April’s In Style magazine has “Ten Ways to Wake Up Beautiful“, a surprisingly simple list of tips to wake looking and feeling better. For example: Wash your face early in the evening, rather than later. Sleep on your back, with your head elevated. Have more protein and fewer carbs at dinner. The article includes brief explanations and the complete list, and falls into the “can’t hurt/might help/why not?” category for me. (Link at MSN Lifestyle)
The season of Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles has ended and the new film, Terminator Salvation opens on May 21, 2009. It felt like a good time to revisit the original films starting with The Terminator. The now-Governor is perfectly cast in a role where he has to look big, say few things, and not express emotion. The details of 1984 are accurate, but painful. The permed and feathered hair, the bad fashion, the flashing lights and electronic music. The look is dated, but that fits in a movie about a guy from the future who comes back to save a girl from the past. And the less said about the special effects, the better. They were good at the time.
Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese was much more skinny and effete than I recalled. I can see why they cast Jonathan Jackson in his part in the TV series. There’s a strong resemblance. I was extremely impressed when I noted how much of the material from the original had been skillfully woven into the TV series, like Sarah’s anecdotes from when she was a waitress. Even the bad movie soundtrack has some motifs that the current music echoes.
The movie, though, stands up. It’s suspenseful, creepy and involving. We care about Kyle and Sarah, and want Sarah to escape. I look forward to watching Terminator 2, which I picked up yesterday in a fruitful stop at Half Price Books. And I continue to hope that Fox shows some smarts and renews both Terminator and Dollhouse, both of which look promising if they’re given a chance to develop.
I agree with many viewers that Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse is getting better as it goes, and hope Fox has the sense to renew both it and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I think they make a great Friday double feature, especially now that Battlestar Galactica is over (sniff) and when they’re on, they’re on.
In general, I think the best Dollhouse eps have been the ones that focus on the mythology, and not just Echo.
I have some questions about last night’s episode “Briar Rose”, and since Sepinwall hasn’t posted yet, I’m squirming with impatience to wonder online about them. Don’t read on if you haven’t yet seen it, though I’ll try to be vague.
I found my new hair stylist the best way–by asking a woman whose hair I admired who her stylist was. The new stylist told me another of her curly-haired clients recommended Curly Girl by Lorraine Massey, and had come in after reading it with her hair looking fabulous.
If you are even vaguely curly, there’s a lot to like about this book. It’s put together in a chatty, informational way. Testimonials from women who’ve learned to love their curls, after a lifetime of trying to tame them. Massey is a curly girl herself, who’s done the research to find the best way of caring for it, and there are some surprising recommendations. Most curly girls can skip shampoo, cleansing their hair through scalp massage with conditioner. Brushes are out, too. Massey’s tips and techniques are going to take some practice, and getting used to, but I’m already loving the increased curl and definition in my hair, as well as the ideas on putting it up and tying it back. I was a little too zealous, though, when I purged our house of shampoo. I kept some for the kids, but gave away one of mine that G. Grod used too. He was not amused.
When I tried to find this book at the library, it was not yet back on the shelves. I asked one of the librarians for help. I was a little abashed when I told her the title and that it was a teen beauty book. She found it, and smiled when she handed it to me. “I own this. It’s good,” she said, as I noted her salt and pepper curls pulled back prettily from her face. While the book may be shelved in the teen section, curly girls know no age boundaries.
Our family recently returned from a trip to Miami FL with my parents and sisters’ families. It was 5yo Drake and 3yo Guppy’s first trip to that state. The hotel property we stayed at had a giant pool area, with a zero-depth entry, giant slide and a little jacuzzi pool.
Our first day at the pool, Drake wanted to go down the slide. It was high, curved, and encased in rock. We couldn’t see the top from the bottom, and vice versa. I went with him, because the pool it ended in was 4′, over Drake’s head, and he doesn’t yet swim. We went down it the first couple times together. The next couple times I met him at the bottom and swam him to the shallow water. Then he ran up the stairs calling, “Let’s go down together again, Mom!”
I walked up the steps to the top of the slide. He was gone. A mom in front of me said, “He should wait till he hears the signal beep to go down.” I can’t remember if I even heard the last of her sentence as I turned to race down the steps, and dive into the pool where Drake was struggling under the slide. There wasn’t a lifeguard; it was swim at your own risk. Or that of your impulsive 5yo, in our case. The handful of other parents around the pool were just realizing something was wrong as I dove in and pushed him up and out of the water. He had swallowed some, but not aspirated it, and might have been more angry than scared. He screamed for a long time, as the other parents stopped by to offer sympathy and make sure he was OK. Drake eventually stopped screaming and we went down a few more times, always being very clear that he wait for me at the top or make sure I was waiting at the bottom, plus not rush down the slide too soon after the kid in front of him.
Within the hour I was taking a break and my mom was watching Drake and Guppy play on the steps of the jacuzzi pool. Guppy threw a ball in the water. Drake lunged after it, unaware that the water was over his head. My mom waded in to fish him out. Drowning #2 averted.
About this time we’d had enough and returned to our room. Drake and Guppy still had some energy to burn, so were racing around the space, which had a sliding glass door to the patio. G. Grod said “Stop running,” just as Drake ran full-speed into the glass window. Screaming. More screaming. A little more screaming, and some frozen peas on the huge goose egg that erupted on his forehead, and was so bruised that it eventually leaked internally down his face, giving him two black eyes.
My sister Sydney came to babysit then, and took good care of the injured daredevil. G. Grod and I beat a hasty exit for a noisy, but by comparison positively relaxing dinner out. No further disasters ensued. Apparently Drake just needed to get them all out of his system on the first day.