Photo collection: shadows

I've been organizing photos this week, and I noticed that I have quite a few pictures with cool shadows. Here's a collection.

My kids at a covered playscape. A shadow layered over a shadow.

A drawer pull on our bookshelf in the late afternoon sun

Gift shop at the City Museum in St. Louis

Peacock seen through a fence at Phillips Park Zoo in Aurora IL

Cousins playing in Grandma & Grandpa's yard. 

It's hard to wait for the evening sun to go down enough to get good shade over the digging spot.

A scrawny tree in Missouri seems to cast an oversized shadow.

Coyote and cactus ring toss

A shadow from my honeycomb chandelier

Shiny marbles in a basket

A wiggly hand at the Perot Museum in Dallas

Stripes of sunshine at a manufactured snow day

Thick brush strokes in the December morning light

Forced family fun on a path that had almost no shade. This was hot and unpleasant.

Forced family fun at the high school track

Quarantine food

Hello! How is everyone doing? Do you need a brief diversion from reading about transmission rates and mortality projections? Let's talk about food.

I have been spending a LOT of time in the kitchen: stress baking, making meals for all these people who seem to want to eat hourly, and scowling at the never-shrinking pile of dirty dishes. I'm no chef, but I'll share what we have been eating lately in case anyone else is in a rut and wants to borrow an idea.

We have made a lot of sweets, including the following:

Custard pie

Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

Rice krispy treats

Brownies

Banana bread

Granola

Lemon bars ( https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/85336/love-the-mama-lemon-bars/ )

I made fudge too, and it was good but definitely a first draft. Need to work on that one.

We've also made Mary Williams french bread multiple times, as well as these other non-sweet things:

Design Mom chili

https://www.designmom.com/chili-cookoff/

Pioneer Woman pizza crust (I double it to make two large sheet pan pizzas, plus I bake the crust for a few minutes, then add the toppings and continue cooking. I find that it is SO HARD to get a good crust on a cookie sheet. Sigh. Some day I might invest in a real pizza stone and a peel, but for now my kids rave about our "sloppy pizza".)

https://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/pizza-ree-a/?printable_recipe=11669

Pasta with easy Italian meat sauce

https://www.marthastewart.com/337678/pasta-and-easy-italian-meat-sauce

Bangkok curry (I love this so much, I could drink the sauce like a milkshake.)

https://pinchofyum.com/bangkok-coconut-curry-noodle-bowls

I tried this wild rice and butternut squash recipe yesterday. Matt and I liked it; the kids were not impressed.

https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/wild-rice-with-butternut-squash-leeks-and-corn-350425

We've also had a baked potato bar, sandwiches & chips (that's always a favorite because the boys get to pick their favorite chip flavors!), tostadas with refried beans, breakfast casserole, spaghetti pie, and ground pork tacos (because they were out of ground beef the day I was at the store).

Today for lunch we used some leftover chicken to make buffalo chicken dip. That's right, we had chips and cheesy dip for lunch. I actually deviate from the original recipe and bulk it up with pureed chick peas, so I don't even feel guilty about it.

Kinda sorta healthy Buffalo chicken dip

Two 15 oz. cans of chick peas / garbanzo beans, rinsed and pureed until very smooth (add water if needed to help it blend well)

One 8 oz. brick of cream cheese

1-2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese, cubed

1/2 cup blue cheese dressing

2 cups cooked chicken, chopped or shredded

1/2 cup buffalo wing sauce, or more to taste

Add all ingredients to a large skillet and simmer on low until all the cheese is melted and combined. Serve with tortilla chips.

This recipe is very flexible: vary the amounts of the cheeses, add more spicy wing sauce, or omit the chicken to make it vegetarian. The Alamo Drafthouse recently published the recipe for their vegan cauliflower bites. ( https://drafthouse.com/news/make-your-own-vegan-buffalo-cauliflower-alamoathome ) Maybe you could follow their lead and add some lightly steamed cauliflower pieces to this dip?

Tomorrow's dinner is broccoli cheese soup. I happened to find a picture of it from when I made it back in January. Remember January? I'd sure like to go back there.

