Yes. I Watched.

Having recorded multiple hours of the Royal Wedding broadcast on BBC America, yesterday, I decided to make time today to watch at least some of it.

I have to admit that I really enjoyed watching it. The pomp and circumstance was pretty amazing, and BBC America did well at explaining the history behind a lot of what was going on, without making it into a history lesson.

I liked watching the arrivals at Westminster Abbey - although I would have enjoyed knowing who more of the people are (aside from the endless shots of the Beckhams) - and watching the carriage procession afterward was pretty cool, too.

Christopher didn't watch any of it. He kind of gave the TV sidelong glances as he walked through the room. Maybe that difference has to do with the fact that I had a TV in 1981 when Charles and Diana were married. Or maybe the fact that my mom is Canadian has something to do with it. Either way, I watched a decent amount of the first 5 hours of the broadcast.

For the record, I watched PARTS OF the first 5 hours. Not all of it. I fast-forward-ed through a large amount of the stuff about the dress designers and the family gossip and all that. But I did watch all of the royals and paid attention to the interior of Westminster Abbey. And I both enjoyed - and was appalled by - some of the hats.

And, yes, I was kind of blown away by it. But I'm also really glad I didn't get up at 5am for it. I may be crazy, but I'm not that kind of crazy.

To Watch or Not To Watch

Part of me really wants to get up in the middle of the night - or at least the very early morning - to watch the coverage of the Royal Wedding.

Part of me really really really wants to just sleep through the night.

Someone I work with is actually taking off the day from work because she'll be up most of the night watching the coverage.

I have friends in Britain who are planning to watch with family. And hats.

People I work with are planning to stream video live during the workday.

I have set our TiVo to record hour upon hour of the festivities.

Whether or not I watch it is yet to be decided.

Travel Tuesday - The Countdown

Sure. Travel is great. But you know one of my favorite things?

Planning travel.

One month from today I will - for the first time in almost two years - be leaving the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area for more than a long weekend. I won't be going to visit my parents. I won't be going somewhere within the state of Minnesota. I will, in fact, not even be staying within the country.

Christopher and I are going to be going away for a full week. His sisters are helping us out with house-sitting and dog-sitting and, as a by-product, even bird-sitting. And we'll be on our way.

Which, of course, means that we have planning to do. We get to figure out where to stay. We get to make a list of places we want to see. We get to contemplate food to eat and sites to visit and all the things that come with travel.

So we've got tickets and now the fun begins. The research and the planning and the anticipation.

Yeah. As strange as it sounds, this may be one of my favorite kinds of Travel Tuesday.

The Monday Hangover

No. Not from alcohol.

The Monday hangover this week has to do with Easter food. From some of the best ham I have had in my life (Fischer Farms... what more can I say?), to - yes - the bunny cake, it was an all-about-food day.

After dinner last night, the remains of the ham were cut and put into the fridge. The leftover potatoes and beans were put into the fridge, as well. And the candy was hidden in the hopes of an "out of sight, out of mind" situation. (That worked until I got up this morning...)

Although Hallowe'en is known for the candy, Easter is the holiday when all of the candy is... well... seasonal. After all, once the holiday is over, the Cadbury eggs and the Peeps and the Reester bunnies all go away. And we are all very sad.

Of course, this means that on the day of Easter, after trying to abstain all during Lent, the pigging out happens.

I have eaten more jelly beans in the past 48 hours than I have all last year. Some of them were on the bunny cake's bow tie. (In case you're wondering, the ears and the bowtie of the bunny are both gone. It's down to just the "face," now.) Many were straight out of the bowl.

I'm kind of looking forward to the next week of sugar-y bingeing. I'm also looking forward to it being done. After all, my pants need to still fit when this holiday is done.

Bunny Cake 101

I was "talking" this week with some friends about how our moms all used to do these really creative cakes when we were kids. There were teddy bear cakes for birthdays. And my sisters had those weird princess cakes (where the doll was frosted into the cake). And one of my sisters once made me a pan of frosted brownies in the shape of a Nike tennis shoe.

These days, so many cakes are made using pans that are whatever shape they're supposed to be - and then just frosted "as-is" - that this week I started thinking about the Easter Bunny cakes we used to have every year. The ones where you used two round cakes to make the Bunny - with ears and a bow tie.

