Author: Gerry

Categories
Family

Trust Issues

With the Wife away until late this evening, well after the kids were done with school, the lass had to make an important decision: what would she wear to school?

She’d been planning to wear a “cat” outfit consisting of a favorite shirt a cat necklace and cat earrings. The problem was she isn’t proficient enough yet at putting in her own earrings. With the Wife away, that meant she’d have to entrust me with putting her earrings in.

She opted for a different outfit today.

Shockingly, I’m not too offended she didn’t trust me with her earrings.

Categories
Family

Monologuing

The boy made a big show of of stomping off and abandoning his breakfast.

Why did he do that?

It’s really pretty much irrelevant since it could have been anything. The Wife might have asked him if his homework was complete. I might have asked him to feed the animals. The lass exists. He might have dropped a fork. The dog might have farted in his general direction. At this point, it really doesn’t matter because the list of things that could set him off is so long and undistinguished.

Since you probably have to know now, it was my “fault.” He had started trying to tell his sister how to do something and was acting like, well, he was her parent. If there’s one thing the Wife and I have consistently stepped on since he was old enough to develop the delusion of being in charge, it’s that he has no place bossing his sister around. At this point, I can’t even count the number of times I’ve told him not to do it. Yet he persists. This time, convinced of his righteousness after I stepped on him, he stomped off to demonstrate that he was really good at putting his foot down. Literally. Over and over. Even going up stairs.

I finished my egg and sausage breakfast and then went after him. Not like I was shot out of a canon and hell-bent-for-leather, mind you. I wasn’t overly upset because, as I’ve alluded to already, I’ve done this before. It’s hard to get too worked up over the same-old-same-old.

He was waiting at the top of the steps with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. I stopped two steps down from him, where I was still taller than him, and stared him down for a moment. Then I started speaking. No yelling, just a stern talking to and reminder of his place.

Afterwards, I realized that I had been monologuing.

The term was originally conceived for what the bad guys do when they think they’ve got the good guy pinned down and finally defeated. The bad guy reveals all his evil intentions and brags of his superiority and what not, completely unaware that the good guy is taking advantage of the situation so the bad guy can finally be defeated. Watch The Incredibles for some good examples.

Parental situations aren’t quite so dramatic. But they can come close, sometimes.

The basic circumstances are the kids are old enough to have a basic grasp of reasoning and rationale. They’ve typically crossed some parental line that needs to be enforced, but doesn’t necessarily require punishment. Enter, the monologue where the parent takes the child aside and attempts to discourage behavior by explaining why it was unacceptable.

It happens with older kids for a couple of reasons. First, they already know the big things that will definitely get them into real hot water so they avoid those things like the plague. But, there are all sorts of gray areas that arise where they decided to test the waters. I’ve found that many times a situation that ends up with monologuing had a prior history. That is, they’d tested the water previously and there was no repercussions, so they test it a bit more, and a bit more, until finally an undesirable response is generated.

The other reason these areas come up with older kids is because they have developed the smarts to always have some kind of plausible-deniability or rationale to keep them from getting in real trouble. You know, like “My sister started it” or “She was doing this and I was just trying to keep her from doing that” or “He never gets in trouble and you always blame me.”

Now that I’ve realized how often I do it, I’ll have to start keeping some kind of informal tally to track the effectiveness of monologuing. I suspect it will be somewhere in the vicinity of “not very.” But we can always hope.

Categories
Family Notweet

Th Difference a Week Makes

After last week’s shenanigans involving the lass, I thought it worth noting that this week is a complete 180 degree turn. She’s been eagerly doing her homework. She hasn’t been complaining or particularly disagreeable. She hasn’t been fighting with the Wife. She’s basically been a model child.

Next week is gonna suck.

Categories
Family

Maybe Laughter is the Best Course

Today, it was silverware that got the boy’s temper to flare. Certainly, spoons and forks can be difficult. Having to pick them up with your fingers and then manipulate them to put food in your mouth can be pretty tedious stuff. Then doing it over and over again until a meal is complete is just asking for trouble.

