Pertinent to my Interests

Documentary reviews, body neutrality, parenting, Jupiter, piano, cats, European history, ghosts, rodents, the collapse of civilization, and if this goes on long enough I'll probably end up cataloguing my entire smushed penny collection.

  • Childproofing

    Casey

    One of the things that has surprised me about life with older kids is how quickly and easily our house stopped being childproof.

    I used to have this place totally locked down. Both kids were very curious and active. They climbed everything, opened everything, destroyed everything. It wasn’t that I loved the look of baby gates and furniture anchors, but I loved my sanity and could not cook dinner and remove my child from the top of the bookshelf at the same time.

    Going to other people’s houses–their not-childproof houses–was hell. We could not sit down or involve ourselves too deeply in adult conversation for fear of chaos and injury. I often wondered why people ever bothered to stop childproofing their houses in the first place. Just leave the furniture anchored! Leave the cabinets locked! I can understand taking down the baby gate but at least leave it in the nearby closet so you can reinstall it quickly in case of visiting toddler!

    But here I sit in my house with all my electrical outlets just sitting wide open as if electrocuting small children is my favorite hobby. My kitchen cabinets open so easily even the cats can do it. We don’t even have a baby gate in storage; if someone showed up with a two-year-old right now I would be screwed.

    I am mystified by how this happened. It’s like your youngest kid turns five and you let your guard down just a little and all the furniture anchors just unscrew themselves from the wall, pat themselves on the back for a job well done, and march off to the garbage can.

  • Documentary Review/ McMillion$

    Casey

    A six-episode deep dive into human greed.

    This documentary series follows the FBI’s investigation into the McDonald’s Monopoly fraud. The fraud took place starting way back in the 1990s (when I remember collecting Monopoly pieces!), but the investigation didn’t get started until the very early 2000s, when a young, hungry agent named Doug Mathews decided to follow up on a tip from an anonymous informant.

    The details about the investigators’ strategy and how they built the case are certainly interesting, but what really makes this documentary hum is the characters.

    There are so many different characters. There’s Robin Colombo, the chain-smoking widow of mob boss Jerry Colombo. Dwight Baker, Mormon real estate developer who was excommunicated from the church when his involvement in the fraud was confirmed in court. Amy Murray, a marketing director for McDonald’s who ended up participating in the undercover operations. Even the district attorney who prosecuted the case becomes fascinating in the hands of the director!

    The godfather of this whole operation was a man named Jerome Jacobsen, referred to throughout the series as “Uncle Jerry.” He’s painted as a good guy at first.

    “Oh, everyone loved Jerry,” says one of Jerry’s former co-workers. This is after hearing from Jerry’s ex-wife about how generous he was, still helping her with home projects after they were divorced.

    But this same Jerry threatened to kill his wife multiple times, explaining in detail how he would make the gun untraceable. This same Jerry was extremely violent toward his stepsons. This same Jerry lied constantly.

    This same Jerry figured out how to steal the winning game pieces, how to sell them, and he made millions doing it.

    The film’s final note speaks of the inevitability of greed. Almost every “winner” involved in this scheme was just a regular person who jumped at an opportunity to get ahead. You hesitate to even call most of them bad people despite the crimes they admit to committing. It makes you ask uncomfortable questions of yourself. Would you take the McMillions?

    McMillion$ is a heavy-hitter documentary when it comes to investigation work and character work, well worth your time.

  • Tales from School, vol. 1

    Casey

    My youngest told a kid in his class that he sounded like a drunk boomer.

    1. How do you know what a drunk boomer sounds like?
    2. Was he talking about Jimmy Buffett?
    3. You probably shouldn’t tell people they sound like drunk boomers.
    4. You definitely shouldn’t tell people they sound like drunk boomers when a teacher can overhear you.

  • Documentary Review/ Harley & Katya

    Casey

    Heartbreaking.

    I somehow missed this story in the news when it happened, so went in without expectations. But it doesn’t take a genius to figure out where this headed when one key character’s present-day interview tape is missing.

    Harley Windsor, from Australia, and Katya Alexandrovskaya, fromRussia, were a pairs figure skating phenomenon for a few years in the late 2010s. Katya’s father died in 2015 and in 2016, at the age of sixteen, she moved to Australia by herself in order to train with Harley. The two performed fantastically together, but the pressure for Katya was high: she missed her late father, she missed her mother in Moscow, and the language barrier in Australia kept her isolated and dependent on her Russian-speaking coaches, with whom she lived for those first years. Harley admits that he didn’t particularly like Katya at first, and her lack of English prevented them from really bonding.

