The Little Review

( Water )

I had a very nice Thursday morning and early afternoon, getting a bunch of paperwork done so I could go meet twistedchick for lunch (to which I was a bit late because my elderly neighbor tripped and fell on the sidewalk just as I was walking out of my house, so I ran back in to get her ice and band-aids and make sure she was all right). Twistedchick brought me a Tarot deck and we had vegetarian Chinese food and a long conversation about family, politics and fandom that continued past lunch and on to coffee and hot chocolate, at which point we decided we should just have lunch again next week.

Then I had to commit the ongoing atrocious act of trying to find a dress for my niece's Bat Mitzvah in two weeks. I'm sure you all know my policy on fashion for myself, which is: unless it's for a play or some other theatrical-type event (Star Trek convention etc.), I refuse to be uncomfortable, let alone in pain. If I ever got invited to the Academy Awards, I'd be going in flats. So I ruled out 3/4 of what I looked at/tried on purely on the basis of comfort, because a Bat Mitzvah not only isn't a theatrical event unless you're the celebrant, but generally involves two hours plus in synagogue followed by several hours at a party that includes dancing. Pretty much everyone at this particular Bat Mitzvah comes from an area where dressing to the nines is the norm for such events, so I'm going to be in the cheapest dress there anyway -- why would I want it to be an uncomfortable cheap dress? ( Ranting on clothing. )

( Winter )

I spent a delightful Tuesday afternoon with thistlerose, whom I have known online for many years but never met in person before now, since she has moved to my state! While she was getting herself here, I went out and got us Indian food, which we ate quickly (with help from my cat who wanted to get in our laps) so we could go see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, since she hadn't seen it yet and I agreed to see it again, heee. It was the perfect day for it since my morning started with learning that Gary Oldman had received an Oscar nomination -- a bright spot amidst really boring nominations, mostly for movies I hadn't seen, in which neither Benedict Cumberbatch nor Alan Rickman turned up in the Supporting Actor category. My goal for Oscar night is to watch Colin Firth hand Best Actress to Viola Davis...and if she must lose, let it be to Glenn Close, who is so overdue it isn't funny, even though I haven't seen Albert Nobbs.

Anyway, we spent lots of time at my house after the movie yakking while Rosie attempted to plant herself permanently in thistlerose's lap and trying to decide whether we wanted to watch a movie and talking about our past fandoms. We ended up deciding that we should watch some Voyager, so we watched the generally well done two-parter Year of Hell and then, because I'd been going on about producers who abuse shippers, we watched "Resolutions." It has easily been a decade since I saw it and oddly I enjoyed it quite a bit; all my residual Janeway/Chakotay rage seems to have dried up. apaulled made us all black bean soup and corn bread and Adam told us about his second semester schedule, which he prefers in all ways except that he has all his academic classes in the morning so he can't finish his homework at lunch.

Adam had to watch the State of the Union for his AP Government class, so this year the whole family watched (Daniel was on Gchat). I shall not bother analyzing the speech though I will say that I was impressed with how hard Obama tried to be bipartisan and was therefore surprised by a Republican rebuttal that simultaneously accused Obama of being rabidly partisan while making many of the same exact arguments that Obama did. Sigh. At least Colbert's interview with Maurice Sendak rocked utterly. Here are some photos of one of my favorite aspects of Congress, namely the seagulls that live in the reflecting pool outside of the Capitol Building where Congress convenes:


( DC Birds )

( The World Below the Window )

Sunday was Daniel's last day of winter break and he felt like spending it hanging out and packing rather than going on an expedition and having to rush things later, so we finished off a quiet weekend. Adam had gone to work at Hebrew school and then home with my mother for lunch, so we took Daniel to California Tortilla -- then, since Daniel's laptop bag was ripping, I gave him mine and dragged the rest of the family to the last day of Tiara Galleries' 75% off Vera Bradley sale, where I had valiantly resisted buying the Metropolitan laptop bag during the spring pattern launch and now had an excuse (hey, it was under $25 at 75% off). So now he has a nice sturdy laptop bag (which I got from ngech's place of work a couple of years ago) and I have a pretty one in Buttercup!