Just ask the boy.

He was already a bit sour, likely for a couple of reasons. First, he’d just completed a hockey game, so he was low on energy. Low-energy is always good for weakening the coping mechanisms when things start going bad. He was also upset because his dinner didn’t taste exactly like he expected it to.

So when he dropped his fork on the floor, it was a perfectly reasonable response for him to scream at it and then start stomping around. He eventually picked it up, marched to the sink and slammed the fork into the sink. He certainly taught that fork a lesson. He grabbed another fork out of the drawer and went back to his seat.

Several seconds later, the familiar clatter of silverware hitting the floor rang out. The boy was even more infuriated this time. Once was bad enough, but having it happen a second time seemed to be almost unbearable. He repeated his antics and when he sat down, he put a scowl on his face that could have curdled milk.

And that was when I laughed.

I couldn’t help myself. He was sitting there with a mouthful of food. His face was hovering only a few inches above the plate. He had a death-grip on the fork. His brow was furrowed and he chewed angrily. Frankly, I wouldn’t have believed it possible to “chew angrily” until I saw that face. So I laughed.

My first thought when I did it was it would upset him even further. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the boy wasn’t without a sense of self-awareness though. He saw me laughing and his scowl actually turned into a smile. He tried to look away at that point, but it was too late. Apparently, some part of him realized he’d gone overboard a bit and was now correcting.

Even better, that was it. His rage disappeared and he completed the rest of his meal without incident. I guess once you’ve laughed at yourself, it’s impossible to keep up the pretense of anger at the world. Or silverware.

Categories
Football

Sounds Like Bitter Griping to Me

Saw this item this morning ahead of the Saints and Seahawks and was intrigued.  After reading it, I’m disappointed.

The claim is the Seahawks secondary commits interference or holding penalties on every play and dare the officials to call the penalties.  The big “secret” is they know the zebras won’t make the calls because officials don’t want to be seen determining outcomes of games.

So what’s the evidence?  A bunch of egg-spurt testimony, a couple of bitter OC’s and a dubiously used statistic.

The stat is the Seahawks had 20 pass interference and holding penalties called on them this season, most in the NFL.  I call this dubious since it could simply be that they play aggressive and got called a bunch.  It does not follow that they are breaking rules on every play.

As for the egg-spurts and OC’s, do I really have to mention they’re obvious bias?  Offensive people think the defense commits penalties every play.  Kinda like defensive lineman accuse offensive lineman of holding on every play.

The only way something like this can be made credible is by breaking down every defensive play for the Seahawks, and then every defensive play for every other team.  If the Seahawks have statistically higher occurrences of fouls, then there’s something to the claim.

Short that, it’s just sour grapes in a pass happy league from parties used to getting there way.

Categories
Family

The Boy Follows Suit

The boy’s greatest enemy is himself. He isn’t self-aware enough to realize it yet.

He was working on his laptop going through the chapters to write a new program from his book. He had already worked through a bunch of minor problems with his code, basically stuff that he didn’t copy correctly from the book onto his computer. So by his standards, he was ahead of the game. Not having gotten so frustrated that he started getting mad at his computer.

It was shortly after that when the computer started giving him a little trouble. He was trying to save his file and the computer wasn’t responding as quickly as he expected. His frustration started building and I told him to just give it a minute. Unfortunately, he couldn’t contain himself.

The Wife told him to walk away at that point and that was when he snapped at her. I snapped back at him in turn. The Wife remained calm and tried to say something else. She never got to finish her comment because the boy rudely cut her off, assuming he knew what she was going to say.

That was when his compute privileges were revoked.

Things continued to get worse for him. He was mad because he felt we were being unfair to him. He didn’t understand what he’d done, he claimed because all he did was “say something.” He accused me of not listening to him. Finally, he attempted to stomp off up to his room.

He eventually calmed down, but he didn’t get his computer privileges reinstated.