    The tension in this documentary climbed so high I found myself looking for reasons to take a break. Oh, better go water the plants now and fold all that laundry. Better get started on some dinner prep right now.

    Things come to a head in 2019. Harley and her coaches had been aware of her troubled drinking patterns for years, but apparently did not know the extent of it. The alcohol finally catches up with her, lands her in the hospital, and her resultant diagnoses (liver damage, kidney damage, epilepsy brought on by drinking) are not compatible with a career in figure skating. The pair splits, and Katya stays in Moscow, struggling to find meaning in her new life. She would die by suicide the next year.

    It is so difficult to cope with major failure.

    This documentary doesn’t seek to lay blame for Katya’s death at the foot of any one person, including Katya herself. It seems there were many points at which her story could have been nudged into a slightly different direction by any of the major players in her life. I have only sympathy for Katya.

    If you enjoy darkness, you’ll enjoy this documentary. Only kind of kidding; I still feel a little depressed about the whole thing.

  • A priest walks into a…

    Casey

    I crossed the street with a priest today and had these thoughts in this order:

    1. Am I less likely to get hit by a car right now?
    2. Does this guy know how to perform exorcisms? He seems like the kind of priest who would perform exorcisms.
    3. Is he constantly making up priest jokes in his head?

    If I were a priest I would be constantly making up jokes because every moment of my day would be a humorous set-up. A priest, a fat lady, and a bicyclist are crossing the street… A priest walks into a hair salon… A priest, an atheist, and a poodle are in the cheese aisle…

  • Meanwhile, in the real world…

    Casey

    It occurs to me I should write about actual things that are going on in the real world, and not just the things going on in my mind.

    In an effort to be a fun, active mom, I took the kids to a playground after dinner on Wednesday just like all the other fun, active parents do.

    “Do you do this every night?” I wanted to ask every parent there. “When do you clean up dinner?”

    The playground is only two blocks from our house, but we drove because our car was parked on the street and needed to be moved into the garage after dinner anyway.

    “Okay,” I said as we were leaving. “I’ll drive home and you guys can just run alongside the car.”

    My oldest, who is not a fool, rolled his eyes at me and just got in the car. My youngest, who very much acts the fool, declared that this was a great idea and so he did run all the way home, with us in the car creeping alongside him.

    And when we got home I cleaned up dinner.

  • Unfair Assumptions

    Casey

    I get hassled for money sometimes when I’m walking around my neighborhood. Not every day, but frequently.

    I hate being asked for money. I lived in New York City for too long so despite being generally sympathetic towards humans who have fallen on tough times, I have zero tolerance for panhandlers and their bullshit.

    Now if you’re homeless but refrain from hassling me that’s completely different. We had a homeless guy living on our block for part of last year. He never asked me for anything, and I never gave him anything. This was acceptable, and I had no problem with him staying where he was.

    Twice recently I have assumed that someone is coming up to me to ask for money and I have been wrong. The first time it happened I didn’t even let the guy finish his sentence.

    “Excuse me, ma’am–” he started.

    “Nope, sorry,” I immediately said, a kneejerk reaction to his appearance plus that particular opening phrase.

    “I just wanted to ask the time,” he stammered.

    That was embarrassing.

    The second time was in a park outside my neighborhood. A man with a dog came up to me, mumbled something, and I told him no without really listening. Ten minutes later he walked past me again, this time holding a leash for the dog.

    “Don’t worry, I found it!” he proclaimed. He had been asking if I had seen the dog’s leash that he had lost earlier.

    I realized that I had been making assumptions based on the race, dress, and gender of the people approaching me. I don’t like assumptions based on appearance. I pictured the assumptions that others might make about me if I was approaching them for help. Perhaps they would assume that I’m about to ask for directions to the cupcake store.

    I did not like this thought exercise, and I resolved that I should at least let people complete their sentences–and I should listen to what they have to say–before I shoot them down with “Nope, sorry!”

    Since making this resolution I have been approached twice. The first time was a teenager who needed directions. Win. The second time was a man asking for money. Lose.

    But it’s better this way. I’m okay with not giving money to people; I’m not okay with making unfair assumptions about them.

  • Melted marshmallow

    Casey

    During the summer my kids sometimes accompanied me to the grocery store. They took this opportunity to lobby for ridiculous cereals that I never buy (“look, this one has less sugar than oatmeal squares!”).

    That is the story of how I ended up with both Rainbow Krispies and Cocoa Krispies in my cupboard.

    You should know that I am susceptible to advertising. I am aware of this fault and work hard to overcome it. But it turns out you can only see the recipe for Rice Krispie Treats staring out at you from your pantry so many times a day before your will is broken and you find yourself in the aisle of Tiny Target with a bag of marshmallows in your hand.

