Which movie was the best of 2012?

I'm going with "Beasts of the Southern Wild" for my top pick. 
As mentioned before, I went to see a few movies this year. Not sure how it stands up to my movie watching of the past, but I think it's less movies this year.

Why is "Beasts of the Southern Wild" so good? Because it creates an artificial world of today (NOLA) and places them in a quasi fictional setting. And then they wage war on mainstream-civilized America. Not a real war, just a war between untamed souls, living out their existence like people used to live in this country--and still do in a few rare pockets of desert, if they aren't caught and shut down (I'm thinking of the weird mobile home quasi-nudist colony pockets that were mentioned in "Into the Wild"). It's also a girl's quest to find her mommy and about the loss of her dad from a great sickness.

If you don't cry in this movie, you don't have a heart. Or you aren't pregnant, since I was in the second trimester when I saw this film. This movie also has mythological creatures in it.

Second pick: Django Unchained

It's a pretty good movie. Revenge! Justice against the baddest bad guys! Making fun of the losers in the KKK!
There's some gore. Justice does not come to all who deserve it in this film. Weak female characters.
(SPOILERS!) If Django's wife is brave enough to escape a few times, then why does she seem so weak in every other scene?

Third movie of 2012: Cabin in the Woods
You'll laugh and laugh in this movie. It's just pure fun. It does take the horror genre and stands it on it's head. It's funny. It's a little scary. It's unexpected. It has freaky ass unicorns in it.
Joss Whedon, the universe (mostly) adores you.

Fourth Movie: Cosmopolis
Uhh, this movie is great because you get to see Robert Pattison mostly nude. And some other girls get nude. And he has a sweet car with a toilet in it. But it's a cool Don Delillo  adaptation and it will make you think about Capitalism (a little) and throwing your riches away. Plus the metaphor of "Taking a Haircut" isn't lost. It will shock you in a few parts and I'm guessing most people hated the ending--which does not quite match the book.

Fifth Movie: Lincoln
Why didn't I rate this higher? Because I dozed off in a few places. Guess what? I could still figure out what was happening. I'm not looking for gore or a reenactment of the civil war battlefield. In fact, I love that the entire movie is based around the 13th Amendment and how it was passed. Let no one say that trickery  in politics is new today!  Daniel Day Lewis, you are a golden god and few dispute that. This isn't a bad movie. It's just not a truly great movie, either.

Sixth choice:  This is 40
Yeah, it's pretty much a comedy about how much being married with kids is weird. It's not too different from normal life, except this couple's financial problems don't quite seem as pressing as they should in a real life. Sell your BMW! Sell your Lexus! Oh, wait. It's a comedy. Poor souls. I know there's a fair number of unmarried people out there who will pray that this isn't their life. The goal of Judd Aptow films seems to just make it relevant enough and distant enough that we don't feel completely disgusted with our culture when we watch a film like this.

Seventh Choice: Silver Linings Playbook
I really did like this film. I almost ranked it higher. But the cliches that it delves into later make it a little stupid. "Everything is riding on this dance contest!" Really. There's a dance contest. They have to practice a lot for it. They have to score highly or else their entire world will collapse. Give me a break! This movie was doing so well, with the oft-unmentioned mental illnesses and weird peer-pressure,  blatant family instability that made this movie seem different this time.
But instead it turns into "Ha-ha! Look at how funny it is when people with an Eastern Accent like the Eagles?!" That plus the dance contest made me lower this movie's overall rating. You should still see it, though.

Eight Movie: Moonrise Kingdom
Great cast. Great endings. Great fantasy. Adorable film. It does deserve a higher rating, too, but I just didn't love it enough to outrank it. It doesn't create anything new in cinema, it's just a cute story. Been there. Done that. No tears were shed. No true laughs were made.

Movies. 2012.

I think these are the movies I saw in theatres during 2012.

--The Cabin in the Woods
--Beasts of the Southern Wild
--Silver Linings Playbook
--This is 40
--Lincoln
--Moonrise Kingdom
 --Cosmopolis

Then a miraculous event occurred

I have an abundance of PTO left for 2012. Didn't use it earlier in the year because I kept worrying that I'd go on bed rest or something terrible would happen and I would need the time off. With 8 days left in the year, I'm safe.

So I begged my coworkers to let me off early on Friday afternoon and hitched the train to the Mall of America.  (yes, I evaded fare. This was bad of me--but I can't find my metro transit card right now. Yikes!)

MALL OF AMERICA! Let there be no secrets about it. I love the MOA. My mission: Buy the nieces and nephew a Christmas present. Buy Dan's siblings a Christmas present. Complete my Groupon purchase from "The Body Shop" and buy the famed sacroiliac at the Maternity store.

