Category Archives: Pop Cult-ure

Mmm…George Clooney

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Have you seen the movie Up in the Air? If not, I recommend you do so; it is an excellent movie. I say this with authority because I actually stayed awake through the entire film. This is notable because I’m famous – in my own small circle, anyway – for falling asleep and missing the ending of the majority of movies I see. Last weekend we watched Sherlock Holmes and I found the plot not at all engaging, and although I think Robert Downey Jr. is QUITE attractive, I fell asleep an hour before it ended. I have seen the beginning of many, many movies but I’m generally quite fuzzy on how they end, due to my movie-induced narcolepsy. Action movies are the worst. Car chases! Explosions! Special effects! They all result in me passed out on the couch.

The last movie I saw in an actual movie theatre was – hang on to your hats! – Pirates of the Caribbean Part Two, and, of course, I fell asleep probably ten minutes into the movie, waking up intermittently to scenes of scary looking pirate-y things with the arm of the seat jammed uncomfortably in my side. A friend recently asked why I didn’t go to the movie theatre more often – don’t I have babysitters – and really, my reasoning is that my couch is a much less expensive and much more comfortable place to fall asleep.

So that was a highlight of the weekend, me watching a movie from start to finish. Also happening around my house: the Masters. Do you live with a golfer? Or a golf fan? I seem to have married someone who is both of those and the Masters takes on importance even greater than the US Open. He has been following it this weekend, simultaneously wishing he himself was on the golf course – icy winds and melting snow keeping him from doing so – and frequently calling me to the television to watch a particularly good shot. Are they called shots? I’m not sure. Paying attention to the Masters, and other sporting events, is something I do to keep my marriage vital. That is my Public Service Announcement for the day: for a strong marriage, at least feign interest in sporting events. My husband’s related PSA would likely have something to do with providing crazy wife with all the wine she wants, which probably explains why the Scouts looked so excited when they arrived at our house for their bottle drive this weekend. Hooray, our camping trip is funded! A very amusing part of the Masters has been my husband repeatedly muttering expletives about Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods: spokesperson for skankiness everywhere. Speaking of which: have you seen that Nike commercial? Ew. That is all I have to say. Ew, ew, ew.

On that note, I will sign off. Here’s to a positive and happy week! Hope you all had a lovely weekend.

Girls! Gone! Wild!

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Today is a full moon and I follow with yogic tradition to not practice but take rest on moon days, which means that I slept a full hour and a half later than normal. Pure luxury! Since it is Spring! Break! and we had nowhere in particular to be today, I fulfilled my dream of leisurely coffee drinking; sipping eight – eight! – cups while watching Breakfast Television, or what I like to refer to ironically and with air quotes as “the news”.

Digression: while in university I was friends with a girl who referred to Entertainment Tonight as “the news”.

Speaking of Entertainment Tonight masquerading as the news, remember the OJ Simpson trial? I…don’t really, at the time I was much too absorbed in the fascinating dual worlds of the history of economic thought and step aerobics to pay much attention to it, but I do remember that beach bum houseguest Kato Kaelin, in all his dimwitted glory. I was startled to discover, many years later, the numerous careers that were launched due to a grisly murder trial. For example, Star Jones?

Digression to digression: how strange is it that OJ was acquitted at that time, yet the vast majority of the general population believes him to be a grisly murderer?

Wow, how did I get there? Eight cups of coffee is too much, people, especially when coupled with ninety extra minutes of sleep.

So, spring break good news and bad news.

Good news: The zoo was fantastic yesterday, we had an incredible day. It was the kind of day that I don’t trust myself to talk to people because I would surely boast about my amazing kids and their fantastic personalities and how wonderful they are. I even said to my husband that I felt sorry for him that he is not the stay at home parent.

Bad news: Karma. Today the boys have been fidgety, quarrelsome, and moody. They are DRIVING ME CRAZY. Crazier than normal.

Good news: We made caterpillars out of egg cartons!

Bad news: The groomer was sick and Barkley still stinks.

