Thursday, February 23, 2017

Zoe vs. the Oscars 2017

The Academy Awards air on Sunday, which means it's time for my fourth annual roundup of all the movies nominated for Best Picture. This year I've actually seen one of the movies. This may be the first year that's happened since Zoe was born! Time to celebrate by summarizing each and relating them to life with Zoe, the lens (get it?! lens!) through which I view everything, even the movies I don't see.



La La Land: The overall theme of this movie, as I understand it, is we are not to become cynical and ought to remain starry-eyed in the face of rejection. I'll try to remember that the next time I suggest Zoe try a new food or put on the pair of adorable boots she received as a gift but won't wear. Regarding the musical aspect, Zoe does sometimes break out into song, only the songs are about farts and diarrhea, i.e., not award material.

Breaking out into a dance never made sense until I had a child . . .
who finally went to sleep.


Moonlight: From the description, this movie has startling similarities to Zoe's life as a black boy raised in Miami by a strung-out mom except not at all like that since she's a little white girl from middle-class Brooklyn. Though her mama does make the occasional inappropriate joke about her need for hard drugs. One thing that I can relate to, though, is the feeling that Zoe is being played by at least three different actors.

Hell or High Water: I'll take, "Phrases used in extremis, for $2,000, Alex."

Fences: I read one description of Viola Davis's role as "a woman enduring a loved one's loud and erratic moods as well as their volatile behavior," and I'm just gonna stop right there.

Manchester by the Sea: I do love Kenneth Lonergan. Casey Affleck plays a janitor. However, I believe that his is a paying position so I probably can't relate.

Hacksaw Ridge: All parents wade unarmed into battle.

Just another dad telling his kid it's time to leave the park.

Hidden Figures: Let's see . . . I never get the credit I deserve. . . . It's a struggle to get to the bathroom sometimes. . . . I'd like to be shot into space. . . .

Lion: Sometimes I'm so tired that I fall asleep on the train and miss my stop, which is just like this story of a five-year-old Indian boy. Can I get Nicole Kidman to adopt me now?

Arrival: This was the one movie I saw, and I have to say, a story about a mother who's trying to communicate with an alien being who has an unusual concept of time really, really resonated with me.


Zoe: 157; Universe: 0


If you enjoyed this post, you may like my post last year about the 
Oscar- nominated movies.

For more of Zoe's hijinks, follow me on Facebook and on Twitter at @zoevsuniverse
I need a win here, people. 

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Thursday, February 16, 2017

Zoe vs. Celine Dion: Or, Why My Heart's Too Damn Tired to Go On

Thank God Valentine's Day is over, amirite? I hate schmaltz, and Valentine's Day is schmaltzy. You know what else I hate? Schlocky love songs. Especially ones by Celine Dion.
I know, I know, I'm so cranky. But that's because I'm not getting enough sleep.
The past few days, Zoe has come into our bed in the middle of the night, and after that, I can't sleep because of all the room she takes up, not to mention what she mentions about every ten minutes while we're lying there, which is, when are we getting up?
Did I say past few days? I meant since she could walk.
As I may have mentioned once or one hundred times before on this blog, see here, here, and---one of my first posts---here, Zoe's aversion to sleep has caused me no end of angst. I even wrote a sestina about it. She's always fought her bedtime, currently 9 p.m., and she still manages to get up before us. Even earlier on weekends.
You know what I hate more than schmaltzy love songs? If you said, "Getting up before six on a weekend morning," aka when the blessed and virtuous sleep in, then move to the head of the class. And bring Teacher a pillow.
Today's post combines the two things I hate most in the world: getting up early and schlocky love songs.
One of the schlockiest, in my opinion (the one that matters), is  "Because You Loved Me" by Canadian queen of schmaltz Celine Dion. Click on the YouTube link to sing along and try to drown her out with my new, improved version.
Enjoy!

Schlocky love songs by Celine Dion should be parodied


Because You Woke Me
For all those times you woke me
For all the sunrises you made me see
For all the toys with flashing lights
For all the sleepless goddamn nights
For every early-morning poo
Why did I have to accompany you?
I'd be forever thankful, baby
If you didn't make me get up
Must I heed your call?
You can reach the iPad, you're getting tall

You wake me up when I want to sleep
You were the voice interrupting my dreams
You poked my eyes till I couldn't see
You took the rest that was for me
You kept me up with constant speech
Mommy wants to get up, that's your firm belief
I'm as tired as I am
Because you woke me

You asked for juice and made me cry
I said go back to bed, you didn't even try
I went to make coffee, you prevented me
You said we had to watch TV
You jumped on me, and I did fall
Injured my body, I hurt it all
I'd be grateful for every minute you'd give me
Five minutes more is not that much
But I know this much is true
I'm not getting any more sleep, all because of you

You wake me up when I want to sleep
You were the voice interrupting my dreams
You poked my eyes till I couldn't see
You took the rest that was for me
Once I'm up, you know I gotta pee
Cause a small bladder's my destiny
I'm as tired as I am
Because you woke me

You were always on top of me
Non-tender elbows prodding me
A light in the dark---is that you shining a flashlight in my eyes?
It's not my imagination
Through closed eyes, I can still see the truth
My world is a sleepless place because of you.

