anyway? The exploding psycho look on my face may have been an indicator to her that I had in fact heard of these aprons and had formed an opinion on them.

Around that same time, I had poked around Amazon and made one of those cool Wish Lists you can make on their site and then email to all your family members who keep asking you every other day what you want for Christmas. Since I couldn’t find the Jessie Steele apron I wanted, I substituted another funky apron that I didn’t think I’d get either. Well, it turned out that I got both aprons for Christmas, one from my SIL and one from my Mother-in-law. Hurray!

And so my apron days began. Slowly they bled one into the next with my aprons stuffed silently in a drawer. I’d put them on when I remembered and I always felt great wearing one, but after dinner back they would go into their dark abode to be forgotten for another week or so. Then in February my friend Amy booted Handsome Hubby and I out of the house for a couple of days and made us go away to the beach so she could come and play with my little goofballs for the weekend (what a friend!). When we came back, my dusty aprons had been relocated to the mysteriously placed hook next to my fridge.

Every day there they were beckoning to me in there Lorelei voices, “Put me on. You too can be a stylish member of the post-1950’s, retro sorority.” Well, when an apron starts demanding things, you ignore her at your own peril! And so on my aprons went (not together of course; that would undoubtedly cause a squabble).

At first I started wearing them only while I was making dinner. Then, since I seem to be congenitally incapable of cleaning without splashing something on myself, it occurred to me that the women in those old ’50’s vacuum cleaner ads wore aprons while they cleaned. They also wore dresses and high heels, but I refuse to do that. Well, at least until I can find sexy pumps (preferably red) that both feel like tennis shoes and that I can carry around small children or go down stairs in without breaking my ankle. Once that occurs I probably won’t even take them off to sleep in, much less vacuum in! Showering may be negotiable. Now if they’re waterproof as well…. Ahem, aprons. We were talking about aprons.

Anyway, I found myself wearing my lovely aprons an increasing amount of the time. I’d start actually prepping dinners in the afternoon instead of waiting until 5:00 just so I could wear my apron. Also around that time, my sweet Hubby found that scrumptious Artisan Bread recipe from a couple months ago, and I began making the dough for that in the evening so it could proof overnight. More reasons to wear my apron!

Now my aprons spend most of their days protecting me from the dirty dishwater I drip all over myself, shielding me from the horrors of poofing flour when I fiddle with my bread, and defending me from the formula that my daughter dribbles down my shirt when we’re snuggling on the couch for her breakfast (in their off hours, my aprons moonlight for the Portland Police Force). The other day Faith was toddling around in that haphazard, slightly tipsy looking way that newly walking babies do. She started wobbling badly as she walked past me, so she reached out and grabbed the first thing she could reach: my apron string. And here I now am, domesticated by small pieces of black and purple fabric, my aprons.

Rachel

P.S. Here’s some pictures of the two aprons I have in case you’re wondering what kind of aprons could possibly be worth $40 and turn a woman into a blubbering housewife who claims to like cooking after eleven years of culinary strife. Recently, my brother-in-law skeptically asked me if I really thought my aprons were worth all that money. I have pondered this often since then (at the time, I casually answered in the affirmative); and upon further reflection, my answer is an unequivocal “yes.”

My aprons are kind of like a uniform or a costume for a play. Once one goes on, I all of a sudden become SuperMom. Then when I take it back off, I am back to my mild-mannered persona and read a book (well, maybe “mild” is a stretch…).

Jessie Steele apron: Currently selling online in a bunch of places as well as on eBay for much better prices. This seller has them for $27 or so, which is a great deal (Jessie Steele has several other styles too, and all are fabulous so be sure to check out the other ones):

Jessie Steele Apron

Funky Dots Apron from Amazon: Funky Dots Apron

 

No, neither of the women modeling the aprons is me. They’re, well, models.

For many years now, my nickname has been The Plant Killer of Death, which seems rather redundant. Since I gave the nickname to myself, I suppose I’m the only one I can legitimately blame, but Plant Killer of Life seemed nonsensical the day I was dreaming up aliases for floricidal maniacs. Actually, Killer of Life makes a lot more sense than Killer of Death. How do you kill Death? Especially in plants? I’ve killed cacti though, so I think that warrants an evil nickname.

Anyway, no more! I’m turning over a new petal. The house we moved into last summer has one of those fancy green house window things in the kitchen: you know, the ones where the window sticks out from the rest of the house by a foot or so and is enclosed by glass on all sides so that the whole thing catches the light. All winter I’ve been eyeing it, trying to decide whether or not to risk local plant life against my not-so-green thumb and actually try to grow something.

Well, with my current wild and crazy cooking kick, I finally decided a couple weekends ago to screw my courage to the sticking place and put in an unassuming little herb garden with basil, oregano, and cilantro (in case you are having literary frustration trying to remember where that “sticking place” phrase is from, it’s Macbeth; but small children may also possibly know it from the song Gaston sings at the end of “Beauty and the Beast” as he winds up the villagers to go kill the Beast). So now it’s ten days later and my plants are still alive! Yes, I know ten days is not very long, but my previous record was closer to three so I’m happy.

I also have a pretty little ceramic pot in the window box that my Handsome Hubby has been killing avocado pits in during his so far failing experiments at growing a tree. I’m thinking about throwing out his dead seed that’s been denied a proper burial for the last month and asking my Mother for another cutting of the ivy from my wedding bouquet that she’s been nurturing for the last eleven years and protecting from my seedling obliterating ways.

She’s actually given me at least three snippings in the past, all of which have fallen victim to my inattentive watering habits. Huh. I wonder if she still has any. I seem to vaguely remember something a couple years ago about the ivy’s health failing, but I don’t remember whether or not it became terminal. Of course, it’s very likely that I’ve filed this episode incorrectly since plant discussion typically shuts down all areas of my brain where cognitive thought resides until the conversation changes to something much more interesting like bunnies, politics or new shoes. Well, maybe not bunnies.

Last night I used a wad of my fancy new alive basil in our dinner (Big Basil Burgers), and I must say that was rather gratifying. I suppose it would be kind of like raising, butchering, and eating your own beef except without the raising and butchering part. So I guess it’s probably nothing like that…. Well, it’s satisfying on a very diminutive level nonetheless! Perhaps if I can keep these plants alive for another couple of weeks I’ll be ready to graduate to something really hard. Maybe I’ll get a cactus.
Rachel