    We are not a Rice Krispie Treat family; I’m pretty sure this was only the second time I have ever made them, and I went all out and made both the cocoa and rainbow versions. My kids could not believe their luck when they came home from school.

    It occurred to me, as I was standing at the stove stirring marshmallows and cereal together, that you can really do this with any dry ingredient. There’s nothing special about Rice Krispies that makes them susceptible to melted marshmallow.

    Surely melted marshmallows could bind together Chocolate Chex too. Cinnamon Toast Crunch? Goldfish crackers for that sweet-and-salty feeling? Pretzels? Or maybe… emotions?

  • Documentary Review/ Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror

    Casey

    This is not a documentary about the attack on the twin towers on September 11, 2001.

    You would be forgiven for thinking it might be. It opens with American 11 taking off from Boston on the morning of September 11, 2001. We all know where this is headed. I’ve watched a lot of documentaries about the September 11 attacks and my chest tightens with every second as the clock ticks up to 8:46 AM and then 9:03 AM. Every time.

    You would be forgiven for continuing to think it was a documentary about September 11 as we hit all the mainstays of a 9/11 documentary: interviews with survivors, interviews with firefighters, audio from the hijacked plane (I hate this).

    About twenty minutes into the film both towers are burning, American citizens are weeping in the streets of New York City, and we finally reach the opening credits: vaguely Middle Eastern music and a montage of pictures, one of which includes Ronald Reagan. This is about more than one day in September.

    This documentary places the 9/11 terrorist attacks into historical context, going back to the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989) and moving forward through time all the way through the 2021 withdrawal of United States armed forces from Afghanistan.

    It is brutal. The Taliban, al-Qaeda, the hijackings, the War on Terror, Guantanamo, all of it. The documentarians are ruthless in uncovering the missteps that give shape to a tragedy which is still playing out in dark corners of the world. They do not hide their message: our government made mistakes that snowballed into the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Our government continues to make mistakes that will lead to more terrorism in the future.

    I lived through most of the decades covered in this documentary, but seeing it all laid out like this really gives context to an event that, at seventeen years old, I didn’t even realize wanted for context.

    This is not a documentary about the attack on the twin towers on September 11, 2001. It is much more than that. It gave me a lot to think about, but also gave me a lot of anxiety about the future. You should watch it.

  • Princess Diana and the Old Days

    Casey

    , ,

    I was watching a documentary about Princess Diana when I looked at the date and realized that it had been exactly twenty-six years since her funeral.

    Princess Diana really defines the 90s for me in many ways. Her last, most exciting years and her death occurred right in the middle of my family’s People magazine era. These days I don’t recognize any of the faces on the front of People, but there was a time when we all read People magazine cover to cover, knew every name in there, and argued over whose turn it was to complete the ridiculously easy crossword puzzle in the back. I would guess that Princess Diana was in every issue of People magazine from 1991 to 1997, and we read them all.

    We were camping at Mount Adams the weekend that Princess Diana died. I had gone into town with a relative that Sunday. The car pulled up to the small-town gas station and there was the newspaper box with big, black letters proclaiming the sad news.

    It plays like an old movie in my head now: my 13-year-old self peering through the dusty car window, discovering this awful news through a newspaper headline. It was the last time I would learn such big news in print. Television news was already king, home computers were becoming a household staple, and cell phones were already seeping into our pockets. But back then camping still cut you off from all those things, so I had my old-fashioned news moment that day.

    I woke up early to watch the funeral (this was particularly impressive since I lived on the West Coast at the time), but I set the VCR to record it just in case I missed it. When the tape finished, I labeled it: Princess Diana’s Funeral (1997), and shoved it onto the VHS shelf somewhere between X-Files and Monty Python.

    It’s still there. “So, can I throw away the Princess Diana funeral tape yet?” my mom jokes every year.* “Why did you even record it in the first place?” The X-Files tapes are long gone, the smart television is logged into all the streaming services, and we don’t even know if that VCR works anymore.

    I recorded it because I knew it was history. I recorded it because I had no idea how much the world would change in twenty-six years. I couldn’t foresee that I would be able to type “Princess Diana funeral” into a device that I carry in my pocket and bring up thousands of hours of footage at any time. I couldn’t fathom that someday I would own a touch screen and that I could poke at little squares and access so many Princess Diana documentaries and retrospectives. I didn’t know it was going to be a world in which newspaper boxes are hard to find, but information is not.

    Princess Diana’s life, death, and funeral were always going to be a part of history; I just didn’t realize how remote it was going to seem all these years later.

    *Mom, you really can throw away that VHS now!

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