Epiphanies

Went to see “Waitress” which was directed and written by Adrienne Shelly with Cathy and Windy.   Was pretty good.  It’s essentially a romantic comedy about a wife who is trapped in a marriage with a man who is totally obsessed with her who she feels nothing for.  He’s a controlling husband who stifles her and she craves more from life than what she’s been given.  Her talent is pie making and her goal is to make her way to a pie contest so she can win the grand prize of $25,000 - sort of a “get out of jail” card.  Mishaps and obstacles arise as she tries to figure out a way to get to the contest.  Her husband controls all the money and every aspect of her life outside of her job.  She meets interesting people along the way and she discovers that there’s more to her than what she thought.  It’s really funny and has that quirky humor that was so reminiscent of Adrienne Shelly and her indie films.  Definitely one of the better movies lately.

I accidentally tivoed the movie “Go” and I ended up liking it. The only problem is I only got to see half of it. I originally was trying to record one of those outrageous lists on “E” but it was in two parts. I deleted the first one because I didn’t know wth it was. It looked like the middle of some random movie so I erased it. The other outrageous part was the beginning and of course I ended up watching and now I don’t have the second half. Hope it comes on again but under the right title so that I know to watch it. Stupid labeling.

Anyway I liked “Go” because it reminded me of Pulp Fiction but in a gen-x kind of way. I later found out it was done by the director of “Swingers” Doug Liman. “Swingers” was a cool movie too. Essentially,”Go” is about a girl who has made a drug deal for the first time to help pay her rent (she’s facing eviction) and it all goes horribly wrong when she discovers her customers are not who they say they are. The movie is done from different perspectives during the same timeline sort of a la “Run, Lola, Run” (that movie Dh liked for unknown reasons.) The story is the same during each character’s perspective though. It also reminded me of “Memento” although it wasn’t proceeding backwards. Anyway, I got to watch Ronna’s perspective and Simon’s (a supermarket clerk she works with) perspective. Simon’s part was pretty entertaining, especially when he’s with Taye Diggs (forgot his character’s name). Definitely worth watching unless the end tanks it. Must remember to keep an eye out for it.

I’m so glad I never became a script supervisor. It’s just too hard - people are relentless with the movie mistakes.  Some interesting “Da Vinci Code” book mistakes.

ROOT CANALS

Yesterday was the continuation of my root canal on my lower right side. It didn’t feel as bad this time, probably because Duc used a thing to keep my jaw open. Doing that helped me “doze” off instead of concentrating on keeping my mouth open. He also put my permanent crown on my upper left tooth. It was disturbing hearing Duc talk with his assistant Stephanie about dentisrty. He’s been coaching her, a good guy imo to talk her through everything he’s doing although it makes me a little too conscious of what he’s doing. I feel more comfortable with him as my dentist than I have ever felt in my life. He really puts me at ease. I don’t know if it’s because he’s a friend and I feel more trust in him or just his bedside manner. She spoke about how easy root canals were and he told her all the procedures in dentistry are easy on paper but a lot of factors can make it trickier, i.e. placement of teeth, patient reaction, how far back the teeth are, how many canals there are, how many roots there are, etc. Fun stuff

MOVIES AND GROWING UP

C had swimming as usual yesterday. I saw P there again. I remarked on how damn cold it was and that it was probably due to global warming. She suggested I watch “Who Killed the Electric Car?” Maybe we should sign up for Netflix. I seem to be spending more and more time in front of the tv. J has a sixth sense for when I’m on the computer these days and wakes up as soon as I get online now. He’s growing such a personality too. Yesterday, when I wanted him to nurse, he wasn’t having it and pushed me away. He’s never refused milk before. He also refused the bottle at my mil. He also has started batting toys on his swing. I’m not ready for him to grow up yet. Ahhhhh…

B has to do a computer timeline at school now. We had to submit two photos. One of when he was a baby. One more recent. I used a photo I took of him at the Corona Del Mar Castle building contest. He looks so happy at the beach. I looked through the baby photos and since Easter was coming up, I asked him if I could submit the one of him in his spring outfit, sitting in the easter basket wearing bunny ears. Think he was 5-6 months old. Soooo cute. His answer was, “No way, that’s so embarrassing.” I asked him again 5 minutes later. He said, “MO-OOOOOM-MMM.” Oh well, it was worth a try.

ACTIVITIES TO DO WITH THE KIDS

I met this woman Sulan at the park today. I met her last time as well. She had a few good suggestions for occupying kids during the summer. I told her I didn’t want them to spend all their time playing video games. She has theme days i.e. making a movie day, arts and crafts day (draw a flower in the garden day) , math/worksheet day, write an article day and science day (google cool science projects). She has a website which she runs where she programmed cool free educational software - free math/chemistry games (sort of like teaching tools) for kids to play and along the side are google ads where she gets $/click. I may try to find it.

EASTER BASKETS

I popped by Target this morning. It was great. They open at 8am so after I dropped B and C at school, I swung by there via Irvine Center Drive. I wanted to get all the goodies for their Easter Baskets or in this case bucket (bought that at Big Lots in Laguna Woods). I didn’t want to concentrate on just easter wrapped candy (i.e. candy that just has a different wrapper) but candy that they don’t often have or at leaast has some significance with the “Easter Basket” tradition. I bought jellybeans, malted choco balls, bunny-shaped chocolate, easter animal pez dispensers and also some egg shaped gum because C seems to have a thing for gum. I also bought some goodies like hot wheels truck combo that has a car inside, pokemon card packs, some crayola goodies for C. I also bought some clothes for a portrait sitting later on. I want the kids to have a photo taken together professionally, maybe at Kiddie Kandids since that seems to be the place to go by all my friends.