I kinda decided to throw down, and accept, my own gauntlet. And, thus, the following took place earlier today. Enjoy the pictures (and a few captions), below.

First, we gather the supplies. High class all the way.

Sorry, no picture of the two cake rounds, but here they are with the cuts made. I had forgotten how large this ended up when laid out. Too big for our largest cookie sheet, so it's on a foil-covered plastic bin lid.

Tinting the coconut for the fluffy ear interiors. This was the second attempt - the first time around I put in too much food coloring and it would have made the ears look a bit... well... bloody.

First layer of frosting. Well, second layer, really. But I was reminded - the hard way - that it is nigh impossible to thin store-bought frosting for a crumb coat.

Looking pretty good. We used chocolate Twizzlers (snipped into a thinner, more bendy style), since neither of us likes licorice whips.

It just didn't look right without something on the foil. Some green-tinted coconut and we're good to go.

And a reality shot - with the tools of the trade in the background. Including, yes, two pairs of scissors: one for the paper ear pattern, and one to trim the Twizzlers.

I've got to say that it was a) harder than I remember; b) more fun than I remember; and, c) really fun to spend a few minutes connecting with my inner five-year-old.

(Thanks, Mom!)

Friday Food - Easter Style

Christopher and I now have a ham in the fridge. Not exactly a whole ham, but a ham nonetheless. We're planning to have it for dinner on Easter Sunday. We actually put in an order for this ham quite a while ago, as it's from a farm* which also produces the absolutely amazing Peppered Bacon we love so much. We've never tried any of their other pork products, so we're excited to try the ham.

I was thinking about the ham on the way home from work today. This is not strange for me. I think about food - and, more precisely, meals - a lot. In the morning when I get up, I'm already thinking about lunch and dinner. When I'm sitting down to dinner on a Monday, I'm contemplating dinner on Tuesday. It's not an obsession or anything, it's just one of those things I do. But, anyway, back to the ham.

I was thinking about the ham on the way home from work today and thought of something odd. You know how Easter already has the colored eggs and the chocolate bunnies and the jelly beans. I know that there are stories for why those things exist (the whole idea that Easter kind of co-opted a Pagan rite of spring, with eggs and bunnies representing fertility, and jelly beans representing really sweet chewy... beans), but why is Easter a day for the eating of ham?

Truth be told, Christopher would prefer to have good ham for any major holiday. Well, maybe not a grilling-out holiday like the Fourth of July, but definitely for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Me, I'm a turkey guy - I love having turkey on those two days, although ham has always been the New Year's Day centerpiece for my parents' open house.

I know that in a lot of places, the Easter dish is lamb. Which, frankly, has always kind of freaked me out. What with the whole "lamb of God" reference to Christ. I mean... really? He's put to death, he rises to eternal life, and then - after the hunt for the eggs left behind by the bunny - we eat his representation? That's just a bit weird - even for me.

Which brings us back to the ham. And my drive home, today.

It dawned on me that while we're eating ham at Easter, those people celebrating Passover are... well... at least most of them... are NOT eating ham. Not sure if it's a marketing ploy ("Hey, we're not selling any ham for Passover, let's push it for Easter.") or maybe a really passive-aggressive way for early the Easter-celebrants to thumb their collective noses at the Passover-partakers. Or maybe someone mis-heard the orders for lamb and sent out a bunch of ham. Or maybe, just maybe, hogs are the thing most likely to have been slaughtered in time for a nice cured ham for Easter each spring.

I bet it has something to do with the bunnies.

*The bacon we love, and the ham we're hoping to love, come from Fischer Farms in Waseca, MN. We buy it at The Golden Fig in St. Paul, which prides itself in finding really good mostly-local foods.

Sarah Jane Smith Sighting

I realize that in most of my postings which have "Sighting" in their titles I'm referring to John Barrowman. Tonight, however, I'm referring to Elisabeth Sladen, who embodied Sarah Jane Smith in the universe that is "Doctor Who."

My first recollections of "Doctor Who" are from the late 1970s and early 1980s. At that point, the South Dakota Public Broadcasting folks were showing "Doctor Who" (a few years late) on Saturday afternoons and - sometimes - Friday or Saturday nights.

