Ken Burns

This week I'm sending a letter, not on my own behalf, but on my husband's.  He loves documentaries; we both do.  While I don't have a favorite documentarian, he definitely does.  He loves Ken Burns and has even said that he's a personal hero.  Burns has produced 32 documentaries, so I'm not going to list them all, but I have watched a handful of them with my immortal beloved, and I've seen some more than once.  The ones that stick out to me are my husband's favorites and I've watched them... well, we'll just say I've watched them enough that I really should know more on the subjects than I do.  The favorites are Baseball, The War, The Civil War and his extra special two, Prohibition and The Roosevelts.  Now, these are all series or miniseries, so I have really spent a lot of time with Ken Burns.  I feel confident that if one man in America knows more history than anyone else, it's definitely him.  What I'll do is find the fan mail address and send a SASE in order to really guarantee an autograph for my dude but remember: It's a surprise.  Don't tell him!  

immature

Hey, everyone!  Remember a music group called immature?  Yes, I left that uncapitalized on purpose.  Apparently immature was the e.e. cummings of preteen 90s R&B.  Actually, if you don't remember them (unforgivable), you may remember Marques Houston from his role on Sister, Sister.  It was a show about two twin sisters who had been adopted at birth by separate families and the stars were Tia and Tamera Mowry.  If you don't remember THAT, then you are probably a small child, but it's okay.  Check the show out on YouTube.  You kids can find anything on there.  So watch the show, taking special note of the next-door neighbor, Roger.  The twins always said, in unison, "go home, Roger!" every time he came over trying to hit on them.  I personally had a giant crush on him, but what else is new?  I have no type and I love EVERYONE.  That's just me.

Anyway, Marques Houston was also in this singing group called immature and for some reason his name in the group was Batman.  They all had real names, obviously, but they also had nicknames or group names or something and the other two were LDB and Romeo.  These three kids were, besides being cute for little girls to look at, legitimately talented singers.  Again, make your way over to YouTube and look them up.  Here, I'll post a link this time.  Here.  Really good, right?   I'm not even kidding, I listened to them SO MUCH!  I totally had their Bop posters on my wall, too.  I loved them, even if all their songs were slow jams.  So, listen.  What other groups like them can you think of?  I remember Soul For Real and 3T, and they were so great!  Also Kriss Kross were kids, but they did rap so that's kind of a different category. I loved them too, though.  More on that later, maybe.  Comment and subscribe, ladies and gents.  You don't want to miss a word of this blog, believe me!

The Mighty Ducks

When I was a kid, I never watched hockey.  I had literally never seen a game, or even a portion of a game when I watched the Mighty Ducks movies.  In fact, the first time I ever saw even a bit of hockey besides those movies was at age 20, when I saw the local minor league team in the city I'd moved to. Guys, if you've been in that situation, you know that the movies offer nothing by way of education about the rules, which are actually really complicated.  As I discovered.

Anyway, those movies were for sure my favorites of the 90s.  The best of the three is number two, and since I lived in a city with a $1 movie theater, I saw it on the big screen about ten times.  True story.  Now I have them all on DVD, but they've been all over the world with me and they're all scratched up and they skip and I think one of them doesn't even work anymore and MY LIFE IS SO HARD!!!

***Edit*** When I took them to get signed my Brandon Adams I remembered that about five years ago my husband had bought me new copies and they all work beautifully.  Thank goodness I didn't have to haul out the garbage ones to get signed!

Sorry.  Please accept this picture of my in my Goldberg jersey at approx. 15 months pregnant.

I know you're expecting this from me, because it's kind of a theme, so here's the list of my crushes from those movies: Mike Vitar (more on The Sandlot later), Brandon Adams (probably a whole POST on him later), Aaron Lohr (the bigger Bash Brother), Justin Wong (Wu Wu Wu Kenny Wuuuuuuuu!) and Emilio Estevez (of course).  This proves conclusively that I have NEVER had a 'type'.

So here's the story.  There's this real unethical jerk of a lawyer who gets a DUI and has to take a leave of absence from work and do community service.  He's assigned the job of coaching peewee hockey, since he was this big peewee star as a kid, but when he gets to practice, he finds the biggest hockey nightmare ever.  He takes over, makes them champs, and then continues to coach them into two more movies.  And he does you-know-what with the star player's mom.  Like ya do.  Spoilers, but these movies are almost 25 years old so... you should've seen them by now, to be honest.  If you haven't, get on it.  Now.

