My next adventure

So I'm taking off for Chicago tomorrow. I tell people that I'm going to Chicago for just a day, and I get some strange looks. So tonight I booked my next big adventure...I'm going to the Olympics! I bought the last ticket to the Men's Free Skate (It wouldn't let me buy two, and now it's showing Event Unavailable). I'm going to try to get another ticket later, but I'm not sure I'll be able to pull it off. So I might be on my own again. The ticket was $200 (much better than the $2000 I was considering earlier). Getting the ticket was the easy part. Now I have to figure out how to get there. Correction. I have to figure out how to get home. It's an evening event. It's only $55 for a one-way on Amtrak. But there's nothing late enough the day of the event. And there are no hotels available on Travelocity. There are no flights either. Checked Greyhound too. Not sure what I'll do. It's really too bad that my great-grandma died four years ago, because she lived in Vancouver. I think I have some obscure relatives there still, maybe one of them will put me up. I'll figure something out. Have a nice day.

Pictures of New Stuff!

groovy new threads for Julie and Ivy

new clothes for Kirsten

Rebecca and Emily looking pretty in purple

fancy new dress for Felicity

fun in the snow for Chrissa and Sonali

new clothes for Addy

new dolls Kirsten and Addy

Kaya and Molly in new costumes

The next chapter

Today was the first day in the next chapter of my life, which I think shall be called, "um, yeah, I was engaged once". It was a pretty good day because it was like all ordinary days, but better.

We got lunch (from Tasty Thai) and cake at work. I played lots of Beatles Rock Band.

That's it. Two things that make a boring day into a better day.

The highlight of tommorow will be the arrival of my new dolly stuff. It actually arrived today while I was at work, but the office closes before I get home. So I plan to go get my stuff first thing tomorrow.

Today I also changed my plane ticket. Refunds are rarely offered for airline tickets, so I decided to make the best of it. My flight was through Chicago, so I'm going to go to Chicago. I paid $100 to change my return date from Friday morning to Wednesday night, because that's much cheaper than finding a place to stay in the city. So I'm taking another day trip to Chicago. This time by myself. I'm not sure of everything I'll do there. I'm going to hit the Art Institute, because I've missed that on the last few trips. American Girl Store of course, even though I've already had hundreds of dollars of merchandise delivered to me. The only show going right now is Jersey Boys, which I've already seen. In fact, I'll close my blog now, and go look for more things to do. Maybe aquarium, or planetarium, or...

Movies I saw this week

Hi. I have a lot of movies, and this week I actually watched a lot of movies. My reviews follow.

To start off, Rachel and I went to the movie theater on Sunday. We saw Post Grad with Alexis Bledel. Kind of The Graduate for a new generation. She's just graduated college, doesn't get her dream job because of course there are 15 other young people interviewing for it, then we meet her eccentric family, she spends the summer at home trying to figure out what to do with her life, then she gets offered the dream job, but in the end she runs away across the country to be with some guy. It was a pretty cute movie, but the plot was so scattered; a lot of things were left unfinished. My favorite thing about The Graduate is the groovy Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack. I think any sort of soundtrack could have made Post Grad a lot better.

And now for the movies that I own (a lot of them I just bought this week--I wanted new movies, so I went to Fred Meyer and bought 10)

Adventureland
Adventureland did not turn out as I expected. For a movie about an amusement park, I expected it to be more silly and well, amusing. But that makes it sound like I didn't like it. I really liked it, but it was a lot more serious than I expected. It had a great soundtrack (movie was set in 1987).

A Mighty Wind
This is not a new movie. It's from the same people who did Best In Show. It's a fake documentary like Best In Show. But this time it's about a bunch of folk musicians, centering on the reunion of Mitch and Mickey. I actually like folk music, and this movie did a really good job making fun of it (in a good way). I know one of the songs, and maybe even two of the songs, were nominated for an Oscar. A nice bit of silliness, with some fun songs thrown in.

My Fair Lady
I have never stayed awake for all of My Fair Lady, and this week was no exception. I like a lot of it: costumes, some of the songs, etc, but I don't really like that whenever Rex Harrison sings, he's more speaking than singing. Best example: "When there's a woman in your life..." So I think I've seen it three times now, but can't tell you how it ends. Oh well, maybe next time.

Revolutionary Road
Revolutionary Road is the name of the street where Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio live sometime in the 50s/Cold War era. The couple are charming again, and almost make me want to endure the 3+ hours of Titanic again. They're struggling with the life they're supposed to be living: nice house in the suburbs, he has an important but boring city job, she stays at home, they have kids. People say how perfect their life is, but they just don't like it. They decide to shake things up and move to Paris, and the same people now say they're nuts (like mental institution nuts). And that's the movie. I love it. I think everyone today can relate to their desire to blaze their own trail. Add to that some cute costumes`and a tragic ending, and you've got a really powerful movie.

