The Truth

Having a three year old means that you have to be answering questions all the time. Lucas is a very curious kid, as as most kids his age he'll start asking question after question. I find this interesting because I can see how he is starting to grasp most of the concepts that we take for granted as adults but it is also exhausting. This morning he was sort of in turbo mode. Since we got in the car at home until we parked a the daycare he asked questions non-stop from "What Pokemon is bigger Charmeleon or Charizard?" to "Why is my hand shaped like a rectangle?" I have also made it more difficult to myself because of two choices I made.

The first one is that I want to answer every one of his questions as accurately as possible. We have taught Lucas to not accept an easy answer. If he asks you a question and your answer is "Just because" his immediate reply is "That is not a valid answer". I'm sometimes half paying attention at what he is asking and a "just because" will slip and he will always catch me. This is how I have sometimes found myself talking about the states of matter, atoms and the properties of light to explain why the sky is blue or talking about the nervous system to explain why his finger hurts. It is very rewarding when I'm in the middle of one of these explanations and he will ask a follow up question related to what I am actually saying. I know that he is not grasping absolutely everything I say but sometimes he will surprise me. His teacher the other day congratulated me because he knew what gravity was. What amazes me is that I explained gravity to him in Spanish, how he translated it and explained it to his teacher in English just baffles me.

The second difficulty is that I am not a very religious person so I lose the what I think would be a very useful cop out "Because God made it that way!". But I have also learned that he understands that sometimes I don't know all the answers, so he will sometimes accept an "I don't know". When this happens I make it a point to actually make my research so I can find an explanation for him. So his questions actually help me learn about stuff too.

Friday Movie
It is that time of the week again and here are the choices for the poll. Please vote on the top right corner under Jerry Seinfeld's head:

• A Touch of Zen: This has been called the best Kung-Fu movie ever, not just because of the visuals but also because of the artistic quality and story.
• The Paradine Case: I have seen every Alfred Hitchcock movie from 1938 until 1976 except for this one.
• Chimes at Midnight: Falstaff is a Shakespeare character in three different plays. In this movie Orson Welles creates a sort of biopic of the character across those three plays.
• Shall We Dance: A Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie. It would be the fourth most popular pairing of the two after the three I have already seen: Top Hat, Swing Time and Gay Divorcee
• The Revenge of Frankenstein: The second installment of the Hammer Frankenstein series starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.

What did I See?

Birdman of Alcatraz: You can see how some more recent prison movies like Shawshank Redemption and the Green Mile were inspired by this movie's tone. From what I read of the real Robert Stroud the movie was very kind to him by omitting most of his worst traits.

The Handicap Spot

This one is going to be a rant. I come from a country where no one respects the rules. I like order and things done right so this made me extremely unhappy. In Venezuela I was a grouch. When I moved to the USA all my grouchiness suddenly disappeared. Here rules are enforced and though sometimes some people try to get a away with breaking them, most of the time they get caught and punished. But every once in a while there is an idiot that reminds me of the third world.

Today's idiot is a parent from Lucas's daycare. In the parking lot there are 4 handicapped spaces that no one really uses, they are always empty. But this guy, he always parks in them. I have checked many times he does not have the handicap tags and he looks perfectly alright. I saw him again this morning and I am probably over-reacting but it really bugs me. He is not really hurting any one, those parking spaces are unused and he gets back to his car in probably 10 minutes after he drops off his kids. But in principle it is wrong. I'm struggling to carry Matias in his car seat and Lucas on my hand, crossing the parking lot carefully. But Mr. Big Shot just parks wherever he wants.

What should I do? I want to confront him next time I see him. Should I just let the center director know? Just let it be? He's not really hurting anyone, except probably his kids that observe that some rules might not need to be obeyed.

Friday Movie
I decided to move the poll to Wednesday's post so everyone has time to vote during Thursday and Friday morning. Here are my selections for this week:

• The Misfits: A western starring Marylin Monroe and Clark Gable and it was the last movie both ever made as Gable died before it was released and Monroe a year later.
• Birdman of Alcatraz: The true story of Robert Stroud a very violent prisoner that ended up in solitary confinement and became a prominent ornithologist.
• Head: A psychedelic 60s movie starring The Monkees written by Jack Nicholson.
• High Society: A musical with Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Grace Kelly. It also has many famous jazz musicians contributing to the soundtrack.
• The Emigrants: A swedish film about the struggles of a group emigrating to the United States.

Please vote, the poll is located on the top right corner right below Jerry Seinfeld's face.

What did I watch?

Have Rocket, Will Travel: A 3 stooges movie that I thought would make me laugh but it just made me cringe. I don't know if it is because I have outgrown them or if the movie is actually that terrible. 

The Contest

So a friend had a great idea to make this a little more interactive. I will introduce a new feature where readers can decide what movie I should watch next. If you look to your right (below Jerry Seinfeld's head) you will see a poll with 5 options. Vote for your favorite and I will watch it tomorrow. Below is a short description of each movie and the reason why I would like to see it:

I tried to have some variety in genres: Western, Film-Noir, Horror, Musical and a Foreign movie.

1. Fort Apache: John Ford might have been the greatest western director ever and he teamed up with the greatest western star of the time, John Wayne, to make the now very famous cavalry trilogy. This is the first of the three, and I have only seen She Wore a Yellow Ribbon which I loved.
2. The Set Up: A very famous film-noir, specially for the fact that it was the first movie to try to recreate the passage of time as if it was happening live by using the gimmick of showing clocks in key scenes to create tension.
3. Equus: A film about a horse serial killer? Sounds too weird and interesting to pass up.
4. Take Me Out to the Ball Game: A musical starring Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly about baseball. Also I have never seen a film with Esther Williams on it, she was a swimming star that always had these theatrical pool scenes.
5. A Story From Chikamatsu: Kenji Mizoguchi is a great Japanese director. I have seen a couple of his movies (Ugetsu and Sansho the Bailiff) and really enjoyed them.

So please vote you have until noon on Friday!