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After meandering about and, finally, repurchasing the books,
I finally gave in to another temptation. Saturday we arrived at the
theater to see one of the big ticket movies of winter, either
The Two Towers or
Die Another Day.
The newest Bond flick wasn’t showing, leaving only the
movie I desperately wanted to see but also desperately wanted to
avoid. After all, I haven’t yet cracked the books for the second time.
Curiousity got the best of me and, with
impending shut down of
my personal life, I thought it best to fill up my schedule sooner rather than
later. So the wife and I went to see the second episode of the Lord of the Rings.

There are certain movies that must be seen on the big screen, where
you can be surrounded by speakers and taken away by the picture
that encompasses your field of vision. Sometimes the urge to be
first in line makes you walk to the ticket booth. Sometimes it’s the fact that
sad acting can be better ignored behind the glitter of the
flickering lights. Sometimes a movie is just so damn good you
must see it in all its 10 foot glory, where a wall of speakers can make
your seat shutter. The Two Towers was definitely one of the latter.

Before Saturday, it was high atop my personal list of must-see-on-the-big-screen movies. Just about any action flick can make
the list –
Bond movies,
any movie with
Arrrnold
in it. Pretty explosions is usually a requirement.
This year, the second
episode of Harry Potter
made my list; a dark movie theater might make its magic just a bit
more magical.

I’m glad The Two Towers found itself on the top. It was incredible.
It was epic. It’s the best movie I’ve seen
this year and one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. I was glued to
my seat. My very pregnant wife jostled a bit in hers but stayed right where
she was.

The first movie was good. It was better than good. I’ve spent about $60
on the
two versions of the DVD. That soundly places it high on my short
list of great movies. The second movie, like the second book,
was better. Braveheart and Gladiator will have some company on
my DVD shelf. I can only hope that Peter Jackson is kind on my
entertainment budget this time around.

The first movie made me think it. The second movie made me say it.
The Lord of the Rings is the
Star Wars of this decade.
Peter Jackson has picked up the ball that George Lucas dropped. The
second movie even reminded me a bit of
The Empire Strikes Back.
It was much darker than the first movie and let the history
established in the first flick of the series take on a life of its own in the second.
The best part is that I have no fear that Ewoks will enter the picture
for The Return of the King. We have our cute little creatures and
these hobbits carry swords.

I have only one question for the director: how about adding a fourth movie
to the mix?
I’d love to see the adventures of the original Hobbit, good old Bilbo
Baggins, in big screen form. That’s where it all started. It would be
a great place to end.

That’s what the wife is: uncomfortable. She’s uncomfortable standing,
uncomfortable sitting, and, most of all, uncomfortable sleeping.

The ninth month of pregnancy is slightly unkind to a woman’s body.
Her balance is all out of whack. The belly^TM peers freely at the ground;
it’s now the only thing that can see her feet. A teaspoon of salt
results in an inflatable doll. Ever see one of those massive #1
Styrofoam hands at a football game? I can get one in my living
room by just passing the wife some chips. Stomach crunches are things
she used to do in the good old days. A sound night’s sleep is but
a distant memory.

I try to help. I really do (note to self: taking her to the 3 hour
showing of
The Two Towers
would not be a good example). The other
day I formed the “mountain of pillows”, a feeble attempt at
providing relief in bed. I rub her back occasionally (like during hour 2
of The Two Towers). I comfort her in other ways.
I remind her how great she is. I assure
her that we’ve only a month to go (as in “Yikes! Only a month left!
What have we got ourselves into?”).
I try not to run screaming from the house during the more than
occasional
Braxton Hicks
contraction. I remind her what adults often do at night
by sleeping blissfully by her side as she wakes to visit the bathroom
once again.

She ran by the hospital today for a quick check up and ended up staying
for a while. They hooked her to machines and added the contraction
contraption to her belly^TM just to make sure everything is ok.
She laid in a bed and listened to the beautiful sound of the baby’s
heart beat for hours. Thankfully, everything was fine. It was an
uneventful day for her and a slightly nervous one for the father-to-be on the
other end of the phone.

The countdown officially begins tomorrow: one month to go. I’m
quite proud of how the wife has handled the burden. The cute little
belly^TM is a badge of courage. She doesn’t complain much, even as the
simple things become more and more difficult. She’s a trooper and
I suppose that’s just how it should be. In 30 days, her own comfort
will be the furthest thing from her mind.

I want to wish my wife a very happy birthday on this 29th day of December.
Today, the year flap on the old electric clock flips forward just a bit.

