On New Year’s Eve we watched The Sound of Music, a movie I watched a lot as a kid but probably hadn’t seen a single time since then.

Things I didn’t understand about the movie as a child:

Why someone as old as the Captain would be looking for a new wife, or why he would be attractive to Maria in any way.

Why the Captain would be cold and emotionally damaged with his children, which I understood was because he was broken by the death of his wife—but then be relaxed and warm and happy with the Baroness and Max. “The children remind him of his wife” seemed inadequate explanation.

The appeal of the Baroness.

Why my mother kept making remarks about how Liesl is more like 29 going on 30.

Why my mother was so annoyed by the near-instant transformation of the terrible naughty children into perfect delightful ones.

Why my mother (a former teacher) was annoyed by the children’s instant and full grasp of the principals and applications of music. Teaching is easy! All you have to do is explain it once and demonstrate it once and that’s all there is to it! Instant gifted musicians!

Why Rolfe is suddenly cold to Liesl after being so sweet to her before.

Alllllllll the Germany/Nazi stuff.

Why singing Eidelweiss at the festival was a big deal, and why the Captain choked up.

Who on earth Max was, and why was he THERE?

Things I didn’t understand about the movie as an adult:

Why the Captain called Maria repetitious in her request for play clothes for the children, when it was her first time asking. (Theory: cut scenes.)

Why the Captain would be cold and emotionally damaged with his children, which I understood was because he was broken by the death of his wife—but then be relaxed and warm and happy with the Baroness and Max. “The children remind him of his wife” seems inadequate explanation.

Why the family hides in the nunnery and then goes out the back door, instead of going out the back door to begin with, or else staying in hiding until the soldiers leave.

Why Liesl’s dress is SO DIRTY when she comes in from the rain. (Paul says “from climbing the side of the house,” but it’s also dirty all over the back.) (Theory: unexpected fabric complications; dyes running, multiple-take mishaps, or whatnot.)

Why Maria gives Liesl something of her own to change into, instead of going (or having Liesl go) to her room to get something of Liesl’s own.

Where Maria’s “he can’t take his eyes off you in that” dress comes from: she didn’t make it from the fabrics she was given, and it’s not something she brought with her.

Why Liesl is not a teenager, but instead a grown woman talking in a breathy baby voice.

Why a nun sings the song about having adventures and following your dreams.

How Maria can be so relentlessly, amazingly perfect in every way, never a single moment of not wanting to fully interact with all those children, never a sharp word or moment of impatience. Just boundless, delightful energy and love, always knowing the right thing to say and do, always interested in teaching and playing and having fun. And the children respond by being absolutely perfect and delightful, and never mouthing off or misbehaving or being cranky, and hanging lovingly on her every word. The teenager consults her for advice, then takes it, then offers words of love and appreciation. DID NO ONE WORKING ON THIS FILM KNOW ANY ACTUAL CHILDREN?

Who on earth Max was, and why was he THERE?

I certainly felt differently about Christopher Plummer’s appeal this time around. Also, the Baroness was a more understandable character to me. As a child, I saw her not only as old but as obviously boring and unpleasant (doesn’t want to PLAY??? not charmed by someone else’s seven children??? obviously she is completely without merit), but as an adult I saw her as charming and pretty, with an understandable desire not to toss a ball around. I appreciated the way the Captain and the Baroness had a warm and affectionate and flirty relationship: I’d expect a movie of this sort to show their relationship as a burden of duty to the Captain and clearly a terrible idea, rather than something that would have been fine.

As for the perfection of Maria, while I was looking at information about the movie and the von Trapp family, I found this:

Far from the sweet and demure woman depicted in the film, Maria von Trapp recalls her stepmother Maria as being moody and prone to outbursts of manic rage. “[She] had a terrible temper. . . . And from one moment to the next, you didn’t know what hit her. We were not used to this. But we took it like a thunderstorm that would pass, because the next minute she could be very nice,” she stated in a 2003 interview.

I immediately felt much more as if Maria were a real person.

I’d forgotten how FUNNY the movie was. I’d remembered liking the songs, but I’d forgotten all the witty dialogue, physical humor, funny facial expressions, etc.

Well! Most of us liked it, and I suspect we’ll watch it again next New Year’s Eve.

This is a letter from Bego, who won the salt tasting kit giveaway and had me send it to a U.S. friend:

Hi Swistle,

Hope you’re doing well!

I have a proposal for you. My boyfriend’s mom gave me an extra present this Christmas with the following note:

“To: Bego, This is NOT A Christmas present. I won it from M&S but it really isn’t my colour. If you like it then keep it. Otherwise pass it on to a friend!”

