Singing loud for all to hear...

Strict instructions had been given.  We would not start Christmas until 7:00 a.m.  Meaningful parent eyes glared to impart the importance of the rising time.  David and I were toasty warm in our bed.  At 7:03,  a Christmas Cheer rendition of Deck the Halls was bellowed from the living room.  It was not Rissa.  Rissa was still asleep.  It was my Mom.

"HURRY UP!  YOU ARE MISSING CHRISTMAS!!!"

On the drive down for Christmas, Dad reported she bounced up and down and giggled for the last 30 minutes of the drive. Because why?  Because when it comes to family and the holidays, my Mom is a 4 year old.  She gets THAT excited.  She hugs and chortles and kisses and snuggles.  She holds you as though she never wants to let go.  She is infectiously joyous.  Her illness is the best kind of bug to come down with over the holidays.

As we co-cooperatively prep our Danish feast on Christmas Eve, in the midst of chortle and singing along with Elvis's Christmas album, Mom notices that her slip is showing.

"Uh-oh," she says.  "It's snowing down south."

"Pardon?"

"That's what we always said in high school if your slip showed."

What's great about Mom is that she is kind-hearted, loud and just the right amount of goofy.  She is a person who uses phrases from Simcoe County in the 1960s, not with irony, but as a way to keep traditions alive.  A small town girl, born and bred - she has travelled the world, viewing it with open-minded and accepting eyes, and she chose to return to wallow in small town once more.  She says things like "Look on the bright side,"  and "Every cloud has a silver lining," and MEANS them.  She chooses to embrace the happy.

When David wrapped  Rissa's ridiculous squishy, illuminated bear on Christmas Eve, my Mom almost peed her pants she giggled so madly.  

"Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!  It's so silly!  SO silly!!!! I need one!  I NEED one!!"

"Do NOT wake Rissa up!!"

(stifled giggles as she whacks it against the arm of the sofa...)  "It's just so silly!   hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!!!" she now whispers, holding a finger to her lips - showing just how quiet she is being.

While we played Monopoly before bed, she knocked over a wine glass ... "It's okay!   No drops went on the carpet because they are ALL... in my... TUMMY!"  (pat, pat, pat - indicating safe placement of wine)

I love my parents.  Not only do I choose to spend time with them - I revel in that time.   I revel in all my Dad's bad puns and my Mom's fist-pumping after she's won a game of Perquacky.  I'm 44 years old - snuggling with my Mom on the couch remains a perk.  She still kisses me on the forehead the way I kiss Rissa.  I see more and more of myself in her cackle and crazy.

We had them for all of 47 hours over the holidays.  Then it was time to go, we were lucky that they weren't waiting at the door on Boxing Day when we got up that morning.  If my Dad doesn't have tasks, he might implode.  We wave from the door as they honk the car horn.  My Mom blows wild kisses from her car window.

"Boy it's a good thing you like my Mom," I say to David.

"I agree."

"'Cause you know that I am going to turn into her."

"I'm down with that."

Longing for the Longshot

So... Les Miserables... the movie...

Before I get into my rant... It IS a good, film.  It's just not as good as it should have been.  (But if you haven't seen the stage play, and you love a good tragedy, you'll love it.)  The acting all around was stellar - I cannot fault the cast on that account.  There were standouts for me.  Anne Hathaway's performance as Fantine made me weep.  Eddie Redmayne's voice and screen presence was fantastic as Marius, and the cameo by Colm Wilkinson?  Delicious!   I gotta say that Amanda Seyfried's Cosette had a beautiful controlled soprano that was not at all grating and Samantha Banks' portrayal of Eponine was exactly what it needed to be.  The trio between Cosette, Marius and Eponine was lovely.

That said...

Please Sir, may I request fewer close-ups?  Too many faces!  There were far too many desperate, crying, puss-filled faces.  I'm praying that there are 6-degrees-of-separation between Tom Hooper and me so that I can get him to re-edit the film with WAY more medium and long shots in it? Please? I'm sure that the set decoration and design for the film was splendid - if only the audience could ever see it.

Rissa pointed out as we left, all depressed and ready to slit our own throats from the pathos, "Well Mummy, it is called The Miserables."  And it was - oh God was it!!  Tragic and dark, near plodding in sections, and just bone-crunchingly SAD.

