In spite of a very tempting proposition from Captain Jack Sparrow to join his band of mecreants, we made our way back to Sacramento on the winds of a storm. And, sadly, after the euphoria of sleeping in your own bed and take a shower in your bathtub has passed, you are left with more laundry than you thought possible and little Jedis wanting food (again?). I'll be back shortly. I think.
I wonder if the offer from Jack Sparrow would still stand.
Yep, that's Disneyland and that's where we are going. Actually, this trip was a gift for Mark's birthday (yes, I know, he'd rather be in Hawaii on the beach, hehe). That's the 2nd time that we'll be going there (with the kids that is; we had been there together before we had kids)(that sounds almost impossible: before we had kids? Can't even form that thought fully!). The first time we went for the wedding of one of Mark's cousin who was getting married very close. At the time, incredibly, I didn't think I'd like it and wanted to spend all my time at the Ocean with the kids. But my mother-in-law insisted we should go arguing that it was silly to be so close to Disneyland with little kids and not go. She was right and so we went...and we had a blast. We all loved it which I really didn't think would happen. But the look on my daughter's face (she was 5 at the time) when she met and talked with Cinderella, Mickey, Tigger and Captain Hook was priceless indeed. We stuffed ourselves with Churros and Mickey ice cream. We watched Tinkerbell flying over us during the fireworks and the parade quite frankly is amazing.
This time, the plan is to have tea with Minnie and meet up with Captain Jack Sparrow on New Orleans Square :)
We'll be back Saturday or Sunday. If you are going on vacation, have a good time and if you are stuck at the office, heu, well, sorry!
Spring has arrived full force in the Sacramento valley. We don't really have a winter here. We have summer with temps in the 100 F. (37 C.) as the norm and staying above that for days at a time with no rain for months (June to end of October). And then it's just a looooong fall/spring being just a bit colder for a few days in January. And there is a downside: mosquitoes. Swarms after swarms of big mosquitoes everywhere. The soil is clay in most parts of the valley which means that puddles stay there for days making the little suckers very happy...and no amount of garlic repels them unfortunatly ;)
Everybody is covered in bites these days even if we are careful...even the dog has had enough. I'm thinking of getting a bat house this year...I'd take bats over mosquitoes any day!
Candy Froggie had a game on her site about movies. Since I had computer troubles at that time I had not played. Now that everything is going well ( crossing fingers and toes), here are my answers:
1. A movie that makes you laugh: Don Camillo
2. A movie that makes you dance: Take the Lead
3. A movie that moves you to tears: E.T. every single time!
4. A movie that gets on your nerves: Sahara
5. A movie that makes you shudder: Any pirates, adventure (like Indiana, Lord of the Rings etc...).
6. A movie that makes you want to travel: Out of Africa
7. A too romantic movie: Shakespeare in Love
8. A movie I've in mind just right now: Lawrence of Arabia
9. A movie everybody knows by heart: Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
10: A movie with a real bad ending: Chocolat (not the one with Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche) but the one by Claire Denis
11. A movie with a soundtrack you really love: Take the Lead, Real Women have Curves, Buffy (I know it's a show but...)
12. A movie I'd really like to watch again: mmm, there is a lot of them! Let's choose...Cry Baby and The Devil Wears Prada :)
13. A movie with erotic bits that inspire you: Le Grand Bleu
14. A movie you could watch a thousand times without getting bored: Any Indiana Jones
15. A movie for kids that you love: The Castle in the Sky, Howl's Moving Castle, Ice Age, Pirates of the Carribean etc, etc!
16. A favorite cartoon: Peter Pan
Voila! Finally did it :)
And here is the trailer of The Devil Wears Prada. Meryl Streep is as usual excellent, a must-see I think!
Were lovely! Mark's birthday was great. He is getting 3 parties, no less, which cheered him up considerably ;)
Valentine's day was very good as well. In fact it was great: we all got to dig in the mud to try to make a garden out of the backyard. We had a great time, followed by a great dinner and cake, made by me both in 30 mns. I got raved revues ;)( not that they had the choice or anything hehe ).
