“People are supposed to wanna hang out here!…I’m the hostess!…I’m always the hostess! I was always the hostess…I mean even when I was little, the girls brought their dollies to my tea party; I served the best air.” Courtney Cox as Monica Geller on Friends
friends
Quote of the Day
Due to the score of the Packer game, I can’t stop thinking of this quote from the third season Thanksgiving episode of Friends:
42 to 21, like the turkey, Ross is done!
Looks like we’ll be saying the same about Atlanta soon!
I’m Married to a “Transponster!”
Anyone remember that Friends episode, “The One with the Embryos?” I have always loved the dialogue in that particular show, especially the part culminating with an explanation of Chandler’s job:
Ross: What is Chandler Bing’s job?
Rachel: Oh! Oh gosh, it has something to do with numbers.
Monica: And processing!
Rachel: Oh, well… and he carries a briefcase!
Ross: Ten seconds. You need this or you lose the game.
Monica: It’s, um, it has something to do with transponding.
Rachel: Oh, oh, oh, he’s a transpons… transponster!
Monica: That’s not even a word!
While I have always appreciated the humor of this exchange, I now really understand it, because I’m married to a transponster. At least that’s the way it feels!
Ryan started working full-time for Automattic two months ago (as a Happiness Engineer), and even though I have tried really hard, I’m still not entirely sure what he does, so to me, he’s a transponster. I know he works from home (which is awesome!), that he helps people with their WordPress blogs (very cool), and that he loves his job (the best part of the whole deal). Other than that, I’m still kind of unclear as to what he actually does.
Damn, one of these days I’m really gonna have to start listening when he talks about his job!
My Favorite Things–TV Shows
It’s been awhile, so here is the latest round of My Favorite Things!
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine–Quite possibly my favorite TV of all time, although it took me a long while to get to that point. But now I love it, especially Vic Fontaine and Klingon episodes.
Friends–My favorite comedy. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve watched through that show. We have the whole series on DVD, complete with collectible case, and I can just watch them over and over again. To some extent, it really feels like Monica, Chandler, Ross, Rachel, Joey and Phoebe *are* my friends (don’t worry, I know they’re fictional!).
Babylon 5–Although I don’t enjoy this show as much as I used to, I think it’s one of the best told stories on TV, especially the first four seasons.
Firefly–Is is a western? Is it sci-fi? Does it even matter? I’m just sad that it didn’t even make a full season; it was such a good show.
Mad About You–I loved watching Paul and Jamie, especially in the early seasons. To be honest, I started watching it because I knew my older cousins did, and I wanted to be cool like them, but I soon discovered I liked it on it’s own merit. It would be nice if Warner Brothers (I think that’s right) would decide to put more of the seasons out on DVD.
I Love Lucy–Right up there with Friends as far as best comedy shows, and it has the added bonus of being appropriate viewing for my children. I can’t believe a show that’s been around for as long as I Love Lucy has can still be so relevant and so funny, and yet it is. Groundbreaking, too, so it also gets historical bonus points. And the recent release of the Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour as the last seasons of I Love Lucy almost deserves it’s own spot on the list–who can *not* like Lucy hunting uranium with Fred MacMurray, hanging around Sun Valley with Fernando Lamas, and getting into a snowball fight with Danny Thomas?
The Cosby Show–I haven’t watched it regularly for quite awhile, but it’s another show I can watch with my children, and appreciate both it’s funny and serious moments (occasionally at the same time–remember when they buried Rudy’s goldfish?).
Scrubs–Another great comedy; I love watching the doctors and nurses of Sacred Heart at work. Although I’m a little disappointed that we watched the “finale” this year, only to have it renewed last minute for the fall, I am curious to see where the new direction takes them, and I will be cautiously watching.
E.R.–An obvious love of medical shows, here–sometimes, you don’t want the comedic perspective, and E.R. is great for those times.
Gilmore Girls–I will be the first to say that I hated how the show ended, and I found more to dislike about the characters in the last few seasons, but I still think it was a good, solid show that managed to *not* glamorize teen pregnancy, and showed a strong mother/daughter relationship.
