Quaint and sweet. An Ode to Blade Runner.

So, my dear husband and I managed to get a sitter so we could go see the new Definitive Blade Runner. There we were, at The Senator Theater, with a premium print of one of the most talked about movies of any decade in what the director calls the "Definitive Cut". It's been re-cut 5 times. I'm not sure what that says about a movie, but I'm sure it says something.

So, we leaned back in our seats, stupid grins on our faces, about to see this movie for at least the dozenth time. All the same, my jaw dropped, and my heart ached a bit as the movie opened and the city began belching those familiar, but inexplicable jets of fire -- Vangelis' plaintive sound track at complete odds with the scene. But it was the sets--the REAL sets that had my eyeballs in a vice grip. Okay so they weren't REAL sets, they were miniatures, but in today's movies, where virtual rules, these miniatures counted as real. They had weight and mass that you don't really get in computer generated sets. The thing is, those computer sets are so good, and you are so entranced by them, that you don't see that that weight and mass--essential for any scene to feel real--has been forgotten. You go back and see a well made real-deal miniatures set, and you regret that the mad rush to computer graphics happened at all. It's like movies, the true voice of our culture, have become airier and less substantial. Like the big Busby Berkley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busby_Berkeley) extravaganzas--all escape and air and fluff. Just the stuff to help a nation forget the worries of the depression.

I stared at the Tyrell building and marveled at the detail, the little moving elevators creeping up the sides, and my heart ached. I'm not even sure why. I missed movies like this. Blade Runner made me hate the last 6 installments of Star Wars even more for their overblown computer effects. It made them feel like cartoons compared to the art of these miniatures. But that can't be the whole of it. There was more. More about who I was then and now. Now. I had seen Blade Runner in the theater when it first came out in 1982. All my other viewings of the movie had been by way of VCR or DVD. This time, there I was, in the theater again, sitting next to the love of my life, not the mistake of my life.

I was looking at the movies with the man I should have been looking at it the first time I saw it--if only we had met back then. I was looking at my loss of those amazing years, and wondering what I would have been had I been with THIS man, then. I must be going through a sort of mid-life crisis as my kids are entering school, because I have also been looking at old photos. I see my youth, and how amazing I was. The potential I had, and never knew it. I see the actors, in their blush of youth, and I see myself, as I see myself in their aged forms of today. I see the costumes I made, the awards I won, and I wonder where could I have gone with this had I been with THIS man? If I had been raised in a family that supported and loved each other. In the passing of the miniatures technology, I see the passing of my time to succeed, and make my mark in the world. My time, my chance has passed. Now its time to pass the torch to the next generation of computer generated kids, and I never even got a chance to make my mark. It was a good technology. In many ways it was better that the new technology, but it's lost now, as am I.

I met and married my dear husband at my last blush of youth, spent the remainder on my children, and now I am left with only questions about what I could have been, had I only realized how amazing I was.

How do I communicate this to my children? How do I make it clear that they will not know how amazing they are until that time is over? How do I make them understand that they must push the envelope while they are young so that they will know that they did not waste that time--that they used every last precious moment? How can I make them understand that my old miniature world still has weight and value--things that they can learn from and see the beauty of, and not discard in the technicolor over-the-top world that they inhabit?

Blade Runner is a capsule of my life. Both have been recut many times. I have had many false starts as I tried to find my place and way in the world, and getting it right only too late--past my time. Quaint, and sweet, and just plain too late, and way too old.

Of root canals, Siamese balls, Chinese girls and things

First, on a happy normal note, I have been busily making an 18 ft growing Christmas tree for the kids' Nutcracker, as the old one fell apart at the last performance last year. It looks amazing. It's so good that the school owner gave me a hug when she saw it.

The cats went haywire just before Thanksgiving. I thought I'd get them both fixed at the same time, so I made an appointment Monday before Thanksgiving to get them both in December 9th. There. THAT'S one more thing off my list! WELL.....Tuesday morning I see Spring Roll rolling, and rolling, and rolling....and trilling and .....BACKING UP TO TAMAGO with her butt in the air. Dear God. Okay, so Plan B goes into effect, and I email the breeder to see if what I THINK I'm seeing is what I'm actually seeing. Breeder confirms that yes, her cats do often go into heat as early as 4 or 5 months. Tamago looks VERY confused. Panicked call to vet ensues, and he can sneak in Tamago for a quick nip on Wednesday morning. I worry that Tamago will be sick while we are away on Thursday/Friday, but the vet assures me he'll be fine (and he was..but he's still looking VERY deflated, in more ways than one.)

