THE BOOKS OF THE FIRST QUARTER (...OOPS)

So, yes, I'm aware that it's almost June and I haven't yet blogged my notes about my January to March reading.  Blame it on the move, blame it on Facebook... but here I am, finally, getting caught up!

Unlike this current quarter of the year, where I seem to be doing an enormous amount of reading, but all related to potential writing jobs, earlier this year I got to read for fun.  My main reading, of course, was Harry Potter, all 7 books.  I'm writing those up separately, but here, at last, are the other books I read.  

Books I loved and highly 

recommend are linked to their Amazon page...  In alpha order (of course).

The Appeal by John Grisham

I enjoyed reading about 90% of The Appeal, a story of little-guy trial lawyers taking on the big-bad-guy chemical companies poisoning the water of a small southern town and the bad-guy lawyers who work and scheme for them.  I particularly enjoyed the lesson on how to rig an election, and the book overall was a smooth, fast read.  However, the ending felt all wrong with its extreme cynicism, and it all wrapped up most unsatisfyingly in all ways, as if Grisham had a deadline to meet and just couldn't be bothered to write the last chapter or two.  A book that started off feeling ennobling ended up cynical.  So I can't recommend.

Do Fish Know They're Wet? by Tom Neven

First a disclaimer:  I know Tom, the author, from the days when I was teaching for Act One, and he sent me a free copy once he saw (here) that his book was on my to-read list.  (Thanks, Tom!)...  A nice overall introduction for Christians to the concept of how your worldview influences your choices and perceptions.  It seemed pretty basic to me, but that's probably because of my own background.  I think it'd be a great book to give to a Christian high schooler heading off to college... Come to think of it, I may give it to Cory as he heads off to his tougher-than-he-thinks-it-will-be-and-probably-tougher-than-the-freshman-year-of-college high school next year (if I can pry him away from his computer to read it, of course!).  A valuable, clearly written book.

The Friendship Factor by Kenneth Rubin and Andrea Thompson

This is a very good book about children's peer relationships, dealing with issues like popularity, loneliness vs. introversion, bullying and aggression.  It gives specific age-appropriate suggestions and strategies for helping your kids navigate their social worlds.  Lots of the suggestions seemed obvious, but there were plenty of ideas I hadn't thought of before.  Given how hard the school system makes it for introverted kids, I found plenty of helpful stuff here, and wish I had read it a few years ago (which is probably when it first landed on my "to-read" list!).  Recommended for all parents!

Girl Meets God by Lauren Winner.

I liked this one so much that I already posted about it in detail here, and even put it on my fave reads of the year (sidebar).  Still highly recommended!

A House Like a Lotus by Madeleine L'Engle

Following the O'Keefe clan stories, Lotus is the story of Polly (whom we first met in The Arm of the Starfish "growing up" -- which in this case means she loses her virginity and has to deal with the shock of realizing that an older woman who has been a sort of patron and mentor to her is a lesbian when that woman makes a pass at her....  I don't know if it was a mistake for me to read so many of L'Engle's books in a row, but I'm really feeling that her fiction is drawing on the same elements over and over again, and it's getting to be hard to tell one book from another.  While of course, as always, the book is readable and has beautiful moments in it, I didn't appreciate Polly, of all people, finding it okay to lose her virginity at such a young age, and found much of the story tedious and melodramatic.  Maybe you have to be a teenager for this one to work (unlike, say, Meet The Austins or Ring of Endless Light which still totally resonate for me)... sigh.

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

I read this at Sabrina's insistence -- she was in love with the book, and I had to read it....   I found myself less in love with it.  Inkheart is the story of a young girl whose bookbinder father has a gift for bringing characters from books into the "real" world when he reads the book aloud, and who has brought a heinous villain into the world and must deal with him... It's set in modern-day, but an alternative universe modern-day that didn't really work for me, such that I found whole sections and characters abjectly unbelievable.  It's also much longer than it needs to be.  Things finally pick up about 2/3 of the way through it, and I began to get a glimpse of why Sabrina found it so magical... But I'm already fashioning my excuses for why I just don't have time to read the sequels...

