Movie question

My dad has a theory that the movie My Cousin Vinny is the one movie that you can mention to just about anyone, any age, to which the response would be laughter, followed by a discussion of favorite scenes and/or quotes.   He has tested this theory on the golf course, at bars, at family gatherings and in line at the bank and has found it to be sound.

We have discussed the qualities of My Cousin Vinny that cause it to have this effect.  It is a comedy.  It has been replayed numerous times on basic cable and/or regular television, so it has encountered a broad audience.  If you randomly channel surf and land on the movie, it is entertaining and uncomplicated enough to make you want to stick around to the end, even if you hadn't seen it before... or even if you had.  It has memorable lines that remain funny when pulled out of context, and those the lines evoke the entire movie scene.    

We were at a loss to name others, and Dad remains convinced that My Cousin Vinny is the highest and best example of movies that have this effect.

I nominated Ghostbusters as a movie with a similar effect.  I would also nominate The Princess Bride, but I doubt it has as broad an appeal as I think it does.  Dad remains unconvinced, probably because he has not tested either on a golf course yet.

Anyone have other movies they could suggest?

Ten Days of Butterflyfish: 7 Wants

World peace?  Happiness for my children?  Bullshark to make Admiral someday?  Screw that -- writing about what I want here isn't magically gonna make those things happen.  So, I'm gonna be selfish.

7.  A new kitchen.  Our house was built in 1961.  The kitchen is original.  It doesn't have to be high end fixtures, granite countertops & skylights.  Just more modern and functional.  At the same time, I have no interest in doing any half-assed temporary cosmetic fixes either.  So, we've had an awful kitchen since we bought the house in 2003.  I have a really long list of home improvements I'd love to do, actually.  Bathrooms, re-stain the floors... *sigh*  We probably could have done it all years ago, but I went to law school. Money priorities have put nonessential home improvements like these out of reach for the foreseeable future. 

6.  Shoes.  I don't own a single pair of cute designer shoes that I can wear to work.  See Lag Liv for an example of shoe-awesomeness.  Also, purses.

5.  A nicer work wardrobe.  I bought a few serviceable suits at an outlet store for heavy women.  They're ok for my job. But they're not nice suits -- hell, some of the suit jackets are not even lined.  (Fail.) I didn't want to buy nice suits, even if I could have found them, because I was so heavy.  I'm now well on my way back to ... well, much less overweight ... and I'd like some nice suits.

4.  A Kindle or a Nook or an iPad or a smartphone.  Shiny.  But more avenues for me to escape into the internet and/or books is probably a very bad idea, so such purchase is unlikely anytime soon even if it were financially feasible.

3. A permanent job in the law with regular hours that allows me to cover my bills (and maybe even build a little savings) and spend time with my family.  Working with sane people who like what they do (like I do now) would be a huge plus.

2.  To be at peace with my choices.  I was so sad/anxious to take maternity leave because I really enjoy my job and its over in July, so I wanted to make the most of it.  Now I am so much sadder and more anxious about the prospect of going back.  My baby is just a few weeks old.  Every time I think about the logistics of childcare/pumping/commuting/working/not spending happy daytime hours with Angelfish ... I feel a little sick and have difficulty sleeping.  Yeah.  Peace would be great.     

1.  Fully funded college education savings account for each of my kids.

MILP #191

Ptlawmom had the roundup.

Bon Jovi, watch out

Take my hand and we'll make it I swear
Whoooah
Livin on a prayer...

Clownfish's version of these lyrics:
 
Chasin my heart and that's no fair..
Whoooah
Livin on a prayer...

Now

I'm physically recovered from childbirth. 
I have friends who want to visit us and I'm sure I'll be happy to see them once they're here. But I cannot summon the energy to invite them over. I don't want to bother.
I'm eating too much.
It is too cold and the ground is too snow-covered to go for walks.
I cry often.
I am having difficulty establishing a pumping schedule and as a result I am returning to work in less than a month and have zero breast milk in reserve.

The truth is I think I'm really depressed.  Or really f**king tired and its manifesting as depression.  And I hate it.

* * *

I started this post yesterday, Wednesday.  Yesterday was a bad day. I got very little sleep and Angelfish was super clingy and crying a lot. Gassy maybe. Rough night Tuesday night and rough day Wednesday, anyway.  I escaped the house briefly yesterday to go to the dentist for a long-overdue cleaning while my mom watched the baby.  I also ran to the pharmacy.  I also attempted to drown my crippling sadness in the fast food drive through lane and ended up feeling 100x worse... hence the genesis of this post. 

Last night I got somewhat more sleep.  Bullshark took Angelfish from 9:30ish to 1ish and I slept. The rest of the night, I spent in a chair serving as a human mattress to Angelfish, but I definitely caught some more sleep because she was much less fussy last night. This morning, I feel a little better.  I'm going to shower and Angelfish and I are going to venture out to Target and walk around.
Doesn't solve the milk reserve problem though.

Valentine thoughts

Bullshark bought me chocolate covered strawberries.  I made him (and Clownfish) red velvet cupcakes. Nothing says I love you like carbs!  Yumm.