You wake me up when I want to sleep
You were the voice interrupting my dreams
You poked my eyes till I couldn't see
You took the rest that was for me
You keep me up with constant speech
Feel like my soul is gonna bleed
I'm as tired as I am
Because you woke me


I'm so extremely tired, I really am
Because you woke me.

Zoe: 156; Universe: 0


If you enjoyed this post, you may like this one
in which we all began to never sleep again.

For more of Zoe's hijinks, follow me on Facebook and on Twitter at @zoevsuniverse
I need a win here, people. 

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Thursday, February 9, 2017

Zoe vs. Growing Pains, Holes in Pants, and Death

Every few months, Zoe complains that her legs hurt. Usually, it's her left leg below her knee. Sometimes it's her lower right leg. Since I'm a modern, educated mom, my first thought, naturally, was bone cancer.
My second, and more likely, thought was growing pains. My third thought was: "Let's check the Internet just to make sure it's not bone cancer even though I know everything I read will only make me even more certain that it is."

Growing Pains. Not just an '80s TV show

Growing Pains. Not Just an '80s TV Show
Zoe's lower-leg pain most often comes upon her when it's time for bed, so a reasonable person might suppose, considering her long rap sheet of delaying tactics, a sheet so long she could sleep under it if she were so inclined, which she is not, that this was yet another one. After all, she'd been fine a few minutes before she started complaining, when she'd insisted she had to finish her show-slash-interpretive dance as a unicorn called Rainbow Universe Everything Anything. No pain at all while she spun around and dramatically threw herself to the floor, but now that it was time to settle down . . . agony. And I had to rub her legs. No cancer, less truth, I figured.
But then the other night the pain in her legs woke her and she was crying from it, and so I rubbed her legs on the couch as the Husband and I watched The Hunt for Red October on mute, which was okay because we know all the words, and the first time Zoe sees it I'd like it to seem fresh.
Eventually, she fell asleep and the next morning she was fine.

Holes, Holes, and More Holes
Zoe and her growing up are both unstoppable forces. This means she's tough on clothes. It seems like all her pants have a hole in their right knees. The Husband usually dresses her in the morning, and when I pick her up at night and see the hole in her right knee, I experience that creeping shame all moms are familiar with---even in these supposed modern times---that others will judge us. Bad mother!
However, I also know she's running out of outfits she's "willing to wear" that don't have holes in their right knees, and even if they didn't have a hole in the morning, they would by the time I picked her up---she's that good, folks.
But the physical growth pales in comparison to the mental growth with its accompanying uncomfortable questions that I struggle to answer intelligently and honestly.
Why are girls different from boys?
Why do you have to work all the time?
What did that lady mean when she said there's an orange Cheeto in the White House?
One she hasn't asked yet but I know she will soon is: What happens after we die?
The first death in Zoe's life, that she noticed, was our cat Harley's. Zoe was about four and a half, and she didn't understand why we'd never see Harley again. Every few weeks she'd ask again, and I'd go over it again. Harley was not coming back. And no, we couldn't go where she was to visit. We were not Julia Roberts in Flatliners, or, since that movie was before her time, we were not Draco Malfoy's dad in The OA (though I don't think Zoe gets Netflix either).

Chicken Bone or Dog Bone?
Recently, a relative died, and we debated about bringing her to the wake. Was she too young or, being a curious and observant child, would it disturb her more if she wasn't allowed to come and worried over why she was being left out?
In the end, we decided to bring her, and the first question she asked when she saw the body in the casket was: Where's her feet?
Throughout the day her questions evolved. When we were leaving to drive to the church, she wanted to know if my relative was coming with us. And what about after that?
I was waiting for her to ask if we'd see her again because I'd been wondering what I'd tell her. A protective lie? And who would I be protecting exactly? Or just the truth, which was: I don't know. But she didn't ask.
A week later, Zoe and I were walking down the street, her picking up rocks and handing them to me to put in my pocket, and we came across some garbage that must've fallen out of a trashcan. She was reaching to pick something up when I stopped her.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It looks like a chicken bone."
"No, I don't think so," she said, peering closer.
"What do you think it is?"
"A dog bone."
"It's too small. It must be a chicken bone."
"But chickens don't play with bones."
Oh, I thought. Epiphany. To Zoe, her association upon seeing a bone was not "animal killed and eaten by people," it was "toy for dog." I'd gotten so used to thinking of her as my little evil mastermind in training that I sometimes forget she's six.
That's when I realized I didn't need to worry so much about how to answer her future questions. By the time she was ready to ask the big questions, she'd be ready for honest answers.
Just let them stay on chicken-bone level for a while longer.
Zoe: 155; Universe: 0
If you enjoyed this post, you may like this one, 
in which we consider cryogenically freezing our cat.

For more of Zoe's hijinks, follow me on Facebook and on Twitter at @zoevsuniverse
I need a win here, people. 

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