I honestly don't remember much about those episodes. I remember Tom Baker (Doctor Who #4 - the one with the huge long scarf) and I remember Peter Davison (Doctor Who # 5 - who had previously been Tristan in "All Creatures Great and Small"). I also remember Tegan (whom I met when I volunteered at a "Doctor Who" event in Sioux Falls), and I remember Sarah Jane Smith.

I had almost completely forgotten about Sarah Jane when she re-appeared a few years ago in the newly-revamped Doctor Who universe. Sure, she had gotten older, but she was still just as spunky and direct and clever and full of gumption as I had remembered. As one of the very few people from "Doctor Who" who have ever resurfaced in it's decades-long history, she held her own with the new casts. She was wiser and more worldly, but no less powerful or worthy than any of her counterparts.

She even did well enough in the ratings to get her own spin-off - "The Sarah Jane Adventures" - and was a player in one of the few episodes that meshed "Doctor Who" and "Torchwood" (there's our John Barrowman moment!) and "The Sarah Jane Adventures" all in one.

When the Doctor said good-bye to her in her final appearance, there was a finality about it which made me tear up almost as much as Sarah Jane did. Only she held it in better.

The same thing happened to me, today, while I was sitting at work and saw a message from a friend of mine marking the death of Elisabeth Sladen. Having never met her, and having not even really remembered her for a good 25 or 30 years, the news of her death surprised me, and I found myself kind of welling-up at my desk at work.

There had been something so refreshing in seeing her back on TV with the Doctor and everyone. There was a feeling of continuity that kind of grounded me back into the promise of youth. Back to a time when everything was possible in time and space. And seeing her again showed me the promise that growing older and growing up can both be done gracefully and with as much wit as wisdom.

Elisabeth Sladen (and Sarah Jane Smith) will be missed.

Mall-ing

I went to not one, but two, malls this past weekend. I had hoped to finish the little bit of shopping I was doing on Saturday, but the jeans I wanted weren't available in both my size AND the color I wanted at the mall I went to on Saturday. I was told, however, that they were available in three other malls, if I was interested.

I wasn't.

But then I got home and thought about it and realized that I kind of was. So, on Sunday, I left the comfort of the nice comfortable house and headed out to THE mall. Yes. That's right. The Mall of America.

Aside from the random special events (like last week when I took my folks out there to see the SDSU jazz band perform on Sunday afternoon), I try to avoid The Mall on weekends. I also try to avoid it on weekdays, but that's another matter.

You see, on weekends, it's filled with all these... people... who somehow survive driving like idiots in the parking lot only to prove to the world at large that they aren't just acting like idiots.

But, well, The Mall is kind of massive. And overwhelming. And it apparently brings out the idiot in a lot of people. People who stand in the middle of a store's entryway, with a stroller facing sideways blocking the entry, texting on their phones and not noticing that they're blocking the entryway. Completely.

And the people who walk through the corridors as if The Mall is a fabulous work of ancient architecture, slowly strolling along to make sure they take in every detail, taking pictures of the storefronts, backing up into the flow of pedestrian traffic while staring at their cameras.

And people who... well... let's just say that way too many of them have offspring. I can understand that adults can do whatever they want with their hairstyles. But when I saw the one kid (maybe 7 years old?) with the mohawk that was about a foot long, standing next to his younger brother whose hair was shaved on one side of his head, and kind of... well... "chunky" on the other, I had to wonder what the parents looked like. Then I saw them. I knew they were all together because they all go to the same barber/weedwhacker for their haircuts.

I have never bought jeans and left a shopping area with such alacrity in my life.

Tiz List #8 - The Spring Edition

(Don't know what a Tiz List is? Check out the earlier postings by clicking on "Tiz List" in the left-hand column, down toward the bottom.)

1) As a general rule, I love spring. I love the promise it holds, the optimism in the air, the bursting forth of the greenery from the earth.

2) I don't really like mud. Or wet sand. Or anything that has to be cleaned off of your shoes before you walk into a house.

3) I really don't like having to wipe down the dog's feet on the way into the house.

4) I think someone should invent a doggie foot cleaner for that.

