A Few of My Favorite Things

• Brand new school supplies
• Warm toasted Pop-tarts
• Holiday socks and pjs
• Monopoly money
• Afternoon naps when it’s raining
• Honey bear bottles
• Having my hair washed and dried for me
• Comfy blankets and pillows
• Halloween costumes
• Spoonfuls of peanut butter
• Scented candles
• Crossword puzzles I can finish
• Apple pie a la mode with caramel
• The post-headache/nausea/stuffiness euphoria
• Chocolate anything
• TV/book/movie marathons
• Singing in part harmony
• Back, shoulder, neck and head rubs
• Homemade Chex mix
• Sassy, snarky characters
• Modern ballet
• Cherry preserves
• Stick figures
• Planning European vacations
• When Dobby snuggles up to me
• Cheese, spicy Mexican/Italian/Indian food
• Mini Coopers
• New York City
• Warm baths with lots of bubbles
• Creamy ice cream and icing
• Scenes from the next episode
• Green beans and fried okra
• Red
• Newborn babies sleeping on my shoulder
• Russian tea
• DVRs and iPods
• Old records
• Peach and blueberry cobbler mixed together
• Little kids’ artwork and writing
• Seedless, pre-cut watermelon
• Music mixes/playlists
• Good laughs and cries
• Bear hugs
• Roasted red peppers
• Ping pong
• Buying new clothes after losing weight
• Egg drop soup
• Having someone clean for me
• Mark’s sense of humor
• Frozen lime margaritas
• Creating something useful or enjoyable to others
• Caffeine
• Taking pictures of nieces/nephews and doggies
• The beach in the early am or late pm
• Family events when everyone gets along
• Being a regular somewhere
• Floral patterns, arrangements and designs
• Going to bed sleepy, waking up refreshed
• Midnight movies
• Banana, chocolate and peanut butter smoothies
• Lists
• Writing on a thick stack of college-ruled notebook paper

What I would do with $___

$1 – Reese’s peanut butter egg

$10 – Susan Elizabeth Phillips paperback

$100 – Massage

$1,000 – Home décor (end tables, lamps, pictures, curtains, rugs, plants)

$10,000 – Summer trip to Europe

$100,000 – Pay off credit cards and equity line, upgrade home décor and lawn, replace second car, get monthly cleaning services, travel overseas, invest

$1,000,000 – Pay off credit cards and mortgage, build a custom home and upgrade furniture, replace cars, get weekly cleaning services, travel once a year, invest

$10,000,000 – Pay off credit cards and mortgage, take a year off to travel and build/decorate a custom home, replace both cars, hire a full-time maid/cook, found a charter school and work on PhD in education

I Heart Halloween

One of my all-time favorite episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of the only Halloween episodes of the series (because in the Buffyverse, it's the one night of the year vampires stay home and don't make trouble). But this particular night, a chaos-worshipping warlock casts a spell to change people into the costumes they chose for themselves from his costume shop.

Shy Willow attempts a sexy look but ends up covering herself in a ghost sheet. Xander, who struggles with his relative lack of strength and ability, goes with tough soldier guy. Unfortunately, Buffy decides to dress up as an 18th-century noblewoman because she wanted to be more like the women Angel (her 200-year-old vampire-with-a-soul boyfriend) used to date when he was human.

So when children turn into real monsters and violence erupts, the Slayer is helpless. She faints at the sight of a car and refuses to fight because she is a proper lady, meant only to look pretty until she gets a husband to take care of her. Roles reversed, Willow the ghost and Xander the soldier have to take charge. Not only is Buffy of no help in reversing the spell, but they now have to protect her from the vampires who learn she is without her powers and plan to take this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to kill her.

The lesson isn't to be careful what you wish for. It is about being yourself. The hardest thing I've had to do in my life is to become comfortable in my own skin. Sometimes a costume helps us explore aspects of our personalities that we usually keep hidden - either because we are stuck in a rut or are afraid of embarassment. Buffy's tale reminds us that living behind a mask is dangerous not just because it can stifle our true selves but because it can actually turn us into someone we're not.

