Netflix, Listen to Me

I really shouldn't express my political views in public too much so I'm not going to tell you what we watched via streaming C-Span last night. I'm not going to tell you about how inspired I felt. Nor am I going to tell you that we read The Daily Show's live twitter feed while watching what we were watching and that I now think this one of the best ways to watch what we were watching (you get a nice juxtaposition between inspiration and humor). Finally, I'm not going to tell you that I totally wish that I could be a writer for someone who does the thing we watched last night. (I have always harbored a desire to writer for that kind of thing--I eat that stuff up and I think I'd be great at it. Maybe when I retire).

Instead, I'm going to lobby for a new Netflix rating system. The current system allows you to rate movies you've watched with one to five stars that correspond to opinions from "hated it" to "loved it." These are inadequate. I want an option for "didn't finish it." It could be a special option for tired parents of young children. Here's the problem: I don't watch my movies from Netflix until after the whole night-time routine of child maintenance is completed: this includes feeding, bathing, wrangling into pajamas, nagging until teeth are brushed, reading a bedtime story, filling the water bottle, and completing negotiations worthy of a G8 summit on precisely what level of light will be left on and for how long.

I frequently get movies from Netflix that I am actually interested in watching, we'll use the recent flick "Into the Wild" for demonstration purposes, but which require just a little more mental functioning than say "Legally Blond." So I sit down to watch "Into the Wild" and I find it interesting. And I can admire the skill in dialogue and cinematography and unique story telling that is in this movie. But....I can't keep my eyes open. I decide to go bed. The next evening, the momentum is gone and I can't bring myself to watch the rest of the movie. I enjoyed it, but I know the dude is going to die at the end and that kind of puts the chill on wanting to watch the rest. I then send the movie back to Netflix. And this is where the rating system breaks down.

One and two stars on the ratings system correspond to "hated it" and "didn't like it." Well, these are inaccurate because I actually liked what I saw of the movie.

Stars three, four, and five correspond to "liked it," "really liked it" and "loved it." Again not accurate. The movie's inability to keep me engaged past my bedtime is an indication that I probably didn't "really like it" or "love it," because if I had, I would have stayed up to finish it. I can say that I "liked" what I saw, but because I didn't see the whole movie, I can't really endorse it with a "like." I mean, what if the ending was total crap? I don't want my whole Netflix recommendation algorithm to be skewed by a movie that actually didn't deserve all three of my stars.

Hence, I need the sixth option "didn't finish it." This is the most accurate way for me to rate "Into the Wild" and other such films. Netflix could then use this rating to from me and others (probably other parents of young children) to generate a list movies "most unlikely to be finished." They could make a whole suggestion category for me titled "movies you might love if you can stay awake." I think this idea is brilliant. Netflix, you're welcome, and I'm looking forward to that big fat check you're going to send me for revolutionizing your ratings system.

The 3 in 1 Post

Update 1: Kindergarten

Garion has now completed a full week of kindergarten and Moses and I are ready for vacation. That would be grown-up vacation, not family vacation. I think that Garion has been doing well in school, but he's been a total pill when he gets home. The highlight was a 2 hour screaming fit a week ago Saturday morning. I am not exaggerating, it lasted from 7:30 in the morning until 9:30. The highpoint was Garion lying on floor in upstairs hallway repeatedly screaming at the top of his lungs "I'M DYING!!!! IF YOU DON'T BRING ME WATER RIGHT NOW, I WILL DIE!!!!!!" My windows were open at the time and I was fully expecting the police to come knocking on our door. If fact, I was almost wishing that they would because then maybe the little fiend would quit screaming.
In response, Moses and I have decided to adopt a new parenting tactic inspired by the Warden of the United States Penitentiary in Tucson. While touring the penitentiary a couple of years ago, before it opened, the Warden explained to our group that the prison includes a lot of things like an indoor basketball court, weight room, and game room, because the more privileges inmates have, the more corrections officers can take away when they need to. So our little inmate now has the daily privilege of watching a half hour of something like Mr. Rodgers' Neighborhood or Arthur (we stole that idea from a co-worker of mine whose wife teaches kindergarten-thanks Richters!) if he can get through the day without tantrums or other unruly behavior. He gets one warning before he loses his privilege for the day. So far, this has been working well and I'm looking forward to a little more sanity around here. I still love Monday though.

Update 2: Imogene Training, also known as Preparing for My Doom

I've been training all summer for the Imogene Pass Run by gradually increasing my running mileage during the week and going for a longer hike on the weekends. This weekend, my brother offered to let me tag along on a long hike he and his wife were doing. By long, I mean like 20 miles. He said they'd take slow and not push it. I am an optimistic idiot and so I said okay.