I hope each of you are holding up well, with enough to feed yourselves and your people, plus a good stash of pantry chocolate to sneak when times get tough. Much love.

Sanditon

If you’re like me, you’ve been watching this show the past eight weeks, assuming that in the end you would get to see Charlotte and Sidney make out. 

Actually, scratch that. 

At first I assumed it would follow the traditional Jane Austen playbook, where the main couple finally end up together and share a chaste kiss in the final scene, probably on their wedding day.

But then in episode one, Edward claimed that Clara "took him in hand" (!!!), and then in episode 6, she threw a leg over him on the drawing room floor. At that point I thought, “wow, maybe we’ll see more than a wedding day peck after all..."

Ten minutes into episode 8, I watched with anticipation as Charlotte and Sidney wandered along the cliffs, making awkward small talk about the weather. When Sidney stepped up into her personal space and said "I was hoping that we might find a moment when we could be alone together," I got that prickly heat feeling on my neck that says, "I'm about to KISS THIS BOY." And then he called her by her first name rather than "Miss Heywood" and it was all over. 

Cut to me swooning to death.

Let's go ahead and review the play by play.

"Charlotte..."

"Yes?"

You probably want to watch that whole scene again right now, don't you? I completely understand, as I've rewatched it about a dozen times. It's currently streaming on the pbs website. I won't blame you if you pause here, open a new tab, and come back when you're done. 

I assume this is Charlotte’s first kiss, since she’s depicted as a young, naive girl from the country. I’d just like to acknowledge that she is starting out really well, in terms of kissing partner and setting:

Get it, Char.

Anyway, later that night, Sidney sexily watches Charlotte dance with someone else at the ball, knowing that he is about to ask her to marry him and she's totally going to say yes. Then they meet up on this glorious balcony and gaze into each other's eyes...and then that dirtbag Edward crashes the party and the whole thing goes off the rails.

Let's turn to happier thoughts, namely, Esther and Babington. No one has had a more dynamic and unexpected character arc than Esther. She was en excellent villain, a cold-blooded schemer when the story opened, but over time she revealed complexity and contradiction. I truly enjoyed watching her relationship with Babington develop from "Rich Guy Pursues Pretty Lady Who Will Probably End Up Having to Marry Him for His Money and Be Stuck in a Loveless Marriage Forever" into a genuine, mutual affection.

Their engagement scene was heartbreaking and sweet and charming.

Babington: I don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks. My dear girl…don’t you know that I’m in love with you?

Esther: And what is that to me, since I do not love you?

Babington: I don’t care. It’s enough that you like me and that you trust me.

Esther: I do not wish to be your property.

Babington: Good, because I have no wish to own you.

Esther: Why else would you have me as your wife?

Babington: Because I want to make you happy. I could never try to lead or constrain you, Esther. All I ask is to walk through life by your side.

Esther: Very well then.

Babington: You acc—you accept me?

Esther: Stop talking before I change my mind.

She kisses him and then adorably bops her nose against his and walks away. Lord B follows. 

Esther’s “leave them wanting more” game is strong.

Arthur Parker's brief storyline broke my heart. I wondered if they were setting him up to try to woo Georgiana, but when his sister asked him as much, he replied, "I don’t really know how ladies work. No...you’ve no worries about Arthur Parker on that score...lifelong bachelor."
I can't imagine how difficult it must have been to be a gay man in Regency England.

More heart breaking parts: Charlotte sobbing after Sidney told her that he was engaged to Mrs. Campion, Mr. Stringer sobbing to Charlotte over his father's coffin that the two men had "ended on a quarrel", Sidney riding up to Charlotte's coach to say "I don't love her" and Charlotte's response that he must try to make the best of it. Gut wrenching, all of it.

One interesting point that a friend pointed out to me to is the switcheroo where it's the man this time (Sidney) who needs money and is forced into an unwanted engagement, rather than the typical scenario where it's the woman who has to settle for security rather than love. I hadn't considered that. Still, I feel a bit less sorry for Sidney than I do for, say, Charlotte Lucas of Pride & Prejudice, who had to marry the doofus Mr. Collins because she knew she had few other prospects. In Sidney's case, becoming engaged to Mrs. Campion felt more mercenary, with the sole purpose to gain access to her money in order to save his dumb brother's investment. What is it with everyone bending over backward to protect the financial well-being of a failed white business man? Tale as old as time.