Yesterday, started equally great: glorious spring day, everybody in t-shirts, smiling and in a good mood ( see: valentine's day is very good for you ). We got the kids in bed at a reasonnable hour for once and we started to watch a japanese movie that I had wanted to watch for a while:
We were enjoying ourselves quite a bit when we suddenly heard helicopters flying over the house. This is a common occurence. They are police helicopters and are used to follow suspects night or day. So we just continued to watch the movie. But the helicopter was very insistent and usually they don't keep flying over the house, they make a wide circle in between the 2 big streets ( our neighborhood is stuck in the middle). Then they started asking (in a loud speaker) for everybody to close the doors and windows, keep the pets inside and call 911 if anybody saw something suspicious. Which was quite a bit funny, I thought. All right, so, of course we did, and the whole thing went on for a good 45 mns. The sheriffs came with their dogs, and they went in all the backyards with their flashlights. And I don't know if they found what they were looking for or not.
What's funny is that the whole thing didn't faze me one bit. We now live in a very nice neighborhood (I swear it's true, this stuff happens everywhere here) but we used to live next door to drug dealers and across the street from a gang. Which didn't faze me much either. My mom thinks there is something wrong with me. I don't know what to think. She is shocked that after the circus was done I just went to sleep, slept soundly with not a worried thought. I'm thinking: well, the sheriff was there with the dogs, the police was there, Mark was there, Piper the great beast was there, we live down the street from a member of the SWAT team, next street from us lives my good friend M. who is a cop and kicks butt, I had closed up everything that could...I mean, what else could I do at 1 am? Of course she also doesn't think I should walk the dog by myself at night, drink beer when it's not August, eat sausages, work, plant more trees, read too much and for pete's sake Marie-Laure you should wear make-up ;). Mmmph.
And that's my point: I'm not easily scared that's true but I'm not a lunatic! I carry a cell phone at night and keys can be quite useful. I know so many people in the neighborhood by now there are dozens of houses I could run to if I had a problem. Not mentionning a great big dog by my side. But my mom was upset and I don't know what to tell her anymore... Of course it's true: anything could happen at any time. I sincerely don't think paranoia helps though. But I'm sure the fact that I am in the States makes it worse for her. I just read in National Geographic that adults in the United States have more chance to die of a firearm assault than being runover by a car. What about in France though? I've been gone a while but from what I hear it's not safer..
So, what do you think, am I being careless?
Happy Birthday Mark!!
He is turning, huh, hum, 26 isn't it? Sure there is a little bit of gray here and there but it just matches my own darling. And really you still get carded when you buy alcohol or ( completly incredible but true ) cough syrup for your sick child. Even though,really, you're 38. Oups, it just slipped out! Sorry!
And you're so fortunate since right on your b-day you get to go on a field trip with 33 eleven years old who have been cooped up inside for a week because of the crappy weather. 6 hours of glorious happiness. Eating a cold sandwich for lunch. Ah, come on, it makes you feel young. And the bonus is: you get to be with 33 happy (ok,ok,overexcited in a give me the ritalin kind of way, but it's the same thing really) little people for most of the day.
And no it's not raining. It's just the sprinkles on the cake :)
ps: I don't really have gray hair. I just said that to make him feel better you understand. I just thought I should be perfectly honest about this.
Do you think it's a sign
when your mother in law calls at 8 am on a Sunday
and tells you that you've already done 2 things wrong even though
the only thing you've done so far is dragging yourself up to go pee?
Waving to Candy Froggie :). I know it has been a while...Actually, I'd like to take this opportunity to rant. See, I've calculated that I've 2 days ( I do mean 2, the single digit number 2 ) of good health during the whole month of January. And February hasn't been much better so far ever. Thankfully we've had amazingly good weather and Sacramento is in full spring mode. Well, this week it's rainy and froggie but we need water so I'll not complain about that. No, no, what I want to complain about is school. The good old dreaded school. Never liked it for multiples reason:
- no sleeping-in even though you really had a really tiring week-end clubbing and all.
- they crowed your head with useless stuff like math. Who needs math?
- you've got to be polite to teachers who clearly got their degree in a cereal box.
- you can't dress the way you want.
- you get sick all the time.
But the worse is all of the above still applies YEARS after you finally got out of there, naively thinking you were done with all that crap.
And boy, karma did catch up to me. All these years of laziness, doing philosophy papers due at 2:15 pm during lunch time and so on and so on.
Well, that's it. I don't know which god I have to pray to for this curse to be lifted but I'm done . You hear me up there??
I'll come back soon but I'll give you a few spring pics from last week ;)
