Toy Story 4

Ever since I saw Toy Story 3, I have been longing to take out my American Girl Dolls. I can hear them scratching at the insides of their trunks, begging for me to come and do their hair, I swear it! And somehow the universe knew this, because today an 8-year-old American Girl Doll fanatic showed up at my door. She was the daughter of a work associate of my mom’s, and I was told to entertain her. She seemed shy at first, but I should not have been fooled. The second I took out the dolls, it was like her voice box had been switched on. As she tugged on the beautiful hair of my Felicity doll, she would say ridiculously precocious things like “You know what’s weird? So many things are made in China. It’s not good” or “You know what’s strange? Sneakers were invented in 1892” or “Hey, did you know World War II started in 1944?” I usually like smart, interesting children, but, selfish as the kid in me can be, I wanted to play dolls. After she stripped all my dolls naked, she said, “You know what’s weird, Tara? The dolls don’t have butts!”

Needless to say, I did not get to set my dolls up for a Victorian tea party today. But I did get to get my hostess fix later on.

In honor of the fact that we planned to watch Driving Miss Daisy, I planned a Southern-style dessert for Kristin Emily, Katie, and Lissie’s friends. I squeezed lemons and blended strawberries to make Strawberry Lemonade, which I thought came out well for my first time making homemade lemonade! (As you can tell, I have little faith in my own domesticity. This comes from growing up thinking feminism is the only way, hence anything done in the kitchen is anti-feminist. I am not sure where I got this idea from, but I sure wish I never had it. Maybe then I could cook well!) I then attempted to make use of our excess watermelon, in making Watermelon Lemonade. This was far from successful, coming out as a pulpy, bitter mess. But I served it anyway…along with Key Lime Pie, Brownies, and cherries.

This all reminds me, I have watched two other movies to add to Project Film Frenzy:

· Being John Malkovitch (strange…I think I liked it…but it is hard to say)

· Driving Miss Daisy (which just further confirmed that Morgan Freeman is my hero…and strangely had little plot but was still fantastic, as Katie, Giff, and I agree)

Daily Randomisms

Daily Excitement: The Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows trailer came out today, which made me already feel the anticipation to see the next movie. However, as many of you know, they are putting out this last movie in two parts, and I am very afraid that the first part will be nothing but a lead-up to the final part. Most of the things shown in the trailer seem to be from the second half of the book, which makes me wonder what they will show in the first part of the movie at all…Harry sitting in a tent in the woods?

Daily Annoyance: Birds. For some people it’s spiders, for some it’s rodents; but for me, it’s birds. Ever since that seagull at Robert Moses Beach swooped down and stole the hot dog right from the bun in my hand I’ve hated those bastards. (And then the guy at the concession stand would not believe me, or give me a new lunch. I was only 12.) I’ve never even seen Alfred Hitchcock’s movie about those flying creatures, for fear it will make it worse. But, unfortunately, I have had quite a few run-ins with them lately: Lissie feeding swans from her dinner plate (shown in picture), my dad kicking sand at pigeons and throwing bread at gulls until they swarm us in the ocean, a rather annoying little bird who kept flying around my hair like I was a cartoon character who just bumped his head.

But, by far the best was the bird that had been annoying my dad as he sat outside with my mom. In trying to get rid of it, he fed it a Wasabi pea, hoping it would hate the spicy thing and leave, or, even better, explode and die like the pea was a Pop rock. (I really don’t wish death upon birds; PETA do not come after me, please.) But, instead, it enjoyed the pea and came closer, looking for more food. My mom went to get a drink, and when she came back the plate of Wasabi peas was on the ground, broken, with spilled peas around it. My mom looked at my Dad accusingly but he answered sheepishly “The bird did it!” and who knows if this is true. Finally, my mom had the idea to take her straw and spit Seltzer-water in the bird’s face, which did the trick and it flew off. She was so filled with pride at defeating the bird that she told Lissie and I this whole story, while grinning largely like a kid who just won a goldfish at a fair. (Yes, this is what my family talks about at dinner.)

Trivia: “Lady Gaga is inappropriate! She shows almost all of her boobies!”

-the 8-year-old I played with today…(she followed this statement with silence and then a question: “What does inappropriate mean?”)