When the episode ended, it felt wide open for another season, and I was sure that one would be forthcoming. Alas, no. ITV has canceled it, though the writer, Andrew Davies, appears to be holding out some hope that there will be another season. 

Netflix, can you help a girl out? I'm dying for more Sanditon.

But what would a season two even look like? Now that Sidney is engaged, I suppose next season we would have to watch James Stringer take another run at wooing Charlotte, all while Charlotte gazes longingly at Sidney while his haughty fiance parades him in front of her. Ugh. I don't look forward to that. Don't get me wrong, Mr. Stringer is kind and adorable, but it was never a contest between him and Sidney Parker. Also, I can not abide that ridiculous tall hat they've always got him in, even if it is historically accurate. He looks like a cartoon cowboy.

 The three of these are basically the same.

I'm going to go console myself by watching episode seven's simmering passion-filled rowing lesson.

"Keep your back straight."

"Keep your hand there, and I sure will.."

Books read in 2019

I read 34 books in 2019, two short of the goal I had set for myself, but still a personal best.

I think it's pretty obvious that I am drawn in by a beautiful or striking cover. Would I have read Heidi if it didn't have that stunning floral cover art on a chartreuse background, done by Anna Bond of Rifle Paper Company? Maybe not. Coincidentally Little Women, with another gorgeous Anna Bond cover from the same series of reissues, is sitting on top of my to-read pile right now.

Two books horrified me with the treatment of the protagonist(s): Educated and The Radium Girls.

Lincoln in the Bardo was beautiful and very weird, in both style and substance, and I loved it.

I read two rock and roll memoirs, one true (Jeff Tweedy) and one fiction (Daisy Jones). Both were excellent.

As usual I suppose, there was a lot of family dysfunction, both fact and fiction, and to varying degrees: Hillbilly Elegy, Where the Crawdads Sing, Educated, There There, Rabbit Cake, and Eleanor Oliphant.

I learned a lot and enlarged my perspective by reading the memoirs of Jeff Tweedy, JD Vance, Tara Westover, Kareem Adbul-Jabbar, and Marjane Satrapi.

One delightful surprise was how much I liked both The Wild Robot and its sequel, The Wild Robot Escapes. I recommend it even if you don't have an enthusiastic six year old to read it to. It's charming as can be.

Young Jane Young is a fictionalized version of the Monica Lewinsky story, told from the points of view of various women whose lives were affected. It raises a lot of good questions, and I'm planning to recommend it to my book club.

I read a wide variety of genres last year: murder mystery, memoir, juvenile fiction, adult fiction, essay collection, how-to, narrative nonfiction, regular nonfiction, romance, graphic novel, and an academic lecture printed in book form.
One goal I have for my 2020 reading is more non-fiction. Only three on my list this year--Swedish Death Cleaning, The Radium Girls, and The Next Mormons--took a subject and explored it in depth. Time to level up my brain workouts.

Ten regular years

A couple years ago as we were heading toward the end of the year, I saw a meme that said something like, "Do something new. Don't just live the same year over and over for 70 years and call it a life." That hit me like a gut punch. I have been living in the same house this whole decade, raising three boys as a stay-at-home parent, accumulating stuff, not building a resume, and not earning a paycheck. I often feel like I'm living in Groundhog Day, and not necessarily in the fun, funny way. If any stage of my life could be described as "in the thick of it", it's right now. Parenting is so much thicker than I ever expected.

So over the last couple weeks of the twenty-teens, I reflected on how I spent the decade, using my favorite method of doing most things: a giant list. You might want to take stock as well, especially if you, like me, sometimes feel like your friends are doing more interesting and exciting and rewarding things than you are.

You'll probably realize that you've done more than you thought, and here's the most important part:  it's ok if most or all of them are just regular things. We can't all be Greta Thunberg.
(Also, hallelujah for digital pictures, because without my photo files I would not have remembered a lot of these things.)

