Hanging with Karlee: Part 2

The morning after Karlee's arrival came fast. Tim and I were up pretty earlier, earlier than Karlee at least, who looked as though she was never going to get up--arms and legs jutting out at odd, improbable angles. We had set up our air mattress and pushed it up against the couch so all of us would be able to sleep in the same room, hopefully, to curb any fears Karlee may have had sleeping in a new place. Unfortunately for the both of us, we soon discovered that Karlee bounces in her sleep, and every movement woke us up.

Needless to say, we awoke that morning a bit tired. It should also be noted that Karlee tried everything, I mean EVERYTHING, to keep from going to sleep the night before. She bounced all over the place and asked a seemingly endless array of questions about the movie we were watching.

After all the acrobatics and chit-chat, you'd think Karlee would be slow to rise in the morning. No. It turns out Karlee is equally energetic at all times of the day. Morning's be damned! I need at least half a pot of coffee in the morning to refuel my tank; Karlee just needs a "big stretch."

That morning started a ritual of sorts: Karlee would take out all of her toys and set up a "pet shop" in our living room while Tim and I made breakfast. After breakfast, one of us would take a shower while the other played "pet shop." Afterwards, we'd switch, starting a tag-team style of shifting responsibility.

I have to say, having a partner in this endeavor was incredibly beneficial, especially since we soon learned that trips to the bathroom alone with a child in the house are a luxury. In the coming days, we also learned that it was better to let Karlee sleep and do the whole shower/bathroom thing before waking her up. Either way, I began to truly appreciate how difficult doing something as simple as going to the bathroom must be for single parents. As a single parent, I can only assume that dignity and privacy are traits best forgotten for the first few years of a child's life.

I bow down to all the single parents out there.

Well, back to our first day with Karlee. The first item on our (and by "our" I mean "Tim's") schedule was Rainforest Cafe, followed by Legoland. Since it took us a bit longer to get ready than we had planned, we had to switch our itinerary up a bit. Lunch moved ahead of Legoland.

Now, Rainforest Cafe is not known for the quality of its food, which is not bad, but it's not great either, definitely not worth the price you pay. However, we knew that Karlee loved going there the last time she was in town, and so we thought she'd like it again. Our trip there inspired this Facebook post:

Atmosphere trumps food quality.

As usual, Rainforest is loud, busy, and utterly fascinating to children; and I ended up being the one to lead Karlee around the entire restaurant, for Tim had spent the first part of our Rainforest experience in the Build-a-Bear section getting her a fox. This very same fox will later become a gender switching miracle, all depending on Karlee's mood: some of the time the fox is Mr. Fox (in girl clothes) and other times the fox is Mrs. Fox. I guess the fox is a combination of husband and wife; she also got a baby fox to go along with the "older" fox.

While making our way through the restaurant, I was having to guide Karlee to all the animals, carefully avoiding the other guests, muttering "Excuse me" all over the place, and trying to explain why she couldn't pet the animals. This was one of my first attempts to keep Karlee from getting bored, which is apparently extremely difficult. A few moments with nothing to do usually produced a "I'm bored."

Back at our table, we learned something interesting about Karlee, something that may not be common among all children: She loves to eat a wide variety of foods... at the same time. I don't think we went through an entire meal where she ate just one type of food. Usually, if one of us had a burger, she wanted half. Since I had a turkey wrap, and probably because she was at that point still too shy to ask, Karlee didn't have anything off of my plate.

After lunch, we headed over to Legoland, and boy was that an experience. Truth be told, I almost wish I had a kid--or could borrow a kid--just to have an excuse to go back. It's a pretty cool place. There were, naturally, Legos everywhere.

But I think the most impressive--from a parent's perspective, maybe--feature of Legoland is the giant playground area, accessible only to kids. It's a huge play area complete with massive Legos, slides, a veritable maze of tunnels, and most importantly the entire thing is covered in protective foam. The kids can bounce of walls and poles without seriously injuring themselves.