We watched most of both thrilling NFL championship games, and though the Ravens-Patriots game did not end the way I wanted, at least it came down to the final 30 seconds (and if the Ravens had to lose, at least they did not lose to Tebow and the Broncos). I rooted for the 49ers but the NFC championship was a very close, very exciting game too, and I'm not sorry the Super Bowl will be a New England-New York rematch. We interrupted the second quarter to watch this week's Downton Abbey, which was okay -- I enjoy the show on a very superficial level, though in a lot of ways I think it's mediocre -- and after the overtime ended we watched a couple of Deep Space Nine episodes since son and I can't do that together again till spring break! Here are some flowers from the conservatory at Longwood Gardens last December:


( Orchids and Lilies )

( The Witch )

I had both kids home on Friday as well as Adam's girlfriend visiting most of the day, so it was a pretty quiet day of me trying to look industrious and failing to persuade them to let me take them clothes shopping (they both need clothes for my niece's Bat Mitzvah next month). The weather reports got worse as the day went on -- first a sleet warning, then a slow warning, and now we have about a quarter inch on the ground with threats of snow continuing on and off for most of Saturday -- so I didn't feel like driving anyway. I posted my review of Deep Space Nine's "Progress" and older son kept linking me to news about SOPA, the Supreme Court copyright decision, Microsoft demanding that the state of Washington legalize gay marriage, Gingrich poll numbers, Obama's support for birth control and various other political issues.

Adam and his girlfriend went out to dinner in downtown Rockville and the rest of us ate with my parents, since older son is headed back to college on Sunday (fabulous Greek food from Ambrosia). Then we came home, fed the cats, retrieved Adam, and watched The Life of Mammals: "Plant Predators" on PBS, which had adorable capibaras and dik-diks and pikas and bats and kangaroo mice. Now we are watching the news, which is forecasting too much snow for some of our preferences and not enough for others. Here are some more photos from the George Washington Masonic Memorial:


( Masonic Pride )

( Funeral Blues )

I was going to keep all my journals silent on Wednesday in solidarity with the internet strike against SOPA and PIPA, but Colin Firth ruined that plan...well, it's not his fault exactly, but his appearances on Craig Ferguson's and Ellen's shows made it necessary for me to follow links to find the video clips. Since I couldn't do much research online or waste much time on the internet, I did a bunch of chores -- rearranged things in my closet, rearranged the DVDs, and folded laundry while watching Voyager's "Remember" since I can watch Voyager for free on Amazon Prime. As I had remembered, it's a very good Holocaust allegory and since there's no Janeway/Chakotay interaction and not a lot of Kate in general, it did not make me want to scream as "The 37s" and "Resolutions" are wont to do.

Evening TV was Harry's Law -- liked the kidneys-for-sale storyline, did not like the Evil Twins. The night before we watched Glee, which I liked less for the storyline than because they let Emma, Mercedes, Santana, and even Tina sing so much more than usual and Rachel so much less, then we watched Sherlock's "The Reichenbach Fall" which I liked better than the other two this season, largely because Freeman's performance was so good, Cumberbatch's wasn't bad but there were so many badly done reaction shots that there was only so much he could do -- ( small spoilers. )

The producers taunting on Twitter that their fans aren't even clever enough to figure out their gimmicks don't endear me in the least, either.

Here are more squirrel photos because everyone loves squirrels and obviously squirrels love each other. Let's call these two Sherlock and John, just to make certain people I know happy. *g*


( Private Investigating )

( Instead of Losing )

We had a fairly quiet holiday Monday after playing local tourists on Saturday and Sunday. We all slept late, and when we got up dementordelta and I spent an hour looking for Golden Globes coverage with hot photos of Colin Firth, suggesting that the fix may have been in for cable television and analyzing why George Clooney is so fascinated by the size of Michael Fassbender's, um, no-hands golf club. Then we went out for an early lunch at Minerva's Indian buffet, where I ate much too much (chana dal, moong dal, some kind of spicy paneer, gulab jamun, rasgulla) but it was very worth it -- Daniel had said he couldn't get really good Indian in College Park and that was the one restaurant he specifically requested.

We had talked about going out to a movie, but after the Golden Globes the one I most wanted to see was The Help, which is already On Demand, so instead we stayed in and ate caramel cheesecake for dessert courtesy Delta and watched that. It was excellent, a very appropriate movie for Martin Luther King Day, and I had expected it to be more grim than it was; I know there are complaints that it filters black women's experiences through a white storyteller, but I thought Aibileen and Minnie came across as more courageous and in some ways more empowered than the much more privileged white women they worked for. And now that I have seen the movie I am quite annoyed that Streep beat out Davis for Best Actress; I'm sure she's an admirable Margaret Thatcher but what in hell does she need another trophy for?