5) It would have to be something dogs enjoy. No way in the world am I going to try to make a dog stand around - when wet - to do something she doesn't want to do.

6) Really. That's the problem with #3 in the first place.

7) I like having the doors and windows open.

8) We have only been able to have the doors and/or windows open 3 days so far this year without freezing.

9) When going out to sit in our breezeway/former screen porch/whatever we're calling it, it's always safest to not only unlock the kitchen door, but also to take your keys along in case it blows shut and you've forgotten to unlock it.

10) Climbing through the kitchen window (which only works if the security pegs aren't in place, anyway) is really painful.

11) I think I still have marks around my waist from the screen window structure from last spring.

12) Yes. That brunch was worth it.

13) Spring makes me want a new wardrobe.

14) Spring also makes me want a new body.

15) I'd prefer to have both of those without having to spend money or energy.

16) Or dieting.

17) I know that #14 is impossible without #15 and/or #16, but it doesn't make me stop wanting it/them.

18) To celebrate spring (and, okay, because the ear piece in my old cellphone died), I got a new phone last week.

19) It took almost 48 hours for the new phone to activate.

20) It might have been done sooner, but I was following the instructions given to me by customer service. Christopher's suggestion on the phone on the second night had the phone active in about 30 seconds.

21) I prefer my old phone. Especially since there are a bunch of text messages on it that I don't want to lose. And 3 photos Christopher sent me from his travels - one from the top of Mount Pilatus in Switzerland.

22) The inability to store things like those messages makes me sad for technology.

23) Sometimes I fear I'm too sentimental for spring.

24) Sentimentality seems to be a trait for people who like winter, or at least fall.

25) My goal for this weekend while Christopher is travelling was to do a good spring cleaning (aka a solid purging) of both paperwork and clothing from the basement where my stuff is stored.

26) I spent much of my weekend trying to get caught up on shows I had stored on the TiVo, and not dealing with the paperwork and clothing in need of purging.

27) I rationalized not doing that purge by reminding myself that I've been pretty busy the last few weekends and needed some time to just hang out and do nothing.

28) And that cleaning out the TiVo was both a kind of purging and a thumbing of my nose toward technology.

29) I'm apparently very persuasive.

30) And have more of an anti-technology grudge than I knew.

31) I also figure that if the weather isn't going to act like it's spring then neither am I.

32) In honor of Passover coming this week, I went online to figure out what is an appropriate greeting. (You know, like is it okay to say "Happy Passover" when the story of it is kind of somber, really.)

33) I've been assured by a friend that the correct celebratory greeting, in Hebrew, is "Chag Sameach."

34) Still not sure if I should say "Happy" or not.

35) I am, however, happy that it is spring and that the tulips are up and the crocuses are blooming and the grass is turning green and that Christopher comes home this week and that optimism - regardless of how properly or improperly placed - is in the air.

Cycling Through

After a few months of steadily-declining battery life on my laptop, I finally got a new one, yesterday.

Yes, that's great.

But it also means that I have to "cycle the battery" a few times in the first few days. So...

I'm down to almost no battery power, after doing some work this evening.

I promise a more interesting posting as soon as we're done with this...

Thought-filled Thursday, Puppy-style

(Taken last fall when we were all "Up Nort',"

when she was not thoroughly pissed off at me.)

As I've been talking to the pup each morning and evening for the past two and a half days while Christopher has been gone (has it really only been two and a half days?), I've been feeling like it might be nice if she could answer back.

In fact, I realized that I've been putting words into her mouth, too. Or, maybe not her mouth, so much as her soulful eyes, which seem to have so much to say. Here are some thoughts:

We started on Tuesday night, while I was putting eardrops into her ears, with a look of "You're not doing that right. Dad does it better."

Yesterday morning, as I was also wishing I didn't have to get out of bed, I got "But you're supposed to be up already, so that I can have my breakfast before my 7 o'clock nap."

Last night, it was another full evening of her watching the door, waiting for Christopher to come home. She stopped looking at me, for the most part. I think she blames me for sending him away.

In fact, I realized this morning that I think she blames me for sending not only Christopher away, but also sending away my parents who had come to visit last weekend. You see, they left when we went out for a walk on Monday morning. And then, Tuesday, I drove Christopher to the airport on my way to work. I suspect she's sensed a pattern in that.