Another cool feature of this play area is that the kids are not aloud to leave the are unless they can see a familiar adult. There were a couple of boys, who were obviously friends, that couldn't find their moms. It was distressing to witness them attempt to maintain their composure while clearly freaking out. The longer they couldn't find their moms, the more their composure started to crack, and the moment their moms came back, the tears burst forth. Tim, the moms, and I all started to giggle a bit at the the two boys' unabashed display. Really, it was sweet.

We weren't laughing AT the poor children, that would be mean. No, we were laughing because we were all relieved, and because the scenario ended happily when it could have ended differently. The laughter was of the nervous kind.

Tim and I let Karlee run wild in that play area for about forty minutes. The idea was to let her run herself ragged, to the point of exhaustion and then take her home. Like most kids, I assume, Karlee forces herself to play for as long as the adults will allow--thinking that play time will never come around again, ever. The moment she slowed even the tiniest bit, and noticed that we were watching her, Karlee forced herself to run wild some more. And that little girl can run, fast. After the first ten minutes, I gave up trying to keep up with her.

Once we decided it was time to leave the wondrous Legoland, Karlee stalled some more, and it was at this point that she again made a plea for her Mommy. It was starting to become clear to us that Karlee was only asking for her mother for the following reasons: when the fun was over, when she wasn't getting her way, and/or when she started to feel unsure/afraid/insecure of her surroundings. Not that we placed her in some terrifying situations. What I mean by "fear" is simply the overwhelming anxiety a child feels when he/she realizes just how far away Mommy/Daddy are.

Of course, Karlee fell asleep the moment we drove away from Legoland, and it wasn't until the next day, while at Hurricane Harbor, that we realized that there is no male substitute for Mommy, which gave me the idea for the following post:

When Mommy's away, any mom will do so long as she has the Mommy-gene (or, as a friend of my commented, that Mommy smell).

But I'll save that story for the next post. :) For now, I'll leave you all with the super cute pic below.

Hanging with Karlee: Part 1

A couple of months ago, Tim came up with the idea of having his four year old niece, Karlee, stay with us for a week. Needless to say, I was extremely nervous at the thought. After all, I had never spent more than a few hours being responsible for a child. There was that one babysitting session when I was about eighteen, but that only lasted about four hours. This was promising to be much longer.

The idea came about, I believe, after Tim and I visited his family to watch Karlee's first dance recital. It was a weird recital, with the teacher's seemingly paying more attention and time on their own dance routines than on their students. But anyway, I digress. Afterwards, Karlee decided she wanted steak for dinner to celebrate her performance, and so we all went to Logan's Roadhouse for dinner.

Dinner was good and filling, and in the parking lot, as we were leaving, as her Uncle TJ (Tim) was trying to get Karlee into her dad's truck, Tim mentioned Karlee coming to visit us in Dallas. Karlee wasn't so sure of the idea. She kept saying, "Maybe." That's when her Uncle TJ brought out the "big guns," so to speak, and promised that if she came to Dallas, he'd take her Unicorn Land.

Well, as any little girl, or boy, who thought seeing a unicorn would be awesome, Karlee said she'd come to Dallas to see the unicorns; and, of course, she wanted to take one home with her. Tim told her that taking a unicorn out of Unicorn Land wasn't possible, and when she inevitably asked why, he responded, "Because unicorns turn into rocks when they're taken out of Unicorn Land." Naturally, Karlee then became fascinated by all the rocks in the parking lot, of which there were many.

Weeks and weeks of planning followed. Nerves kept building, so much so that I ended up breaking out around my lip (ery attractive, I know). Tim planned out the entire week she was to spend with us. Just looking at the plan was exhausting. His theory: "Keep her going for as long as possible so she'll fall asleep sooner." Karlee is famous for not wanting to go to bed, using every trick in her arsenal to stall, and we soon discovered just how large her arsenal is.