Hannah Montana the Movie
I love this movie. I doubt there are many people around that love both Revolutionary Road and Hannah Montana. After I saw the movie in the theater, I bought all of Hannah/Miley's CDs. One of the major messages of the movie is that life's a climb: "Doesn't matter how fast I get there/Doesn't matter what's waiting on the other side/It's the climb". Another line in the same song is "Always gonna be another mountain, I'm always gonna wanna make it move" It just speaks to where I am in life right now, even though I'm not a pop star who is reconnecting with her country roots and serving as a role model for a googleplex of tweenage girls.

Dan in Real Life
I saw this movie for the first time early on in my relationship with Chad. It's a really fun movie. Steve Carrell is funny, as usual, but also really sweet, like in 40-year-old virgin, but much less gross. He's a widower with three daughters, they go back to a small coastal village for a family-reunion-like gettogether, and he meets a girl one morning when he's in town fetching the morning paper. Turns out the girl is his brother's girlfriend, but totally not right for the brother, so through the whole movie we root for Dan to get the girl, but still honor his family. It's a good date movie because it's a sweet romantic comedy, but the comedian that is Steve Carrell keeps the boys interested.

The Reader
More fantastic Kate Winslet. She actually won the Oscar for this one. The movie is set in post-war Germany, which I've always been pretty interested in (what could it have been like to be German in this time period?) A young man has an affair with an older woman. He likes to read, and she likes being read to, so that kind of sets it off. It's very sexy (though I could have handled seeing less of Kate Winslet's nipples). Then we learn of this woman's past, and we follow the young man through life and how much this woman affects his life. Very thought provoking. Very good.

The Boy in Striped Pajamas
So I followed the very good post-war movie with a holocaust movie, which was a risky move. The Boy in Striped Pajamas made me want to shoot myself. We follow an 8-year-old boy. His dad's a high-up Nazi. They move to the countryside so dad can keep an eye on "the farm." The boy thinks the air smells weird (the stench of burning flesh coming from chimneys he can see from his bedroom window) and he's sad he had to leave all his friends in the city. But he's clueless about the war that's going on around him. One day he's exploring and meets an 8-year-old on the other side of the fence. He wears striped "pajamas" and they talk about 8-year-old boy things and they become friends. At then end of the movie the Jewish boy brings the German boy a spare pair of "pajamas" and he digs under the fence, and it's not long before the two boys get gassed. The end. I thought it would be interesting to view this tragedy through 8-year-old eyes, and it was, but it was pretty disgusting (not graphic at all, but gross). The tagline for the movie is "Lines may divide us, but hope will unite us" So I thought it would offer some hope that humans are not members of a cruel race. No such luck.

Zack and Miri
I needed some fluff to wash away the pajama movie, and Zack and Miri succeeded admirably. The original title is Zack and Miri Make a Porno, but they weren't allowed to put that on the DVD box. It was hilarious, and not too gross. Of course it was a little gross, all the jokes were about sex or porn and they threw around the F-word a whole lot, but I thought it was funny.

There you go, my week of movies.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Went to the Mariners game on Monday with Becky, Jim, Luke, and Emelia. The game sucked, but I had a lot of fun. Here are some pictures.

excessive signage

Looking around, I notice that my hotel room has an abundance of signage:

This one is my favorite:

tagged by Becky

Baseball bucket list. Becky's bucket is a lot fuller than mine, but I have a few drops.

