It's hydromatic

Rizzo is all that, and was, no surprise, my favorite character as a kid.
(And a Stockard Channing marathon would also be excellent.)

So, as you may have noticed, we are embarking on a new era Chez Thayer-Hansen. Z&O are old enough to begin the great indoctrination into movies and classic TV. Indoctrination programs for classic children's books, eclectic music, and live theater have already been underway and proceeding successfully, but our quest for world domination through overly enculturated offspring could not really begin in earnest until now.

Sometimes I think it really must be a burden to have us as parents.

My kids hadn't seen Star Wars until last weekend. I know, many, many of their contemporaries have been watching it for years now, but we are a bit sensitive about screen violence and not wanting to load their imagination with imagery of planets exploding, and that kind of thing. O especially has always had a hard time with even the implication of bad things happening on screen. (Scary music and the suggestion of suspense used to make him hide his face and cover his ears and make a terrible keening whine.) But we've crossed the threshold.

Last night for family night there was some contentious Mastermind while I cooked, then a few rounds of Mario Cart before dinner, and the feature film was ... Grease. If you have not watched it as an adult, and you have any fondness for the genre of movie musical, it is really worth a review. Not only are the musical numbers incredibly well shot and choreographed, but the script is actually smart and funny. And, really, John Travolta was kind of supernatural in the 70s. (If you have some time to kill, you could do worse things for yourself than having a Welcome Back Kotter/Grease/Saturday Night Fever marathon ... I can't vouch for Boy in the Plastic Bubble. I haven't seen it since it originally aired. And apparently he had a role in Carrie, which I also haven't seen if a very long time ... but we can toss those in if we are really doing a marathon. Then we'll finish up with Pulp Fiction, to compare dance sequences.) Here, enjoy this:

It is hard for me to believe I was the age O is now when Grease came out. It was the first movie I watched incessantly. I think I saw it 10 times in the theater, but I could be exaggerating. The soundtrack was the first album I bought with my own money. The fact that they called the Greased Lightening car a "pussy wagon" went completely over my head then, and I'm hoping it did Z&O's too. And O did wonder about the parking scene -- kissing in cars does seem a little odd as an abstract concept (and David has promised to explain the broken condom to him). The whole 'Is Rizzo pregnant - was it a false alarm - did she have an abortion - "There are Worse Things I Could Do"' subplot is so subtle that I imagine even most adults don't clock it.

And it occurs to me watching as an adult that Danny Zuko does way more to change himself and win back Sandy. In the early part of the movie he is a macho jerk to her in front of his friends, and a large part of his story line is about his trying to figure out how to prove that's not who he really is. Sure, Sandy teases her hair and puts on satin stretch pants for the final scene, but ...

Reading: I HAVE A HUGE PILE OF BOOKS I WANT TO READ, and my mother just told me about two more I want to add to it. Getting towards the end of the Hopkinson.

And, not that I have time, but I wish I were in a book group. I am jealous when people tell me about their book groups.

Writing: A bit.

Dinner: I made up "mushroom a la king." Originally, I had thought to make mushroom pot pies, but that ended up feeling fussy. (Yes, it used canned soup. So a bit of a foodie fail. Not that I am not entirely capable of making my own cream sauce, but this made it super easy, and I have a bit of an obsession with canned soup cookery. A kind of personal anthropological curiosity about American foodways. It also had onions; diced red bell pepper, celery and carrots; white and cremini mushrooms; thyme and marjoram. The canned soup was cream of chicken.) I served it over biscuits, with a generous side of lemony green beans (Z's current favorite veg).

Soundtrack: In the morning, I went into the office to get some work done in the quiet and empty. I put on a "Lucinda Williams and Elvis Costello" station on Pandora. Lots of moody Americana, including this Lucinda Williams song, "Those Three Days," which hit me in solar plexus and reminded me of the very, very early days of my relationship with David, when we were hundreds of miles apart and falling desperately in love with each other despite all wisdom.

I love you, David. Desperately still, after all these years. Nothing's been the same since those three days.

Random thing: Uh ... don't let me go to the store alone when I'm hungry. I go into a fugue state and it takes me 40 minutes to get 8 items.