Karlee kept informing her Uncle TJ that she was only going to spend one day with us and then come home that same evening. Time and space apparently don't mean much to a four year old. There was an exception however: If her Nana (Tim's mom) came, she'd stay two days.

Most of Tim's family, myself included, didn't believe she'd stay the entire week. I mean, it was going to be the longest she'd ever stayed away from her mother ("Firsts" obviously occurred all over the place during that week). And right up to the moment when she flew into Dallas, she kept reminding us that she was going to spend only a couple of days with us. In fact, just a day or two before she arrived, Karlee told her Uncle TJ that he only had one chance to make her happy. Just one.

Well, the time kept coming closer and closer, and I kept getting more and more nervous because Karlee's trip coincided with finals week of my first summer class. In my foolishness, I decided to give my students six writing assignments, completely unaware that I'd have to grade all those writing assignments at some point. I am not the fastest grader.

Anyway, Tim flew out of Dallas to pick up Karlee. The flight back was her first time on an airplane, and she was excited and a little scared, naturally. During the flight, Karlee looked out of the window the entire time, informing Tim that the plane was flying higher and going faster than it was supposed to. Having never been in a plane didn't stop her from criticizing the pilot's flying.

Also, Tim got a lovely preview of what our week would be like: Karlee never stopped talking throughout the entire flight. Thankfully, the other fliers were amused by what she said, thinking her an adorable little girl, and she is.

Upon her arrival, Karlee did something she'd never done before, at least not without being pushed to do it: She ran up to me and hugged me. Now, I'm not the most comfortable around kids, although I have frequently found myself either being followed or being begged to play with kids. It seems whenever I do play with kids, they want me to play with them all the time.

For instance, just a couple of weeks ago, we were at a friend's house. Tim and a couple of people he met through work were "talking shop" and Peyton (who Karlee met during her week with us) kept asking if anyone would like to play "Barbies." Naturally, since no one else seemed willing to partake in the request, I said I would. As many of you may guess, this would not be my first time playing "Barbies."

Well, she didn't have any of her Barbies at her mom's house, so we played Legos instead. I think I played with her for about a couple of hours while Tim and his friends talked. After that, she wanted me to sit next to her in the car; she wanted to show me ALL of her toys.

This is not the first time something like this has happened to me. One time, while back in Odessa, I was doing laundry at my apartment's laundry room when a couple of kids came in and just started talking to me, informing me that I looked like Spider-Man. I was flabbergasted. These kids didn't know anything about me, and there they were striking up a conversation, no parents in sight.

Personally, I feel like kids can smell fear, and they glory in the chance to make an adult feel nervous.

But, back to Karlee.

Karlee and I had always been super nervous around each other, but not when she got off the plane. She flew right into my arms and allowed me to hold her hand while we walked back to the car.

On our way to a McDonald's to pick up dinner, Karlee kept talking about how she was only going to stay one day with us, and that after she saw Unicorn Land she'd go home. It was at that point I wrote the first of many Facebook posts indicating what Tim and I learned about children while hanging with Karlee:

1. When you promise a child Unicorn Land, you better be prepared to deliver Unicorn Land.

Karlee was excited about her time with us throughout the entire car ride home, right up to the point when she passed out in the car from exhaustion, but through her excitement I sensed that she was starting to get a little scared. The "big city" was starting to seem a little too big.

Well, we got her some chicken nuggets to go and finally arrived at our apartment. Inside our apartment for the first time was the moment when fear seemed to over take Karlee's excitement. She sat down on the floor and said, "I want my Mommy."

Tim was getting the rest of her luggage, and I didn't know what to say. I asked her, "Don't you want to stay with us? Your Uncle TJ has so much planned for you." She responded with, "No, I want my Mommy." So, I just got our food ready and waited for Tim to get back. Please hurry! was the thought running through my head, I believe.

When he returned, Karlee told him the same. He informed her that we couldn't go back right now, but maybe after she ate something. It was a brilliant move because the moment Karlee's attention was pushed onto something other than her own fear, she transformed back into the extremely talkative and excited girl she had been on the plane.