For the now, his temper continues to be his greatest weakness. He makes all kinds of poor decisions under its influence including yelling at us, smart mouthing us and generally displaying an inability to contain himself. To some extent it has to do with his age, but it’s also a part of him as well. The Wife and I have to keep that in mind while he sorts out how to deal with it.

Categories
Family

The Lass’ Difficult Week (So Far)

Perhaps it’s because it’s the first full week back from Christmas vacation. Perhaps it’s because it’s been so cold. Perhaps it’s because there’s not enough snow on the ground.

Whatever the reason, the lass has been a royal pain in the ass this week.

It begins with complaining about “nothing to eat for breakfast.” This is after she eliminates eggs, sausage, waffles, bread, peanut butter and cereal. Perhaps our morning selection is a bit thin by restaurant standards, but she’s complaining to a guy that’s been eating eggs and sausage for breakfast every day for the past 15 months or so. I’m not terribly sympathetic and at 6:30 in the morning, neither is the Wife.

It continues with complaining about all the personal hygiene stuff. She doesn’t want to comb her hair. She doesn’t want to brush her teeth. She doesn’t want to do anything that she deems as inconvenient, which can be anything depending on which direction the wind is blowing that morning.

Life doesn’t get easier when she returns from school. She doesn’t want to do her homework. It’s stupid and boring, or boring and stupid for a variation. She doesn’t like practicing her math. She doesn’t like to do her reading and the writing is dumb. Come dinner time, she typically hates whatever it is.

So yesterday, she returned home from school with her brother whom sat down and started playing with his laptop. The lass immediately began hanging all over him. I let it slide initially, but then the two of them started yelling at each other while I was on the phone and I had to interrupt my phone conversation to shut them down. The women on the other end, when I resumed our conversation, said “Wait until their teenagers.” I retorted “They may not make it that far.”

Shortly after I got off the phone, there was more bickering. Fed up, I looked over and once again the lass was hanging all over her brother while he was trying to work on his computer. I told her to get away from him and go find something to do. She huffily planted her fanny on the couch, put on a grimace and growled “I don’t want to do anything else.”

“If I have to separate you again, you’ll go spend time in the corner, then the rest of the evening in your room,” was my reply. I turned my attention back to what I had been working on and left her there on the couch.

Less than 30 seconds later, the boy is screaming at her to get off of him. I looked over and sure enough, she’s literally sitting on top of him again.

“Alright,” I announced. The lass whirled around at me, eyes wide and went immediately to the couch. “I guess you thought I was joking, so now I have to show that I meant it.” She started crying as I took her to the corner.

I completed what I had been doing and then started working to get some dinner going. I kept tabs on the lass to make sure she wasn’t cheating on her stint in the corner. After about 15 minutes, I sent her to her room. She stomped upstairs.

She came back down for dinner where she frowned at what I put in front of her. She ate it though, without any comments. After she finished, she grabbed some reading and went back upstairs.

I checked in with her a bit later and her general attitude was much improved. I tried to talk to her about what’s been bugging her. There was no illumination to be had, she simply rehashed that she though everything at school was boring. Before I left, she offered me her math flash cards and I went through them with her. As I left, she asked “Dad, can I come downstairs for a little while?”

I softened my tone, but was unyielding “I’d like to kiddo, but I told you what would happen and I meant it. I don’t know why you insist on being so difficult this week, but its finally caught up with you tonight.”

She then tried to blame her brother for whining and getting her in trouble. I knew this was coming and was ready for it. “Your brother did not make you come and sit on top of him. I did not warn your brother about consequences- I warned you, clearly. You either forgot them or chose to ignore them. It’s one thing if you had been standing behind him, not even touching him. You were literally sitting in his lap. The only one at fault here is you.”

She was silent at that. No comebacks. No arguing. No “but but but’s.” I left her there in her room.