Tonight after I got home, she was much more active - "two hours of playing fetch and getting scratched before settling down" - active. I thought we were moving in the right direction until I tried to pick her up, roll her over, and scratch her tummy. She rolled her eyes as I tried to execute one of Christopher's standard maneuvers. Obviously I had done it wrong.

Maybe it's not such a bad thing that she doesn't speak, after all.

Weary Wednesday

I had every intention of writing a good post tonight.

I was going to talk about Christopher being off to New York for a week.

I was going to mention how the pup keeps looking at me as if she's trying to tell me that I don't know what I'm doing and she'd prefer to have Christopher back.

And I was going to be witty and exciting and possibly even pithy.

But then the speaker in the ear-area of my pay-as-you-go cellphone started to crap out a few days ago, and yesterday actually had problems multiple times. So after coming home and taking the pup for a walk after work tonight I headed out to Radio Shack to see about a new phone.

Somewhere about 20 minutes into the phonecall it took to transfer over my phone number and all of my already-paid-for minutes, it all suddenly started to take hold. And then, just as my old phone flashed up saying that the minutes were gone, the person helping me out said "Okay, now this could take up to 72 hours for the new phone to be active."

So I spent some time tonight trying to figure out how the ringer will sound, how to add phone numbers to the new phone, and - because it's driving me crazy at the moment - how to set the time and date. And I meant to send out a few emails letting people who call me on that cellphone (a very very very small group) that it might be a few days before I can actually answer it.

But now I'm pooped, and I'm off to bed. Hopefully a good sleep will mean a good posting tomorrow.

And, also hopefully, the new phone will be newly active by then, too.

Movie Monday Masterpiece

No, Masterpiece Theater isn't actually a movie. I realize that. But it's so much BETTER than a movie.

My folks were in town over the weekend, and we capped off a really rather nice weekend with sitting down on the couch to watch the first new episode of Masterpiece Theater's "Upstairs, Downstairs."

I'm not sure if it was great because Christopher and I were sitting with my folks and our pup and watching the show, of if it was a carry-over from watching it when I was a little kid, but I do know that I was really amazing.

Now I just have to hope that The Amazing Race doesn't have too many delayed shows so that I don't end up with massive overlaps...

Are We There, Yet?

It was in the 60s, today. Not exactly sunny, but bright and warm and really kind of hope-inducing.

This morning, Christopher and I took our moms to the Macy's Flower Show in downtown Minneapolis. Gorgeous flower displays. Hopeful trees. Tons of people. And the scent of spring everywhere.

So, this afternoon, I gave in to some of my stronger urges and went out into the yard to clean up some of the garden planting beds. I was originally going to just go out and trim down the dead ornamental grasses from beside the driveway and in the pots along the front walk. After all, according to our neighbors who are supposed to know, the yards are still too wet for much work.

But, as I was working along the driveway, I noticed how much was actually growing underneath the detritus of last fall, and so I started raking. And then I moved to the backyard, where I raked for awhile longer. Followed by cutting back the clematis vines which were actually already starting to show green on the interior (which makes me a little worried about how those will grow in the coming weeks).

When all was said and done, I had two bags of yard waste sitting on the boulevard. If we can just make it through the severe weather being predicted for the next 24 hours (severe weather? really? we just got done with the threat of snow, for chrissike!), then we might actually have some spring flowers soon.

I know that I'm supposed to be focused on the journey and not the destination, but this is one destination I really can't wait for.

The WALL-E Factor

I'm sitting in the living room and I've been scrolling through the channels looking for something to watch while stalking my parents' flight from Los Angeles to Minneapolis. And, as luck would have it, I stumbled across "Hello, Dolly!"

I started watching it because when I landed on it, it was the scene which actually includes both the Waiters' Gallop and the theme song. But then they moved on to the next song - "It Only Takes a Moment."

Suddenly, instead of watching "Hello, Dolly!" and enjoying it for the fluff that it is, I was watching it and thinking about "WALL-E."

I know that, when "WALL-E" was made, they used the clips from "Hello, Dolly!" (wow - why did I have to choose two movies with so much need for capitals and punctuation in their titles?), to kind of refer to a simpler time. And to show human emotions in the smallest of moments (like holding hands).