The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling

I wish I had loved this, HP fan that I am.  And I recognize that many in the Harry Potter online world have dug deep into this shallow volume (John Granger, for one) and found much there.  But for me, it was a 20-minute read that barely rose above the level of  "cute."  I liked Dumbledore's commentary, and found a couple of specific notes interesting, and I enjoyed reading the actual "Three Brothers" tale apart from Deathly Hallows and recognizing the points at which it touches the larger story.  But other than that, I found it rather frivolous.  I much more enjoyed Quidditch Through the Ages and esp. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them as Harry add-ons.  Sorry.

....Okay, that doesn't seem like I read a lot, but please remember I also read several thousand pages of Harry.....  More Harry re-read thoughts coming (Goblet of Fire next), and more overall book thoughts in July.

What have you read lately that you like?

REREADING HARRY: PRIZONER OF AZKABAN

Finally (!) I am getting back to posting about my Harry Potter reread... Maybe I'll get caught up in time to jump onto Travis's ongoing reread of Half-Blood Prince.  (If you wait for the 7th and 8th movies before you reread Deathly Hallows, Travis, I'll definitely catch up by then!)

I first read Prisoner of Azkaban on that long Y2K weekend in San Diego with my writers' group.  By the time I'd finished Chamber of Secrets, I was hooked, and sort of plowed through POA in the midst of going to the zoo and Legoland and cooking for 15 people and hanging out at the beach, so I didn't give it all the focus I might have on that first read.

On that first read, I do remember being a little bugged by the time travel aspect of the story.  So often time travel is just a cheat, and it felt a little too sci-fi to pop up so conveniently in a fantasy story.  (I was very happy when the Time Turners were all smashed in Order of the Phoenix -- closing off a door that possibly never should have been opened.)

I also remember not really liking Sirius that much, remember wondering why Harry would want to live with him rather than with, say, the Weasleys (not knowing yet, of course, about the magical protection on the Dursleys' house).

Coming to the reread, I found myself once again wanting to just race through the book.  In the overall arc of the 7-book story, it seems as if its primary purpose is to introduce Sirius -- who will turn out not to be quite as major a character as he seems here, given his death only two

books away.  The battle here is not against Voldemort, but against the dementors, so it feels as if we're on a bit of a detour.

That being said, the dementors, who certainly owe a debt to the Nazgul of The Lord of the Rings, are a truly scary villain, and the idea that they can suck out your very soul was absolutely chilling and, um, took my breath away.  Rereading, I realized what a very good choice on JKR's part to have Harry be so very susceptible to the dementors -- he's been almost invincible in the face of danger so far, and seeing his weakness here heightened his personal danger.

Lupin really pulled at my heartstrings on this re-read... Not just because he's so kind to Harry, not just because of his backstory with Harry's dad, not just because he helped create the Marauder's Map (and parenthetically, the failure of the POA movie to mention that made me extremely disappointed in what was otherwise one of the better movies).  Knowing what's coming in Lupin's (all too short) life, I found myself aching for him to stop hovering on the outskirts of life, to throw himself whole-heartedly into the battles before him.  I could see how his "furry little problem" made him weak, made him, at times, a bit of a coward, even as I understood exactly why he was making the choices he made... Obviously I'm projecting a bit forward into the story here, but knowing what was coming really deepened my reading of Lupin this time around.

I also found Harry's final moments with the dementors breathtaking this time around -- His realization that he was the father he thought he saw, the fact that he didn't recognize himself in the first place (showing the inner longings of his heart), and his final, desperate "EXPECTO PATRONUM!" against the dementors... Even in the middle of the overly complicated time-travel elements, I thought Harry's moments held up beautifully.  (And I must say that JKR handled the time travel well, and was smart to keep it to such a small time frame.)