Turns out that when he said "take it slow" there were actually two possible interpretations, neither of which occurred to me at the time I asked to go along on this hike: (1) the 8 year age difference between us is enormous and his definition of "slow" equals my definition of "blistering"; or (2) I was welcome to take it slow and if I took too long he'd call the mountain rescue to go look for my body, or the leftover pieces of it, and send it back to our mom and Moses for a proper burial.

We set out Saturday morning about 8:00 and after about 15 or 20 minutes of hiking we were on a nice rolling trail in gorgeous woods. I have fallen on just about every hike I've taken this summer, so as I was going along I was thinking to myself, "okay, got to watch out for these tree roots." Then, I thought "wow it's really pretty here." Then, SMACK! Oh, tree root. I was flat on my face and had scraped up both knees (remember that injury from last summer? yeah, all scraped up again) and my elbow. It was my most spectacular fall of the season. There was blood. So that was about a mile into the hike, with only 19 or so more to go. (I was covered in dirt after my fall--Lisa said I looked more "seasoned" and Robert said "good to get it out of the way early.")

I let my brother go ahead of me and watched the distance the between us grow. The monologue in my head went something like this: "huff, puff, huff, puff. must keep family in sight. have bad trail finding abilities. do want to get stuck on mountain by self. do not want to look too wussy. dang, can't even see Lisa. she is totally fit. wish I could run on trails without falling. can't even think in complete sentences. trail going to get really hard soon. huff, puff, huff, puff."

I persevere. I keep going despite the fact that my legs are ON FIRE and that I'm clipping along at a pace that I rarely achieve on my own. I finally get to the high spot in the trail (Doyle Saddle) where we're stopping for lunch, and I come up to my brother and his wife, who are waiting for me.
My brother says to me: "you're in pretty good shape, I couldn't shake you at all."
Me: "where you trying to?"
Robert: "yeah" (as in duh.)
Me in my head: well SHIT!, if I'd known that I wouldn't have just killed myself the last 10 freaking miles. I contemplate hitting my brother but instead say nothing in favor of pretending that yeah, of course I can keep up, whatever.

We slug along from this high point to the next high point--another three or four miles and I decide the only way I'm going to make it is to just ignore the pain, I just will pretend like this is how my legs always feel, and just keep going. Probably we're high enough at this point that oxygen deprivation is contributing my ability to delude myself into ignoring pain. We got to Humphrey's saddle just as some clouds and thunder started to roll so it it was now imperative to get down off of the mountain and at least into the tree line. My legs are totally shot by this point and I fess up to Robert and Lisa and tell them that I'll be descending very slowly. They take the car keys and that's the last I see of them until I get back to the trail head. I no longer think that the hardest part about Imogene will be the uphill. I think it's the downhill that's going to kill me--good to find that out now I guess. I managed to get down without falling again (although I did have a couple of nasty slides, but not nasty enough to go all the way down). The rain started in my last half mile. Then the hail started--that was extra special. Robert and Lisa said that the bad weather means I got the full Imogene training experience. I guess that means I'm ready. Imogene in two weeks--woohoo! Bring it on! (That's me trying to muster excitement rather than dread).

Update 3: Life in Flagstaff

I love Flagstaff. I actually love it more than I thought I would when we were still in Tucson and contemplating moving back. Probably this is because it is summer and the weather is fantastic and probably I'll be moaning about snow and cold in a couple of months. But right now, I am completely smitten. I love the small town, the mountains, hiking (even when it hurts), living closer to family (even my brother who tried to ditch me), I love the way people up here dress and are all outdoorsy in their different ways, and I love the laid back attitude. I am as happy as a clam. A high-altitude clam with really sore legs.

First Day of Kindergarten

Yesterday was Garion's first day of kindergarten. We took this photo yesterday morning--a handsome little man if I do say so myself. And not a baby or toddler or even preschooler anymore. Snif. Garion was so excited that he was up, dressed, and had breakfast eaten by 6:45. He did great and seemed to enjoy the day and I managed to not completely fall apart.
Then last night I made the mistake of not placing Garion's backpack downstairs after I emptied it. That meant this morning it was not where he was expecting to find it and the world essentially ended. After a big break down, he said kindergarten was too confusing and he wasn't going anymore. I suspect this is because he did not want to take the bus this morning (which was another disaster that ended with Moses driving him to school). He's supposed to take the bus home this afternoon and I'm supposed to meet him at the bus stop. So yeah, I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that that all works out today and trying not to be sick thinking about my little boy taking the bus when he's afraid to. I guess that Garion is learning resiliency, and I guess that's a good thing. But man is it hard on the mom end of things--I so want to jump in and save the day but I can't because I know if I do he'll never learn to do anything and he'll be one of those kids who never learns to cope. I'm hoping day two was better once he got to school and that next week we can start over again and pretend that this morning never happened.