Good news: The weather was decent enough to send Mark outside to play, which improved his mood immensely. I watched him run around the yard with several garden implements, pretending to shoot and destroy various imaginary aliens.

Bad news: He accidentally hit himself in the head with a garden implement and had to come inside, where he and Jake played for all of five minutes before the game dissolved into an angry argument.

Good news: I baked a yummy looking loaf of bread and a banana loaf.

Bad news: I am not enjoying playing endless games of dinosaurs and killings that the boys are requesting of me, but yet I am acutely aware that they will not want to play with their mother much longer. Melancholy.

Good news: We still have seven days left of spring break, and it is a full moon, and I am focusing all my positive energy on tomorrow; tomorrow is another day.

Good news: We are having a great time!

Bad news: You can’t tell from the picture that this is a parasauralophus.

Actually, I prefer the term "Big Fat Whore"

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After I posted the pictures of my sad little flat cake, a friend suggested I cut it in half and make a mini layer cake out of it, which struck me, quite frankly, as brilliant. It worked perfectly, although Jake and I went a little crazy with the confetti sprinkles.

Don’t I look relieved? The cake isn’t ruined after all.


Mark loved it.
I rarely read any of those “Fame Baby” articles, mostly because I couldn’t care less about what Suri Cruise is wearing these days or what kind of stroller some celebrity I vaguely recognize purchased. However, I was drawn to a blurb about the Brady/Bundchen baby, mainly because my husband is a New England Patriots fan, meaning that to maintain marital harmony I am as well, and although Tom Brady is a little young for my tastes he sure is a tasty slice of rye.

I immediately wished I hadn’t been so eager to see #12 because the latter half of the blurb focused on the return of Giselle Bundchen’s glorious figure mere months after giving birth. Giselle herself was quoted as follows, “I think a lot of people get pregnant and decide they can turn into garbage disposals. I was mindful of what I ate and only gained 30 pounds.”

I felt about this comment the same way I feel when someone boasts about their six week old baby sleeping through the night, or their child who eats everything set in front of him, or their toddler who was toilet trained at eighteen months: that is, efforts in that direction are helpful, but there is some kind of underlying genetic code that makes this possible. If your newborn sleeps through the night, that does not necessarily mean that it is because of your superior parenting skills – although you may have superior parenting skills, don’t get me wrong – but it is more to do with your individual child than anything else. The implication to Giselle’s comment is that if we all weren’t such disgusting garbage disposals, perhaps we too could be on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, which is, of course, not possible. I am not denying that I actually was a garbage disposal during my first pregnancy: you do not gain as much junk in the trunk as I did without some serious gorging. However, not counting my gross Cheez Whiz on toast addiction during my second pregnancy, I did watch what I ate and I did gain only 32 pounds, which was significantly, significantly less than my first, and even still I was not a contender for a Victoria’s Secret spread. That is because I am not Giselle Bundchen. I could put all my best efforts into it and there is no way that I could ever become a supermodel.

Do you know what I’m saying here? Mindful eating is a huge part of maintaining your figure before and after childbirth, yes, of course. But boasting about your amazing willpower without laying any credit on personal genetics, not to mention the childcare, personal chefs, nutritionists, and trainers available to someone of Giselle Bundchen’s income bracket is not helpful to the rest of us.

I eat sweets very rarely, I eat desserts even less, for a variety of reasons, not all of them to do with weight. After I read this blurb I enjoyed a delicious slice of Mark’s birthday cake. And I was mindful of every bite.

The Bachelor and Royalty

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My friend, in reference to The Bachelor: “Who watches this shit?”

Her husband: “The same people who keep with royalty.”

The Bachelor, along with pretty much every other reality TV show, really is shit. It is a horrific concept: hundreds, maybe even thousands of women vying for a shot at dating/marrying a guy simply because he is good looking and successful, or at least for a shot at a reality-TV career and/or a contract with Playboy. I wonder what it would be like if a friend or colleague was on that show, would it change your feelings for that person? What if that person was the woman that no one in the house liked? Although I am a strong believer in karma and non-judgment, I unfortunately would have to respond yes to that question.