Overall, however, as I look at the whole sweep of the story, POA doesn't do much to move us forward.  We meet Sirius and Lupin, and we're introduced to the dementors.  But the relationships within and without the Harry/Ron/Hermione aren't challenged much, and Voldemort is very much on the sidelines.  I know POA is the favorite book of many (including, last time I asked him, my husband), and certainly the fave movie of many, but for me, it was more a lull in the overall plot as we build to the great challenges ahead of us in Goblet of Fire....

Which I will get to next...

OFF TO SANTA BARBARA

Lee and I  have some fond memories of doing nothing (or close to it) in Santa Barbara.

When we had finished our first big studio project, writing under a deadline, slamming out the last 30 pages in 2 or 3 days of no sleep, we headed up to Santa Barbara, booked a room in the Biltmore, and slept.  It was Superbowl weekend, I remember, and we ordered all sorts of football-watching junk food from room service, then fell asleep during the game.  It was such a lovely place to do nothing, we called the front desk and extended our stay for a couple of days.

Back in the days when we could book hotels without resorting to Priceline, we would alternate between the Biltmore and the San Ysidro Ranch, and go up to Santa Barbara fairly regularly to do nothing ("nothing" generally consisting of reading by the pool, strolling through shops, eating out, and more sleeping).  My favorite trip was the three-day weekend we took for me to read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire -- me sitting by the pool reading and waving over the cabana boy to refresh my drink, and Lee... well, I have no idea what Lee did that weekend.  Nothing, I guess.

Nowadays, we book Priceline and take our chances for what we get.  But we're off to Santa Barbara again today, this time actually for a reason:  We're taking the kids to the Flight of the Conchords concert as a belated congratulations for their acceptances to Harvard-Westlake.  Just for a couple of days, not even the whole weekend...  We've got a little hotel right across the street from the beach (with some iffy reviews, so we're crossing our fingers.  We're right across the street from the beach, but the high temp will be 64, so I doubt we'll do much beaching.  But we'll take our books and our iPods, and shop for Sabrina's graduation dress, and generally hang out.  In other words, a fair amount of nothing.  

I haven't done nothing in a long time.  I hope I remember how.

MOVIE THOUGHTS: X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE

Wolverine is a fun, summer movie that pushes the right buttons and finally works for one basic, glorious reason:  Hugh Jackman.

Although I'm still waiting for the movie that was semi-promised after the closing credits of X-Men 3, Wolverine does a fine job of sustaining the franchise while we wait and hope.

It hits the right notes that have to be hit in an origin story where we already know how things will progress in the "future":  We learn how he got the claws, how he got the name, how he got the jacket.  All the foreshadowing that should be there is right in place.

The plot is at times a bit by-the-numbers.  Is there anyone who, when Logan meets the nice farm couple who show him compassion and generosity, doesn't realize instantly that these nice folks are toast?  (Although the way the actual deaths are handled is still a surprise in the moment.)  And it's all a bit angsty.  This, I think, is not the movie's fault -- it's just that there are so many action movies out that take themselves so very seriously, and maybe we'

re all ready for a bit more fun.  (G.I. Joe appears to take itself so seriously that I seriously doubt I'll bother to show up!)

But Hugh Jackman makes the angst all work.  He is terrific, giving Logan/James/

Wolverine layers and resonances that a superhero rarely gets to play.  Not an emotional misstep along the way, not an emotional beat left hanging.  And all of it in a body that is so astonishing, it makes one wonder how this can possibly be the same guy we saw prissing about onstage in The Boy From Oz.  Someday, when Hugh's old, he'll look back at this movie and say, "Damn, I was hot!"

Good, solid action, with good, solid acting to pin it down and make us believe.  (And not a robot in sight -- which makes it a change from most of what's still coming down the pike.)  A great way to start the summer!

(A funny note:  We went to a choral concert this weekend at Sabrina's new school, and at the end, the director announced they would have a special conductor for the final number:  "Would you please welcome... the Wolverine!"  Sabrina and I, all excited, truly expected Hugh Jackman to walk out (it's the kind of school a movie star's kids might attend)...  forgetting, in our newness to the school, that the school mascot is the Wolverine.  So instead of Jackman conducting an orchestra with adamantium claws, we got a guy in a big animal head.  Sigh.)