• Spend a week at spring training. Not yet, but want to
• Learn to keep score. Yup
• Learn about Tommy John surgery by throwing out your arm at the stadium speed pitch station. No
• Watch "Field of Dreams," "Bull Durham," "A League of Their Own," "The Bad News Bears" (the original) and "The Natural." No Bears, but I can add all the kiddie ones like Rookie of the Year and Angels in the Outfield and Little Big League, and what about Major League?!
• Use a wood bat. Probably in my T-ball days
• Enjoy a beer in the bleachers at Wrigley Field on a sunny summer day. No beer, but a hot dog
• Listen to Vin Scully call an entire Dodgers game. I saw an entire game at Dodger Stadium, I think that's close enough.
• Read "Ball Four," "The Boys of Summer," "Nine Innings," "The Glory of Their Times" and any (preferably all) of Roger Angell's collections. I'm not much of a reader.
• Go to Japan's Koshien high school tournament (i.e., where Dice K threw his famous no-hitter). No
• Hit a home run. Probably not, I haven't hit a ball since I was in T-ball.
• Coach a little league team. No
• Boo the Yankees in person. This one is weird. We booed the Yankees when we were at Fenway. They weren't even there. They added a run for the Yankees to the scoreboard that shows the scores for all the other teams, and everyone started booing (or probably "Yankees suck"). We joined in then.
• Attend a fantasy camp and have more fun than you can imagine feeling old and young at the same time. No
• Tour the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Absolutely
• Oil your glove and stuff it under your mattress for the winter, then play catch the first day of spring with your parent/child. I don't even have a glove.
• Get to a game early enough to watch batting practice. A couple of times.
• Go to the College World Series. Don't care
• Play pepper. What's pepper?
• Go to a batting cage and see what it's like to hit a 90 mph fastball. Or, more likely, fail to hit a 90 mph fastball. No, but I'm sure I would manage the failing part.
• Attend a townball game in Minnesota (the smaller the town the better). No. Actually, the only minor league games I've been to are the Columbus Clippers.
• Visit the "Field of Dreams" site in Dyersville, Iowa and the old Durham Athletic Park (where "Bull Durham" takes place). Not yet, but someday
• Take your kids to see The Chicken or the Phanatic. Well, I don't have kids. But I have seen the Phanatic. I prefer Youppie though. He's French-Canadian (bonjour!). (Picure of Youppie at right)
• Run around hte bases after a big league game. Nope.
• See Derek Jeter, Albert Pujols and Ichiro play in person and chant their names with a stadium packed with fans. Yes to Pujols and Ichiro, and like Becky, have seen Jeter, but have not cheered.
• Buy a fitted cap to replace the cheap stadium giveaway you got with the plastic adjustable strap in the back and the Piggly Wiggly logo on the side. I am actually personally opposed to fitted caps. I need a place for a ponytail. I have multiple nicely-made ladies caps to replace the M's cap I had in my youth. I think it was courtesy of Boeing, maybe QFC?
• Sing "Sweet Caroline" at Fenway Park. I think we went to Fenway before "Sweet Caroline" days, but do infinite viewings of "Fever Pitch" count?
• Recite "Casey at the Bat" and "Tinker to Evers to Chance" Can't recite them yet, but I'm familiar with them (I learned about Tinker/Evers/Chance from "The Brady Bunch")
• Read the box scores religiously I don't read the news at all
• Join SABR Don't know what this is
• Get your favorite player's autograph. No I don't have one. Rachel has some autographed foam fingers from players I don't give a **** about
• Learn to throw a curveball. Nope
• Take a week-long road trip through the minors, the lower the league the better, and make sure to include a team owned by Mike Veeck (that's Veeck, as in "wreck", his dad used to say). I have done a baseball-themed road trip, but no minor leagues
• Cheer the Rally Monkey. What?
• Eat at Boog's Barbecue at Camden Yards, enjoy a Primanti Brother's sandwich at Pittsburgh's ballpark, the fish tacos in San Diego, a Dodger Dog at Dodger Stadium and garlic fries while circling the concourse in Seattle. Pretty close. Yes to Boog's barbecue. Boog signed Rachel's foam finger. In Pittsburgh, we ate some other player's barbecue, who autographed her foam pirate sword. No fish tacos (we've only done San Diego in the offseason for the World Baseball Classic). Dodger Dogs are the hotdogs I measure the quality of all other hotdogs to, and so so many trays of Garlic Fries and apple slices have graced my palate.
• Attend a game in the Caribbean. Not yet, but sounds like a trip for Marjorie and Becky!
• Buy a bleacher ticket and sneak into a box seat. A couple times.
• Passionately argue in a bar over who belogs in the Hall of Fame. Nope
• Collect baseball cards. Get your favorite player's rookie card and store it in a plastic sleeve. Treat all others the way God intended: by clothes-pinning them to the spokes of your bicycle in a pathetic attempt to make an engine noise. My family (the four of us) has a baseball card collection. For years, we would buy the year's newest collector's book and arrange our cards by value. We only bought cards out of packets, hoping that one day one of ours would be a hidden gem. We still have the collection, but we haven't been through it a long time. I wonder what kind of treasures we have. I think I bought Becky a Jay Buhner rookie once.
• Rub the Babe's nose in Monument Park. We had time schedule issues during our visit to Yankee Stadium, so no.
• Camp out in front of the stadium for tickets to see your favorite team in the postseason. No camping yet
• Try to throw a knuckleball. No
• Try to catch a knuckleball. No
• Catch a foul ball. And then hand it to the nearest kid. Our only foul ball was in Cincinnati. We were there during batting practice and one was hit into our section. We were the only ones in our section so far, so we got to take it home.
• Disobey your parents by staying up late to listen to a game with your transistor radio/iPhone tucked under your pillow. Um, no
• Go to the All-Star Game. Not yet, but someday
• Kayak in McCovey Cove (yeah, Barry Bonds is gone, but San Francisco Bay is still there). No, but I have a Willie McCovey bobblehead from a giveaway at a Giant's game (not really the same thing, but still fun to share)
• Eat a hot-fudge sundae in a mini batting helmet. Yes, but I skip the hot fudge
• And finally...See your team play in the World Series (sorry, this might not be applicable to Cubs, Mariners, Rangers, and Nationals fans.) Before I die I will go to a World Series game. I fear the Mariners will not be playing ;)

Sadly, I have no one to tag. But have a nice day!