BULLETIN bulletin bulletin bulletin. . . .
Mamacita says: My friend Jim, who used to write at Patriside about the life of a single dad, has moved. He had to. He’s not a single dad any more!
He now writes at Hogepotte, and he and his lovely wife Mara take turns posting about the ups and downs – but mostly the joys – of blending two families into one. Six kids and two parents, but don’t assume that all step-parents are Disneyesque wicked step-parents: far from it, in fact. Jim and Mara’s posts show us that the word “step” is really just another word for “love.”
How about clicking over there and commenting? They love visitors!
Bonus points if you know the source of this post’s title.
Limbs of Memory
The bottoms of my feet remember every sidewalk crack. I can close my eyes and relive the sensation of speeding down the block on my roller skates, sensing every crack and bump and wad of moss in my path, and adjusting my feet to them without even thinking about it. My feet knew. The soles of my feet knew the way by heart.
I was a tree-climbing girl. The house next door had two large apple trees in its back yard, and while I could climb them both, the smaller of the two was MINE. I can close my eyes and relive the sensation of lifting myself up, up, up, closer to the sky with each little hoist, and I can picture MY BRANCH, the highest I dared to go in the tree, and how it felt when I sat on it and leaned on the branch beside it. Sometimes I had a paperback book in my pocket, and would dare to relax, lean on the tree trunk, and read in the sky. Other times, I just picked and ate apples, and threw the cores down on the ground.
My feet remember. My arms and legs remember.
I was a singularly clumsy little girl, and now I am an even more clumsy old woman, but when I sit and close my eyes and think about those days, I remember every sidewalk crack and every apple tree branch. My very skin remembers.
Kinesthetic memory? Sensory motor learning? I dunno. Them’s fancy ways of saying, simply, that even when the body is no longer willing, the body still remembers how it used to be.
The spirit was always willing.
Mamacita Reviews A Couple of Movies
Mamacita says: I love Notting Hill and Love, Actually, so when the same guys made Definitely, Maybe, I was intrigued. When the film’s price finally got down to under ten bucks where I could rationalize buying it, I snarfed that baby right up and brought it home, where it sat on my DVD shelf waiting for its turn to enlighten and entertain ME.
Things have been so hectic here, and still are, and Definitely, Maybe waited patiently. I just knew I would adore it, as I adored its siblings.
Finally, things slowed down a bit, and I sat down to watch.
I didn’t like it.
I love Elizabeth Banks, but I loathed her character in this movie. Abigail Breslin got on my nerves. Ryan Reynolds is a cutie, but his character wasn’t believable; Rachel Weisz’s talent was wasted, and Isla Fisher made me want to beat my head on the kitchen table until the ditz stopped. But it didn’t stop.
All in all, a complete disappointment.
Wait, not a COMPLETE disappointment. Kevin Kline was his usual awesome self, but even Kevin Kline couldn’t save an entire movie all by himself with no help.
“All by himself with no help.” Now, see? I’ve been driven to redundancy!
Don’t waste your money.
I won’t have any essays to grade until tomorrow, so I watched De-Lovely tonight. Kevin Kline again ( I’d run away with him in a heartbeat he’s one of my favorite actors) and Ashley Judd, who has a lot of class in spite of her mother and sister. (I’m so catty tonight. Sorry.)
I found this film at Big Lots for three dollars, and it was wonderful.
The only problem with it is that I tend to project myself into movies I love, and when the movie is a heartbreaker, I’m sad in real life, too. I was already sad, so now I’m putting off going to bed because I know the kind of dreams I’ll be having tonight and I’m delaying it as long as I can.
The music was divine, and the soundtrack CD is fantastic. Cole Porter was a very talented, multifaceted, and, shall we say, “interesting” person who led a selfish yet loving life with his wife and pretty much anybody else who came along. His lyrics were amazingly full of innuendo even for modern times, and back then, it was astounding that he was allowed to get away with it! Apparently, even back in those days, people appreciated a witty song, and most of them were intelligent enough to “get” it.
Let me just say that when Cole Porter sang “Experiment!” he wasn’t just whistling Dixie. He meant it. And when he wrote “Let’s Do It,” well, that’s pretty much what he meant with that one, too.
(That’s Lara Fabian as “Kate,” by the way.)
De-Lovely was so beautiful, and so sad. I highly recommend it.