What About Brian–Even though it was only on for a year, I really got hooked. I found the characters to be likable and real, and like Firefly, I wish it had gotten more of a chance to develop itself.
24–Anytime I want to sweat profusely and have heart palpitations, I just have to see what kind of (bad) day Jack Bauer is having.
This Old House–I loved watching Bob Vila as a kid, and I love the new format now.
Back when we had cable, I loved watching…
What Not to Wear–In my top three favorite shows, without a doubt. I loved watching Stacy and Clinton perform makeovers. Yes, the 360 mirror was grueling, and yes, they could be harsh, but the end results were always fantastic. I learned so much about fashion from watching (not that I do a lot with that knowledge being at home with the children all day), and I loved looking at the pretty clothes!
How Do I Look–Another fashion show similar to What Not to Wear, this became a favorite of mine when recovering in the hospital following the births of my third and fourth children.
Christmas Castles–It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen this show, but it used to be on HGTV every year at Christmastime. It showcased famous mansions all over the country, from the Biltmore estate to the Pabst mansion, decked out in their Christmas finery. So beautiful!
House Hunters–I always loved this one on HGTV, and I took special interest in it when we were first considering buying a home. You can learn a lot just by watching other people walk through houses.
My guilty pleasure TV show…
The Golden Girls–I watched the re-runs of this show in college all the time, and I even caught a run-through of the spin-off, Golden Palace, a few years ago. I don’t care how much older than me those ladies were, they were funny!
And, speaking of guilty pleasures, my favorite soap opera…
One Life to Live–I know I shouldn’t watch soap operas, and I usually don’t, but when I do feel the need to be completely mindless, One Life to Live is always the show I turn to. I started watching it on and off right after Turkey was born, and while I have gone for almost two years at a time without watching, eventually, I always come back to see what is happening in Llanview.
And, the jury is still out on…
Castle–I really liked what I saw of it last season, and I’m hoping it really picks up steam in the fall. It has the potential to be great in a Murder She Wrote/Matlock (yes, I like both of those, too) kind of way.
Quote of the Day
“I’ve become my father. I’ve been trying so hard not to become my mother, I didn’t see this coming.” (Jennifer Aniston as Rachel Green in Friends)
I laugh every time I hear this, although, I have to admit that I’ve been thinking about this quote in a more serious way lately. Not that I was trying not to turn into my mother, but because I’ve discovered just how much in common I have with my father.
When he was still alive, I really thought we had nothing in common. As a matter of fact, I went out of my way to be different from him, much like Rachel and her mother in the above quote. But, the older I get, the more I realize how pointless it is to deny who you are and from where you come.
So, I’ll admit it–I like outer space and Star Trek, Babylon 5 and Old Time Radio, classical music and (dare I say it?) math. I wish I could have talked about those things we have in common with him when he was still alive. I think this latest rumination sparked from watching When We Left Earth and Apollo 13–I would love to talk to my father about living through man’s journey to the moon and back. He was a geek (not unlike me), so I know it must have been a huge deal to him.
Hindsight is 20/20, I suppose. I’m hardly the first person to realize this about her relationship with a parent. At least I’ve come to a point now where I can allow myself to enjoy those things, even if I no longer have the opportunity to share them with him. And at least my husband shares my love of all things nerdly, and we seem to have passed that on to our children, so I do have people to share it with. I just feel guilty that I went out of my way not to share it with my father while I had the chance. Hopefully, as they grow older, my children will be wiser than I.
Mixed Emotions
When I dropped Moose off at school this morning, another little boy from his class was waiting with his mom for the teacher to come get them. He saw Moose, and dragged his mother over so he could say “hi.” He remembered Moose’s name and everything, and seemed happy to see my boy.
Moose waved back at him, but didn’t say anything. Now, I know he *can* say “hi” when he’s so inclined, but I have no idea if he *could* say the other child’s name, or if he even remembered what his name was.
So, I’m glad that at least one child in the class seems to like my boy, and hopefully he doesn’t feel lonely or left out when he’s at school. But it makes my heart hurt a bit that he can’t reciprocate a greeting like that, and that he can’t come home and tell me about the friends he’s making and the things he’s doing. If he could, I guess this whole school thing wouldn’t really be necessary, but it’s still hard.