I’ve been accused of being too sappy in my blog — too mushy. I have to say
that I’m guilty as charged (my
Hallmark application is in the mail).
This year I’ve had a lot of happy things to
talk about and a lot of happy things to say. In life, and in marriage,
you have your ups and downs. This year definitely fits in the former
column. A lot of it revolves around the fact that there’s a baby
on the way. My life, and that of my wife’s, is rapidly changing.
It’s an exciting time. But it’s also more than that. Things have just
been, well, good.

My wife isn’t just a small part of the equation. I’m so lucky to
have someone who understands, loves, and can refrain from maiming me on
a daily basis. Sometimes two people just click and there’s no argument,
no doubt that they should be together. “50/50”, the preacher said.
Somehow I still got the better end of the deal.

The wife and I have been through a lot. The hot chick who sat next
to me in a high school class now sits in my living room. We’ve seen
a lot of firsts: jobs, a house, furniture, cars. We’ve grown up together.
We once passed notes in Human Dynamics class. We now prepare to enter parenthood and I’ve never been
more confident of our relationship. To say I’ll a truly lucky guy
just doesn’t say it all.

Jenn, you are my best friend, my lover, and, soon, the mother of my children.
I love you. Have a very happy birthday.

I’ve had a bit of trouble catching on to the Christmas spirit
this year. It has come and went and returned again. It didn’t
really grab hold of me until just last week.

Latching on to that spirit is normally a lot easier. The wife
starts the Christmas tunes just after Halloween. Just
watching the sugar plums dance around her head can right
the most downtrodden soul.

However, my soul isn’t the problem. Neither is the little
Scrooge or Grinch that can hide in us all. It’s not like
I don’t have the time to pause and smell the milk and cookies.
It’s that Christmas just hasn’t been my focus.
After all, for the wife and I, the big event of this year doesn’t
really happen until next. December, a month normally
reserved for shopping frenzies and Christmas wishes, has
been filled with child planning and baby dreams.

Decorating the inside of the house took us a while to finish.
The twinkling lights that line the outside of the house didn’t
get put up until just last weekend. I’ve been dragging my
feet through a combination of laziness and bad weather
(snow one week and rain the next didn’t exactly encourage
me to pull the ladder up to the side of the house).
All eyes were ahead.

All of a sudden Christmas has arrived. Even though I was a bit
late, I jumped on the train just before it pulled into
the station. Last weekend, we were able to spend some time
with family. I got to visit with my sister, see my father,
and hug my mother (ok, I may have given good old dad a hug too).

I’ll soon be preparing to head out to church for a better
reminder of that small child cooing in a manger, wrapped in
swaddling clothes; a King in the making who is truly a
reason to celebrate.

Tomorrow morning, I’ll wake up early, grab some coffee, and
tear into that stack of presents under the tree. As I do,
I won’t be able to resist thinking about just how different
this will be next year.

It’s funny. The very thing that has me looking past Christmas
is one of the best Christmas presents I can imagine, even
if I have to wait until January to open it.

Oh, and Jesus, Happy Birthday!

A trip to a bed and breakfast can be like entering an old country home.
A warm fire in the corner, a beautifully made bed, and a room
decorated with all the niceties you could want. Breakfast is
icing on the cake.

Last weekend, the wife and I choose a
bed and breakfast
in Gettysburg for
our last child-free getaway. A weekend in a wintery, sleepy town is just
the kind of vacation we like. It’s really a chance to get away, quite literally.

We finished up the battlefield tape tour, something that we started about
three years ago and never completed. We also found our way to the
cyclorama, 360 degrees of fighting on a massive canvas. If only the real battle
had been that calm. There’s something haunting about this place and something
so peaceful. So many died. The horror of those three days has not and never
will be wiped clean from this small town. But you can sense
that this was the beginning of the end because, well, it was.

In the afternoon, we ignored the history outside to take in a just bit of
history indoors. The
local BnBs were offering a tour and we took it. A lot of the day was
spent traveling from one cozy BnB to the next, noting the differences
and sampling the homemade treats at each. Outside of our own
little BnB, our two
favorites were the
Battlefield BnB Inn and the
Herr Tavern.
Both were great for their very own reasons.

And that’s exactly what I like about BnBs: each is different — each offers
something else to the traveler. Hotels, in general just pale in comparison.
Why, you say? I’m glad you asked:

The proprietors want to work there.

The people running the show aren’t scratching and clawing at minimum wage.
There’s no front desk where a clerk can peer over the telephone at you
as if you are an interruption to his conversation. It’s not that at all. Instead, they are generally run and cared for by a married couple, a couple who
enjoyed or enjoy visiting BnBs themselves. They greet travelers and
welcome them to their humble abode.