Election '08

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

This post is offered as a public service and should not be construed as an endorsement of any of the three major presidential candidates.

Book-y Things

I'm happy to report that Garion and I have nearly survived our week together, and things have settled down nicely. We only have one more weekend to get through, but we've got a visit to Grandma and Grandpa's house planned, so I think we'll make it.

You might recall that I am, in theory, participating in the Book a Month challenge. You might also have noticed that I haven't posted on that topic since May. Here's my excuse: it's summer and I want to read what I want to read. Yes, I know, you've heard it before. This is my half-hearted shot at compliance for June and and July. June's theme was "Knowledge." I intended to read In God's Name: An Investigation Into the Murder of Pope John Paul I by David Yallop. This book was recommended to me by my Mom and since it's non-fiction, I kind of thought it fit the June theme nicely. The problem with this book is that it's depressing. It posits, quite convincingly, that Pope John Paul I (the immediate predecessor of Pope John Paul II) was murdered, probably by other higher-ups in the church who didn't like his liberal ideas on birth control, women as clergy, etc., and who were also not happy that JP was wising up to some very unethical money practices in the church. This is depressing because: (1) I think Pope John Paul I was totally my kind of guy, the kind of pope I think the church needs to pry it out of narrow-minded rut; and (2) the leaders of the institution to whom you turn for spiritual guidance are not supposed to be knocking people off just because they disagree with them. Anyway, I didn't finish the book because I was just getting more and more depressed.

July's theme is "Independence." I haven't really chosen a book specifically for July, but right now I'm reading Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson. After getting lost on a K2 expedition, Mortenson is nursed back to health by people in a remote village on the India/Pakistan border. He sees their tremendous need and decides to repay their generosity by building a school. That's as far as I've gotten, but I'm enjoying the book immensely and it's topic is much more enjoyable and uplifting than pope-icide.

So what have I been doing while not living up to my Book a Month obligations? I've been wiling away most of the summer reading Diana Gabaldon's The Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, and Voyager. These are completely addicting, wildly entertaining, and reasonably well written. Escapism at its best.

Also, lest you think I've forgotten the Short Stack: this week's theme, courtesy of the Washington Post, is "Five Novels So Cold You'll Forget the Heat." Let me see if I can come up with five:

(1) Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson. Here's the Amazon description which nicely sums up the book, and I'm too lazy to write myself:
Set on an island in the straits north of Puget Sound, in Washington, where everyone is either a fisherman or a berry farmer, the story is nominally about a murder trial. But since it's set in the 1950s, lingering memories of World War II, internment camps and racism helps fuel suspicion of a Japanese-American fisherman, a lifelong resident of the islands. It's a great story, but the primary pleasure of the book is Guterson's renderings of the people and the place.
Also, the book takes place in winter and it's really, really cold.

(2) The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier. This book imagines a life after death where after you die, you live in a sort of city of the dead where you stay as long as someone alive still remembers you. The book jumps between this city and Antarctica (which is really, really cold), where we watch the struggles of Laura, who by a weird turn of events becomes the last living human. This is a really good, thought provoking (but not in a way that makes your head hurt) book.

(3) The Mitten by Jan Brett. I have read this book probably a thousand times in the last five years. Because I love it? No. Because I am some body's mom and I cannot get his literature preferences out of my head. This book stars Nicky who goes out to play on a snowy day, loses his mitten (despite a warning from his Babba not to--typical boy), and unlikely shenanigans ensue.

(4) The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb. This is a long, epic series of fantasy novels that, along with two other related trilogies, totally absorbed my reading life toward the end of 2005 and early 2006. A few years ago, I wouldn't cop to reading fantasy novels to anyone outside my immediate family. But since I've already confessed to you that I've read this book, you might as well have the whole story. Anyway, this trilogy makes the list because, although the books span several years and seasons, I think the author evokes winter and all its frigid harshness particularly well.

(5) Cryptonmicon by Neal Stephen. Just kidding! I associate this book most with sweltering jungles so it definitely doesn't qualify for the list. I just can't come up with a fifth book right now.

Your turn, I'm ready--hit me with your icy blasts of cold, chilly reads for the summer heat!