Well, turns out it’s not really my colour either. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely, lovely coral colour -I’m just not a pink person. So, I wondered if we could do a UK giveaway on your blog since I don’t have one myself? We can do it whenever you feel like it and I’ll happily post it to anybody in the UK only (you know, postal charges etc.).

Pictures attached. The scarf looks pink in the pictures (on my monitor at least) but it’s really more of a coral shade. It might also be worth mentioning that it’s new with tags and hanger and everything.

If it’s not your thing I can ‘just’ give it to someone else. But this would be so much more fun!

Happy New Year!!

Bego

And I agreed, which brings the rest of you up to where we are now. The important things to note:

1. This is a UK giveaway. So if you live in the UK or know someone in the UK to have it shipped to, this one is for you!
2. It’s more coral than pink, even though it looks more pink.

To enter, leave any comment; if you like to have help thinking of something to write, Bego suggests “What were your favourite bits of 2014?” We’ll pick a winner on Monday, January 5th, 2015!

I am stressed because I took Henry for an eye exam (he told us a few weeks ago he couldn’t see the board at school), and his vision is SO MUCH WORSE than we had any idea it was, and also the optometrist gently scolded me for not bringing him in sooner, saying that my delay has cost Henry potential vision: that is, if I’d brought him in sooner, he would have had better vision, but that brain development for vision ends around age 5-6 (Henry is 7), and so even WITH glasses he’ll likely never have 20-20 vision. If I’d brought him sooner, they could have done more. This taps directly into one of my WORST PARENTING FEARS, which is the whole category of preventable catastrophe (aka, “If only…”), so even though I wouldn’t put this under the heading “catastrophe,” I am still all upset.

I don’t want further scolding here, I think that’s clear. And I would say right now I am keyed up to the point where I would interpret agreements such as “Yeah, you’re supposed to bring them in by age one/two/four/whatever” as further scolding—because right now I would hear that as “You should have known (even if you didn’t), so you screwed up.”

I didn’t even want to be scolded the first time, in fact. Our pediatrician starts nagging about the dentist at the 9-month check-up, but hasn’t done the same with vision. The schools do vision screening, so Henry was screened in preschool and in kindergarten and in first grade, but passed all three times. William failed that screening back in elementary school, and when we took him for an eye exam his eyes were 20-25. Henry PASSED AT LEAST THREE TIMES (I don’t know if they’ve done it yet for second grade) and the only part of the eye chart he could see today was the giant E all by itself in the top row. “He should have been wearing glasses for YEARS already,” said the optometrist.

So now he is getting glasses, and even WITH the glasses his eyes will be 20-25 and 20-30. The optometrist said don’t worry, that’s still considered normal range—but Henry is SEVEN. His vision is already not-entirely-correctable at SEVEN. (AND COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER IF ONLY I’D BROUGHT HIM IN SOONER.)

Also, I don’t know what his actual 20-whatever is without glasses. Is there a way to tell from the prescription? The giant E says 20-200, but surely his vision is not 20-200. Surely. I asked the doctor how bad Henry’s vision was, but he misunderstood and told me the -2.75 information instead of the 20-something format I’m used to—or maybe they don’t use the 20-something format anymore. Anyway, do you know if there’s a way to tell from the prescription? I will put it here, in case you know:

R SPH -2.75 CYL -0.25 AXIS 95
L SPH -2.25 CYL -0.75 AXIS 112

I just finished Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel.

(screen shot from Amazon.com)

It’s post-apocalypic fiction, and I really liked everything about it. I liked how she shifted around, in time and between characters, and the way the shifts felt more like a relief than like a distraction or gimmick. I liked the way she built the story, and I liked the connections that were gradually revealed. I liked the particular assortment of story lines. I liked the omniscient stuff, when she’d suddenly tell us that character x would die two days later on the road out of town or whatever. I thought about it whenever I wasn’t reading it. I wanted MORE; I was very sad when it ended.

I can’t even tell you how touched I was by your answers to today’s Christmas polls. Oh, wait, I can totally tell you and it isn’t even difficult: I WAS VERY TOUCHED. I can’t explain why, and actually I can’t. It was just very touching, especially when other people’s answers matched mine, and also I think more of us need Christmas pajamas, don’t you? I mean, what is the deal? I seriously no-kidding thought to myself, “Well, it makes sense that the kids would have them and not us, because WE might change size from year to year.” The children are GUARANTEED TO CHANGE SIZE AND YET THEY HAVE THE CUTE CHRISTMAS PAJAMAS. SOMETHING IS SERIOUSLY WRONG HERE. FOR NEXT YEAR WE WILL FIX IT.