Saturday Spotlight: Stupid Game Show Answers

Short post today, but a good one!  There's a channel on YouTube called Stupid Game Show Answers and I LOVE IT!!! It's all these montages of the worst and funniest answers given by contestants on game shows.  Here are my two favorites:

Q: Name something at the grocery store that you squeeze before you buy it.

A: Peanut Butter.

Q: In what month of pregnancy does a woman begin to look pregnant?

A: September.

Okay, maybe it's not as funny in writing, but I swear the videos are hilarious!  Click here to watch!

The Cosby Show

First off, I know.  You don't need to argue with me because I already agree with you.  I'm not here to tell you how I feel about the show now, I'm here to tell you how I felt about it 30 years ago.  So, you know.  Consider me disclaimed.

Alright, where to start?  I'm mixed.  My dad's black and my mom's white, so I'm mixed, see?  Well, when I was about six, my parents split up and I moved from living with my dad's side of the family to living with my mom's side in a tiny, wretched little town where there were basically no other black people (see the horrific ghost town here).  While I lived there, until the era of In Living Color, the only black people on TV that I knew of were the Huxtables.  I'm right between the ages of Vanessa and Rudy, so I fit comfortably into their family and I loved to hang out with them.  I wanted to be Denise so badly, and wouldn't you know it... she turned out to be the rebellious one.  I also know that a lot of people had crushes on Theo, but I never understood that.  Well, not until years later when I saw Malcolm Jamal Warner all grown up.

Okay, now I get it.

My favorite thing about watching The Cosby Show was seeing how rich people lived.  It seemed like they were all intelligent, healthy and well-adjusted which you don't get a lot of in small towns.  It was totally fascinating.  I miss watching it and I miss the warm fuzzies it used to give me.

Side note: Phylicia Rashad and Keshia Knight Pulliam were in a movie called Polly together, which I will undoubtedly write about at some point.  Check back often to see.  Or better yet, click the subscribe button and never miss a post.  And comment to let me know if you'd rather see that one sooner rather than later.

Haven

One of the shows I've gotten into lately is Haven.  Funny story about that.  The show is loosely based on a Stephen King story called The Colorado Kid.  I got all the way into the third season of Haven wondering when they were going to reference the book before I finally looked it up online.  Turns out I haven't actually read that story.  I was thinking of Blockade Billy THE WHOLE TIME.  If you're familiar with those two stories, you're definitely cackling at me right now. 

So, the show is not about a minor league baseball team.  It's about a town near Derry, Maine where tragic supernatural things happen.  The things are called 'the troubles' and the people who make them happen (usually unintentionally) are 'troubled' people.  I'm not finished with the series yet but it seems that there's only one person who can fix everything but she doesn't know how to, or even who she is.  That's quite the obstacle, as you can imagine.  It's originally a Syfy show but I watch it on Netflix, as I mentioned here.  Check it out.

What To Expect/Your Best Birth

When I was expecting my first baby, The Bookworm, I did what everyone does; I read What to Expect When You're Expecting.  It turns out there's a website, a mobile app, more than one verified Twitter account, a Facebook Page and a whole series of books.  If you're pregnant and enjoying the book, let me recommend that you go over to Facebook and like Heidi Murkoff's Page. She actually goes online a lot and interacts with everyone.  The most impressive thing (maybe in the world) is how much she remembers about people individually.  I mentioned once that I would like her to speak at the Air Force Base near me and months later when I commented on a completely unrelated post, she mentioned it again.  She seems to remember names and faces and stories and entire families that she's never even met, or only met once at an event full of hundreds of people.  I'm telling you, I don't know her but I love her to death.

More important, though, if you're nervous about labor or birth is a book called Your Best Birth by Rikki Lake and Abby Epstein.  You probably recognize Rikki Lake's name from TV and movies.  Yep, that's her.  In fact, there's a movie version.  It's a documentary called The Business of Being Born and it's on Netflix.  The book outlines all of your options, which is fabulous for us Americans because all they tell us is to either schedule a C-section or order the epidural before you even pee on the stick.  This book made me feel empowered (as much as that word's overuse makes me roll my eyes) and it took my nerves away.

If you go the hippie route, I suggest you check out every book Ina May Gaskin wrote.  My favorites are Spiritual Midwifery and Ina May's Guide to Breastfeeding.  

For parenting advice, check out one of my older posts, here.

Me, with a month still left to go baking The Villain

 
What to Expect on Twitter:

What To Expect- https://twitter.com/WhatToExpect
WTE Pregnancy- https://twitter.com/PregnancyWTE
WTE Baby- https://twitter.com/BabyWTE
WTE Toddler- https://twitter.com/ToddlerWTE