Some soaking wet fountain friends. I think that middle kid is repeating the devil theme? Notice Connor's sweater is on. He was smart enough to hand it to me before the show and said "Mom--here, this is nice one and I'm gonna get soaked.
In bed in our new Christmas jammies. 
9. Blogger really pisses me off with those spacing issues. There is not a thing I can do in the world to fix that spacing between #7 and #8 and this crap happens all the time. Ahhhh.
10. I love those college photos of Barack Obama. Too cute, was he. Looks like a young Huggy Bear.
11. This is our big holiday Gaylord weekend. We're all excited. Heading to Old Town late morning to do a little holiday shopping then over to the National Harbor we go. They have a Christmas Market with all handcrafted things which we'll visit for a bit and then go to our early dinner reservations at McCormick and Schmick at 5pm. After that, the Christmas tree lighting/show at the harbor then to the hotel for the nightly snowfall and concert. Some beverages to follow and then we'll all tuck into our beds in our room wearing our new Christmas jammies and watch a holiday movie.
Connor's self-made toque--a Whole Foods bag. Perfect for cookie chef-ness.
See this car? This was my car. Or "our" car , Bob would say. It was a 1980-something Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. We had no money. My dad basically gave it to us when we were saving for our first house. It was excitingly gray on the outside and in. Bob drove it. I drove my 1985 Pontiac Fiero that my dad also bought for me.
Since the Cutlass was my dad's, it was pretty impeccable. My brother-in-law took it to work one day in 1994 to change the oil (he was a service guy at a dealership) and someone left a handwritten note on it in the parking lot in Tysons Corner. The note said that we should call give this person a call, that they might be interested in using the car in a movie. We kind of thought it was a joke, but we called.
As it turns out, the note was from an associate producer. She told us that she was working with Jodie Foster on a movie, "Home For The Holidays", that was going to be filming in Baltimore and that they were looking for a car like ours. They would need it for about a week and would pay us a couple of hundred bucks or so. But she wasn't sure Jodie would like it---she was the final decider on all these things--so if we were interested we'd need to bring it to Baltimore for her to take a look.
What would you do? Duh! I took the day off work and drove to some deserted parking lot in Baltimore. When I pulled in the associate producer girl was there to meet me. The lot had 6 different cars in it--but each car had a twin. In other words, there was another Cutlass almost just like mine there, too. All the other people were local and had dropped their cars off for Foster Assessment and gone to work. I had nowhere to go, so I hung around. About 30 minutes later she drove up herself and talked to the producer chick in hushed tones while I hovered. She then came directly over to me and said "Hello, Dianna. I'm Jodie Foster. It's nice to meet you and thanks for coming all the way here from Virginia". We made nice chit chat for a moment and then she simply said "I really like this other car better. But since you took a day off work to come here, I'd like to use your car in the film if you'd allow us to do so". I, of course, consented. There was a bit more chit chat and a discussion of what would happen and off I went.
A few weeks later they picked the car up at our house. They had it for a few days longer than planned AND on the way back the person driving it dented the back quarter panel at a fast food drive through on one of those concrete posts. They fixed that. And when we got it back it had that nifty old man compass installed on the dash. I guess Jodie thought that was important. Someone also left a box of 5 or 6 Nina Simone cassettes in the trunk.
In the movie, it is Charles Durning and Anne Bancroft's car. It is in MANY scenes. They pick up and drop off Holly Hunter at the airport in it. And most excitingly, after dinner on Thanksgiving, Charles Durning washes it in the driveway.
Jodie was very nice. She is teeny-tiny. Knowing what I know now, I'd have to say that she just wasn't into me. I'm more woman than she could handle. :)
We sold the car a few years later. But it will live on in movie history.
He also suddenly is interested in poetry. Again, I have no idea where this is coming from, but I'll gladly encourage it. He announced that he wanted to write a poem, told me to get him some paper and sit down. Then he spoke the poem aloud and asked me to give him the letters to write it down. Here it is:
"Angels in the blue sky. America in the gods." So weird and funny and interesting!After dinner on Thanksgiving we headed down to Smithville, NJ. When I was a kid, it was one of those actual working villages where we would go on field trips to learn about "olden times". I always liked it. I particularly remember some actor who roamed around with a horse and carriage doing "Snake Oil" sales demonstrations and a band with guys playing the jug, the spoons, and washboard. There was always a section of shops and restaurants outside the entrance. Now, it has entirely been converted to shops. Kind of sad. But it was nice out and good to give the kids a place to run, get a carousel ride and a spin around on the train.
The second gift I have no picture of. It was a sound effect. From my co-worker and friend, Jeff, in Atlanta. He knows I've been frustrated over everything that's been going on even though with most everyone else I "put on a happy face". He was at his parents farm in NC this week and on Friday he gave me the great gift of calling me from his cell phone, setting it down on ground, and shooting off his shot gun in the woods. BAM!!! This was a lovely catharsis.
How's that for covering both ends of the spectrum?
The bubbles stand up like on a cappuccino. It would be GREAT with Kung Pao!