As we were going through boxes preparing to decorate for Halloween, I found some of my favorite costumes and made a little display by the front door to remind me of the fun I had making and/or wearing them. At Top: Native American costume my mother made when I was little, part of a set she made for the whole family. Beside it is a roll of masking tape that says, "Batman," in homage to a costume Mark's mom made for him. Bottom Left: The Shoveler and Blue Raja from Mystery Men. Dobby was Mr. Furious (no costume, we just made him really really mad). Bottom Center: Scully and Mulder from The X-Files. I am extra proud of the fake FBI badges I made in Photoshop. Bottom Right: Harry, Hermione, and Dobby the house elf from Harry Potter. And yes, that is first and last time we make the dog dress up.

Movie Matchups II

DOUBLE FEATURES
Fairytales for Grownups: The Princess Bride and Enchanted
Cutie Pie Robots: Short Circuit and Wall-E
Drew Berrymore and Adam Sandler: The Wedding Singer and 50 First Dates
Gender Roles in English Theatre: Shakespeare in Love and Stage Beauty
Sex Toys: Lars and the Real Girl (Clean, trust me) and Secretary (Not so clean)

TRIPLE FEATURES
Hugh Grant: Notting Hill, Bridget Jones' Diary, Two Weeks Notice
Mockumentaries: Wating for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind
Charlie Kaufman: Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Bio-fiction: Immortal Beloved, Finding Neverland, Becoming Jane
Meg Ryan and Nora Ephron: When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail

MARATHONS
Dance: Footloose, Dirty Dancing, Billy Elliot, Center Stage
Spielberg: E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, Amistad, Schindler's List
Superheroes: Mystery Men, Spiderman 2, The Incredibles, Batman Begins
Light Shakespeare: Much Ado about Nothing, 10 Things I Hate About You, A Midsummer Night's Dream, She's the Man
Food: Mystic Pizza, Chocolat, Pieces of April, Waitress

Fantasy TV Lineup

PRIMETIME
Mon - Northern Exposure, Pickett Fences, West Wing
Tue - Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly
Wed - Smallville, Bones, House
Thu - Ugly Betty, Arrested Development, My Name is Earl, The Office, 30 Rock
Fri - Wonderfalls, Joan of Arcadia, Veroncia Mars
Sat - Ballykissangel, Da Ali G Show, The Office (BBC),
Six Feet Under
Sun - Grey’s Anatomy, Alias, Lost

Bedtime
The Daily Show, Colbert Report, Sex and the City, Coupling (BBC), The X-Files
Asleeptime
The Dead Zone, Wonder Years, Wings,
Designing Women, Murphy Brown
Morningtime
Clean Sweep, Mythbusters, Movie & a Makeover
Daytime
Gilmore Girls, Everwood, Felicity
Dinnertime
Friends, Frasier, Seinfeld, That 70s Show, Scrubs, Will and Grace
Wintertime
Kyle XY, Psych, Monk
Summertime
Eureka, Battlestar Galactica, Rescue Me

Giveitsometime
Samantha Who?, How I Met Your Mother, Pushing Daisies, Life

Some Favorite Books of My Youth

While making book gift baskets for some friends' children, Mark and I reminisced about our own reading as children. Our lists were pretty different, since I was a voracious reader of novels and he of baseball cards. But we both started with the same book...

The Monster at the End of the Book by Grover

• Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans
  
• Who hasn't ever read Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson? My husband.


• Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh


• From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg


• Bridge to Terabitha by Katherine Paterson
  
• Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes


• Book fair gems such as Will I Ever Dance Again? and Six Months to Live by Lurlene McDaniel


• Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, especially Masque of the Red Death
  and Fall of the House of Usher


• Chain Letter and Weekend by Christopher Pike


• Misery and The Stand by Stephen King


• A contraband copy of Forever by Judy Blume


• Once in a Lifetime by Danielle Steel

Things I Learned in College

This is a list I shared with a senior class I taught on the last day of school. Afterwards, I asked them to create their own "Things I Learned in High School" lists for upcoming freshmen, which included such useful tips as "start your college applications as soon as possible" and "take easy classes with no homework."

1. SAFETY FIRST
2. Balance new and old relationships, work and play, freedom and discipline
3. Expect no leniency on policies and deadlines
4. There are absolutely no substitutes for sleep, nutrition, and exercise
5. Pick your major(s) for the right reasons
6. Avoid credit card debt like the plague
7. No one is easy to live with, not even you – be nice to your roommates
8. Study abroad
9. Take advantage of office hours
10. Save early, save often
11. Keep up with hobbies that have been important to you
12. Successful studying: keep up with reading, vary location and activities, treat yourself to new materials or music, turn off the TV, avoid junk food and sugary drinks, set an alarm, start early to prevent all-nighters

Favorite Individual TV Characters

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Top:
Josh Lyman - The West Wing
Carrie Bradshaw - Sex and the City
Spike - Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel
Veronica Mars - Veronica Mars
Middle:
Dr. Greg House - House, M.D.
Liz Lemon - 30 Rock
Sawyer Ford - Lost
Betty Suarez - Ugly Betty
Bottom:
Dr. Temperance Brennan - Bones
Niles Crane - Frasier
Willow Rosenberg - Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Chris Stevens - Northern Exposure

If We Ever Get Another Dog...