The room is more than a bed.
Personal touches and memoirs line the walls. Great care is taken to make
each room unique. Common areas hint at the hobbies of the owners.
We’ll leave the light on for you, indeed.

Did I mention breakfast?
I love to sleep in. The sun is hardly an excuse to rise from the covers.
But all this breaks down when we hit a BnB. Let’s get up babe. That smell
wafting up the stairs is for us. We wander down to the table, grab our coffee,
and make some smalltalk with a couple of strangers. The meals themselves
are often great to boot.
Egg sausage souffle, banana walnut waffles,
baked apple pancakes with apple cinamin syrup – do I really need a better
reason to make it to the morning meal? Heck, we actually choose our
latest destination because of the fact that they placed fresh
Pennsylvania Dutch shoo fly pie on every breakfast table. Yum.

As you may guess, we had a blast. We didn’t even need the Christmas
carolers, complete in their civil war costumes, to stop by and sing
a couple of tunes. But we are glad they did.

Last year’s hobbit loving movie,
The Fellowship of the Ring, was excellent.
Peter Jackson
could have been considered crazy for even attempting to translate such a well-realized and popular set of fantasy novels to the silver screen. The results might have been disasterous. Instead, they were wonderful.

The
books
themselves are the stuff of legend. They aren’t just fantasy novels. The Fellowship of the Ring trilogy and its prequel, The Hobbit, are fantasy standards. The four of them form the fantasy writer’s dictionary and encyclopedia. See that orc over there? See the smoke rising from the humble abode sadly placed near the Forest of Death? Thank
J.R.R. He played his part. He’s the Shakespeare of the sword and sorcery world.

To an aspiring 6th grade reader, they were a speedy horseback ride into the world of magic and mayhem. I’ve been hooked ever since.
Dragonlance,
Magician, Thomas Covenant
— many a fantasy series followed. I’ve never found a sword with a golem on the pointy end that I didn’t like. But I’ve never forgotten what started it all. Or had I? Why was everything so fuzzy?

I suppose it might have something to do with the 17 intervening years (oh my, now I feel old). You could say that it’s been in a while since I’ve read the books. I remember the them much like I remember my old middle school teachers. That’s to say if they came by and beat on my desk with a ruler, the memories would come flooding back. Without such an occurence, the details remain outside of my grasp.

The first movie acted much like that ruler. However, the sound of splintering wood was replaced by a light tapping upon my head (my old reading teacher would be much dissapointed). The big events stood out – Gandolf … dwarven mines …. massive battles. The rest all kind of runs together. The epic grabbed me by the ears but also made me miss my formally intimate knowledge of its supporting text. What did they leave out? How did I envision such a land? You know, I probably should reread the series.

That would be easy except for the fact that I loaned it out not so long ago. I believe I gave it to my nephew but, to be honest, I don’t remember who I handed it to. I’ve recommended it to many people, particularly when the first movie approached. Someone, somewhere has my classic copy. Unfortunately, that meant I no longer had a copy of my very own.

The solution to the problem wasn’t as clear cut as you may think. Visiting the store seemed to betray my inner geek. I’m not a part of the masses who were introduced to the one ring through a lighted wall. I was an early adopter. I’ve been there; done that. Hobbits? Yep, I know all about them; I even know a lot about good old Bilbo. I’m not jumping on the bandwagon. I’m leading the pack (Well leading in the sense that I’m behind the real uber-geeks out there. They are easy to spot. Just look for the Magic – The Gathering cards) . In this sense, at least, I rejected the movie.

That is until I finally drug myself to the book store. I found a splendid paperback set graced with covers directly from the movie. The nerd inside was at peace and my shiny plastic credit card surfaced. They’ll look just beautiful next to both editions of the first
DVD.

Revisiting the books will likely put the next two movies under a much more focused microscope. I’ll analyze. I’ll have a much more recent comparison. But I don’t think I’ll be disappointed. The movies have relit the fire of my interest in the hobbit world. I’m sure they won’t mind if I poke at the coals a bit.

The wife and I spent the majority of our weekend in
birth preparation classes. We learned all about dilation,
effacement, contractions, pain medication, and much more.
10 hours of birth talk does something to you: it makes
your butt hurt. Well, it was that or the seriously
uncomfortable chairs.

Some of it, I knew. I knew there would be pain.
I knew that something quite large was going to exit
the wife’s body.
Most of it filled in the blanks. What
will grow to ten centimeters? How long are the
contractions? When should we head to the hospital?
What does an epidoral involve? How does the baby
get out? I guess there were a lot of blanks.