I have a half-developed thought, but it isn’t getting more developed by just sitting around waiting, so I’m putting it here. It started when I was finding myself disappointed by my reaction to Christmas songs on the radio. I think of Christmas songs on the radio as SO SIGNIFICANT and SO PLEASING. So why was it that this year I kind of wanted to see if another station was playing Taylor Swift’s Blank Space instead?

I was mulling this and I thought about how special Christmas Radio was to me, that Christmas when Paul was out of work and I was working, and I would drive home from work in the pitch dark, and the Christmas songs would be playing on the car radio, and the Christmas lights were so beautiful. That is a great memory. The songs and lights were so beautiful.

But they feel different this year, and that’s just how it is. They felt different last year, too, and the year before that, and can we be mathematical and realize that the year I’m thinking of as Christmas Songs Are Transcendentally Wonderful is 2003, before I was even pregnant with the twins, and the twins are now 9? Things change. The year 2003 is the year I Really Felt the Christmas songs on the radio, but that doesn’t mean I’ll feel the same about them in 2014. And indeed I don’t.

This is my basic gist: that the things that feel Important and Memorable about Christmas vary from year to year. I remember another year when the Christmas cards hit peak importance: Paul and baby Rob and I were living with my parents for a few months after moving, and my parents had other plans for Thanksgiving and left us there by ourselves in their house, and we tried to pull things together with deli turkey and bakery buns and a can of cranberry sauce, and it fell really flat. After dinner we put baby Rob to bed in the crib upstairs, and we sat in the living room and watched Cirque du Soleil on TV, and I started on the Christmas cards and felt happy in a way I have NEVER FELT SINCE about working on Christmas cards. But every year I wait for that same feeling.

There was another year that a Christmas Light Drive felt So Awesome. The first year we did a Christmas Light Drive, it was the same year Christmas Cards felt so good. We were living with my parents, and they wanted to go to a Christmas Eve church service, and Paul and I weren’t going to go to that and yet I wanted SOMETHING between “dinner” and “presents.” (My family opens presents on Christmas Eve night. When I was a child, it was “Christmas Eve service” and then “PRESENTS.”) So we decided, on what seems in retrospect like something more important and special than Whim, to go on a drive to see the Christmas lights, just to pass the time and make baby Rob drowsy and have something to do until my parents returned. We’ve done it ever since, but there was a year somewhere in there, after the first year but before now, when it felt a word I don’t feel comfortable using (“magical”). It was so wonderful. I thought, “This, THIS is my favorite part of Christmas.” Every year, I wait for it to feel the same, and it doesn’t. It feels NICE! I’m so glad we do it! But it doesn’t match that one year, whenever it was. Just like nothing matches that year when my whole shift at the pharmacy was improved by knowing soon I would be driving home in the dark listening to Christmas songs.

Another year, the special/important/sentimental element was Christmas TV. I taped (TAPED) on the VCR (VCR) a bunch of children’s TV channel Christmas specials, and I could just weep thinking of them now: Blue’s Clues, with Steve! Little Bill! PB&J Otter! Maisy! That show with a kid named Stanley who liked animals and had some sort of animals book he could travel to other countries with! But do I watch that tape now—or rather WOULD I, if we had a VCR? Well…no. It’s not the same.

One year it was baking. I remember sipping a Cool Proofy Drink in the kitchen while making little plates of assorted treats to hand out. It was so free and improvised! I did what I wanted! I acted on whims! I baked some brownies, and then I made some fudge, and then I dipped some Oreos in melted mint-chocolate chips, and then I made some pretzel-M&M things. It was fun! I was doing my thing! I would do it every year!! …I’ve never done it since.

The most recent example of this is the movie Love Actually. The first year I watched it, I was a little less than fully impressed: I’d heard so much about it, and it was fine, but I had trouble keeping track of the characters. The next Christmas, I watched it again and liked it better now that I knew better who was who. I don’t know which Christmas it was that I felt almost TRANSPORTED by it: third? fourth? But I know it’s never quite been like that again. That was the year I thought, “I will watch this EVERY CHRISTMAS.” And I have. But not to the same effect.

Just as there are highs, there are lows. Last year I watched Love Actually and I was bothered way more than other years by the weird political scene where Hugh Grant stands up to a seedy, molesty American president played by Billy Bob Thornton, and we’re supposed to think less of Natalie because she’s…caught standing close to him. Why is that in a romantic Christmas comedy? And the many, many fatness slams! Beautiful Emma Thompson is the fat wife, even though she’s thinner than most of us. Aurelia has a fat sister (thinner than many of us), who is of course also unpleasant and rude and unmarriageable and acceptable to mock, unlike thin Aurelia: if we saw Aurelia’s fat sister, we’d understand why Aurelia turns down sweets. Eating and not being skinny, GROSS. Aurelia also tells her employer COLIN FIRTH that he’s getting fat. Beautiful wonderful Natalie is three times referred to as fat and/or as having fat thighs. “The chubby one?,” the thin assistant asks, when Natalie’s name is mentioned. Oh, but Keira Knightley, BEAUTIFUL Keira Knightley whose jaw is like a jutting sharpened blade, who looks as if she could and would tear the flesh from your bones! SHE is the obvious feminine ideal!