THE PROS AND CONS OF FACEBOOK

Facebook is stealing my blogging mojo.  (And I'm stealing, if not the thought, certainly the words from a Facebook friend.)  

I am indeed way behind on blogging.  For instance, we are halfway through the second quarter of the year, and I have yet to post about the books I read during the first quarter.  Not to mention getting back to the re-read of Harry Potter.  And there's thoughts on movies -- I saw Wolverine, for instance, before I saw Star Trek, but have yet to opine...

Part of the bad-blogger excuse has to be that we moved last month.  Getting settled was rougher than we expected (though in the grand scheme of things, "rough" is definitely the wrong word).  And the end of all of our school years has been a pull on the schedule as well.

But a good part of my being a tardy blogger is that I joined Facebook.  And a good deal of the energy it takes to stay up to date on the internet is being pulled over there.  In some ways, I hate it.  In other ways, I like it.  I'm still pondering.

So please join me in my pondering (both the FB and the non-FB crowd)...

What I love about Facebook

I love it that I'm in touch with well over 200 people I wouldn't otherwise be in touch with.  I love it that I've gotten to share moments of life with friends from college, even high school, with people I see once a year, with people I haven't seen in years.  I love it that I can check their profile and see what they're up to and where they work without having to ask.  I love the wit of some of my FB friends, love it that I get to see cool viral stuff like the Antwerp "Do Re Mi" video and the Susan Boyle audition video so quickly, stuff I wouldn't troll the internet for on my own.  I love it that I see my son's posts and some of his friends' posts, and get a window into that world.

In many ways, FB returns us to the pre-industrial revolution version of "news."  Back before we had mass communication, "news" meant what was happening to the people immediately around you, say, the people in your village.  It was news when your neighbor was pregnant, or if that guy who lives around the corner got a new job, or if the clerk behind the counter at the general store had an accident, or if your best friend's kid got the best grade in the class.  And the weather was always worth talking about.

"News," in other words, was what was happening in everyday life.  It was the normal.

Now, "news" is the abnormal.  Earthquakes, terror attacks, high-speed freeway chases.  No longer the stuff of everyday life, but the stuff that pops in contrast to everyday life.  

Facebook returns us to the "everyday life" version of news.  I've learned about a friend who's pregnant with twins, learned about friends who love the same word games I do, learned about friends' performances and publications, learned about friends who are searching for work.  All everyday life, and all "news" I wouldn't have heard (or wouldn't have heard till much, much later, and probably third-hand) without Facebook.

And for that, I love Facebook.

But....

Why I not-love Facebook

"Hate" would be too strong a word.  But in some ways, Facebook is really getting on my nerves. 

I have friends (FB and real life) with incredibly varying views, politically and religiously.  But somehow, on FB, so many people seem to assume that all their FB friends agree with them on everything.  More than that, they assume that anyone who doesn't agree with them is stupid, godless, incompetent, really not worthy of being treated as a human being.

And that I really, really don't like.  I especially cringe when I see Christians treating each other with such contempt.

The intent of contempt, Dallas Willard tell us, "is always to exclude someone, push them away, leave them out and isolated...  To belong is a vital need based in the spiritual nature of the human being.  Contempt spits on this pathetically deep need.  And, like anger, contempt does not have to be acted out in special ways to be evil.  It is inherently poisonous.  Just by being what it is, it is withering to the human soul..."

Yet I see so many people (and far too many of them Christians) spewing anger and contempt in their posts.  Sometimes it's hidden under a clever status update, but with the presupposition that anyone who doesn't agree is an idiot.  Sometimes it shows up in the disturbing number of people who list their political views as "Correct" or "Right."  I've had to hide the posts of a handful of people, simply because their nastiness was so constant... and every single one was a Christian, I'm sad to realize.