The lass came downstairs this morning. She put her lunch together. She made her mother breakfast (eggs) and herself breakfast. Cereal with strawberries. She got dressed without complaint, brushed her teeth without being told and combed her hair without complaining. She even emptied the dishwasher without having been asked.

Newly reformed? Or rebounding from her low last night?

I know which way I’m betting.

Categories
Family Notweet

The Bat Who Couldn’t Fly

The following is a short story the lass wrote for homework today. As always, I have endeavored to reproduce the story in it’s original form as written by the lass.

Once there was a bat named Bruce who was scared to fly because he was afraid of heights. One day his mother said Bruce had to fly to find his own food because he was old enough. He didn’t want to but his mom had some advice for him. She told him not to look down. Bruce went to the entrance of the cave that night. He ran, then jumped and then flapped his wings hard to fly! From that day on, he never looked down again.

Categories
Family

Learning About Teamwork

A few weeks back, the boy had a shift on the ice with his house league hockey team. One particular shift was telling, as it was clear from the moment he got on the ice for that shift that he didn’t want to be in that position.

He prefers defense. He’s thinks he’s pretty good at it. Personally, I’d rate him at probably a bit lower than he himself does, but that’s OK. More importantly, because of his own impressions, he tries hard when he’s out there and he tries to get better at playing defense.

So when the coach sent him out to play right wing for a shift, he responded predictably: he didn’t try very hard.

After that game, I asked him about that shift and he said the coach wanted him to try it out. He quickly added “I don’t like offense though, I’m not very good at it so I didn’t try very hard while I was out there.”

“Well, that much was obvious,” I recall replying at the time.

I wasn’t referring to him not being good. I was referring to him not trying. Rather than hammering yet again on how he should be doing his best whenever he can, I opted for the team approach. Namely, that he’s on a team and they are counting on him to try his hardest when he’s out there. If he doesn’t, he may miss an opportunity to help the team out or worse, his lackadaisical approach might result in a score for the other team because he wasn’t in position or skating hard for the puck.

He didn’t appear overly impressed with my impromptu lesson. I can’t say I’m surprised. In general, there seems to be a selfishness to the average 9 year old that is tough to crack. It can be set aside for short durations and the boy is as good as any at being surprisingly generous. But it quickly resurfaces, especially when siblings are involved.

One more life lesson for him to learn.

Categories
Misc

Watch Boiling Water Vaporize Instantly

On Saturday, when it was -8 degrees Fahrenheit in the morning when we all got up, I tried to show the boy what happens to boiling water when it’s cold enough. I loaded boiling water into a cup and then went outside and tossed it in the air. About half the water vaporized, and the rest plopped down onto the deck where it froze a moment later. Not quite the effect I was after. As cold as it was, it wasn’t quite cold enough.

This guy, on the other hand, had -41 degree Celsius (about -41 Fahrenheit, interestingly enough) temps to work with and came up with a rather nice twist on presentation:

The video author writes:

Woke up to a balmy -41C this morning in South Porcupine, ON. Thought I’d share what happens when you mix boiling water and a water gun and take it outside for a few shots.

The boy liked it too.

(Hattip: Watts Up With That?)

Categories
Family

Sometimes You Have to Retrain Yourself

One thing the boy has hated to do consistently for a long, long time is shopping. Doesn’t matter what kind of shopping it happens to be, even if the trip might potentially benefit him, he hates it. It started when he was very young where he would grouse and complain and generally try to make life as miserable as possible.

For a long time, it worked. We wouldn’t take him on any kind of shopping trip unless circumstances dictated he must go. It was one of those fights we just didn’t want to have.

In other words, we fed the monster.

Just how much we fed the monster became apparent today when we took him on a bulk-grocery run. We knew we were in for trouble from him, so we didn’t even bother to tell him where we were heading. That worked to give us a quiet ride to the store, but once there and he realized what we were doing, his mood turned quickly.

He refused to get out of the car at first and even asked if he could stay in the car. I made a snap decision to have him push the grocery cart. He would push it forcefully forward and just let it roll. He kicked the slushy snow. He almost pushed the cart into another car. When we got into the store, he simply walked away from the cart.