So, here I am tonight, sitting and watching "Hello, Dolly!" and now - instead of just watching this movie - I find myself thinking about WALL-E and EVE, and the unspoken, all-too-human, love that those two animated characters showed.

There's something wonderfully full-circle in that. I bet Thornton Wilder would approve.

Whatever Wednesday

At various times today I've had wonderful ideas of what I was going to write, here.

But then I kept getting distracted. And I wrote some emails. And I tried to get a little caught up with interactive life. And I even did some work. And I completely forgot what I was going to say. So I had to come up with something else. Here it is:

Last summer, Christopher had our breezeway between the garage and the house glassed in. It had been just screens, and that got switched over to glass with nice doors and screens and all that. During the fall we had a couple of meals out there, but we didn't really settle into that idea before winter set in.

Today, on my drive home, I decided we should have dinner out there tonight. We weren't having anything major (leftovers with a salad), but we put a candle on the table, brought out a pillow for the pup to settle down on, and sat down to dinner.

It was soooo nice. Relaxing. Peaceful. And, yet, we could watch the world going by outside.

This could seriously be the start of something good.

Movie Monday - Paul

Yes. The movie's name is "Paul."

No. I don't think it's a good name for a movie because it is so massively forgettable.

Yes. It's a good movie.

No. It's not forgettable.

See? This is where the title/movie fall apart.

The movie "Paul" is from the same people who brought us "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz." And, thus, it is a spoof movie. Maybe a parody would be a better way of putting it. Or - better yet - and homage. "Shaun of the Dead" was an homage to horror movies (specifically zombie movies). "Hot Fuzz" was an homage to buddy cop movies. And "Paul" is an homage to Sci-Fi movies.

But it's more than that. Sure. There are layers upon layers of inside jokes for the Sci-Fi community. There are sight gags and sound gags. There are oblique references. There's even politico-religious commentary. And - the one thing so many parody/spoof movies forget - there's an actual plot.

In fact, there's enough plot that the member of our party who isn't a Sci-Fi follower actually enjoyed the movie, too. I was probably in the middle, thinking it was funny and laughing outloud a couple of times. And Christopher probably picked up on twice as many things as I did. But, even without that, we had a good time.

I'm kind of specifically not getting into plot details. It sounds really hokey when you say these two guys stumble across a lost and lonely alien (named, you guessed it, "Paul") and decide to help him get home. Even so... well... that is pretty much the main plot. But the movie is SO much more intelligent than that.

Overall grade: A-. I loved the movie, I really did, but they went a little too far for a few of the junior high laughs.

Springy Sunday

Aside from the fact that "The Amazing Race" isn't on tonight, it's been a really rather nice day.

We capped the sunny, warm, afternoon by taking a walk as a family. Christopher was just taking the pup out for a walk as I was getting home from running a few errands. So we all went to wander around the block for the evening constitutional.

We've got a lot going on at the moment. We're debating paint colors for the exterior of the house, so much of the conversation was about the colors we were passing as we walking. I'd say we were looking at the flowers and the greening grass, too, but we're not even to the point of clearing out last year's remnants.

And then, as luck would have it, we ran across two of our neighbors who were also out chatting. After having spent the past 6 months seeing almost no one on the sidewalks, the past couple of weeks have seen a resurgence in walkers - both two-legged and four-legged. Suddenly we're back to living in a neighborhood of people who jog, stroll, walk dogs, and putter about in the yards.

Now if only the yards would catch up to us.

Friday Food - A Little of This...

I'm not really a comfort food eater. I'm not someone who, when stressed out, pigs out on a specific kind of food.

Granted, if a package of Oreos is opened in front of me, and I've got a glass of milk, I'm not averse to going through most of the package. If there are some good potato chips and a Coke, they might be gone. A box of Mary See's Bordeaux (milk or dark) and another glass of milk? No problem.

But that's not connected to stress or emotion. It's just food.

Which is not to say that food isn't tied to emotion for me, it's just that it's the other way around. I don't eat because of the emotions, I get the emotions because of the food.

It's an odd equation, I know. We'll look into it more on some future Friday. Assuming I remember it.