MY BOGGY BLOG: find your way through the murk

The Next Muppet Movie

Our finishing-up-dinner chatter was fun tonight at chez Alberti. DH came up with the idea that The Lord of the Rings could be done with muppets, and the idea hit us all like a firecracker. We were laughing with delight as we dabbled in our fantasy of being casting directors. It was amazing how well some of the brainstorming worked. Some characters were harder to cast. Here's some of what we came up with:

Frodo-- Ernie
Gandalf-- some thought Kermit, but I voted for Big Bird
Aragorn-- I thought Kermit would make a good one, others picked Big Bird
Sam-- Grover
Gollum-- Elmo (his voice works really well for this, and he could say "My Precious" very convincingly)
Elron-- Bert (because he is pointy and serious)
Sauron-- Oscar the Grouch
Gimli-- Cookie Monster
Tree Beard-- Snuffleupagus (perfect, I think!)

Couldn't figure out a good Legolas, and there are a woeful shortage of female characters in both the muppets and LOTR. I suppose Miss Piggy could be Arwen, and that would make sense if Aragorn is Kermit.

Anyway, we had a lot of fun with the ideas and the kids errupted in wonderful imitations of the muppets doing their respective parts. And I'm sure I'll be hearing more over the next few days...

It's About Time...

I've been thinking about blogging-- does that count? Sigh. It's been quite a funky winter for me, and I've been processing some heavy emotional stuff lately. And procrastinating on writing my next nonfiction children's book I've been contracted to write. It's, ahem, due next week! I feel like I'm back in college, waiting until the last minute to get my ass in gear. Nothing like an iminent deadline to get me writing!

Now that I'm sitting here at the computer, all the topics I'd thought about writing on have leaped from my head. Could it be because it's almost midnight? So I'm keeping it short and sweet, well, short anyway, for tonight. A first step back to blogging. More tomorrow!

I Almost Forgot...

Last night we had the little cousins sleep over, my sister's 6 and 4 year old. This was something I'd promised the kids we'd do, because I want to get to know the kids better and have them know us better. And I'd been hearing for several weeks how excited they were by the idea.

So they came over and ate spaghetti for dinner with us, then we all went swimming at the Y (where we managed to have fun even though the little kid interactive pool was closed because of a fecal incident), came home and had ice cream, and then a movie and bedtime. 4 year old C. was a little scared at bedtime with the different noises in our house, but then she snuggled up on the sleeping bags in the living room right next to her favorite big cousin, my DD, and they all slept well. In the morning was general chaos and playing pretend and computer games and a trip to our park with its fancy new equipment.

I hadn't really forgotten how much fun little kids can be. I've been in Bigger Kid Land for quite awhile now, and it sure does have some perks. Getting to have great, intelligent conversations with these great kids, how easy it is to take them places now, and they can babysit themselves if we want to go out and see a movie (like tonight). But with little kids there is the excitement, the joy they have in little things, how fun and pretend and playing are what they do best. The hugs are great, and their appreciation is so heartfelt.

I was reminded of this as I sat on a bench at the park this morning. How many years did I spend at this park, at least the version of the park before it was remodeled last year? Countless. First it was putting babies in the baby swing and making faces at them as they swung back and forth. Then following them as they toddled everywhere. Watching them become proficient at climbing... they grew and grew, enjoing the park in so many different ways as they got bigger.

And I almost forgot how much WORK little kids are. At the Y, it took me about a half hour to get the two of them showered and dressed, before I could even get dressed myself. There was so much stuff to take along! And helping them dress and find everything and packing all their stuff. Finding the special rock to take in the car and the pennies they had collected and dropped somewhere. My back was sore and I was exhausted. And of course there's the whining and bickering, which I got a tiny taste of again. Little kids are physically exhausting!

It was all a good reminder to me, of my former life of a mom of little kids. It's a place I do like to visit-- of course I'll have the little munchkins over again and we can do all the fun stuff. But then I can enjoy the wonders of having just bigger kids when the little ones go home!

Back to the Beginning

Well, I've been getting back to walking as a form of exercise for the last two months. I used to walk a lot, even as a teen, I would go on long walks and think and try to get my blood pumping. Back in my thinner, fitter days, I could easily walk five miles, no problem. When DH and I had our honeymoon splurge in Paris, we walked everywhere, whole days of walking, so much so that we had to go into a drugstore and by medical tape to cover our blisters so we could keep on walking.

So what happened? I guess what's happened is 16 years, pregnancies involving bedrest and wait gains, untreated depressions and overeating, blah blah blah. I am now in that morbidly obese category (don't it sound lovely?) and very out of shape. I've exercised on and off through the years, but in fits and spurts. So here I am trying to walk again, and what was once easy has become a challenge.

I am easily one of the slowest walkers on the indoor track at the Y, yet I'm working hard (for me, at this stage). I've got myself walking a mile right now, 6 laps around the track, and in tis back-to-being-a-baby phase I'm in, I feel damn proud of that. When I walk now, the muscles surrounding my lower back ache incredibly-- sometimes I hurt all through the whole mile, and other times I just hurt some. I keep telling myself that if I just keep on going, walking several days a week, I will strengthen those muscles enough so that they won't hurt. Walking will just be walking again, not so much of a challenge.

Being where I'm at right now is helping me to appreciate the smaller things in life. Walking at all is such a miracle. And being fit again is a goal I want to keep walking toward.

Moon Mother, Moon Daughter

I just don't get how this works-- the very weird body alignment that women who live together go through. I don't know if this happens to everybody, but I've heard of it often enough and experienced it myself that it seems kind of spooky, though I'm sure there are explanations for it-- how women who live together often have their menstrual cycles at the same time.

Growing up in a family with two sisters and a mother, I don't know if we were all on the same schedule, but I know at least some of us were. And now, since my DD has been menstruating since last summer, her periods have been over the months gradually creeping closer to the same dates as mine (my cycle is always predictably the same, since I'm on the Pill). Right now hers starts just a few days before mine, and I'm curious to see how all this plays out in the next few months-- will we be on exactly the same lunar-body calendar?

When I think about this kind of stuff, I'm reminded of the connection our bodies have to things outside of us, our connection to the world and even to space. This golden sphere in the night sky is dancing with my body each month and guiding my reproductive possibilities, just as it pushes and pulls the tides of our oceans each day. And now its pulling my daughter and me together on a biological level each month. I don't get it, but on some primal level I think I do. And I'm in awe. Way cool!