When the Wife went over to take over, I had had enough. I informed her the boy would be doing it and told her to leave it alone. I then used my most menacing tone to make sure the boy knew I wasn’t messing around. I felt it necessary and it was the only time I’d recognize his poor attitude.

He still wasn’t done though. He resumed pushing the cart, but he would run into his sister intentionally. He would just haphazardly meander through an aisle an inconvenience other shoppers.

The Wife had ventured on ahead, intentionally. She knew what he was doing and didn’t want to be tempted into yelling at him. I watched all of his antics and did my best to ignore him, though the temptation was great.

It was during this that I realized the mistake we’d made. By letting him dictate to us using his attitude as weapon what he could participate in him, we’d created a problem for ourselves. The funny thing is, this is such a fundamental lesson I’m aware of with kids, I’m surprised we missed it with him.

So the Wife and I, having recognized our error, will be working to correct it going forward. As a general rule, there are plenty of things that need be done which are also not enjoyable. Laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, and most any household chore are all no fun, but we as adults know they have to be done and we can’t simply wish them away without paying for it in some fashion. That concept is fundamental to life and the boy must be made to learn and heed it.

Categories
Misc Notweet

Cool Grill Design

Via Instapundit, a cool grill design for campers. The “grill” portion rolls up and the stakes are the only other component for the system. Read the article for the gist of setup steps, but the entire design is just dead simple. It wouldn’t take up any space when packing and who doesn’t start a campfire when camping? Very nicely done.

Categories
Misc

3 Counter-Intuitive Observations for Burning Wood

With temps around 12 outside right now, it’s about 75 in the house and about to get warmer. I’ve just put a new load of wood in the fireplace to make sure the cold stays outside.

It occurs to me that running a wood fireplace is not necessarily an obvious thing. I had a bit of a learning curve from when I first got it 6 or 7 years ago. In that time, it’s easily saved us thousands of dollars in heating costs. Our oil tank only gets filled about 3 times a year and of those times, only the fall fill-up is a big one because the April fill-up lasts until about November when there’s only a few gallons left in the tank. The fill-ups we typically get in January and April are just toppers because our fireplace heats the whole house.

Our fireplace is a 75,000BTU model. It has a blower for a heat exchanger and a single air-flow control rod to control the burn. It is designed with airflow tubes across the top of the fire-chamber to achieve a secondary burn of the gases of the wood as they burn. When everything is running right, and hot, no smoke comes out the chimney because it all burns inside the fire chamber. Properly run, I can go 8 hours between wood loads, as the literature says. Though when it’s real cold outside, I find it better to load more frequently.

This model has no grate for setting the wood on. The firebox is lined top, bottom and sides with firebrick so the wood sits on a flat surface while burning. In order to get airflow around the wood to promote a good burn, a little care has to be taken when loading wood. First and foremost, do not just set the logs on top of the coals. This arrangement provides for no airflow around the wood and will smother the coals. The result will be wood that basically smoulders and delivers little heat and a lot of smoke with no secondary burn.

The simplest arrangement I’ve found is to push the coals into a pile into the middle of the firebox, trying to separate the ash off to the sides (or removing it entirely if there’s a build up). Then, place a pair of smaller logs on either side of the coals. Finally, push a couple of logs on top of the other logs and try to provide for an air gap between the coals and the wood. This is basically a log-cabin arrangement and it will burn very well with NO maintenance or futzing about with the wood for it’s entire burn cycle. Depending on the size of the logs, a third, cross-layer of wood can be placed on top of the second layer.

Which brings me to my first counter-intuitive observation of burning wood: quantity does not equate to peak-heat. That is, more wood does not mean that the fireplace will get hotter. It means it will deliver whatever peak heat is attained for longer. The peak heat is controlled mostly by the type of wood burned. It’s also controlled somewhat by the airflow control.