On a smaller, pettier scale, I'm not crazy about the people who treat FB as if their hundreds of friends were members of their immediate family (or, I suppose, as if they were their Twitter followers).  I don't want to know what you have for dinner every day of the week, I don't want to see interminable pictures of your pets, I don't want to know when you go to sleep every night, I don't want to know that you went to the gym today when you go every single day, and I really, really don't want to know that you need a shower.  Can we all join together and say TMI?!!

I'm happy to hear what you think about things, be it "Lost" or "American Idol" or a new bookstore you just discovered or an article you just read or whether to buy an iPhone vs. a Blackberry or an injustice that you just witnessed or even what you think about waterboarding (if you're not contemptuous in your expression of your views).  That's interesting.  And if you write it well and your status updates are clever, even better.

Maybe it comes back to the changing definition of "news."  If you'd tell someone when you dropped by the general store or the post office in your small village where everyone knows each other, that's fit for FB.  If no one outside your immediate family needs to know, maybe leave it there.  

And the final reason I sometimes don't like Facebook?  It has the potential to be the biggest time suck in the history of the earth.  Now, that's myproblem, not FB's.  People talk about it being addictive, and I can sort of see that.  (Clearly those people who I've never heard of who want to friend me, but already have over 1000 friends, are addicted in one way or another.)

And that brings me back to the blogging issue.  Facebook is sucking up my blogging energy.  And I don't like that.  I love blogging because, as a writer, it's virtually the only "first-draft" writing I ever get to do, and because I connect with people on more than a 140-character sort of level.  But the tiny draws on energy that FB pulls -- just a little here, just a little there -- seems to be pulling my blogging energy away.

And that, I don't like.

I'd love to hear from those of you on FB and off......

MOVIE THOUGHTS: STAR TREK

Wow.  Just... Wow.  WOW.

The trailers looked promising.  But one never knows.  And those of us who paid out good money for some disappointing Star Trek movies in the past (Nemesis, anyone?) knew not to have our hopes too high.

Rebooting a franchise is always a difficult, delicate task.  And one with such expectations attached to it?  Yup.  Better not to have those hopes too high.

I walked into Star Trek as an ST fan, but not a full-on Trekker.  I've never owned a costume, never been to a convention.  Haven't bought the paperbacks.  Couldn't really tell you how stardates work.  I do not own a Klingon Bible.

But I do own a t-shirt or two, plus a cute teddy bear in a command uniform (a gift to one of the kids, I imagine).  I watched ST: The Original Series (in re-runs) and Next Generation faithfully (a huge Picard fan), watched Deep Space Nine and Voyager occasionally, and had the good sense to turn off Enterprise before the first episode was over.  I've seen all the movies, own the good ones.  I can recognize a redshirt when I see him, and know what pon farr and the Kobayashi Maru are.

...So when, still in the first act of Star Trek, I found myself smack in the middle of the Kobayashi Maru... I was delighted.  How that incident was handled, with delight and respect and wit and excitement, told me I was in for a spectacular ride indeed.

For my money, Star Trek hit all the right notes.  First, let's check back to the list of Elements of a Great Summer Movie I put together last summer after Iron Man came out:

1)  Spectacle we haven't seen before?  Check.  The planetary destruction (I'm being as spoiler-free as I can here).  The extended parachute sequence.  The very cool (very nasty) Romulan ship.  I could go on.  Good fight scenes (with a tip of the hat to the old human-vs.-alien slugfests of TOS).  Some awesome explosions.  Yeah.

2)  A good villain?  Um... close enough.  In ST, frankly, the villain is mostly an excuse to get all the heroes together on one ship.  Eric Bana does a fine job, has decent motivation for his heinous acts, and I think they chose wisely in making Romulans the villains.  (Klingons?  Been there, done that.  Since we're rebooting with the original characters, we can't go for a NG villain like the Borg; we need to stick to TOS villains.  And to make up a new villain from scratch would be an insult to the loyalists.)