I don’t believe I pictured birth to be such a long, involved
process. The television always forces the parents-to-be
to spring out the door to the hospital. There’s always a
rush. It’s always coming right now.
Let’s hope the taxi driver knows how to deliver a
baby.
Apparently, most births aren’t like that at all.
They take a while — sometimes a long while. There’s
time to relax (in fact, it’s encouraged). There’s
even time to catch some football on T.V. (note to self:
edit this out before the wife gets to read it).

The videos weren’t nearly as graphic I had thought,
or hoped, they would be. No placenta graced the screen.
None of the aftermath was filmed.
The view of epidoral was obstructed. The cesarean
was mostly viewed from the mom’s side of the sterile cloth.
I don’t want to say that I wanted see to blood, mess, sweat,
and tears. I just wanted the videos to shock any of the
impending horror out of me. I didn’t think the
Discovery channel
had already done such a good job.

I couldn’t help but compare the whole process to a soldier
approaching the battle lines. Sure we’ve thought, and talked,
a lot about it, but all the facts kind of hit you head on.
All of a sudden, you can hear the bombs dropping in the distance.
Lights flash over the horizon. The roar of the transport
drowns out the shouts from your commander. You are well on
your way. You check your watch. Your heart rises just a bit in
your chest.

We have our battle plan. It’s all written in a little booklet
we took home from class. Our expectations have been rounded
into to place. Don’t have too many. Each pregnancy, and each
woman, is quite different. Knowledge is now our weapon.
Practice your breathing. Get your rest. Drink lots and lots
of fluid. You do have your bag packed — don’t you?

Somehow the other side of the hospital door no longer feels
so far away.

The first snow of the year kept me entertained nearly all day.
I had the pleasure of waking up to frosty windows, nervous
forecasters, and heap of the white stuff all over the front
yard. I was able to watch the powder pile up all day while
I worked from the comfort of my own home. Later, these
piles found the happy feet of my dog and the business end
of my shovel. Now, as I write this, I watch the flakes
gracefully fall past the glimmer of a nearby street light.

There’s just something about snow that changes the pace of
a day. It’s slows it down. Brings everything to an even
keeter. You are probably not going anywhere. Settle in.
Grab a mug of hot chocolate and start up the fireplace.

It must have to do with childhood. One of the first lessons
of arithmetic is that snow = a day off. It means sleds
and snowballs, heavy coats and snow angels. Life is
on hold and the schedule is out the window, if only for a day.
Sit back and enjoy.

One of the unfortunate aspects of telecommuting is that
is wasn’t exactly a day off for me. That didn’t
mean that I didn’t get wrapped up in it anyway. Network
problems forced me to retire early and get my
feet wet, literally. The dog romped around in his first
real snow while the wife’s belly looked on from the
front door. Warm food greeted my plate for lunch and
warm cookies greeted my belly for a snack. I got to sip
from the happy cup, even if I couldn’t take a deep gulp.

And it’s only early December. I don’t believe I remember
a snow like this ever coming so early in the year.
Around here, snow is normally a bright spot in the dark
months of January and February. Something to cheer you
up while you wish for the warm breeze of spring.
This year, however, it just might get to usher in Christmas.
Wouldn’t that just be grand?

As usual, Thanksgiving boasted a wonderful meal. Some dressing
here, some sauerkraut there, some green bean salad in the corner,
potatoes everywhere, biscuits on top, and turkey.
Yum – turkey. And that was just my plate. This year, like every
year, did not dissappoint.

I’m thankful it didn’t. We held the annual meal at our home
this year, something that is rapidly becoming tradition.
The house dared to tempt the fire code as it was stuffed with
18 members of our family. That meant there was lots of
cleaning, lots of commotion, and, yes, lots and lots of
leftovers.

The direct result of that is that I’m very, very full. Day
old table scraps entered my gaping maw as we entertained some
close friends on Friday. On Saturday, we ran off to Pennsylvania
to partake of the leftovers of the wife’s sister. Sunday found
us back at home, cleaning the various containers in the fridge in
the hope that nothing goes to waste. In the last four days,
I haven’t seen a plate that doesn’t feature some mashed potatoes.
Four days after Thanksgiving, I’m still very thankful.

Of course, my gut probably can’t take much more of this.
I’m quickly starting to understand why bears hibernate
all winter. Thankfully, the supplies are finally running
low. In one day soon, lunch will again become a reality.
I’ll no longer spend my time lurching for the couch in a
tryptophan daze.

One last note: James Lileks wrote a great little blog

entry (you might have to scroll down to Thursday)
that just put me in the Thanksgiving mood at just the right time. If you
get a chance take a peek. I’d like add one more on my
personal list:

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday.
May your belly be as full as mine.