I had a kid.
When the decade started, we had two boys, which felt like maximum capacity. But around 2012, I started telling Matt that I thought number three was floating out there somewhere, waiting to come to our family and bring balance to the force. It was one of the best decisions we ever made. He's been delightful and easygoing from the start and has brought me so much joy.
Before having him in 2013, however, I had a miscarriage that brought me a lot closer to death than I'd like to experience again any time soon. Also, Theo came fast, and I had him without an epidural. That was some real, intense living, but not the kind I hope to repeat in the 2020s.

I read 192 books.
This isn't a gigantic number compared to some of my friends who read 50+ books per year. But it's huge for me, since I spent the 2000s having basically forgotten that reading brings me a lot of joy. I'm so glad for that friend who said to me around 2008, "You should come to book club."

Speaking of books, in this decade I read the whole Harry Potter series out loud to my two older kids. It was one of the very best parenting experiences of my life. It was pure joy, in spite of that time when we were nearing the end of book six, and Mason picked up book seven, flipped idly through the first few pages, and called out, "Dumbledore dies?!?"

I fell hard core in love with Hamilton.
During the winter of 2015-16 I got a Spotify account so that I could listen to the original cast recording, then realized nearly a year later that I had paid about $120 in monthly subscription fees to listen to the same 40 songs over and over again. I should've just bought the CD set from the start and saved a hundred bucks. I have easily listened to that album a couple hundred times, and I could sing the whole thing through with few mistakes. I saw the show twice: once in Chicago with my sisters, and once in Austin with Matt and our friends. I also spent a delightful evening at a bar doing the whole show karaoke-style with a bunch of other Ham superfans, including my friend Janell, who I like to think of as my first convert as I spread the gospel of St. Lin Manuel-Miranda.

I celebrated a big sports thing.
When the Chicago Cubs clinched the National League pennant, I stood on my parents' front porch, banging pots and pans, crying, laughing, and yelling with my dad and the whole neighborhood. Seven games later, I was group texting with my parents and siblings, spread out across Illinois, Texas, Utah, and North Carolina, as the Cubs won the World Series for the first time in over a hundred years. It was incredible. We still text youtube clips to each other every November 2.

I knocked on doors for a candidate.
I majored in political science in college, so it's not like this was some radical thing to do. But I'm happy to say that I am paying closer attention to what happens in the world, reading about issues more carefully, and engaging respectfully when I disagree.
It broke my heart when Beto lost his Senate race, but it was such a good feeling to support a truly decent person. There is more door knocking in my future.

I went to some new places and revisited some old places.
No extreme adventures, no international flights, no lounging in paradise for days on end. But I have shown my kids a few more corners of the country, bonded with family, and caught up with distant friends. The past two summers, we have done a big road trip, which is exhausting and fun and a perfect example of the axiom "joy costs pain".
Since my parents, one sister, and a lot of my extended family are in the Chicago suburbs, that's where I've traveled the most, probably almost 20 times in the past 10 years. (Thank you, Southwest Airlines, for direct, cheap airfare!)
I've driven hours across Texas to visit Lubbock, San Antonio, Dallas, Corpus Christi, and Houston, plus I've been to Louisiana, North Carolina, Denver, Santa Fe, Arches National Park, Mesa Verde National Park, Uinta National Forest, Salt Lake City, Oklahoma, Kansas City, St. Louis, and the Indiana Dunes.

I grieved.
I lost my grandpa, plus someone that I consider a bonus grandpa, and an aunt. Each of them were sad experiences, but as a result I spent some really good family time remembering their lives.
I held our family dog, who was my first baby and the literal Best Dog the Universe Has Ever Created, as she was put to sleep. It's an incredibly heavy thing to be the one to decide when a life ends. I think it was the worst day of my life. It was definitely the most tears I've ever cried in one day (though if you read my Star Wars review yesterday, you might be like, "Are you sure about that?"). Just typing about it is making me emotional.
When I leave this world someday and reunite with all my people, I am going to spend a good amount of time with each of them and then sneak off for a couch nap with my Izzie girl.

