Miscellany: Leap Year edition

I've always wondered why why call today Leap Year or Leap Day. Isn't today the day we don't leap over the 29th of February? Maybe we should call it...Unleap Year? Unskipped Day? Whatever the case, in honor of this extra "found" day, I'm tossing together a mishmash of what's running through my brain. Let's call it Leap Year goulash:

~I know you've probably had your fill of Oscar fashion commentary. But I just know you've been dying to know what the middle school set thinks about all the gowns and fashioning and posing. Well, thanks for asking! You've come to the right place.

Here's Maddy's notes on the hits and misses of the evening, a list she created on the back of her Oscar ballot:

My attempts to create a mosaic with these photos were disastrous (it kept cutting off everyone's heads) so you can link here for a view more of her faves. {Rebecca Miller is Daniel Day-Lewis's wife and received Maddy's ugly-of-the-year award.}

~ I'm very disappointed I couldn't participate in this freeze-frame event. I'm really good at standing still, too. Have you seen this yet?

I love how, when the people thaw, they just go on as if nothing happened. This would go right along with my silliness and spontanaeity new year's resolutions. I wonder what would happen if I did this tonight right before dinner? New leap year tradition?

~ Greg and I signed up for a 10K race in May. You're invited, too. Woodstock (Vermont) is a great town and the race sounds challenging (a little hilly) but beautiful on carriage trails through the woods, up around a lake, and--get this--past a bagpiper serenading the runners. This time I won't start right in front of the ambulance, I promise.

~This week we also got tickets to The Police/Elvis Costello concert this summer. Roxanne, anyone? Or, if you're more of an EC fan... Allison? Veronica? Can't wait.

~ Finally, I'm so thrilled with the response of the Letters to a Parent project. We've had over 2000 hits in the first month of posts, which is {I think} pretty great! Thanks so much to those who checked it out & gave feedback. This week's letter is from the wise and witty Marty of TravelinOma. I consider Marty to be one of the matriarchs of the blogworld (as well as the matriarch of a pretty wonderful family, from what I can tell). Thanks, Marty, for your Letter to Young Moms, from an Old One. There are some more great ones coming soon & the invitation is open to anyone who feels like piping up.

~ Well, have a wonderful weekend. Ours includes another predicted snowstorm, Maddy at a Model UN Conference at Bentley College (she is Spain & they are trying to propose ideas for helping in Darfur--pretty huge topic for middle schoolers, I'd say), Lauren at a Black-and-White semi-formal dance at school & also a jazz band concert, Sam at basketball, Greg coaching basketball, and me? Lots of spectating.

Floral philosophy

I don't drink.
I don't smoke.
I don't chew.
I don't do drugs.
I don't go to therapy (yet).
I don't get facials (yet).
I don't ski (any more).
I rarely get a massage (but they're bliss, I tell you.)
I don't spend copious amounts of $ on shoes.
I mostly get books from the library
rather than buy them.
So...
I feel justified
in buying fresh flowers
every week
in the winter.
It just makes life better.
More tolerable. Brighter.
I know this is true.
The end.

How do you cope with the winter blahs?

{the similarity of the shape of this post to Abraham Lincoln is purely coincidental}

Countdown to VDay

valentine airplane

With only one week to go until the big day, I thought I'd share what my kids ALWAYS make for their classes. Always. Trust me, don't even hint at the possibility that there might be other ideas to try, just for a change. They will look at you in horror as if you have suggested that their birthdays should be skipped. They love these & they're sticking with them. So it is written, so let it be done.

{Disclosure: yes, I did post about this last year. If you already read about it [and you know who you are, all three of you from back then] skip ahead to the list}.

These airplanes are so, so easy and always gets a lot of comments from their friends. All you need is two lifesavers, a stick of gum, a roll of smarties, and a longish thin elastic band per valentine. We also usually put a couple of heart stickers on the wings and attach a white tag on a string with a message.

You can pretty much deconstruct how to assemble these little numbers from the picture. We usually start by threading the elastic through the two lifesavers, then we put the smarties through the middle between them. Next we slip the gum through the elastic loops. After a while you get into a good rhythm and it's quick and easy. (I originally got this idea years ago in FamilyFun magazine. I just checked and they talk about them here.)

**************

Just for fun, I've been putting together a list of my favorite romanticish movies. Are yours on here?

An Affair to Remember (old version with Cary Grant & Deborah Kerr)
Dr Zhivago

Ice Castles (because I loved it so much when I was 9. Xanadu too.)