I've seen the stage version three times.  Not once did I come out of it depressed.  There's something about good live theatre that reaches across the divide and unites an audience.  It is uplifting, driving you to your feet in a truly organic standing ovation.  The film had very little of that.  And why?  Because the vocals, while good (some great - see first paragraph), they were too intimate and lacked the grandeur that the music requires to move the audience.  Yes, Hugh Jackman can sing.  He gave a good vocal performance for the most part, but Bring Him Home was not his best song. He just did not have the vocal control and sweetness to his voice to make that song into what should be one of the most affecting moments in the show.    Eddie Redmayne gave that performance in Empty Chairs at Empty Tables.   Russell Crowe can sing (anyone who says that he tanked vocally is full of crap - if you want to see someone tank vocally watch Pierce Brosnan in Mamma Mia), but he just doesn't quite have the musical theatre chops to carry Javert's numbers.

In a film version that's 2 1/2 hours long, steeped in tragedy and angst, you really need the comic relief.  REALLY A LOT.  That's why those comic scenes are written into the original musical.  The Thenardier bits just weren't nearly funny nor grand enough to allow the audience that moment to laugh, breathe and prepare for the rest of the pathos.  This again comes back to the TOO MANY CLOSE-UPS.  Onstage the comic scenes rollick, but the film lacked the scope of the stage-picture and the scene suffered as a result.  By and large the trios, quartets, quintets and chorus numbers just didn't cut it because they were overly edited.   You need to SEE Eponine as she watches Marius sing with Cosette - you need the juxtaposition of her WITH them - not a close-up of her in angst.  There was only the smallest of edits that allowed that to happen on film.  On stage, even as people stand at different blocked points representing different locales, they still inhabit the same space for the audience and they sing WITH each other.   Those same scenes on film minimizes the stage picture and take away the magic of the music.

Most accurate and satisfying transfer of a chorus number from stage to film?  The final reprise of Do You Hear the People Sing.   It finally managed to capture the feeling of a true chorus number, and though it had close-ups, it was mostly long and medium shots.

I would watch certain parts of the film over and over again.  Those moments are brilliant.  Other parts?  Not so much.  Before seeing the film, I assured a friend that I would watch it with her again, now I'm not so sure - with its grime and its pacing and its weeping it was all too.... Miserable.

Waking to Barney Stinson

About a month ago, David got this fancy-schmancy light that gradually becomes brighter and brighter to simulate a sunrise in our bedroom. I'm not making this shit up.  We live in Canada - it is now winter - coming out of hibernation sucks at the best of times.  This light takes about half an hour to gently accustom its owners to the morning before having the most soothing of Asian plink-plonking pseudo bells as an alarm.  I will freely admit that it is a more civilized way to greet the world.  You can snuggle in the blankets and reflect as you snooze (David ALWAYS hits the snooze button at least once), basking in that gentle nudge into wakefulness.

At least that's the plan until Rissa's alarm goes off about 5 minutes later, at full volume. She recently made a new CD with all her favourite ITunes songs. This morning it was Barney Stinson singing Nothing Suits Me Like a Suit at full volume.

And though I revel in my daughter's delicious musical weirdness, I know that I will have that mind-worm of a song in my head all frickin' day now.  Bright side: it could have been more jarring, could have been American Idiot.

Rissa's Wake Up Mix

American Idiot

Nothing Suits Me Like a Suit

Rehab

Taico drum number from Cirque du Soleil's Dralion

I'm Yours

Summer of '69 

Superstar - from the Australian cast recording of JC Superstar

The Flesh Failures from HAIR

and...

Walkin' on Sunshine 

Where are the REAL Christmas Cards?

Okay, seriously?!?  How hard can it be to find a heart-felt Christmas card for your Mom that is not overly schmaltzy, poorly rhymed or full of guilt-driven sentiment?  SERIOUSLY?!?

I went to two stores looking for the right card for my Mom.  Found perfect cards for David, Rissa, even my Dad, but for my Mom?  Nothing, nada, zip!  There were a couple of cards that would have done alright, but they were like $9.95 and $11.00!!!  ELEVEN FREAKING DOLLARS?!?  For a card?  Since I had my first rant last May on this subject, Mother's Day without the Crap,  prices have sky-rocketed.

First off, why are most of the cards addressed to: A Wonderful Mother, The Best Mother, A Special Mother...  Who on this planet, not raised by nannies, calls their Mom, MOTHER?!?  I don't even call my Mom, 'Mom,' I call her 'Mare' - after the French, Mère, but horsier, and because I like bad puns.   Or 'Mor' - the Danish word for Mom.

