Monday, February 9, 2015

Flower Drum Song

Madison spotted a rainbow today, the first of the year.  It was an oddly warm and rainy sort of day, which is the sort of thing that always comes unexpected in February, even though the groundhog himself told us spring was on the way.  This, of course, was the southern groundhog.  You can tell he's from the south because of the way he says, "y'all."

The northern groundhog said six more weeks of winter, which is what they're in the middle of.  How funny that they are so sick of snow and ice up there, enduring blizzard after blizzard.  And we here in Georgia have not seen a single flurry.   That is not an exaggeration.  This winter - and earlier into October or whatever - we haven't seen even a flurry.  This is an amazing letdown, considering all the random indicators that pop up with nature to tell us it'll be a whopper of a winter.  Sure, it was cold.  But every single time the precipitation was looming, that temperature spiked upwards.  It was like Dikembe Mutombo blocking us each time saying, "No winter for you!"

That was a 90's basketball reference.  I usually don't go there.

ANYWAY, tonight we had ballet as always.  It was raining off and on, but we timed it right on our dash inside.  Madison is gearing up for a recital, and enjoying the training.  More and more, she's confident about going off with the class to enjoy herself.  And she is making friends there as well, which is great to see.

Daddy had to do a bit of homework for her tonight after she went to sleep.  Each parent was required to write out a surprise letter to their child.  Madison's teacher will read each one out, and the kids have to try and guess who it is for.  We were allowed to decorate our letters, so Daddy did something he knew that Madison would like.  The scan didn't quite capture the coloring job I did, but nevertheless, here is Daddy's composition, a valentine to Madison.


I know she'll correct me and say she's only seen it 21 times.  But it was still fun.  And hopefully she'll like it when the thing is read in class.  I'm not sure when that is, but it is due on Tuesday, so Daddy spent some time writing this after bedtime.

It was a weird night.  Madison kept waking up, thinking that the alarm hadn't gone off and she would be late for school.  The alarm didn't go off a few weeks ago, but we all still made it on time.  And yet, here Madison is at midnight, asking about the alarm.  And then she's there at 4:00 am in our bedroom, asking the same question!  It was so bizarre!  We let her stay with us in our bed at that time, just so she felt secure about getting up on time and not missing anything.

She's been catching a little cough, so we're wondering if she's sick or something, but when she woke up the next morning, she was normal about going to school and starting her day.  It was as if last night didn't happen!

As for the day, it was an ordinary day today - except for Mommy's health.  She's had a horrible weekend, really.  Lots of stomach pains, the same thing she's been enduring since October.  We finally got through to the specialist, and on the way home from ballet, we got a prescription (and some more milk).  Mommy has been really downing the milk lately, as it helps ease the pain somewhat.  Still, it's not fun.  This afternoon, Daddy suggested we just sit down on the couch and not try to do anything productive.  Still, we were hanging up things on the walls for a bit - but eventually, we sat down to watch the movie "Flower Drum Song."  Can you believe we haven't seen this one yet?  We planned to many a time, but today was the first time we got around to it.

What a funny thing seeing Jack Soo and James Hong earlier in their careers - and singing, even!  Obviously, we didn't know about Jack Soo's earlier career - the only thing we knew was that he was in "Barney Miller" and "Return from Witch Mountain."  And James Hong has such a distinctive voice too - one we'll probably be hearing later when we watch the "Kung Fu Panda" movies.

Anyway, the movie was decent.  The Chinese theme throughout was of course a plus, and the songs were good too.  It was a longer movie, or at least seemed that way.  The resolution to the 'big conflict' was pretty quick, as if all the directors were looking at their watches and realizing the thing was going on a bit with the time.  And what about the character Helen Chao?  What a brutal sort of ending for her.  I mean, you saw it coming a mile away, and yet it had to drag out with a huge bit of choreography that made us immediately think of Danny Kaye's "Choreography" routine.  And then it still wasn't over - she was making breakfast with two orange juices and so forth for the leading man.  And that's when he races out the door with a "some other time."  We see her turn, pain and anguish in her face, and that's the last time we see her!  But on the whole, the movie was fun to watch this afternoon - and took up all the time we had until the bus came with Madison.

So with homework done, we went back to DunBroch to get cakes or something like that.  This is the goal of Disney Infinity 2.0's "Brave" game, which is pretty flimsy if you ask me.  Get cakes in order to unlock doors?  How about… keys?  I think this game was conceived after the "Escape from the Kyln" game, which is pretty much identical.  Except instead of escaped Marvel villains, you're fighting glowing wooden bears that also happen to want these magical cakes.  Life is easier when we don't question any of this and just proceed through the levels.  And that's what we did.  Daddy was Ralph, and Madison was Mickey Mouse.  We're almost to the end of this disc, and would have gotten a lot further if not for one thing:  it was past Madison's bedtime.

Oops.

We went to bed, and after that I think things have been chronicled enough:  the late night poetry and the unusual concerns about the alarm not going off.  It wasn't the best night to get a long night's sleep.  But we all woke up together in better health, so that'll be just fine.

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