3)  Good acting?  Oh yes!  And let me give props to my friend, casting director Alyssa Weisberg, for some of the most spot-on casting (in an incredibly difficult assignment!) we've ever seen.  Each of the main characters is right on the money in channeling either the TOS version of their characters (esp. Karl Urban as Bones), or giving us a deeper, more interesting yet totally familiar take (Zachary Quinto, riveting as Spock, Simon Pegg as Scotty, and especially Chris Pine as Kirk), or making their characters far more interesting than they were in TOS (especially Zoe Saldana as Uhura!).  In addition, Bruce Greenwood as Captain Pike gives a strong, grounding performance that makes me hope we see him in the next movie.

4)  Good vs. evil?  Good enough.  Star Trek has never been about tormented heroes making the big good/evil choice.  The Federation is good, that's a given, and there's hope in this universe that everyone, even the nasty Klingons and Romulans, will make the choice for good (much as in our own uiverse).  But the sense of good triumphant, and of the need to take on the responsibility that comes with the ability to do good is absolutely present here.

5)  Witty or iconic lines?  Oh yeah!  Star Trek had a mandate here, and doesn't disappoint.  "I'm giving her all she's got, Cap'n!"  "Fascinating."  "My God, Jim!"  They're all here.  And if they weren't, we'd have a right to be upset.

6)  Escape?  Yes, yes, yes.  And the best kind of escape:  Into a world we already know and long to return to.  A world filled with friends -- different, yet the same.  A world where we already know the rules.  A world of adventure and danger and challenge and friendship and loyalty.  

So Star Trek meets all the "good summer movie" prerequisites.  But it needs, of course, to do more.  It needs to respect and satisfy those of us who care about that world and those characters.

And it does.  The Kobayashi Maru.  Christopher Pike (who ends up just as he should).  Even putting the one character-we-don't-know-but-who-is-nevertheless-parachuting-down-with-the-two-stars-to-save-the-planet in a red jumpsuit.  ("Spoiler!"  I hear you cry.  "Now we know what happens to him!"  Ah, but you did already, didn't you?)

As for the time travel aspect of the movie -- I, like many others, am not a fan of the overuse of time travel in stories.  But here, I think it was a brilliant choice.  To dive into the Star Trek universe ready to start new stories from the beginning of the saga, yet shackled and bound by decades of "canon" (some of which is internally inconsistent itself!) would be stultifying, and would have killed the reboot of the franchise on the launch pad.

By handling the time travel twists as deftly as they did, by in essence throwing the whole story into an alternate universe, the filmmakers have allowed themselves to boldly go where no Star Trek has gone before, all while remaining faithful to the characters and to the heart of the series (and while also continuing to respect the existing canon, as would not have been done had they shredded it as if it didn't exist).  I do hope they never do a time travel story again.  But this time, this once, it was absolutely the right choice.

Star Trekis also fully satisfying on an emotional level.  I expect excitement at a summer blockbuster.  I do not expect to cry.  But one particular sequence had me in tears -- not welling up, but really crying.  Unexpected and wonderful.  Also, the portrayal of Spock as a young human/Vulcan trying to reconcile his two sides and learn how to deal with these nasty emotions that won't go away was, I thought, beautifully handled, both in the writing and in Quinto's acting.  Lovely.

I can't wait for the next one.  So I guess I'll just have to see this one again.  And buy it when it comes out.

They got it right.  What a way to start a summer!  What a way to start a series...

May the new Star Trek indeed live long.  And prosper.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

My kids are 12 and 14 years old now.  But I have never had a real Mother's Day.

Not their fault.  It's just that Mother's Day has always been fully focused on my mom, with no chance of that spotlight widening to allow anyone else into its light.

Growing up, my dad refused to celebrate most holidays, especially those he considered manufactured (which Mother's Day certainly is).  This meant, of course, that my mom got slighted on Mother's Day, and she definitely felt the slight.

After my dad died, it fell on me to give my mom the Mother's Day she craved.  What this meant was taking her to a huge fancy brunch, usually at someplace like the Ritz-Carlton.  Not inexpensive, but often very lovely.  And for several years, we had very nice Mother's Days.

