A Very Tardy Weekend Journal

After days of rain and fallish weather, we got slammed with sticky heat on Saturday. I spent the day broiling on a back porch watching a distant friend open baby gifts for two hours. Lots of coordinated Winnie the Pooh accessories. Light switches. Garbage cans. Crib bolsters. Sometimes I'm glad my kids have grown past the cute stage, and it's actually difficult to find clothes for them in colors other than navy blue and maroon. Not a big fan of maroon.

With the paper finished off, I'm busy finishing off loose ends around here. Syllabi have to be finished started. School supplies must be purchased. School bus schedules located.

I'm also getting ready to leave for four days for a conference. I only do this one conference per year, because it's too hard to leave the kids. Not because I'll miss them at all. (OK, I might miss them.) It's a pain, because Steve has to take off work. Luckily, our trusted babysitter will be around, so she'll help out while Steve works from home. Do you think I can put her $12 an hour fee on the reimbursement form from the school?

So, I'm assembling clothes now. Got a lovely gathered shirt from the Banana and some stripped stockings. Took my trusty Mary Janes with the stacked heels to the shoe repair shop. Rule One for conference attendance -- Never wear new shoes. Okay, here are more rules... Rule Two for conference attendance -- Bring one suit jacket and wear it on the plane with your jeans to avoid wrinkling. Rule Three for conference attendance -- All clothes should mix and match. Rule Four for conference attendance -- Avoid big jewelry.

We watched Casino Royale on Saturday. I wasn't prepared to like it. In fact, I was reading a book while it was on for the first five minutes. It was surprisingly good. It's not a comic strip like the other Bond movies. It's filmed at times in Film Noir and other times like cam-corder reality. And then there's Daniel Craig. Oh. My. God. Isn't he a musclely, wrinkly babe? I much prefer him coming out of the water with his abs all wiggly than Halle Barry. There are some plot problems, but Craig's six-pack trumps the plot problems.

We're ready for school to start. Ian is still nervous and screechy without school or therapy. Jonah is bored without sports or homework. One week to go.

Comments

[luolin]

And don't wear tennis shoes on the plane unless you're comfortable wearing them to the opening reception when your luggage is delayed. Or maybe that should be: don't check your luggage.

[Mrs. Coulter]

Funny, we watched Casino Royale on Sunday. Daniel Craig is definitely a hottie. I don't generally like James Bond very much--but I was pleasantly relieved that the adversary wasn't some silly super-villain with a sub-volcano hide-out. There were a few very large plot holes, and the CGI on the collapsing building in Venice was BAD (not to mention the fact that a building collapses in the middle of Venice and NO ONE comes running to see what's going on? where are the police helicopter? the sirens? are the Italians really that incompetent?).

One other thing that bugged me: the reference to the "fact" that airline stocks were shorted on 9/11. Perhaps the inclusion of fictional details was supposed to flag that this was fictional as well (the NYSE did NOT reopen on 9/12), but I fear that the vast majority of people who watch the movie will not recall the genuine facts, and the claim thus persists in the ether as "something I heard somewhere". My experience is that most people don't pay a lot of attention to the source of information they hear--all "author"-ity is basically equivalent.

[Uncle Jeffy]

Mrs. Coulter - for folks who need an actual reference to the unusual volume of put option buying on the stocks of American Airlines and United Airlines, the facts are examined most extensively in Allen M. Poteshman's article, "Unusual Option Market Activity and the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001," Journal of Business, Vol. 79, no. 4, July 2006, pp. 1703-1726. Given that this got published in the Journal of Business (University of Chicago Press), it's not too easy to pass it off as the fevered imaginings of a conspiracy theorist.

[Uncle Jeffy]

Mrs. Coulter - for folks who need an actual reference to the unusual volume of put option buying on the stocks of American Airlines and United Airlines, the facts are examined most extensively in Allen M. Poteshman's article, "Unusual Option Market Activity and the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001," Journal of Business, Vol. 79, no. 4, July 2006, pp. 1703-1726. Given that this got published in the Journal of Business (University of Chicago Press), it's not too easy to pass it off as the fevered imaginings of a conspiracy theorist.

[Lucy]

I also found Casino Royale surprisingly great. Especially the opening sequence of freerunning. And then there is Daniel Craig. In the scene where he is being tortured instead of being horrified, I was thinking, "Yea! He's naked!"

[dave.s.]

Crocs. Crocs with the strap set to wear them as slides. There's nothing better for going through airport lines. Slip em off, slip em on.

[alessandro rossi]

I am been surprised by Casino Royale. I think it's good film. My rating 7