Which brings up the second counter-intuitive observation of burning wood: less airflow means more heat. There are 2 reasons for this. The first is that letting less air into the firebox means less cold air in the firebox to cool things down. The second is that it promotes more smoke from the wood, which ignites in the secondary burn and provides more heat. When I’m running the stove at it’s best, the airflow is closed down at least 3/4 of the way. How far airflow can be closed down depends on the type of wood, how well it is seasoned and how cold it is outside.

Oak, maple, birch and ash are generally all good burning wood. At least, those are the ones I have the most experience with. Birch burns the hottest, followed by maple, oak and ash. The longer any of these wood types has been seasoned and the colder it is outside, the more the airflow control can be closed down because the heat in the firebox will promote a natural draft that will pull in enough outside air to maintain an optimal burn.

A third counter-intuitive observation of burning wood is that more wood does not necessarily mean a warmer house. Here’s the thing: if I load the fireplace to it’s maximum volume and allow that to burn, I’ll get a long burn at peak heat. But I’ll then have a long period of time (up to several hours!) after peak heat where there are hot coals to burn off before enough room is available to fit another load of wood. Depending on how cold it is outside and how well insulated the house is, the house will being cooling off at some point after the stove naturally begins cooling down from peak heat. If there is a long time to burn off the wood coals that remain after peak heat, the house will cool off quite a bit.

Therefore, in order to keep the house at it’s warmest possible, I have to load enough wood such that peak heat can be attained and the house warmed, and the wood be consumed enough that another load can go in before the house cools down too much. This means it’s actually better to load slightly smaller logs more often (ideally every 3 to 4 hours) into the fireplace. This is why I’ve also found it better, from a burning standpoint, to have more smaller logs on hand than larger ones. Something to keep in mind when splitting cord wood.

How hot is peak heat? From the blower perspective (which is what does the lion’s share of house heating) the air is too hot for me to keep my hand in front of the blower for more than a moment. I measured it around 200 degrees with a temp probe. Usually, the door temperature is around 350 degrees Fahrenheit at that point. It doesn’t take a lot of that heat to warm a house significantly.

Stay warm out there.

Categories
Misc Notweet

The Cold Begins

As I type this, it’s 7 degrees outside with wind chills below 0. Tomorrow’s high is supposed to be around 10 before the bottom falls out and we go below 0. Oh, and it’s snowing too. Lovely weather this time of year.

Fortunately, we’ve got fire and warmth in the house. The kids are sleeping after a half-day of school after their 11 days of Christmas vacation. School has already been cancelled for tomorrow, which makes for 2 weeks with only 4 hours of schooling or so. With the cold it’s hard to say how much they’ll be able to enjoy the snow though. The boy is already grousing that the snow will fall but then it will melt before he can have any fun in it. He’ll be right eventually, of course but for the moment the snow won’t be going anywhere.

This particular storm is getting a lot of attention because of the cold. Most of the news has been wall-to-wall storm, with what seems like minute-by-minute updates. It would be easy to forget we live in New England- you know, an area of the country somewhat renowned for it’s cold weather. Stories about the predictions and the Governor’s plans and the road crews and the weight of the snow and every other conceivable detail.

Anyway, it’s cold outside.

Categories
Misc

Happy New Year!

May all your New Year’s dreams come true.

And this post of mine,
Which is right on time,
Wishes you and yours,
The same thing too…

Categories
Misc Notweet

Creatures of Habit

TWANG TWANG

Around 8 o’clock each night, the cat makes his daily appearance. He comes down the stairs and sits his butt down at the front door. If no one notices him in what he considers a timely fashion, he starts to yowl. Someone, one of the kids, myself, the Wife, eventually lets him outside.

TWANG TWANG

A couple hours later while sitting on the couch, I hear him. Or, more precisely, I hear him scratching at the screen. The dog reacts by starting to bark. I react by getting annoyed. I hate him poking at the screen. On occasion, I’ve sat here with the window opening and a squirt bottle. When I’d hear him scratching at the screen, I’d let him have it with the bottle. Another time, I let the dogs out to chase him.

