The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

David and I watched “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” last night. It’s a Swedish crime thriller about a journalist in Stockholm investigating a disappearance that happened some 40 years earlier. He gets help from a mystery Goth woman with body piercings and tattoos and who may or may not be connected to the case. Their search uncovers lots of sordid tales about men behaving badly.

I would have preferred a more compelling actor playing the journalist but the girl with the dragon tattoo picked up the slack. I thought it was a good film and a lot more sober than some of the crazy action movies we have been watching recently. 

Redmond Derby Days 2010

Pancake Breakfast – Redmond Firefighters

Derby Days in Redmond

La Barbe Bleue (Blue beard)

We watched Bluebeard, Catherine Breillat’s take on the Charles Perrault fairy tale. The story cuts back and forth between two sisters reading the story of Bluebeard in their attic, and the story of Bluebeard that plays out onscreen. It’s pretty straightforward.

You would think that a Catherine Breillat adaptation of a story about an ogre killing off his young brides would have lots of incomprehensible dialogue and wacky nudity. But it didn’t, surprisingly, and I found that refreshing.

David pointed out a couple of low-budget effects, like a dead man who’s still breathing, or the replay of people climbing the same stairs over and over, to make it look like they were climbing up a long, winding tower. None of this detracts from the movie though. I liked it overall. And David will come around the next time we watch it.

Working Moms

My friend Kasandra in New Jersey just sent little Tiffy another box of toddler clothes that her son has outgrown. Her timing couldn’t be better. We now have little swimwear for the beach in France this August and and a bunch of other seasonally-appropriate clothes. What’s more, everything is the right size and easy to put on, which meant she thought about what she wanted to put in the box and wasnt just trying to clean out her closet. This is the fourth or fifth batch of baby clothes she has sent our way since Tiffy was born, and each one has been perfectly sorted by size, style and season.

I don’t know how she manages to be so organized. She’s one of those working moms who’s so on top of things and so forward thinking that she makes the rest of us look and feel lazy and inadequate. She remembers friends’ birthdays; her home is spotless; her family photos are sorted and edited and her scrapbooks all have themes. It’s both admirable and intimidating.

I aspire to be one of those perfect parents who bakes banana bread; who does things the way they are supposed to be done and whose home is immaculate. Of course by immaculate, I mean neat and tidy by my own modest standards, and realistic for a home that’s inhabited by two kids. By no means do I want one of those trendy, staged, sterile, hotel-lobby inspired horrors that couldn’t possibly be lived in. But I often fall short even when trying to meet my standards, which just drives me nuts. Now, for instance, I have a giant, growing pile of laundry upstairs that needs sorting and folding, horizontal surfaces that need dusting, and about a dozen socks that need tossing because I’ll never find mates for them. How hard is it to get rid of some socks that I’ll never be able to wear again and why didn’t I do that ages ago?

Caring for kids is hard work and staying organized while doing so is daunting. But I’m working, so I get a free pass. Nobody expects me to puree my own baby food or to have a perfect home. When I’m home with the kids, however, things aren’t any better. The things that get neglected when I’m working often get neglected when I’m home with the kids as well, because 1) I’d have the kids to deal with and other priorities to distract me from my banana-bread making and 2) tedious tasks don’t get any more enticing because I’m home and geographically closer to them.

Then there’s Kasandra, showing off the jars of baby food that she pureed on her lunch break before completing a big project at work and then driving her daughter to swimming lessons before running an errand for her mom. She shows the world that it can be done, that you can work and bake cookies and enjoy taking care of your kids. She threatens to unmask me and reveal to the world what a fraud I am. I’m just an an average mom who uses work as an excuse when it’s convenient.