Whew! One crisis averted!

It wasn't the last time she'd ask for her mother, or her Nana, or her Daddy, or any other family member she could think of, but we learned something that I never posted on Facebook:

1a. When a child starts to go to THAT place out of fear, it's best to distract them with something shiny. 

Thankfully, Karlee's visit was filled with mostly moments of fun, but there were those moments when we truly had a taste, the merest of tastes I know, of what it'd be like to have a child of our own. There were moments when we'd get frustrated with Karlee, and there were definitely moments when Karlee'd get frustrated with her uncles.

To find out more, keep reading, as I plan on writing about our entire week hanging with Karlee. In small chunks to make it more manageable. :)

The Amazing Spider-Man: The Reboot I Didn't Know I Wanted

I must admit, when I first heard about The Amazing Spider-Man, I had some serious reservations. Why would anyone think about "rebooting" a film series just a couple of years after the release of the overburdened Spider-Man 3? Hadn't we had enough of Spider-Man for the time being? At least Batman Begins came out eight years after Batman & Robin, and Spider-Man 3 isn't nearly as awful as that film. To this day, I still wish I could forget I had ever seen Batman & Robin. Thankfully, Batman Begins came around. And thankfully, The Amazing Spider-Man has come around now. It does to the Spider-Man series what Begins did for Batman. Maybe not to the same extent, but definitely in the same ballpark. This new Spider-Man film is the reboot I didn't even know I wanted.

This new Spider-Man has darker tones, both aesthetically and psychologically, than Sam Raimi's Spider-Man. Peter Parker, played by Andrew Garfield, is a boy of deep psychological scars, scars only hinted at in Raimi's origin story. While following the basic origin story most of us know, the film does take some departures. For instance, the famous line "With great power comes great responsibility" is never uttered. Instead, we get an emotional confrontation between Peter and Uncle Ben (played by Martin Sheen).

Peter is left at his aunt and uncle's place one night as a young child. His parents presumably die in a plane crash not too long after leaving their son behind. The assumption is that Peter's father is killed because of his work. Years later, we see Peter painfully awkward and even more of a social outcast than Tobey Maguire's characterization. However, Garfield's brilliance in this role is that he creates a character that is simultaneously awkward and yet completely loveable. Throughout the whole film I wanted to give poor Peter a great big hug; and if I ever run into the real Andrew Garfield, I may do just that.

As Peter begins to discover his identity, more conflicts arise, and instead of Mary Jane he has Gwen Stacy (played by Emma Stone) for a love interest, who's father is Captain Stacey (played by Dennis Leary), the man in charge of arresting Spider-Man. In addition, Dr. Curt Conners (played by Rhys Ifans) is continuing his research on cross-species genetic splicing. This, of course, has predictable results. He transforms himself into the Lizard.

The plot is pretty basic, but it's the details, and more specifically the performances, that uplift the film and take it beyond its more lighthearted predecessor. After watching this film, I went back and revisited Raimi's series. What I found was a more cartoonish film series than I remembered. In the recent update, Peter frequently comes home with cuts and bruises, much to the surprise and wonder of his aunt and uncle. This is a much more believable film in tone and presentation than the previous series.

More importantly, the performances are pitch-perfect. Even Sally Field (Aunt May) and Martin Sheen, who respectively don't have much screen time, make a wonderful pair of parental figures for Peter. It's amazing how great actors can fill such small roles with so much emotion and power. But the best performance has to be Garfield's. This is his film, and he rises to the occasion, in much the same way he did in The Social Network.

The Amazing Spider-Man is a very, very good film. I haven't decided yet if it's better than Spider-Man 2; after all, they are very different stylistically, but it's definitely worthy of comparison. I may even decide to compare it to another great reboot, Batman Begins. Thanks to some coupons, I saw this movie for free (almost, Tim and I had to pay two dollars, for taxes I guess), but I would gladly pay to see it again. In fact, it's now the second film this year that I want to see again, soon. 