I made a lot of things and did a lot of things.
I made jewelry, a couple quilts, photo books, cards, Christmas ornaments, paintings, furniture makeovers, Halloween costumes, a ton of soups, a ton of bread, and way too many cookies.
I've sung karaoke, gone to every museum I could, completed dozens of puzzles, spent countless hours hunting for vintage treasures in thrift shops, and built up a really nice succulent garden.
I've taken my kids swimming hundreds of times, been to the state fair, discovered that I can actually enjoy camping (in small doses and under the right circumstances), studied Spanish, and swung on a trapeze.
I volunteered with my church, my kids' schools, and our neighborhood HOA board. I encountered the worst smell I've ever smelled as I helped muck out a couple of houses after a hurricane.
Oh! A huge change this past decade is that I got a smart phone. It's the best thing and the worst thing I've ever added to my adult life.

What's next?
In the decade to come, I expect to turn 50 and to send two of my three children off to college. One of them is already taller than me; I can't imagine what it will be like to have actual adult children. Maybe we'll move to a different house, a different city or even a different state. Or maybe we will stay here in our little one story house and pay off the mortgage and be boring suburban people forever. Our dog is 4 years old, so it's quite likely that he will not be with us ten years from now. My body will probably never work as well as it does right now, which is sobering, since I'm already annoyed at all the shoulder aches and leg pains and general old person stuff that is creeping in.
In the next decade, I hope to read more and scroll less, to travel outside of the US, to finally take a drawing class, and to find a way to write as a paying job. I hope to become someone who is on time more often, criticizes less, and tackles something big and intimidating.

Happy New Year, friends, and Happy New Decade!

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

A thousand spoilers ahead...

I saw Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker on opening weekend, and I walked out of it beaming through a tear-streaked face. Here is a partial list of the times that I cried:

1. Rey hugs Leia after training
2. Chewie's big, manipulative, fake death
3. Leia calls to Ben and then dies, followed quickly by
4. Rey heals Ben ("I wanted to take your hand. I wanted to take Ben's hand."), followed quickly by
5. Han Solo appears to Ben
6. Ben heals resurrects (grumble grumble) Rey, then smiles (for probably the first time since age 10, because you know he was just the most insufferable brooding teenager), and dies
7. Chewbacca finally gets his medal
8. Rey's entire final scene at Tatooine

Basically I was a live version of that sobbing emoji, with rivers pouring from both eyes.
I'm still reading opinion pieces and watching the cast in talk show interviews and playing my favorite scenes over and over in my head. I think I made out with Kylo Ren in a dream the other night. Might've been Finn or Poe; who can be sure? I liked the movie a lot, is what I'm saying.

I do have a lot of nits to pick and things that I wish they had done differently, so I'm going to get those out of the way first before I talk about all the things that I loved.

A WASTE OF A GOOD ROSE
I wish that Rose had a bigger storyline, or really any storyline at all. And I wish that Finn had romantically pursued either her or Jannah. Both are potentially interesting matches for him, instead of the vague, unrequited crush that he's had on Rey since The Force Awakens.

MORE FORCEY PEOPLE
Speaking of Finn, it looks like he's Force sensitive, right? Can we explore that, please? Especially in light of Janah's account of a huge group of storm troopers feeling it en masse and defecting. That's a cool idea, and I wish the movie included more detail about non-chosen ones using the Force. Remember how Buffy figured out how to share her powers and make all the potentials into Slayers at once? I'll bet Rey and Maz Kanata could work that out.

CHEWIE DIES (jk)
It was a cheap shot to fake us out with Chewbacca's death. I gasped and then literally sobbed, both because I love Chewbacca and because of how heartbreaking it was that Rey accidentally killed him with her own hands. Then a couple minutes later when he turned up alive, I was annoyed. I kept waiting for a reasonable explanation for how he didn't die, other than, "Oh, there was another transport that y'all didn't see and that's the one he was on". That's cheaty storytelling. And not the good kind of cheaty.