Clownfish came home with an enormous bag of valentines. Apparently, most parents make what amount to party favor bags -- pencils, pads of paper, mini-play-doh, tape dispensers, gift certificates -- as valentines.  The school has a strict no candy or food policy, so this was the alternative chosen by nearly every parent.  And I say parent because I really doubt this trend is kid-driven when the kids are in first grade.

Not our house.  Clownfish brought old-school store-bought valentines based on cartoon characters, the same as I did when I was in school.  Well, not quite the same.  I had Strawberry Shortcake valentines.  He had scary looking robot Transformers valentines.  Little boys are awesome like that.

MILP #190: Crimes and Misdemeanors

The Weekly MILP (Moms In the Legal Profession) Roundup is hosted on a rotating basis between PT-LawMom, Butterflyfish, and Attorney Work Product blogs. We originally rounded up just the moms in law school, but then discovered that those women eventually graduate. Who knew? So now all the moms in the legal field (heh) are represented. We aim for Sunday posts.

What I need is a good defense cuz I'm feeling like a criminal and I need to be redeemed ....

~ Fiona Apple.

The MILPs are up to no good.

• House arrest.  Nonsense and Frippery. 
• Adultery.  Lag Liv.
• Blog neglect. Law with Grace.
• Drugs. Magic Cookie 
• More drugs. Googie.
• Insanity defense. Shan.
• Paying for sex.  Proto Attorney.
• Conspiracy to shop. Suzy.
• Shooting to kill.  WNW Litigator.
• Complete defense (for bitchiness). PtLawmom.

___________________________________
If you’d like to have your blog added to the MILP blogroll for weekly review or would like us to consider a specific post, drop the hostess(es) an email or leave a comment at any of our sites.  Expecting moms in law school and attorneys are welcome! 

Ten Days of Butterflyfish: 8 Fears

8. I once wrote about my fear of having my throat slit. Haunts me less than it used to.

7. Walking up the stairs at my parents' house, my back to the front door, always terrified me. I don't know what I thought was coming through that door, but for as long as I can remember, I ran like my life depended on it up those stairs.


6.  I have specific, recurring nightmares about harm befalling my children.  Sometimes its my fault -- like a car accident or I accidentally drop a hot pot on them -- which results in disfigurement or worse. Sometimes it is not in my control, but I run through possible scenarios in my head:  what would you do if someone tried to carjack you and the kids were in the car?

5.  I don't kill or dispose of any bugs/spiders that find their way into the house.  I don't shriek and stand on chairs when I see bugs, but I let other people handle them.  When Bullshark is away, I am compelled to adopt a live and let live mentality.


4.  Not so much a fear, but an anxiety about what's next in my career. What will I be doing with my law degree after July 31?  I have no idea.  I'm not even sure I know what I want to do if my Plan A doesn't work out.  And that's pretty terrifying.


3.  I have specific, recurring nightmares about harm befalling my husband.  He drives a lot and goes to war zones occasionally.  Nuff said.

2. I love scuba diving and I love the ocean. That said, I had a scary incident at about 70 feet when I was separated from the group while swimming through and around in a large coral reef, and when I tried to ascend to look for the group from above, I became momentarily trapped ... wedged by my tank between stone and coral.  I still have nightmares about those few moments before I freed myself.

1.  Debt.  I have a lot of debt, though probably less than many other homeowners with my education.  Nonetheless, never getting out from under this debt is terrifying.

Ten Days of Butterflyfish: Nine Loves

Its a given I love the people in my life.  Bullshark, for example.  We've been married for going on twelve years and his kisses still make my knees weak. He's funny, sweet, generous, loving, a great father and a great husband -- I could go on.  Clownfish, Angelfish, my sister... I could write extensive blog posts on each one.  But it would be boring to anyone but me.  So instead I'm going to write about other loves.   


No particular order, of course, though I get decreasingly verbose because nursing cuts into the blogging time...

9.  Fishies.  I have far too much undersea decor in my house.  The baby bedroom blanket set (with matching lamp and mobile) was an undersea theme.  We have a tropical fish shower curtain in the bathroom.  In the kitchen, I have four small collages that I made from hand painted cards I bought in Fiji.  In the dining room, we have a charcoal/pencil picture of a diving helmet with sharks and a moray eel designed by Bullshark and drawn by an artist friend of ours.  There's more elsewhere --two watercolors I painted myself, a print of dolphins we bought at an art show, undersea puzzles we completed and framed.  Plus we have photo collages from our diving days.  Yeah.  So I didn't pull the "Butterflyfish" designation out of thin air.

8.  Coloring with crayons.  Having kids is awesome in this regard, because they give you a socially acceptable reason to be obsessed with Crayola crayons and old-school coloring books. I visit my nieces and color My Little Pony. Clownfish and I color dinosaurs and super heroes.  I'm not picky.  Crayons make me happy.   

7.  Television sci fi/ fantasy dramas.  I loved anything Joss Whedon has ever touched (Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse, Dr. Horrible).  The X-Files was must-see appointment television for most of its run -- and I eventually watched all of even the bad seasons and the movies.  My current sci fi needs are fulfilled by Fringe.  If you're not watching Fringe, you are missing out on some of the best acting, story arc and character development on television right now.