As she got older, however, every holiday began to be, in my mom's eyes, a statement of whether she was loved or not.  Christmas was the worst, with Mother's Day a close second.  Maybe, I have recently come to surmise, she didn't like competing with me for Mother's Day honors, didn't like sharing "her" day.

Mother's Day slowly grew to be one of the days of the year I truly dreaded.  Maybe we'd rush through church in the morning, maybe we'd just hit the road for the almost-100-mile trek to Grandma's, all depending on the time of our brunch reservation (and if we set the time too late in the day, that too was a statement of whether she was loved).

I'd be stressed the whole weekend and even before.  We need to pick up flowers.  Should it be a plant this year?  Should we get chocolates (which she loves but shouldn't eat)?  Is there time to race to Color Me Mine with Sabrina and make some little trinket?  Don't forget the cards -- and it really has to be one from each person, not one from the whole family.

At brunch, it was all about keeping her happy.  Is the light too bright for her damaged eyes?  Is the family at the next table too noisy?  Is the food okay?  Are the presents okay?  If we didn't do it "right," we paid the price.  She'd cry.  She'd complain.  Or she'd get loudly rude, making nasty comments to us or to the waitstaff (maybe even hitting at them with her cane).  By the time I paid the check, I'd be inappropriately grouchy, barely appreciative of whatever gifts the kids had made at school that year, and not fit company for anyone.

This year, however, there will be no brunch.  My mom's moved into a nursing home (excuse me, a "rehabilitation center") about two months ago, unable to walk, and almost completely unaware of her surroundings.  When I visit her, sometimes she seems to know who I am, though she hasn't said my name, so I'm not sure.  But sometimes she doesn't know at all, and she's often wildly belligerent.  And I've been told by her doctor not to let the kids see her in her current state.

So that means, for the first time in my life, today is a Mother's Day I don't have to dread.  No hundred-mile-dash to get to a brunch no one really wants.  No agonizing over presents no one really needs. 

And for the first time, I get to sit back and say, Hey, look -- I'm a mom!  Not something I ever really expected -- I didn't play "house" growing up, never had the grand plan about how many kids I would have and what their names would be.  I figured I'd be fine without any kids.

But I was wrong.  And I'm so glad I was wrong.  So grateful to have somehow ended up with two absolutely amazing, astonishing kids who, now moving out of childhood, are fascinating, cool people to hang out with.

For my whole life, Mother's Day has been about being a daughter.  Today, for the first time, Mother's Day is about being a mom.

Happy Mother's Day.

TO BOLDLY DO WHAT EVERYONE HAS DONE BEFORE

I am as excited to see Star Trek this weekend as I've been for any movie in recent memory, especially with the stellar reviews (no pun intended) and the great early word of mouth.

But maybe I shouldn't be so excited.  Maybe I should be upset.

WHY ADAM DESERVES TO WIN AMERICAN IDOL

I've been an Adam Lambert fan from his "Bohemian Rhapsody" audition on.  I even didn't hate his admittedly weird rendition of "Ring of Fire" (though I sure wouldn't have voted for it).  

I'm also a fan of Danny and Allison, and am thrilled that they've all made it to the final four.

But last night crystallized for me just why Adam deserves to be the 2009 American Idol.

It's not just his performance chops, honed to perfection through hundreds and hundreds of hours onstage (many in the chorus of Wicked here in L.A.).  It's not just the incredible Freddie Mercuryesque voice and his impressive vocal technique.

Those help, of course.  But what clinched it for me last night was watching the duets.

Danny and Kris, singing Styx's "Renegade," looked awkward.  They looked uncomfortable being on stage.  They had absolutely no chemistry, and didn't even look at each other during the entire performance.  It was like watching a divorced couple still rehashing the hate having to stand together at their child's wedding.  Yes, their harmonies sounded good -- which was almost a relief, since it was almost painful to watch their non-interaction.  It w

as as if each of them resented having to share the stage with the other.  As if each was afraid of making the other guy look too good.

Adam and Allison, on the other hand, rocked the house singing Foghat's "Slow Ride."  Allison, in particular, shone in her performance, showing a freedom and power stronger than we usually see from her.  