There were so many cards that started with this sort of text:

"Mother, during this season, you will never know how much you truly mean..."  
Yes she will.  And you know when?  When she finishes reading the card.  Because you are telling her right now with this stupid card how much she means to you.

"Mother you've always been there for me at Christmas..." 
Lie.  No mother has ALWAYS been there for her kid.  Except maybe Mildred Pierce.  There are times when kids are shits and have made dumb-ass decisions and they need to be told "You're on your own on this one sweetie... I am not bailing you out of jail tonight." 

"Mother, I know that I don't say 'I love you' a lot, but because it's Christmas..." 
Why not?  Why aren't you telling your mother that you love her a lot?  Are you a bitch and you're just trying to make up for your bad behaviour and get into her will with a crappy card?  OR... is she the bitch, in which case, why are you even giving her a card?  Stop this toxic Catch-22 relationship and spend time with your friends who are nicer people. 

So for Mare this year, she's getting a handmade card with a hand-written sentiment which might be as simple as writing out "I love you,"  or "I'm so glad that we get along."  I don't want to give her a crap card that other people wrote that sort of fits the circumstances.  I want her to know that I'm proud that she stands up for the under-dog, happy that we still get into giggle fits, and when she does her Arsenio Hall fist pump and sings "I am the Champion" after she beats me at Perquacky, she is a goddess.  Where's the card that says that?

Christmas 1969, Summerside, PEI

Bottom of a Birdcage Mouth

So why is it that when you're sick, your mouth feels like the bottom of a birdcage?  What is that?  It's like the virus crawls up onto your tongue when you sleep, lies there overnight all cozy and pasty white under you uvula, clutching your tonsils and adenoids as fleshy stuffed toys for comfort.  It spreads out across your tongue and glories in its stench.  My cat padded up to me in bed this morning.  I said "Hello," and she looked offended.  And this is a cat who cleans her own ass - badly.

Bright side - Although I am muzzy headed, I have this week to get better before I have actual things that I have to leave the house for.  Annnnnnd... that sentence made next to no sense because apparently my brain, in addition to my other organs has been affected by whatever that virus ridden toddler slipped me.

It's my own fault.  I mean, toddler fingers are yummy and sweet and you usually get a laugh when you suck on them.  But I knew.  I KNEW as soon as those fingers went into my mouth that I should have rinsed with scotch right away.  But now it's too late, because everything that kid touched (floors, walls, his nose, other people's noses/mouths) that day is now making its way through my system, one exhausted, achy muscle group at a time.

OY.

I have family members who were down and out for the count over Christmas - actually unable to get off the sofa - quarantined, able to interact only with other infected members of the family.  I wanted to go round and wrap them all in Christmas garlands and twinkle lights so that their barfy, fever of 104, nearly comatose holiday was a bit more festive - except I didn't want to touch them or breathe in their air.  I'm kind-hearted and all, but not after I've already suffered from my own week of the flu.

Jack Lemmon with Maracas

Jack Lemmon with maracas Some Like It Hot 1959
Screenplay Wilder & Diamond after a story by Lomax and Thereon

Last night we shared Some Like it Hot with Rissa for the first time.  As soon as she saw the B&W hit the screen - she rolled her eyes.

"Is the whole movie like this?"

"Yes.  Give it a chance."

Eye roll with accompanying sigh - subtext: "Why, oh why, do my parents keep showing me stuff that just isn't cool?"

She yawns her way through the first act, but then we're in to Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in drag - and this line from Jack Lemmon's Jerry as he watches Marilyn Monroe:

"Will you look at that! Look how she moves! It's like Jell-O on springs. Must have some sort of built-in motor or something. I tell you, it's a whole different sex."

And that gave us our first of many true snorts of laughter from our oh-so-disaffected 12 year old.  Lemmon is irresisible as Daphne - watching him do the tango and then relive his romantic night with accompanying maracas is priceless.   David and I barked laughter over Wilder and Diamond's dialogue - yes some is a little dated (remember this was 1959, and same-sex marriage was NOWHERE on the radar), but when Daphne/Jerry is trying to explain Josephine/Joe about her/his great night, Lemmon is PERFECTION!!

Jerry: Have I got things to tell you!

Joe: What happened?

Jerry: I'm engaged.

