Not all who wander are lost...

Last weekend, Kris and I headed to West Virginia to visit the Bogaczyk clan. We played lots of Settlers (all won by Liz--all of the games...all of them...ALL. Cheating, you ask? I don't know. That's quite an accusation. Who am I to say?) and had lots of fun. One evening we took a walk in the gorgeous state park near Liz and Zack's house. It was really cool.

It sorta reminded me of Middle Earth. Or maybe I'm just going mad waiting for the Hobbit movie.

Much of our walk went down a path carved into a huge rock formation.

 

Wes had a great time.

Sometimes we happened upon a secret passage in rock face.

Watch out for orcs!

Zack and I climbed up on top to get a look. Kris was worried about my Nikon lens the whole time, but I did not shatter it against the rock. I did, however, lose my lens cap.

Sawyer was having lots of fun, too.

After our walk, we went out to the park's scenic overlook, which is basically just a fence built around a giant boulder cantilevered over a river valley. It was magnificent, but a little nerve-wracking for those afraid of heights. 

It's hard to get a photo of a three-year-old at dusk with no flash, but his smile comes through.

Happy Mother's Day

It's Mother's Day! I want to wish a happy day to my mom, who made pretty dresses for me, taught me how to cover my textbooks with paper bags, took my picture every year on the first day of school, gave me a love of 60s music, and forced me to join the Forest Hills forensics team which is the reason I am able to speak in public to this day. She once heard me singing along to Madonna's Material Girl, about how "the boy with the cold hard cash is always Mr. Right," and she pulled me aside and told me, "I want you to understand that that's not right, what Madonna's singing about. We don't believe that."

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. I love you.

Please ignore my 80s perm. This was around the time
I got saddled with the nickname Frannie Frizz.

Miss Maggie Dances

On Tuesday night we headed to Uniontown to see Maggie strut her stuff. She was awesome.

Dancing to "Too Darn Hot."

Ballet to "Amazing Grace." This was beautiful.

Her fabulous solo to "It's Oh So Quiet."

This hip hop number might have been my favorite.
Mags was front and center because she's got skills.

Yeah, that's right.

Let the wild rumpus stop

One of my strongest childhood memories was being at my grandmother's house, pulling out her copy of Where the Wild Things Are, and listening to her read it to me. What a great book.

RIP Maurice Sendak.

"I think Maurice's book is the first picture book to recognize the fact that children have powerful emotions, anger and love and hate and only after all that passion, the wanting to be 'where someone loved him best of all.'"

-Ursula Nordstrom, Maurice Sendak's editor

Something I stumbled upon...

Does not Alfred Hitchcock look radiant when he smiles? It’s such a rare occurrence and all the lovelier for it. Sort of like, “your good opinion is rarely bestowed and therefore more worth the winning.”

I can always swing the conversation back around to P&P. (“No, no, the green one.”)

“In my day, television was called books.”

A few nights ago Julia begged me to tell her a bedtime story. Too tired to make one up on the spot, I improvised. She curled up in bed and I told her the story of Anne Shirley and a boy named Gilbert who pulled Anne’s hair and called her “Carrots.” Jules loved this story, especially the part where Anne cracks her slate over Gilbert's head, and a few nights later she begged to hear it again, so I told it again and added Diana Barry into the mix. (Next time: Josie Pye.) When she asked for another story, I told her about a girl named Buttercup and how she fell in love with a farm boy who only ever said, “As you wish” to her.

Right now she thinks I’m the best storyteller ever, until she discovers the books or the movies and then the jig is up. Next I think I’ll tell her the story of Beatrice and Benedick and how they fought and fought and fought until they were tricked into falling in love.

Thank you William and William and Lucy Maud.

Oh my dears. Is it really true? I can't believe it.

Fellow Downton lovers, mourn with me for a moment. Apparently season 3 will be the last for Maggie Smith. Our magnificent Dowager Countess will be hanging up her spurs. How could she do this to us?

According to the Daily Mail (You've got Paperback Writer in your head now, don't you?) a source says:

Maggie has asked Julian to write her character out. She is filming until August and then wants to leave, going out on a high. She thinks that three series is enough and she wants to get back to the stage and big screen.

Maggie, no! Don't leave us!

What is there to do but wait for season 3 (an infernally long wait) and then soak up every bit of dowager-countessness?



"What is a 'weekend'?"