In the evening we watched the Holyroodhouse episode of "The Queen's Palaces," then the DS9 episode in which Sisko realizes that Kasidy may be a Maquis traitor, then Jon Stewart trying to get secret signals from Stephen Colbert about how he should spend his SuperPAC money. Here are some photos from The Forget-Me-Not Factory, Ellicott City's fairy-and-magic emporium with wonderful costumes and beautiful paper goods:


( Fairies and Fantasy )

( Washington's Monument, February, 1885 )

That poem is not about the Washington Monument I visited today, but considering that Walt had a brother named George Washington Whitman I figured it was appropriate anyway. After a quiet morning during which I made PDF files containing the images of my Tarot decks so I can keep them on my Kindle while Adam went to study for his finals with friends, we went to the George Washington Masonic Memorial, which we have been talking about doing for years -- we always see it when we drive into or past Alexandria and after The Last Symbol came out (the memorial appears in it) we said oh, we really should get over there, but it took us till now to do so. The main floor is a lot like the main floor of the Scottish Rite Temple downtown -- lots of marble and huge pillars, and several other floors have reproductions of thrones and items from the Temple of Solomon and the Crusades -- but the lower and middle floors are devoted to George Washington and his history as a Mason, and the ninth floor has an observation deck with spectacular views of Washington, DC.


( Washington the Mason )

I went out to the mall in the early evening because I wanted to get one of the free new Brighton bracelets before the latest promotion ended -- last time they ran out quickly -- then we had shish kebabs and watched the NFL playoffs. All I really cared about was that I not have to hear about how much God loves Tim Tebow again, so even though I'm not particularly a fan of the Patriots, I am delighted that God apparently is. I'm sorry New Orleans didn't win but I like San Francisco well enough, and in any case I hoped to be rooting for the Packers next weekend against the victor. Tomorrow I will be rooting for the Ravens but we will be in Ellicott City with my in-laws, so I am hoping that our usual luck in following their games via mobile holds -- I must confess that my TV priority on Sunday is to watch the Golden Globe Awards with dementordelta!

( The Definition of Love )

I did work and chores on Wednesday morning while Daniel slept late, again, before going out to lunch with my father. Then I spent several hours of the afternoon working on yet another Silly Tarot Project -- this one entirely the fault of dementordelta, for which I thank her heartily -- before Daniel got home (after losing many rounds of poker to my father, apparently) and later Adam. While I folded laundry, we watched two episodes of Deep Space Nine including the Bond parody "Our Man Bashir" which was a big hit.

Paul made sweet potato and chick pea shepherd's pie for dinner, which was delicious, then we watched Harry's Law, which had hyped Erica Durance as a woman who thinks she's Wonder Woman, which sounded like David E. Kelley was planning cracky hilarity. In fact it was a very gritty storyline about spousal abuse and Durance was terrific, though the very end of that storyline was lame...and the other case, about a woman trying to gain custody of a gorilla to keep it from being imprisoned in a zoo, was quite moving too. Here are some more photos of the Baltimore Basilica decorated for Epiphany:


( America's Cathedral )

( The Decorative Airport Fern Is Not What It Pretends to Be )

After weeks of delays because she had car issues, I finally got to see dementordelta! We debated going out to lunch or out to the movies, but we ended up picking up samosas and crepes in the mall after a bit of girly shopping and coming home for a Paul Gross day -- first Passchendaele, which was a lot grittier than I expected (I'd read a review somewhere that the love story was cliched, which I didn't think was the case at all; my only issue was with the heavy handed religious imagery during the battle), then Gunless, which was hilarious (and I didn't even know Callum was in it, that's how uninformed I am).

It snowed all afternoon, though we had only rain forecast and the temperature never got anywhere near freezing -- it only stuck on plants and mulch, not on the street, but though it looked lovely, we got a little nervous late in the afternoon based on the sheer amount that seemed to be falling. However, I convinced Delta to stay and we decided we really needed a New Year viewing of The King's Speech. I would like to report that it is still awesome. In the evening we watched the Windsor Castle episode of The Queen's Palaces on PBS, then the BCS Championship Game. I did not actually care who won the Alabama-LSU game; Alabama is generally one of my least-favorite college teams, but I'm not particularly an LSU fan, they had a home team advantage, and I like things that make the BCS rankings a mess!


( City Squirrels )