Quotable & Answers

Taking a cue from Mandy, here are 10 favorite lines from 10 of my favorite movies (in no particular order). Answers tomorrow below.

1. "Let my armies be the rocks and the trees and the birds in the sky."

2. "I love those moments. I like to wave at them as they pass by."

3. "It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great."

4. "My dear, never confuse efficiency with a liver complaint."

5. "I'm nice men."

6. "No more conning! No more! If you're gonna be my wife, you're gonna live a respectable life, chopping cars!"

7. "Sorry. Could you come back later? We're trying to escape."

8. "And last week I saw Cameron Diaz at Fred Segal, and I talked her out of buying this truly heinous angora sweater. Whoever said orange was the new pink was seriously disturbed."

9. "When the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window."

10. "Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?...Morons."

So here are my answers...and as you can see, no deep movies for me, thanks. I am all about the entertainment value. I have lots of other favorite movies, none of which have won awards.

1. Sean Connery as Henry Jones, Sr. in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (listed as a favorite for all four Indiana Jones movies)

2. Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (listed for all three Pirates movies)

3. Tom Hanks as Jimmy Dugan in A League of Their Own

4. David Tomlinson as Mr. Banks in Mary Poppins

5. Harrison Ford as Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back (listed for all three original Star Wars movies)

6. Ray Liotta as Dean in Heartbreakers

7. Ellen DeGeneres as Dory in Finding Nemo

8. Reese Witherspoon as Elle Woods in Legally Blonde

9. Julie Andrews as Maria in The Sound of Music

10. Wallace Shawn as Vizzini in The Princess Bride

Who raised these kids???

More Christmas chit-chat around the dinner table tonight...I happened to mention:

"I hope I get some new slippers for Christmas."

"I'll buy you some, Mom.."

"Awww, thanks Patrick!"

"...for five bucks."

Instant Gratification

We took the boys to see Santa yesterday. We have the awesomest Santa Claus at our mall. I think he may actually be Santa. Anyway, last year Ben talked to him, but wouldn't sit in his lap. This year he trusted him enough to have the chat whilst perched on his knee. I didn't get pictures though, because there are no personal pictures and the "professional" shot cost $12 and for heavens sake, we're in a recession, haven't you heard? I hear (from a reliable source) that the only way to get a free picture with Santa is to be his anesthetist during outpatient surgery and then stop and check on him while you're at the mall. We couldn't make that happen, though...so we skipped the pictures.

Anyway, here's the conversation we had with Ben while waiting in line:

Us: Ben, are you going to sit in Santa's lap with Patrick?

Ben: Yes!

Us: What are you going to tell him you want?

Ben: A green motorcycle!

Us: What else?

Ben: Just a green motorcycle!


And twenty minutes later...


Us: Ben, wasn't that great talking to Santa?

Ben: Yeah...where's my green motorcycle?

This and That

So here's what's been going on with me lately:

1. A few weeks ago, Ben had his Thanksgiving program at school, in which his class sang a song about killing turkeys and danced. It was hilarious. I took pictures. I'm not posting them because it was far too long ago.

2. At the beginning of this month, we went to the Christmas parade. My camera died, so I have no pictures. Doesn't matter, though--Jennifer has helpfully provided a play-by-play of the parade that you can read here. All I need to add is: it was frickin' freezing.

3. I got a new camera last weekend and this week Patrick had his Christmas program at school. I have no pictures of that because it turned out that directly between where Patrick was standing on stage and where I was sitting in the audience was the music director's head. Not wanting pictures of that, I gave up and just watched. They did really well.

4. My poll is about to end and I have learned two things from it: (1) Nobody who voted thinks I'm doing it exactly right and (2) out of all the people in the world, only six voted, so nobody really cares. That's okay, I don't care either. I have no intention of changing my blogging habits anyway.

5. I have been using Crest Whitestrips and now my teeth constantly feel like they're vibrating.

6. We are currently sharing our bathroom with one very persistent ant colony. There have been a lot of lives lost, but they keep coming back for more.

For those that want pictures, here's one of Ben. He wasn't cold, just being strange. A friend of mine asked me if I put mascara on him before I took the picture, and I will let you all make up your own minds about that. I just want to note that this picture was taken in complete darkness, so at least at close range, my new camera's flash rocks.

Weekend Rundown

We had a busy weekend with a visit to Gigi and Grandpa's house--in retrospect, I'm not sure I know why we went???? I think this was originally supposed to be a pre-Thanksgiving visit for the whole family, but that got delayed because of the never-ending renovations in Gigi's kitchen. So we went this weekend instead, but we didn't eat turkey and we're doing Christmas together in two weeks, so I don't know where that leaves this visit. But we still had a great time, and it was very convenient for me to be in ATL this weekend, because as it turns out, the USA Swimming National Short Course Swimming Championshios were at GA Tech, and I was able to take Patrick on Friday night.

A few of the Olympic swimmers were there, including our favorite Ryan Lochte, so we were psyched to watch him win his two races. The woman we sat next to was watching her daughter race and she was super-sweet to my son, talking and explaining everything to him. At the end of the individual races, she snuck away and bought him a Lochte swim cap and told him that Ryan said he was really busy and couldn't come up and talk right then, but he sent a present. She handed him the swim cap and Patrick absolutely believes that Ryan personally gave him a new cap. He also thinks it was our awesome mojo that helped Ryan win the race. If you want to see the pictures we took, click here.

Saturday morning we went to the community parade. Very cute, but VERY cold!!! They said it was going to be a harsh winter, but I swear I cannot handle this. I think it's time to go visit Mandy.

Patrick is still attached to Brendan's hip, wishing with all his might that we might give him a little brother to play with (I won't even dignify the irony in that statement). At any rate, Brendan seems to like him too, so it's all good.

Other than that, it was a typical quiet weekend with the fam. We were supposed to play a lot of tennis, but it was just TOO COLD. Hopefuly next time.