NONSTOP LIGHT SPEED
The timeline was crazy. This all happened in 16 hours, right? Because near the beginning of the movie, I believe right after Poe's dizzying round of light speed leap frog, the emperor's transmission said they would destroy a planet the very next day. The pace overall felt rushed: hop to a planet, learn or do a thing, leave 15 minutes later, hop to another planet, etc. etc.

THE REBIRTH OF HELMET
What was with the rebuilding scene of Kylo Ren's mask? It was like a baby delivery: Will the doctors be able to save Helmet? Will Helmet pull through? Get some warm towels ready; Helmet is almost done. Bleh. Move along.

WE CAN DO IT
How did the Emperor create a fleet of ships, each one of which is a death star on speed? I mean the actual logistics of it. Did he have a bunch of factories? An army of machinists? All I saw were a couple of witch doctors keeping all his life support hoses in place. Well, that and a whole coliseum full of hooded Sith dudes. Were they the work crew? Maybe the emperor was like, "You guys, if we hit our quota by the end of the month, we'll have a big party and I'll let you watch while I transfer my life force into the unwilling body of a young woman who will become your new evil empress. So get welding!"

SPACE HORSE IN THE SPACE FORCE
How and when did Finn round up all of those shaggy horses to bring into space? (Side note: horses always look uncomfortable to me when I see them in a trailer on the highway. Surely they didn't like that space ship ride.)

FINN DROPS IN
How did Finn and Jannah hop onto the Millenium Falcon and then basically ride on top of it like a surfboard as it was zooming away from an exploding ship? I'm willing to suspend disbelief about the horses, but space surfing? Come on.

***************************************

Now that I've aired some of my grievances, I'll shift to some of the things I loved. It's basically my version of The Chris Farley Show, where I just go  "Remember that part where [fill in the blank]?...That was awesome." Don't say I didn't warn you.

I'll start with the most shallow of my thoughts.

THERE'S A LOT OF PRETTY.
LIKE, A LOT.
The main characters are massively attractive people. I saw The Rise of Skywalker on a giant IMAX screen, and it was a real visual feast. Close up on Finn, close up on Poe. Thank you very much, IMAX screen. Even in the intense fight scene, there were all these close ups of Rey and Ben and their giant, beautiful black eyes. And then at the end, Poe wagging his eyebrow suggestively at Zorri, like, "So, you wanna go celebrate saving the galaxy by making out in the forest?" How she turned that offer down is beyond me. That man is HIGHLY appealing.
Besides the hotness, there was also a lot of cuteness sprinkled throughout: The little guy who worked on C3PO! (Just googled it: he's Babu Frik) That new robot! (Googled: D-O) A glimpse of Porgs! A glimpse of Ewoks!

RETURN OF THE QUEEN
A couple things you should know about me:
1. I get really emotionally invested in fictional characters.
2. I love Carrie Fisher/Princess Leia.
3. I'm a huge crybaby.
So you can imagine that my reaction to the Leia scenes was emotional. I love her, I love that she trained Rey, I love that she and Rey together were able to break through and finally turn Kylo Ren back into Ben Solo, I even love all the back of the head shots that were obviously some stand-in with a good chignon. I wish we could have had more of her, but I appreciate that they did the best with the leftover film scraps they had from the other movies. RIP, Carrie.
And I know a lot of people are complaining about excessive pandering to fans (fandering?) but I totally cried at Chewbacca's sad reaction to learning about Leia's death, and then him finally getting that medal.

RETURN OF THE SCOUNDREL
Like I said, that whole scene where Leia helps Rey defeat Kylo was so good, and while I was still reeling from all that, who showed up but my boyfriend Han Solo? What a delightful surprise. That moment in The Force Awakens when Kylo killed Han was ROUGH, and it helped mend my still-broken heart to see them play out a similar scene with a hopeful ending. Love, forgiveness, family, resolving to be better. It's all so good.

Shall we take a two minute break to enjoy Han and Leia's first kiss? They are both, in the words of Eleanor Shellstrop, legit snacks, and their chemistry is hot like fire. "I'm nice men."