Our dog is a 7-year-old Papillon with black butteryfly ears. We named him Dobby after the house elf from Harry Potter because he's pretty much a dead ringer. Expect he has fur. And he doesn't obey his masters at all cost. Of course, it is somewhat fitting because Dobby is eventually freed by Harry and lives the rest of his life as a free elf with no master. Since neither my husband or I had ever really had a pet before, we had no idea what we were doing when we got him. Needless to say, for most of his life he's been the master. We got some help from a dog trainer last summer to work on obedience, and it has paid off. Despite the trouble he can be, we love Dobby. He is highly entertaining. I really want him to have a doggy friend to play with, but that isn't going to happen as long as Mark has anything to do with it. But, I can dream.

• Here are the possible names: Sassy, Bones, Spike, Buffy


• Unlike the first time, we would not adopt on impulse, BEFORE puppy-proofing the house


• We would sign up for obedience school right away, rather than waiting 8 years (despite what you've been told, old dogs CAN learn new tricks, but its much harder).


• We'd know not to let the puppy sit or stand on top of us while laying down just because it's cute. Doesn't really help with the whole dominance-obedience issue.


• When buying a house, we'd know not to get a floorplan that makes it virtually impossible to gate in the kitchen or foyer.


• We wouldn't give in to the whining and make him or her sleep in the dog bed, not ours.


• We wouldn't watch a movie just because it has the same name as the breed of the dog. That's three hours of my life I'll never get back.

Movie Matchups I

DOUBLE FEATURES

Cyrano de Bergerac: Roxanne and The Truth About Cats and Dogs

Bob Dylan: Masked and Anonymous and I'm Not There

Before they were leading ladies: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and Little Women

POTUS: Dave and The American President

Babs: The Way We Were and The Mirror Has Two Faces

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TRIPLE FEATURES

Nick Hornby: High Fidelity, About a Boy, Fever Pitch

Comic Capers: Trapped in Paradise, Bottle Rocket, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

Baz Luhrmann: Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge

Brat Pack: Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink

Young Johnny Depp: Who's Eating Glibert Grape, Edward Scissorhands, Benny and Joon

MARATHONS

Geniuses: Real Genius, Little Man Tate, Good Will Hunting, The Royal Tenenbaums

Jane Austen: Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Pride and Prejudice, The Jane Austen Book Club

Classic Musicals: The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music, Grease, Annie

Epic Award Winners: The Godfather, Gandhi, Braveheart, Titanic

Disney and Pixar: Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Finding Nemo, Toy Story

Things to do before my "9th" birthday

I was born on Leap Year day 1976, which means that the end of this month will be my 8th birthday. Though my official birthday count is still very low, I am feeling every bit of my 32 years of age. My hair is rapidly turning gray everywhere, and I feel like I'm one of the only childless women left on the planet. But I will not succumb to the peer pressure. I have plenty more hair dye and birth control pills left. On the other hand, I don't want time to sneak up on me. Here are the big things I want to do in my mid-thirties (not necessarily in this order):

• Finish decorating our house
• Learn to play the guitar
• Travel to Europe and/or India
• Lose another 20 pounds
• Have a baby (last but not least)

Lists To Do

My husband, Mark, talked me into this. He started his own baseball card blog called Stats on the Back a few weeks ago and loves it. Though he had to convince me to make a blog, I needed no convincing to start a journal of lists. Of course there are a plethora of list blogs out there, but I'm not doing this to be original. As the title suggests, it is for my own personal edification. Here are some lists that are already in the works:

1. Things to do before my "9th" birthday
2. Fantasy TV lineup
3. What I would do with $__
4. Crazy crazes
5. Lessons I wish I could teach
6. My Name is Nancy
7. Creative diets
8. If we ever get another dog...
9. Coffee table book ideas
10. Stuff I hate with a bloody passion