I love "The Wizard of Oz" movie. I love "The Wiz" movie. Love 'em.
When I was five I went many months refusing to reply to the name Jennifer, and would only turn when my mother gave up and said "Fine. Dorothy, you need to come inside now!" Imagine my betrayal when Fairuza Balk was cast as Dorothy in "Return to Oz" in 1985. Why not ME?!!! I quickly moved on to "Camelot" at that point.
I'm reading "The Wizard of Oz" the book for the first time. I think if I had read this book and loved it, I would hate the movie and all its iterations besides.
L. Frank Baum's intention in writing his children's books was that there would never be a point at which the child would be in serious danger or become seriously frightened. He hated it when dwarves, demons or witches showed up in fairy tales when he was little. I have to say he sounds like a particularly anxious child. I always found the evil ones terrifying but thrilling. I think of the Skexis in "The Dark Crystal" or the Wicked Witch in "The Wiz" in particular. Even the strange discomfort and worry I had about the Mummenshants. I actually saw them at a live show when I was a kid. Mummenshants weren't evil...or were they?
I think Frank Baum failed. But his attempt has made for incredibly uninteresting reading.
At least the type is big and the books are short.
"We have to wash the sheets and stuff."
"Okay."
"They were funkadellic. Now they're funkadellic mixed with salmon/formula puke."
"Right."
"Ugh."
I love snow. Love it a lot. I even don't mind driving in it. Once you get the trick of it, it's really no big deal. (note: your brakes are completely useless unless you are going 2 miles and hour or less.)
It's the light and the silence. I went outside last night and it was a meditation in an instant. No tricks to quiet the mind. No counting or breathing properly. Just instant and immediate silence and beauty. I realized I think of heaven as blanketed in snow. Silent and cool.
In other news, Betty is sick. She is sick in such a person-like way. Babies are sick in a sort of preternatural angelic way. They fuss and cry and then go alarmingly silent. Staring, pale with pink rimmed eyes.
Betty is just sick and feels like crap. She has a fever and while it isn't an alarmingly high fever (100.4) it won't go down. She lied around today, slept for four and a half hours this afternoon, won't drink anything. She just sat on my lap most of the afternoon and evening. She sucked her thumb, played vaguely with an old rattle she likes, and moaned "Uuuuuuuuuggghh. Aaaahhhhuuuuugggh." She'd turn around to be held to my shoulder and rocked a bit and then would sit down again to futz with her rattle and "Uuuuuuugh."
I have the rare experience as a mom of knowing EXACTLY how she's feeling.