6.  Hot showers.  Probably terrible for my skin, but a hot shower can fix almost anything that ails me. Too tired to get going in the morning?  Wound up so much I can't sleep? Aches, pains, feeling slightly flu-ish, asthma acting up, the baby covered my hair in spit-up again?  The answer is always hot shower.  I hate that we have a really small hot water heater in our house as it severely limits my ability to indulge in long hot showers.  But then, its probably better for the environment that this is so. 

5.  Irish music.  Not what my mom calls the "diddleee diddlee" music -- the instrumental jigs and reels. (Though I'll listen to some of that too if there is dancing and drinking involved.) No, I like the old folk songs and the newer rock songs. Those songs take me back to my childhood good times and my parents at their happiest, even when the songs are the saddest.

4.  Popular fiction, usually designed for guys.  Though I've read the entire Maeve Binchy catalog, most of my fiction purchases in airports etc. are of the Baldacci/Grisham/Clancy/Deaver persuasion and not the chick lit persuasion.  

3.  The internet. Facebook, Twitter, blogs, my online network of MILPs, news, humor, webcomics. Yeah. I love it.  Maybe a little too much sometimes.

2.  Italian food.  Any and all, though I've only ever had the Italian-American iteration.

1. Dark chocolate.  I love the mildly bittersweet and the darkest, richest most decadent.

Ten Days of Butterflyfish Challenge: 10 Secrets

I've seen this meme circulating and I figured it would be a good way to shake off the writing cobwebs.  So, ten secrets. 

10.  I was in a talented and gifted program in elementary school (third through fifth grade).  I was bussed to the local public school twice a week for special classes.  I never felt smart enough to be in the program and I dropped out after three years.  It probably didn't help that one of my classroom teachers regularly made snide remarks about it -- if I forgot to make up an assignment or got anything less than 100% on a quiz, she would comment in front of the class things like "I guess being gifted doesn't mean you can count." 
 
9.  I hate confrontation.  I have a very reactive/expressive face that gets red easily when I feel strong emotion. In short, even when I'm just super-annoyed, I appear as if I'm gonna cry.  (This is probably not a 'secret' to anyone who knows me in person.)

8.  I made a huge mistake last week -- a huge mistake that was a total parent fail and terrified Clownfish.  This is not overstatement.  Its bad enough that even though I am posting "secrets" on a psudeo-anonymous blog, I am not posting the details.  I am so haunted by the could have beens -- the horrible things that could have happened because of my momentary lapse -- that whatever sleep I might have been able to secure as the parent of a newborn has been completely obliterated.*  

7.  I feel lots of guilt over things I cannot change.   See, for example, #8.

6.  I am the opposite of a wine snob. Wine slut?  Whatever, I'll drink something with a screw off cap and a name like "Midnight Hobo"** if it tastes good.

5.  I have a list of books I feel as if I should read, mostly classics, that I probably never will read.  Its like the "substantive law" blog feeds to which I subscribe that never seem to be my first (or second ... or fifth) priority in reading, my love of law & legal geekery notwithstanding.

4.  I am not vegetarian, yet I am completely repulsed by preparing raw meat, especially poultry and seafood, for consumption. When I engage in the process, blessedly a rare occasion now that Bullshark has taken on the lion's share of the cooking, I gag and retch the whole time.  Ugh, I am gagging right now thinking about it. Blech.    

3.  I am not an adventurous eater.  I am put off by foreign spices, smells, and especially textures. If I had the money, I'd love to travel the world, but I suspect I would be that asshole American who'd be looking for the local McDonald's after a few days. And I hate McDonald's.

2.  I am terrible about skincare.  I wash my face in the shower each day with that dime-store classic Noxzema, but that's usually it.  I very rarely put on moisturizer or sun block.  Then again, I rarely wear make up.

1.  I wish someone would nominate me for one of those makeover shows like "What Not to Wear" so I could buy a whole new wardrobe and get lessons in make up, etc., without guilt.  I act like I don't think that "that stuff" is important to me. But it is.  I want to be able to care about looking better and actually look better and spend some money on myself.  But I can't.  I have a very hard time spending money for just me.  



* When Clownfish was about four months old, I propped him up on a pillow on my bed to take his picture. I turned my back for a second and he tumbled off the bed and onto the floor.  He wasn't hurt, thank God -- my bed back than wasn't particularly high and he landed on carpet -- but I was a mess.  The mommy fail from last week feels 110 times worse.

** HT Jeph Jacques.

MILP #189

is at Atty Work Product blog.  Here Sunday-ish

Unsaid

I have a few blog posts started and not finished or posted.  Their content can best be summarized as follows: 

• Sleep deprivation. 
• Problems nursing. 
• Family stress. 
• Hormonal freak out.
• Time slipping away. 
• Snow & housebound.

In short, they're whiny. I don't want to whine. 

Overall, I feel too happy... too fortunate to whine. So that's why its been quiet around here.