YOU'RE A WIZARD, REY
Maybe it's because I recently started reading the Harry Potter series with my six year old, but I was getting strong HP vibes throughout.
Rey grows up as an orphaned nobody, then it turns out that she's the chosen one with a deep connection to the Big Bad.  She's Harry!
Rey healing that giant snake? She's practically a parselmouth. By the way, I totally thought it would reappear later and show its gratitude by doing something like eating a storm trooper who was about to capture the good guys.
The emperor was nearly killed but came back in a not-quite-human form and then got himself a new body with the help of some creepy henchmen, then tried to kill the one person with a connection to his past, who he truly feared could be his undoing. He's Voldemort!
During the final showdown, when Rey was channeling all the past Jedi, I half expected them to appear as a line of ghosts behind her and promise to be with her to the end, a la the resurrection stone scene in The Deathly Hallows. How great would it have been to see Leia, Luke, Yoda, Mace Windu, Obi Wan Kenobi, etc. as blue ghosts flanking her?  And when she was pushing the emperor's attack back at him I kept thinking of the graveyard duel in The Goblet of Fire, with the twin core wands.

ENDGAME AND GOONIES, TOO
When Poe & Co. were nearly defeated, but then Lando was all, "I'm here, and I brought a thousand friends", did anyone else get a flashback to the "on your left" scene in Endgame when everyone came out of the portals to join the fight?
Also, "I am all the Sith"/ "I am all the Jedi" was totally "I am inevitable"/"I am Iron Man" right?

I even got a whiff of the Goonies: the gang falls into a cave while searching for clues and stumble on the skeleton of the guy that went before them. He has an artifact that lines up with the skyline to point the way. It was Chester Copperpot all over again.

THE REYLO CONNECTION
Kylo and Rey's fight scenes are always excellent, whether they are fighting each other or working together. Remember in the throne room in The Last Jedi, when they teamed up against the red guards? It was so well done. There's a lot of good fighting here in Rise of Skywalker as well.
The fact that these two can not only communicate telepathically now, but also slip into each other's physical space is a cool bit of trickery, with the the ripped off beads and the smashed Vader helmet. Is that a new use of the Force? The coolest moment was when Rey was facing the emperor, and Ben, weaponless, was facing the knights of Ren. There was a close up of her face, followed by his face, then at his tiniest nod, she teleported him the light saber and pulled the other one out for herself. That's some super teamwork.

FORCE HEALING
This might be my favorite thing about the movie. I believe that Force healing is a new concept, at least for the mainstream movies, and I love it. The only thing that Kylo had ever used his incredible power for was to dominate others and gain more power. When Rey healed him, he was shocked, maybe because he had thought he was about to die just a minute before, but maybe it was also because it never occurred to him to use his Force powers to help rather than harm.
Rey is awesome for many reasons, but one is that she is good and kind, even to giant snakes and skittish little droids. She opens up a whole world of possibilities when she shows Ben how to use the power of the Force for the good of others. It was so perfect that he came back and healed Rey after she had done the same for him. I love that he learned about that from her and used it as his final sacrifice.
I've been waiting to watch those two make out forever--they have mad chemistry--so I was glad that they at least kissed once before he disappeared. I wish there had been time for more of it, but it was definitely right that he died. I love to think of him reuniting with Han and Leia and Luke.
One small quibble here: Force healing is one thing, but Force resurrection is a bridge too far. Resurrection is a false promise that Palpatine used to seduce Anakin to the dark side. I wish that Rey hadn't been completely dead yet. Couldn't they have made her right on the verge of death? Mostly dead? As we all know, mostly dead is slightly alive, and that would've been better.

FULL CIRCLE
I loved the final scene on Tatooine. All of it: Rey, in a rare lighthearted moment, sledding down the dunes, then burying the light sabers, seeing Luke and Leia, calling herself Skywalker, and finally the beautiful shot of her in the sunset, with the shape of BB-8 mimicking the shape of the two suns.