TWANG TWANG

Neither has stopped him. I’ve come to accept that he’ll do it each night.

I don’t let him in via the screen door anymore though. He won’t always come in that way, which is even more annoying than the scratching at the screen. Now, I go to the front door and call him. After a couple seconds, I can hear the jingle of his bell as he jogs around to the front of the house from the back. He comes up onto the porch and waits for me to pick him up.

I do so, and bring him in the house. Upon opening the door, the dog is waiting for me. He knows what I’ve gone outside to do and the cat is a constant source of temptation for him. I bark at him to back off and leave the cat alone and he slinks off to a safe observing distance. He knows where the cat is going and he contents himself that he’ll get his opportunity.

Sometimes I let the cat go right there and he’ll scamper up the stairs to safety from the dogs. Sometimes I’ll escort him to his food and water bowl. It’s the only variation in our routine.

He’ll load up on food, and then do some exploring through the house. Eventually, he’ll find his way upstairs onto our bed where he’ll fall asleep. He’ll wake up eventually, and then make his daily appearance.

Categories
Football

That Was Appropriate

If it weren’t so believable, it would be unbelievable.

The Cowboys, without Tony Romo, just threw and interception to basically end their season. It’s just amazing how this team manages to to cough it up so regularly in game-determining situations. Another 8-8 year and no playoffs.

Categories
Misc

Um- no

A somewhat intriguing link at Instapundit: 11 ‘Girly’ Things Men Wish They Could Do Without Judgment.

Having read through the list, I can’t say that I identify with wanting any of these things. The only item that comes close is the one about kids. But then, I’m not too worried about what other people think when it comes to me and the kids. So it doesn’t really apply in my case.

All the other things strike me as silly, frankly. Of course, the creators of that list would likely say that’s the problem. To which I’d reply- no, they’re the problem, and not the fact that they want to do these things. If they want to do those things, then just DO them! Don’t expect me not to think it a bit odd because it’s outside the norm, though- that pretty much defines “odd.” Besides, defying social stigmas is all the rage nowadays- these guys should just let there inner-whatever show.

Categories
Misc

Frozen

The lass spent the whole movie giggling excitedly. The boy spent the whole movie wiggling uncomfortably.

That’s probably the best way to sum up Frozen. It’s called a movie, but I thought it was more a musical than movie by the time it was all done. The first half the characters were breaking into song every 5 minutes or so. It slowed down some in the second half, but there was still plenty of spontaneous eruptions of song.

Which isn’t to say I disliked it. I just didn’t expect so much of it to be told with music. As for the story, the main shortcoming I could come up with was how the loss of the girl’s parents was dealt with. That is to say, it wasn’t. They simply were there for about 20 minutes, and then gone- never to be addressed or spoken of again. Seemed kind of odd given that the girls were supposedly so close to them but then never grieved for them. Not to worry too much though- the 20 minutes they are in the movie is long enough to lay the ground work for what happens in the rest of the movie.

The movie’s strongest point is the ending. The “act of true love” which is needed to resolve the story is setup quite nicely. As a Disney movie, everyone is led to believe it will be one thing. What it actually becomes is much more satisfying and in keeping with the overall heart of the story- the relationship between the two sisters.

Sprinkle in comedy relief from Olaf and Sven, and there’s plenty of story and entertainment for everyone. Except, apparently, for the boy who claimed he didn’t like it. It was almost as comical watching him wiggle in his seat during the “kissy” scenes as listening the lass squeal with delight at Olaf’s goofiness. Disney did a nice job of adding a new twist on their “Princess” canon.

Categories
Family

The Lass Breaks Through

Let the record show that on this day, the 26th of December in the year 2013 of our Lord, the lass finished her first chapter book. It was a kid’s version of Frozen, the current Disney movie out in theatres and was about 125 pages long.

After her victory, she did not declare that she’d be going to Disneyworld. She did ask when she could see the movie though.