I wasn’t even going to watch it this year, then. I’d come to terms with Christmas cards being less fun than that one year. I was actively coming to terms with Christmas music on the radio being less magical than it was that one year. But I thought it might be over for Love Actually, until I watched it tonight with a glass of spiked diet Coke and everyone else in the house asleep. I fast-forwarded the political parts (again, what are those doing in a light romantic holiday movie? can we not just watch him dance to Jump for My Love and call it a day, without watching someone’s lying-awake fantasy of what they should have said and how it would have left their opponent speechless?). I re-wound and re-watched the part where Emma Thompson confronts Alan Rickman, and I have more to say about their relationship later, but tonight’s relevant information is that I finally, finally figured out the words Alan Rickman says before calling himself a fool (“I am so in the wrong”). I re-wound the part at the end where everything wraps up to repeated triumphant music themes and the screen starts dividing. And I enjoyed it again, and I plan to watch it again next year.

My point is that different things are wonderful in different years. Some years are Christmas song years. Some years are Christmas movie years. Some years are Christmas card years. Some years are Christmas cooking years. Some years are Christmas shopping years. Some years are Christmas light years, or Christmas book years, or gingerbread house years, or Christmas TV show years, or Christmas family years, or Christmas sitting-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-with-a-fractious-baby-and-feeling-dreamy-about-the-lights years. Things that were wonderful one year night not be wonderful the next year, and they don’t have to be.

Some Christmas polls, for those of us who (1) celebrate Christmas (2) and yet are not doing anything right now. [These don’t seem to come through the RSS feed—must be something to do with the nature of poll-voting.]

[yop_poll id=”7″]

[yop_poll id=”9″]

[yop_poll id=”10″]

[yop_poll id=”11″]

[yop_poll id=”12″]

[yop_poll id=”13″]

I made the mistake of looking at the comments on a YouTube video (WHY? WHY DO PEOPLE DELIBERATELY HAVE THOSE INTERACTIONS WITH EACH OTHER??), but saw something surprising. Someone made a remark, and someone else responded in a way that was quite condescending, “explaining” why the person was wrong and beginning with “Actually…” But then the first person replied to that in a very gracious way, saying she completely agreed and had just expressed herself poorly. To which the second person replied saying he was sorry he had misunderstood. And then several more people made remarks along the lines of “A civil conversation in the YouTube comments??? Is this one of the four horsemen??”

Here is what I was wondering: I wonder if it would work to SEED a comments section with FAKE civil exchanges, in order to steer the tone. I don’t mean “Would it be worth the time and effort?,” because probably not. But I mean COULD it be done? Would it WORK?

I notice, as others have pointed out, that the comments sections on this blog tend to be extremely civil/kind/friendly. I’ve wondered if they are civil because they are civil, if you see what I mean: if someone would feel weird and out of place being rude, since everyone else is being kind. Whereas in a rude, mean, unkind comment section, people feel free to jump right on in and add their proud contribution to the world.

So if someone was having trouble with rude comments, I’m wondering if it might work to put in some fake civil ones. Perhaps put a civil/kind disagreement near the top. If it were worth the effort, I wonder would it WORK? (NOT THAT I DO THAT HERE. AHEM.)

One of the best parts of having a blog, I think, is that if I get stuck on almost ANY topic, there is SOMEONE who will know the answer.

William is taking Spanish 1 this year, and he likes it. He just added “Spanish-English Dictionary” to his wish list, probably not realizing that’s the sort of thing I would have bought him for free. Ha ha, sucker.

What I am wondering is if anyone can recommend a good one. I emailed his Spanish teacher and she recommended the Merriam Webster dictionary. I tried reading the reviews on that one and a couple of alternatives, and it got exhausting: everything from “THIS IS THE ONLY DICTIONARY YOU WILL EVER NEED” to “THIS IS THE WORST POSSIBLE CHOICE,” all on the same book.

William added three clarifying remarks to his request; he wants the dictionary to have:

(1) direct translation
(2) synonyms/antonyms
(3) sample sentences

I don’t know if those are reasonable requests or not. Ack, so last-minute.