Brave: Pixar's Latest, but Not the Greatest

Pixar has a wonderful track record when it comes to creating quality animated films. Toy Story (1, 2, and 3), Wall-E, Up, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille are examples of Pixar at its best, at least as far as I'm concerned. Quite a few people would probably disagree with me on the last of that list because of a natural aversion to rats, but I still find it among the greatest of Pixar's endeavors simply due to their accomplishment in creating a sympathetic rat who wants to be a chef. However, Pixar isn't perfect. Even so, when the films aren't great, they are generally pretty good. Their latest creation, Brave, falls into the "good" category.

The story follows Merida as she rebels against tradition and her mother, Elinor. Elinor attempts to transform her daughter into a well-mannered, marriageable young lady. The problem lies in Merida's refusal to play by her mother's rules. She just wants to ride out into nature, practice her archery, and delay marriage for as long as possible. Of course, this leads both women on a path that will challenge their relationship.

After an intense argument with her mother, Merida rides out into the forest and meets a witch/woodcarver (one of many humorous scenes), who provides the perfect opportunity to changer her fate. Now, this sounds all good to Merida, but the resulting spell transforms her mother into a bear.

This is not necessarily a spoiler because the knowledge of the transformation didn't change how much I enjoyed the film. The real surprise is in the wonderful, hilarious, and quite appropriate reaction of Elinor to her situation.

While somewhat inventive, the story and characters didn't really connect with me in quite the same way as Pixar's best films. Most of the characters are mere caricatures, even Merida and Elinor don't offer much depth, but the animation is so well done that a lack of character development can be overlooked.

The true pleasure of the film is in the beauty and great detail of the animation. Scotland is beautifully brought to life in the film. Indeed, the land seems to take on a character of its own. In addition, special mention must be paid to Merida's hair. It's simply fabulous. Also, there is plenty of humor for children and adults alike. Elinor's reaction to finding herself transformed into a bear rings with same kind of physical comedy that made me fall in love with Linguini in Ratatouille.

Despite the lack of well-rounded characters, I must make a special note here: Pixar has a wonderful way of making ever single character distinctive, even the ones that don't have more than a moment or two of screen time. Dreamworks, or any other mainstream animation studio for that matter, has not been able to accomplish this from my experience. Most of the peripheral characters look too similar. 

On another note, there are some scary moments in the film, mostly in the form of a truly terrifying bear, so be mindful of that when taking the little ones. Otherwise, it's well worth the trip and the expense of watching Brave at the theaters.

Favorites: Inglourious Basterds

Ever since my post on Glee I've been thinking and thinking about the last bit of the post, the part that referred to Quentin Tarantino.

How can we create anything new when someone else has probably already beaten us to the idea? Every piece of new literature then becomes a collection of references and allusions to other works. The only way to come up with anything new in this kind of environment seems to mean using such a large amalgamation of references and allusions that the material then takes on a life of its own, outside of and away from the source material. In other words, something like Glee, or even better, something like a Tarantino film.

In that moment it felt like I had finally hit on something. See, for the longest time I haven't wanted to write about any Tarantino film because any form of analysis seemed like such a daunting task. It's the same way I feel about writing on Tolkien. Somehow, someway, they both just feel untouchable to me. (Does anyone else feel this way about a writer/filmmaker/artist?) So, when I wrote the above sentences, I thought I'd finally discovered something.

Well, that something has yet to fully realize itself within my brain, but I have at least come to one decision: the first of Tarantino's films that I'm going to write about is going to be Inglourious Basterds.

After weeks of looking at the little section of my film library where I keep Tarantino, Basterds just kept drawing my eye. Not that I don't enjoy his other films (I have yet to see Jackie Brown, but hope to remedy the situation now that it is on Netflix Instant). Picking one Tarantino film over another is nearly impossible.