Pride and Prejudice (both versions)

Possession (and I loved the book)
Truly Madly Deeply

Chocolat

A Walk to Remember (because Lauren is obsessed with this one right now)

Amelie
Funny Face

Elizabethtown
Wimbledon

Gone with the Wind

Sabrina (old version)
Somewhere in Time (four words: Come back to me. Also a favorite from my early years.)

Casablanca
Roman Holiday
Once

I know I'm forgetting some...jump in with your own, too, please!

Just wondering while I wander

A few questions I mulled over on my chilly walk to the store today:

~ Does putting on exercise clothes first thing in the morning and wearing them most of the day (as I did yesterday) count as a workout?

~ Should I be proud or ashamed that I have played 119 games of computer spider solitaire this month? Does it change your answer if I tell you I won 88 of them? I could claim productive neglect but, truthfully, it's not productive. It's just neglect.

~ Does a peanut butter, chocolate & banana panini count as a balanced dinner? (This was actually created and eaten by G, not me, but it looked really good. Okay, I admit it, I had a bite. The new panini maker may become our new version of our newlywed FryDaddy, which is a little alarming. Those little appliances are kryptonite to my super healthy intentions.)

~ What is the expiration date on outdoor Christmas decorations and how does one tactfully notify neighbors of this? [Edited to add: Oh dear, I didn't know that was going to be controversial. By decorations I mean blow-up Santas, dying wreaths with red bows, glowing plastic reindeer on the roof, colorful lights-in-motion displays that are still turned on. These tend to make me depressed as we head into February & March and also make me think of the aging Miss Havisham in her decaying wedding dress. You are exempt if you have lights on your house rooftop. You can, I think, have them as long as you want & I won't say a thing. As my mom reminded me, I come from a background of year-round light keepers. These are my complex and admittedly inconsistent personal Christmas decorations beliefs. What are yours?]

~ Why oh why are high schoolers allergic to wearing coats (and why does this bother me so much)? At what point on the New England winter thermometer does it become parental duty to insist that Lauren must wear one, even if no one else wears coats and it's "not that cold"? {Although insisting doesn't really work. One day I happened to be doing dishes & looking out the window at the moment she came home from school through the back yard. She walked into the yard in shirtsleeves, stopped just inside the gate, pulled out her coat and put it on for her entry into the house, I guess to appease me. Busted! We both laughed.} And why oh why did she ask for a nice new coat for Christmas (or, more to the point, why did we buy one)?

Your wisdom on these matters would be greatly appreciated (feel free to add questions of your own).

Found: Land of Make Believe

This poster shuttles me right back smack into my childhood. I get that happy kid feeling every time I look at it, that combination of feeling the warm sun on the top of my head, the comfort of hearing my parents' voices at night in the car on a family vacation, the smell of library books or lilacs or mosquito repellent or buttered bread toasting in my grandma's oven. 

It shows the geography of the land of make believe, with all the fairy tales and nursery rhymes staking their own places on the map...some of them in the middle of the action (the three bears coming back to their cottage, Simple Simon meeting the pieman) and others just labeled and left to the imagination (here lives Peter Pan, with an arrow pointing to a grove of trees).

detail of my copy of The Land of Make Believe

My grandma had this poster. So did Mrs. Pollard, the local lady who made hand-dipped chocolates in her basement. I was always a fan; my wishes came true when I was given mine a few years ago. I adore it. I started wondering about it, trying to trace the artist and story behind it & even the copyright to see if I could reproduce it myself & spread the joyous word of The Land of Make Believe. Mine was published in 1930 by The Child's Wonderland Co. of Grand Rapids, Michigan, but that information didn't lead me anywhere.

Well {choir of angels} I found it! This week I located a reproduction company who has the rights (sigh. I'm a little sad I didn't get them. But congrats to RDI). Their version is a bit brighter than mine. I kind of like the old-fashioned feel of the subdued colors (probably due to fading) more than the newer one but I'm so thrilled to locate the poster and learn more about the artist.

Jaro Hess was born in Czechoslovakia. He eventually settled (the newspaper article is cut off so I don't know the whole story) in Michigan and became a landscape designer. He submitted his oil painting Adventure in Storyland (its original title) to the Children's Literature division of the Chicago World's Fair, where it won prizes.

You can click here if you're interested in getting one for yourself ($65).
Here are a few details of the poster from the RDI website:

Everyone needs a wonderful moo-moo bird in their life. Which fairy tale/nursery rhyme is that? A few other unknowns from the poster: grandfather know-it-all, the high tower where the little lame prince was locked, the city of brass. Anyone know these? Anyone? Anyone?