Joe: Congratulations. Who's the lucky girl?

Jerry: I am!

Joe: WHAT?!

Jerry: Osgood proposed to me! We're planning a June wedding.

Joe: What are you talking about? You can't marry Osgood.

Jerry: Why, you think he's too old for me?

Joe: Jerry, you can't be serious.

Jerry: Why not? He keeps marrying girls all the time.

Joe: But, you're not a girl! You're a guy, and, why would a guy wanna marry a guy?

Jerry: For security! Look, I know there's a problem, Joe.

Joe: I'll say there is.

Jerry: His mother - we need her approval, but I'm not worried because I don't smoke.

Joe: Jerry. There's another problem, like what are you gonna do on your honeymoon?

Jerry: We've been discussing that. He wants to go to the Riviera but I'm kinda leaning toward Niagra Falls.

Joe: My God.

Jerry: I don't expect it to last Joe. I'll tell him when the time's right.

Joe: Like when?

Jerry: Like right after the ceremony. Then we get a quick annulment, he makes a nice little settlement on me and I keep getting those alimony checks every month.

Joe: Jerry listen to me there are laws, conventions. It's just not been done.

Jerry: Joe this may be my last chance to marry a millionaire.

Joe: Oh, Jerry — Jerry, will you take my advice? Forget about the whole thing, will ya? Just keep telling yourself: you're a boy, you're a boy.

Jerry: I'm a boy.

Joe: That's the boy.

Jerry: I'm a boy. I'm a boy. I wish I were dead. I'm a boy. Boy, oh boy, am I a boy. Now, what am I gonna do about my engagement present?

Joe: What engagement present?

Jerry: Osgood gave me a bracelet.

Joe: [examining it] Hey, these are real diamonds!

Jerry: Of course they're real! What do you think? My fiance is a bum?

Rumour has it that the maracas were added after a test screening because the audience was laughing so hard the rest of the dialogue was getting lost. 

The best part?  At bedtime Rissa said to David "I could see why you'd want to show me that.  It was awesome."

Demon on my Chest

So you know when you feel like this?? 
The Nightmare, Fuseli 1781

A toddler stuck his fingers in my mouth last weekend and I am now fucked.  Because why?  Because an adult's immune system sucks.  Kids?  Kids can be infected with a freaking alien plague, take some Dimetapp and be fine.

"Mummy I'm good to go.  If I stayed home, I'd miss recess/hockey/dance/horse back riding!  Time is a wastin'!"

"You have a fever of 103!"

"I feel nothing - let's go!!!" *

We all have our signals - that first feeling where you know, you just know that you're fucked with whatever illness has insidiously infiltrated your person.  Me?  My legs ache.  David, it's his throat.  Rissa, she starts sniffling.

So yesterday, when my legs felt a little off, it was just a matter of time before I was caught in the toddler virus vortex.  The entire back of my body hurts.  The back of my eyeballs, head, lungs, ass, legs, arms, throat, tongue, shoulders...  uterus...    I'm pretty sure that I can feel the tonsils and adenoids that I had removed when I was 11.

I have things to do today.  I have a whole list of shit that needs to be done.  It's a week until Christmas!!!  I had a day planned with pre-holiday tasks that began with doing (and this is just how dumb I am) my 42 minutes of exercise.  Yes, I am THAT dumb - I am still considering exercising - even though I know that you're supposed to rest when you're sick.  Thing is?  I'm worried that I won't be able to sleep tonight if I don't exercise.  Jogging would be overly ambitious, I'm 'with it' enough to recognize that.  But walking?  Not at my regular pace (that would be silly), but at a completely reasonable lower speed that might trick my body into thinking that it actually did expend energy?  That is doable.  Except that I can't tell David that I did it.  His last words before he left the house today were "Get some rest." Accompanied by a meaningful 'you will be in so much trouble if you don't' look.

So here I sit, clad in David's extra-large bathrobe, the personification of pathetic, trying to figure out if there's a way to get away with being stupid, instead of watching Buffy and/or Firefly all day.  Oh God, I really AM sick.  The virus has hit my brain too!!

Snuggling in one's partner's robe can mask a lot.

*Please for the love of all deities - DON'T send your child to school when they have a fever!  They are NOT well, even if they think they are.  Don't be the parent of Typhoid Frickin' Mary and start a flu/cold epidemic because it was inconvenient for you to take a day to look after your kid.