FINANCIAL ADVICE

The pokemon cards rang up at $13.99 but on the rack they were $9.99. Normally, I would never have noticed because I don’t really pay attention when cashiers ring up things but it just so happened that yesterday I read Common Billing Errors that can Cause You Money - most notably “With the computer age, many people assume the bill is automatically correct and don’t review what the actual charges are. While computers can make errors in calculations less likely, they are far from foolproof. The result is that consumers lose billions of dollars by making unnecessary overpayments each year.” It stuck in my head and I had resolved to be more proactive when it comes to finances since budgeting may play a bigger role in the near future. It’s good to make it a habit of being aware of your money and where it is going.

Id theft is a scary thing too. I think I may do 1-888-5-OPT-OUT and buy a cross shredder. I’ve always wondered what would happen if you submitted a taped up cc application and now I know.

“If we are not willing to fail, we will never accomplish anything. All creative acts involve the risk of failure.” -Madeleine L’Engle

I read somewhere that you should always praise your child for working hard at achieving something rather than for “being smart”. “Being smart” creates an idea of perfectionism and causes a child to have a fear of failure and not being “smart” anymore. If you create the idea that if you work hard at anything you can achieve anything, the child learns that anything is possible and won’t be afraid of trying. I’ve done both but now that I know the consequences of both, I’m going to try hard to praise for working hard. This option is much better than the other. I don’t want my kids to be afraid of failure. I think sometimes that is my handicap. My father always told me I was stupid and although it had the opposite effect of making me try harder to prove him wrong, it did affect my self-esteem at times and made me cognizant of “failing to be perfect”.

We worked on B’s school project called “Fantasy Island” today. I sketched out his vision of “Pokemon Island” which consisted of Pikachu and Skitty. We then painted the ocean, lakes and rivers blue. Then he mixed a recipe of dough, salt, and water to make the landforms. We used food coloring to make the grasslands and mountains. I printed out a key on a Pokemon card and a compass rose on a pokeball. We then made labels for all the different landforms - they were all pokemon names. It was fun. C also made his own landforms which consisted of a volcano and whatnot. He managed to put all the toothpick labels correctly on the corresponding landforms without any guidance. Sheer luck or sheer genius? The jury is still out on that.

We went to Spectrum food court for a quick bite to eat at Wasabi. Then we went over to Barnes and Noble to check out the kid’s section while C went on the Merry go round. We tried looking for the rest of the Deltora Quest books by Emily Rodda but they didn’t have it. They had some other series by her. B only has 1-5. Later on, we bumped into P & Austin. They just came back from Taipei (his grandfather’s 80th bday). Chatted a bit - seems like I wants to become a flipper instead of a Pilates instructor. He told her that she had to become a realtor first if she wanted to do that since the profit margin is slim after realtor commissions. Might as well earn the commissions herself. He seemed to think Socal is immune from the RE market. Is he the only one? Possibly.

Watched “Little Miss Sunshine” with A after the kids went to bed. Was quirky and amusing although not the Oscar type movie I thought it would be. I think people are just ready for a happy light hearted movie with meaning. *goes to write the script for the next big thing*

While B and I were waiting for the elevator he mentions to me that this was a different kind of elevator. I stare at him blankly wondering what on earth he could mean. The elevator seemed like a typical elevator to me, nothing special about it at all. I ask him to explain. He said that there was only one door that slid open to one side instead of the two doors opening up. Wow - he boggles my mind sometimes. I can’t help but be proud of him.

Went to Target yesterday with C and ended up buying some nursing pads. I had bought the cheapest ultra thin ones by Gerber. Mistake. They are horrible pads and did not keep me from leaking through and they move around a lot. I’m trying Medela on C’s rec, trying Lansinoh ($7.64) on some website rec. So far Medela ($9.99) is working well. C claims that it stops heavy leaking… so far so good. I also bought a Eddie Bauer backseat bear mirror for the car so I can see little baby J’s cute face. Tried it this morning - only good if you somehow raise the headrest and attach it to the headrest. It takes a bit of maneuvering. Did a review on amazon for it. I really want to do more product reviews because I live by the reviews of other people.

Yesterday was free popcorn tuesday for Regal and so we met up with W and saw Amazing Grace. Such a good movie and the guy who played William Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffudd) was so cute. C says he’s good as Horatio Hornblower in the HORNBLOWER series - I think I will check that out one day. Anyway, the film is essentially about how a political activist goes about trying to get slavery abolished in Britain. I like period pieces like these.

I invited Ar to come see the movie with us when I saw her at the park. She’s going through a divorce. When I first saw her, she just wouldn’t say much which is so unlike her. I literally had to pull out the fact that she’s going through a divorce out of her. She’s depressed and antisocial. She’s on disability as well. 16 years of marriage - she’s 41, hubby 37. I feel so bad for her. I gave her two hugs - one when she first told me, one when she left because she “had to go”. Think she’s falling apart. She looks great though in terms of her figure. She lost so much weight. Anyway, I felt like I couldn’t help her. I asked C who has been divorced before what it was she wanted to hear then or what helped her most back then. She told me what someone said to her which at the time she thought was odd but now she realizes is cool. Someone told her “Congratulations” on hearing that she was divorcing. When asked why, the person advised her that if the marriage was going to be over, then best to get it over as soon as possible and not drag it out. Interesting perspective.

C told me An is happy at Saddleback. She moved over there from Newsong because it seemed like the pastor was telling the same sermon over and over. Sort of sounds like us except our reason was more that we disliked all that expansion talk. I guess An is going through some marital difficulties. Wish her luck on that.