That show is revolting on a number of levels but is particularly gross when the dating gets serious and the contestants are all allowed to stay “in the couple’s suite”. Inevitably, every woman chooses to do this meaning that the bachelor is screwing a number of women in a short period of time – and everyone involved knows it. Eww! I am not a prudish person but I find that stomach-turning. Although I do think it would be funny to invent a drinking game in which players take a shot every time someone on The Bachelor says “I feel a real connection with you.” I mentioned this to my husband and he looked at me expressionlessly for a minute, then suggested that a) a game like that has probably already been invented by college students and b) it would not be successful as everyone playing would be passed out in the first five minutes. True.

I don’t actually watch The Bachelor, but I have watched enough episodes over its multi-year run to form an opinion on it. Similarly, I don’t actually keep with royalty but I have in the past. In fact as a child – like many girls born in the seventies, I suspect – I was obsessed with Princess Diana. For Christmas and birthdays I always received those glossy coffee-table books about her and her snappy eighties fashions as well as, I clearly recall, a paper doll book that had a replica of her wedding gown which was impossible to cut out with safety scissors, all those lace points. I was staying with my grandma in Saskatchewan during the Royal Wedding and I remember her waking me up at four in the morning to watch it. I remember lying on her thick shag carpet in my summer pajamas, Grandma in her chair behind me, smoking and drinking coffee and discussing Lloyd Robertson’s boring commentary. When Princess Diana died in 1997, I was on my way to the bar with a group of friends when one of them said “Hey, did you hear Princess Diana died?” It was a sad ending to my royalty following.

I watched the movie The Bank Job this weekend, and discovered that Princess Margaret was involved in a number of sex scandals – who knew she was such a scamp? That was never mentioned in my coffee table books. Apparently she had several sad, doomed relationships, not unlike Diana. This brings me to something that I plan on writing about in more detail – post to come! – Lori Gottleib’s article and book about “settling” for Mr. Right Now instead of Mr. Right. Did Princess Diana settle? She married the heir to the British Throne, for heaven’s sake, she had two lovely boys, and, by all accounts, a very unhappy life. She “won out”, so to speak, against Camilla Parker-Bowles, who evidently “won” in the end. The women on the Bachelor are looking to “win” – but what’s the prize?

Yeah, me too.

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Jake, in the car today: “It’s a good thing Tiger Woods is not MY dad.”

Me: silence, trying to digest this comment while simultaneously wondering if watching the news around the children is damaging their psyches in some deep and troubling way.

Jake: “Mom? Mom? I’m happy Tiger Woods is not MY dad.”

Me, realizing silent thoughts are not an appropriate response, and also recalling that it would be wrong and appalling to insert a ribald joke while talking to a four-year-old: “What do you mean, honey?”

Jake: “Mom? I don’t think Tiger Woods plays much with his kids. I don’t really think that’s very nice.”

Me: “I think you’re probably right.”

No. I don’t like Pina Coladas.

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Music. It speaks to us. It’s like when you fall in love for the first time and you listen to “What a Wonderful World” and you identify with every single lyric – I DO see trees of green AND red roses! – and then maybe you break up with that love and you hear “Against All Odds” and the lyrics are like purposeful daggers to your broken heart. How can he just walk away, when I stand here taking every breath for him? Sob.

Or maybe you go Mexico and you hear “Margaritaville” and it captures the foggy, unfocused essence of your vacation, or you’re having a night out with your girlfriends and you hear “We are Family” and it’s like the soundtrack of your life is playing?

Sometimes, however, a song comes along that you cannot identify with in the least. I’ve mentioned before that I am the exact opposite of the desired person in Rupert Holmes’ song “Escape”. “Escape”, for those who don’t know, is actually the Pina Colada song. Who knew? I certainly didn’t; I always thought that its proper name was the Pina Colada song.