I completed these missions. I even got a 30 minute foot massage. I started it as a 20 minute massage but as soon as the guy started with it, he said "20 minutes is not enough for you. You need 30 minutes." While I fell straight into their clutches with the up-sell, it was divine.

Dan's siblings are getting some instant bread-mix again from Williams Sonoma. (By far the most hectic store in the mall)
Dan's nieces are getting some clothes, makeup and silly stuff from Claire's and some other stores.
Dan's nephew is getting a book called "5 reasons to punch a dolphin in the face" from "The Oatmeal" website. I feared this would be a bit too old for him, but he's in 7th grade now and has not been sheltered in this world by any standards. So I went with it. Buying stuff for 7th grade boys isn't really my forte, anyway--since I dont know his clothing size.

I have a new makeup compact and two lip balms from The Body Shop. And this magical Sacroliac support band.

This thing is seriously magical. I feel like I've gotten back to my old self. It feels amazing, like a giant hug for my lower back.  I can stand again! I can walk again! I'm not exhausted by standing! I wish I had purchased it so much sooner instead of waiting for the hospital to mail it.

Dan just put the baby crib together--we brought it home last weekend from my coworker's house. Wonderful! It just needs a crib mattress.

Physical Therapy

I talked to my health-insurance provided "ask-a-nurse" line about my walking pains. She said there is no normal distance of walking for pregnancy and suggested swimming. For some stupid reason, I want to keep telling the nurses that I don't like swimming.

But that's not true.
I love swimming. I need to go swimming more if I want to practice for this summer's triathalon.
I don't have an accessible pool, though, but I do have a friend who already swims and I know she'd love it if I joined her.

So yeah. Dear Nurses,
I will not fight you anymore. I will go swimming for working out instead of complaining like a big, fat whiner.

I will also go to physical therapy and will see what it can do for me.

___________

Huge relief not traveling for Christmas this year. Will still miss the fam. Will not miss driving over crappy roads, through massive blizzards, spending a fortune on gas, meals, hotels & dog boarding.

___________

I didn't get the job I interviewed for--which is 50% surprising. Surprising because of the good vibes we shared during the interview. Not surprising because I'm pregnant & would be out for the busiest season of the year, in the busiest and most affected tax department of the year. So yeah, based on their business needs, it makes sense to hire the other dude, who has a lot of experience with being a boss of other departments at other financial firms.

The rejection interview they gave me--where they tell you face-to-face that you didn't get the job--went so well that I almost though that they *wished* they'd hired me. But that also could just be the class and corporate schmaltz they put on everything when a person is rejected. :)
Regardless, they did a good job with the schmaltz and I was candidate choice #2, but they had to go with candidate #1 because he had more management experience--and it's management job.

If I am allowed to be vapid on my very own blog, we'll just say that we know candidate #1 didn't get the job based on his looks. (He looks really, really dorky). Was that a nice thing to say?
Nope.
Bad blogger.

Anodyne Coffee House

This place. Is AWESOME.  We walked to the Sunday Farmer's Market a lot this summer, just about 6 or 7 blocks from our house. And this adorable coffee shop is across the street from the market. In the summer, we would just peek inside. We had our iced coffees from the market & our arms full of purchases that were too bulky to carry inside.

But as the weather turned, we stopped inside more and more. And now it is our Sunday tradition. Plus they have the NYTimes there, which is nice to read while sipping their delicious "Mischief Chai"

Sadly, for the last 2 Sundays, we've had to drive. Once because there was just too much snow blocking us in and this time because I was in too much pain from Nitro's 3 block walk.

Which begs the question: How far should a pregnant woman be able to walk?

Status update: of the 4 of "us" (my friends/family/social circle outside of birth class) who were due within the same two weeks of February, one woman had her baby (still in the NICU), one was just put on bed-rest until the end. So only two of "us" remain walking around the normal world.

WHO WILL "WIN" for "normalest" pregnancy?

I love making up dumb, fake words like NORMALEST.

Belly

I think I could watch the baby move inside my belly all.day.long.
 Just when I worry that she's not moving enough, she'll make a lurch or a bump or a movement and all is well again.

You wanted to hear about all of my aches and pains?

Of course you did! I am an old person. Just like any old person, I have to start complaining about my aches and pains.

1) My right side has a lot of sciatic pain if I stand or walk too much in one day. It leaves me severely limping at night and Dan has to literally help drag me into bed.
2) I started to get those *extremely* painful charlie horses. I know everyone gets them. You flex your leg and it gets better. But this type of pain is WAY worse than a normal charlie horse. It's TURBO CHARLIE HORSE. My leg still hurts two days later from it. Each leg got to experience it on Friday.
3) My back hurts most of the time.  My neck is constantly cracking. Rolling over in bed is nearly impossible. Standing up seems impossible.
4) Tying my shoes or putting my shoes takes about 5-10 minutes and that hurts my baby belly a lot. If only flip-flops were feasible in winter!
5) I can't breathe much. I sound like darth vader when I'm alone and trying to breathe. 