And she shone, largely, because of Adam.  Every time she was singing a solo Adam gave her his full focus, directing the audience's attention to her.  Every time they sang together, Adam pushed the connection and gave her everything she needed to play off of.  He even deliberately stepped downstage a few times while she was singing, also drawing attention to her.  (All that chorus boy training!)

Adam was an incredibly generous performer last night.  He didn't need to be.  He certainly has all the performance skills he needed to pull a Diana Ross and draw all the attention away from Allison and toward himself.  But he didn't do it.  

So when Simon said that Adam may have pushed Allison over the top and into the final three, he was absolutely right.  Adam could have destroyed Allison.  Instead, he gave her everything he had.

He's been generous in this way before.  He's the only performer this year to give props to the band, to the instrumentalists, to the orchestrators, and he's at times gone out of his way to do so.  

Adam's got the voice.  He's got the range (vocally and performance-wise).  He knows how to command a stage.  

And he's shown a generosity of performance we've rarely seen on American Idol and certainly didn't see from Kris and Danny last night.

And that's why Adam deserves to be the next American Idol.

MOVIE THOUGHTS: EARTH

I remember watching lots of nature documentaries on our tiny TV growing up -- "Wild Kingdom" and the like.  (Or I should say, "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" -- showing the power of branding all these years later.)  Not much to see on that tiny black-and-white screen.  But I watched nonetheless.  It was educational TV, so made my parents happy, and it wasn't boring.

EARTH, the first release by Disney's new releasing entity DisneyNature (which has an awesome log, by the way), takes that concept and magnifies it massively. 

 With no plot or story to speak of (though there are characters), EARTH gives the old school nature docu on a scale we have rarely seen.  But documentaries are allowed to have stories, even if they're not scripted in advance, and EARTH could have used more stories (we never find out what happens to the polar bears, for instance, probably just because the filmmakers had a schedule to adhere to and didn't get the shots).

There are some breathtaking shots in EARTH, most of them aerial shots giving us the "God's-eye-view" of flocks of birds or herds of animals in transit.  And there are some breathtaking moments:  For me, the real hold-your-breath sequence came when, courtesy of night vision camera work, we watch a pride of lions attacking a herd of elepha

nts by night.  The elephants' strategy to ward off the lions is good, but the lions (or should I say, the lionesses, as the one male in the group basically lies around and roars while the females do all the work) are persistent.  "Nature red in tooth and claw," indeed.

However, that's pretty much the only moment where Disney allows the danger and predatory nature of the animal world to play itself out onscreen.  There are a couple of other attacks, but none really come to their full conclusion.  We cut away from the wolf just as its teeth near the neck of the baby caribou.  "Mommy, what did the wolf do to the deer?" a little kid called out.  Um, somebody better tell that kids the facts of life, because Disney isn't going to.

The other attack sequence is a cheetah going for a gazelle -- and it's beautifully filmed.  I noticed, in the glorious slow motion, that the cheetah's eyes al

ways remain absolutely level as it runs -- no wonder it's so successful as a predator!  But again, the cutaway from the inevitable conclusion.

Why am I focusing on these moments?  Perhaps because the over-carefulness of the editing (all to get that G rating, I'm sure) really made it clear how very manipulated the whole movie was. With all the beauty, I sure would have liked a greater sense of joy.  Or maybe I'd just like my nature a little rawer.  I'm pretty sure I remember watching (in tiny black-and-white, with the camera at quite a distance) big cats chomping down on lunch on "Wild Kingdom."  Probably that's what prepared for me for Hollywood.

EARTH is beautiful, if a bit cautious, and it does indeed have some moments of sheer joy (if too few).  It wears its environmentalist agenda lightly on its sleeve (lighter than, say, the fictional HAPPY FEET), and it is, as my parents found all those years ago, an educational film that kids will go to.  DisneyNature is going to make a whole series of these (OCEAN is next, and it looks awesome).

If you want to see it, see it quick on the big screen.  'Cause I can testify that the tiny black-and-white isn't going to cut it here.