The 1970’s must have been a strange time to be on the dating scene, no? I mean, there was all that casual/ anonymous/ unprotected sex, and the penchant for mustaches and chest hair, and those truckers who had bumper stickers that said “Grass, Gas, or Ass: Nobody Rides for Free”, and the obsessions with zodiac signs (which I kind of get, I mean, I’m superstitious that way). The fact that long-haul truckers practically had a cult following says something about that era. Strange times to be dating, I imagine.

And so the Pina Colada song made it onto the charts. Did it top the charts? I have no idea. I do know that it is one of the most sing-able songs ever written, and also it has a very weird theme: a guy is bored with his “lady” and answers a personal ad, and it turns out his “lady” was bored of him, because she placed said personal ad. Clearly, communication was not a big thing back then.

Reasons why I would be un-dateable in the ‘70s, according to desirable qualities as stated in the Pina Colada song, and separate from my dislike for chest hair, mustaches, bumper stickers, and obviously, the whole casual/ anonymous/ unprotected sex thing (thanks to My Mom the Style Icon for the topic idea. If I was sure that my mom wouldn’t find out and murder me, I would totally send you a picture of her in a 12 inch mini dress.)

Do you like Pina Coladas? No. I dislike anything with coconut flavour. Actually, I dislike anything coconut related. Shredded coconut, to me, has the consistency of dried out dental floss and if there is one way to ruin a good cookie or dessert, it’s by adding shredded coconut to it.

Getting caught in the rain? No. I have very fine hair that goes completely limp in humidity. So you can imagine what I look like after being caught in the rain. Also, I don’t like walking around in wet clothes. Two kids = deflated bosoms = very depressing wet t-shirt contest.

If you’re not into yoga? I practice 5-6 times a week. I get up at five in the morning to practice yoga, so I guess you could say that I’m “into it”.

If you have half a brain? I have a whole brain. Unfortunately a large portion of it is taken up by useless information, like the lyrics to this song.

I’m not much into health food. This one makes me laugh. Yes, I like health food. This is not the ‘70s anymore wherein people who enjoy health food are walking around with unshaven underarms, hemp ponchos, and Birkenstocks, munching on mung beans and wheat germ. Normal people can like health food.

I am into champagne. I’m a red wine girl, myself.

If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape. Okay, stop it right there. I’m not even addressing dunes of the cape. I’m addressing making love at midnight. It’s a miracle if I’m up past nine thirty, let alone getting jiggy with it at midnight. Seriously, my husband is sexy, very much so, but if he woke me up at midnight he would be facing my groggy and somewhat comatose rage. He would not, as they say, be tapping that.

Sophia Loren and her "face"

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Did anyone see Sophia Loren on the Golden Globes last night? Why, Sophia? Why? WHY? Why would a beautiful woman do that to herself?

It is sad to me that our society, our celebrity-obsessed, reality television watching, air-brushed and photo-shopped society, is so obsessed with youth and so focused on the external, that a woman of Sophia Loren’s caliber, with Sophia Loren’s bone structure, turns to plastic surgery and ends up looking like this:


I love when you meet an elderly woman whose face radiates joy and kindness, the sort of face that, even though she may not have been a nifty number in her day, showcases the kind of beauty that can only be obtained through inner peace and happiness. I love that. In Hollywood, however, if at 20 a woman has the face she was born with, then at 40-plus she has the face she bought and paid for. It is depressing, a sad testament to youth and beauty worship that is endemic in this culture.

And yet even as I write this I am cognizant of my own hypocrisy.

I wear lip gloss to walk the dog. If it weren’t for the miracle of hair dye I would be completely mule grey, thank you Dad, and so I trek to the salon every seven weeks. I am criticizing Sophia Loren but I have no idea what it would feel like to be an internationally celebrated beauty, one who is aging and losing the very essence that made her famous. My face is not my fortune, so I do not know what effect the passing years would have on my emotional state. I can criticize, but I am doing so from the relative comfort of my mid-thirties.

Compassion is an important element in the cultivation of inner beauty. So even while I feel revulsion towards the youth culture that prompts beautiful women to turn their faces into frightening masks, I am trying to find compassion, to feel sorry that they are drawn to do so.