Pulp Fiction redefined film narrative and structure, setting the stage for countless imitations. Kill Bill Vols. 1 & 2 is a stunning celebration of exploitation films, westerns, samurai films, and countless others--all the while glorying in feminine power and sexuality (there is one particular shot that always cracks me up, but I'll discuss that in a separate post). Death Proof proved that suspense makes the payoff so much more enjoyable.

All of the above films are great (I didn't forget about Reservoir Dogs; I just don't like it that much, even though it has some fascinating moments), but Inglourious Basterds seems to be a wonderful combination of everything I love about a Tarantino film.

Take a look at the opening scene of Basterds. This film opens on a beautiful French countryside ("Once Upon a Time in Nazi Occupied France..."), and we are introduced to a French family. They are visited by Colonel Hans Landa (played to award-wining perfection by Christoph Waltz), who suspects they are hiding a Jewish family in their home. And they are. But Landa doesn't just come out and ask the family if their hiding "enemies of the state." No. Tarantino and Landa know that sometimes it's better to tease a little before going for the jugular. And so the scene stretches on and on, with Landa circling ever closer to the purpose of his visit.

The brilliance of this scene is in Tarantino's screenplay and in Waltz's performance. Both work very hard at building suspense without making the audience bored, stretching the very limits of the audience's patience. Of course, this is a technique which Tarantino has perfected.

Take Pulp Fiction for instance, when Jules and Verne first get to the apartment of the guy they're supposed to "take out." Instead of barging right in and demanding the case with the gold light, they hold back and continue their discussion on the appropriateness of massaging another man's wife's feet. The camera waits by the door, expectantly, waiting impatiently for them to return to the job at hand. And even when they do enter the apartment, they take their time getting to the point. (Now, this technique has been observed before by Siskel and Ebert when they filmed a video essay on this very film, but I think it's appropriate to mention the scene again here.)

Such writing and acting is a high-wire act, one wrong step and the scene fails. I have yet to see a scene like this fail in Tarantino's capable hands.

In another scene (one that so happens to be my favorite of the film), Lt. Aldo Raine's Basterds find themselves in a pub, working undercover as German soldiers, waiting to rendezvous with a double-agent, Bridget von Hammersmark (played by Diane Kruger). As with anything in war, everything does not go according to plan. The Basterds find themselves interrupting the celebrations of a group of real German soldiers. The problem, of course, is that they can't very well engage in clandestine activities with a whole troop of Germans just feet away. So what do they do? They wait. And problem after problem keeps them from talking about what they want/need to talk about: the plan to kill Hitler. The whole scene is an excellent example of how effective suspense is more thrilling than any massive explosion.

But Tarantino doesn't hold back on the violence. He gives to us, and he gives it good. Tarantino's violence is exaggerated to the point of absurdity, and I believe this is purposefully done. Tarantino wants the audience to feel the emotions of his characters, but he never wants them to forget that they are watching a movie. Hence, the extreme violence is also surrounded by countless film references. Hell, almost every scene is a reference to another movie. The most daunting task to analyzing one of his films is that you need to have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of cinema in order to unpack all of his references.

I've seen a few movies, but not nearly as many as Tarantino. Watching one of his films is like watching the Cliff Notes version of film history. It gets to the point where you stop trying to mark off the references and just enjoy the images he presents, letting them wash over you.

Inglourious Basterds, like Tarantino's other films, is an amalgamation of so many allusions that it takes on a life of its own, creating a new style of filmmaking that is simultaneously referential and new. His films seem to be the very definition of postmodern (at least as I understand the term) and representational of modern cultural experience. Like with Glee, Tarantino uses the surface features of other works simply as a shorthand, a marker, so the audience (even if most of them aren't even aware of the reference) can feel familiar with and yet awed by the experience. His identity as a filmmaker is tied up with his own experiences of watching movies. Instead of attempting to completely divorce himself from all the films he has seen, Tarantino creates an artistic identity that fully immerses itself within his past knowledge. He uses many of the same moves of the films he so dearly loves, but Tarantino reorganizes the pieces into a collage that quite often is a wondrous experience.