That's all.

Just wanted to share and bitch. I am extremely fat now and it sucks. I get depressed about it all the time. If I could exercise, I could be at a normal weight for pregnancy, but I can't (see above)

Though I guess my only option now is to start physical therapy. The exercises that should cure sciatic nerve pain just induce more of it, so something is wrong. Chiropractic medicine is also in my future. 
Dear little baby,
I love you desperately.
But this pain sucks the big one.  I don't want you to come out early but I want my back to do something normal & soon so that I can live a normal pregnant life soon.

If I won the lottery, If I was that brave!

A lucky family in MO just won the giant powerball jackpot last week. or maybe now it has been two weeks ago.

When I was a kid, like every kid, I thought about all of the cool things I'd do with the lottery. Then I stopped in adulthood because it seemed stupid and destined to make one feel depressed.

But I let myself think about it again this time and did not get depressed.  I think Bill and Melinda Gates had a harder challenge: making their investment in the world sustainable.  That's what I'd like to do.

So what would I do?

I'd incorporate and start buying properties on Troost. I'd try to do it discretely so that the price didn't skyrocket as  more slum-lords got greedy and refused to sell. The nice thing would be that I'd have secret money so I could just pay the greedy ones to get lost. No one wants to reward greedy, crazy landowners on Troost, but it would be great to get rid of the crazy people so the normal people could continue their work.   I'd buy out all of those terrible used car lots where no one really ever buys a car.  I'd get architectural proposals for rebuilding, designs that are sustainable for commercial use and match the architectural qualities of the buildings.

Everything would be LEED and solar-powered.

Then I'd start renting the business spaces for business uses, or at business-incubator prices.
I'd start the Troost CID, so that it would be patrolled by private police at night to prevent theft, until at the end of the day, the neighborhood was safe, had local and new businesses in it, with a clean street-scape.

It would start with just the 42-47th blocks of Troost, of course.

How cool would that be!?

The Hold Steady

The Hold-Steady is a great band. I love listening to them while doing housey-choresy-stuff.

Anyway, today's my Dad's birthday and I had to come to my blog to talk about it. Nothing has changed and I can't really talk to my friends about it because it's boring, I don't want to bother them, and they'd all feel sad, but can't really do anything about it. And plus not so many people really understand. Sometimes I think they secretly blame me for it. 

Thus I must hold-steady.

If I sent a text message, I'd get a painful response back from his wife, impersonating him.

If I called, he either wouldn't answer or would be a really big jerk on the phone, and I can't handle that again.

 I'll think about sending a card. Maybe a Christmas card. I imagine her tearing up the card or checking the mail first and throwing it away before it gets there. I imagine a "Return to sender" delivered back to me.
I imagine him reading it or it getting tossed in the trash right away, because he'd have to hide it from her.

So I just tell myself that it is ok. 12/8 is just another day.

And I visit the nursing home again on Monday and imagine my dad in one someday, at the end of the sunset path of life. Mondays are hard, you see people witing for dinner, watching TV, asking for help in their wheelchairs. The confines of the building are their entire lives, shrunken. It might be the natural state of things.

 It's just never like a Hallmark Movie, where everyone makes up permanently, where the nursing home ends and the family invites the patriarch or matriarch back home. It's just a false-make-up, and then things revert  back to the way they were. Taking care of the elderly is hard, tedious work. Mending fences is nearly impossible.

I swallowed a basketball!

Help! I swallowed a basketball! Or a head of cabbage.

And now I have a job interview on Tuesday where I have to wear a business suit/comparable outfit. Too bad none of my maternity clothes are up to the job interview challenge so far.

I'm just applying for a few different jobs internally at work. I'm a little scared. On one hand, I want the new job. It will be a better challenge and good opportunity. On the other hand, it is a pretty stressful job. Do I really want that while raising my baby?

Do I really want to be bored at work for another year or two?

I took this new job because it was boring and because I wanted to focus on other areas of my life. (like marathon training and volunteering and ....getting pregnant) Those things have all happened and been splendid so far, I am sure I can always keep up the working out part in the future. It's been weird to be completely stress free. I confess to being bored.

I guess I won't worry  until I am actually offered this job. I know it's impossible to be a super mom and have a wonderful career and be a wonderful mother all at the same time.   I also think this career step would just be for a few years and then I can move on to another job.  The extra salary would also be a little nicer. After all, we've got to fund Esme's college account from day 1 or else there won't be any money there for her future.

But the thought of coming home at 6 PM to only have a few hours with the baby until she goes to sleep is also sad. Is there a happy medium in there?