So, as soon as morning arrives, I see no repeat behavior from Spring Roll. I have no idea WHAT was going on anymore, but she's not doing any of the in-heat behaviors anymore. Oh well...gotta get the boy clipped anyway.So I drop him off and turn around to go to my emergency root canal (performed by the son of an old Baltimore Colts player. MAN, even I had office envy, and I'm not a dentist. He has a digital scanner X-Ray machine FGS!! EVERYTHING else was Zeiss! Man. What money can buy.) I then come home, feeling poorer, but better, and settle into making my pies and cakes to bring to Doug's cousins for Thanksgiving. I have JUST enough time to get it all made.

THEN....Xiaoxiao, who NEVER comes out of her room at all--It's like she's living at B&B--lots of interaction with anyone BUT us--comes home from school, and must have taken a look at the chairs I was staining in the garage on her way into her room after school. She steps on a paint sponge, and tracks hunter green poly stain all the way through my kitchen, to the hardwood, up my carpeted stairs and into her room. ALL that squishiness, and she never noticed. So...I, after I check my feet, to be absolutely sure it's not me, I turn off the apples I am caramelizing for the pies I am to bring up to Thanksgiving, and drag her out of her room, hand her the paint thinner, point to the stains throughout the house, and set her to work on the kitchen floor, and carpet while I hauled out the steam cleaner that I am now thanking God that I bought to clean the cat pee left behind by the previous incarnation of Tamago. I tell her NOT to get the paint thinner on the wood floor as it will take off the finish....but nooooooooo. She's gone and scrubbed the wood floor even after my warning, leaving a pale stripe in her wake. I am having a hard time with the idea that the culture in the city of Beijing is so alien that she's, among many other things, never smelled a solvent before. I have traveled in the orient, and I can attest that all big cities are more alike than they are different. I have come to the fanciful conclusion that she's lied about being from Beijing. She's actually from some small agrarian village tucked in the hinterlands of Mongolia where they have no plumbing, and has never seen a white man before. Needless to say, my apples have gone black with oxidation during their wait in the iron pan. No, I didn't think I'd NEED lemon juice to keep them white! I make the pie anyway. Hey, it was Wednesday afternoon! I was out of time!

So, I get the cat back, the stains are gone (mostly), and we pile in the car to go to Doug's cousins for Thanksgiving (having to get a suite at The Naussau Inn because there is no place to put Xiaoxiao in the house). I am told that replacing the milk with soymilk does not make a good pie. "It just does not have the creaminess". I can't help but reply that "it's better than using tofu", and it actually tastes great (ouch!..but that tofu pumkpkin pie was really awful..blech!). Yes, they keep kosher. Makes Thanksgiving a real pain. Soo..I end up being vindicated when on the next day, Doug's cousin asks me where the pumpkin pie is. She wants to give me back my plate. I say that I already have my plate since the pie was inhaled last night after dinner. "Oh". She did tell me to take my black apple pie and almond apple cake home since they'd be having birthday cake that night (her daughter's birthday) and they didn't need any more desserts. Well..I had to agree about the apple pie. It was rather ghoulish, but it did taste just fine. During all this, Xiaoxiao either has ner nose in her American History book (sent to her by her mom from China) or staring blankly--even with two brilliant college girls in the house. She only lights up at the Nassau Inn, when we passed by the Princeton Dorms, and later, saw some signed pics of some famous Princeton men..and Brooke Shields (her pic, not actually her).

So, Xiaoxiao is gone. Leaving behind all the things we gave her: clothes, toothpaste, toothbrush, shampoo--but taking my house key with her. Still haven't got it back. I just could not take it anymore. The idea of us partying below her closed door at Christmas (our tree is in the foyer, below her door) just made me feel WAY too weird.

Ugh....are you laughing?

Well, all things ended well. The kids did great as mice in The Nutcracker. My tree was beautiful, and Doug did great things animating my 10 ft. Mother Ginger puppet. All's well, except now we are all sick!