I guess what I’m saying is that I’m here for the fandering. My 14 year old son and I watched this together, and in order to explain how much that meant to me, let me remind you what else is out there. My kids and their friends tend to watch millionaire twenty-three year old youtubers do videos like "Whoever sits in this pool full of dog food the longest wins a thousand dollars!" On the other hand, Adam Sandler is going the tried and true route to an Oscar nomination in Uncut Gems by wallowing in the seedy underbelly of humanity. Gross. Hard pass. Give me a strong female lead who still feels like a regular, good person, a satisfying redemption arc, some well choreographed fight scenes, a Jedi mind trick, and my favorite princess/general, and I’m here for it.


Did you really read all the way to the end? Here's a picture of Han and Leia on my wedding cake as a reward.

Amazing at making carbs

Many years ago, Matt attended the funeral of his friend's mother. He came home with a recipe card that said "Mary Williams French Bread". They had handed out copies to all attendees as a way to remember her. Isn't that great? I love the idea of a food legacy.

I had always been intimidated by recipes involving yeast, but I gave it a try, and the bread was pretty good.
The next time I made it, I tried to be patient. I let the bread rise longer, and it was fluffier.
The next time I made it, followed all the instructions, including brushing the top with butter while it was still warm. It was softer.
Eventually I figured out that if I coated my hands with some butter while forming the loaves, the process was less sticky and the end result looked better.
One time I decided to increase the recipe by 50% so that it made three loaves instead of two. I've never gone back.

Moral of the story: practice makes better.

***

I use this bread to manipulate people into eating healthier stuff. If it's minestrone soup for dinner, I might hear some complaints from the boys about the number of vegetables involved. But when I remind them of my "one bowl/one slice" policy, they will gobble down some minestrone.

Once I was in charge of dinner for a house full of kids and adults. I put together a build-your-own salad bar, and one of the adult men seemed a little disappointed. "So it's, uh, salad for dinner, then...?" But then I set a plate full of warm, sliced Mary Williams French Bread on the table, and what do you know? That man ate salad for dinner.

***

I hadn't made any homemade bread in a while, and I recently dug out the recipe and got to work. Good timing, too, because last Saturday afternoon my big kids informed me that one of them had been asked to provide the bread for our church sacrament service the next morning. Usually this just means bringing a loaf of sliced white bread from the store. I didn't have time for another grocery run though, so I got up early Sunday morning and made some bread. I've made it enough times that it is routine, mundane even. But when you are making the bread that people are about to eat as a representation of Jesus's body, in the ritual used to re-commit to following his example, you can't help but stop and think about it. I paid attention and did my best.

I actually wonder if it's a good idea to use freshly baked bread for the sacrament, since noticing the scent and the taste might be a distraction for some people. The bread is served to the congregation in bite sized pieces, and my own six year old angel child "accidentally" picked up several pieces from the tray instead of just one. Maybe it's best to stick with Wonder Bread.

***

Once a woman at church was talking about doing service for others. She said that when she had been going through a particularly rough time, there was someone who left her a loaf of bread every Monday. She said that she looked forward to it, not just for the bread itself, but for the spiritual and emotional boost it gave her to have tangible proof that someone loved and supported her. I thought that was just beautiful.

***

For several years, I've heard so much talk about avoiding gluten, avoiding carbohydrates, or at least eating whole grains, that I feel almost guilty serving up plain old, nutrient-deficient white bread. But it brings so much joy to my family. My surly teenager came in the door the other day and saw me slicing bread on the counter and said, "Oooh, homemade bread. Thanks, Mom!" He might have even given me a side hug. Straight out of Leave It to Beaver, right?

I have one kid who is such a picky eater that he will often skip dinner rather than eat what is offered. But he is all in on bread, biscuits, rolls, etc. The other night he polished off the last biscuit from his peach cobbler and said, "Mom, you are amazing at making carbs."

After my mom helped me finish making a big quilt recently, I joked that on her tombstone it should read, "She got stuff done." My ability to be productive and get stuff done will never be tombstone-worthy, but "She was amazing at making carbs" sounds pretty good.

***

Oct 2020

Edited to add: How could I publish this post and not include the bread recipe? I just found my original copy of Mary Williams' french bread (scribbled on, because children destroy everything). Go forth and spread carbs all over the world.