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.

  • Home Alone

    Casey

    My kids are old enough to be left home alone now for very short periods of time. It’s a game changer, and the biggest parenting level up I have experienced since the day the youngest went to Kindergarten.

    Driving to the paint store without grumpy kids in tow this weekend brought back memories of my own childhood spent at home without supervision.

    At some point in her long struggle to find childcare my mother decided that my sister (19 months younger than me) and I were old enough to be home alone all summer while she worked. My brother (5 years younger than me) was consigned to several more years of sad summer daycare situations.

    Those summers spent home alone with my sister are some of the best summers in my memory. We were too young to get jobs, we weren’t responsible for our brother. I think we had some chores to complete, and we had to move sprinklers around for my mom all day but that was it.

    Here are my main memories from those summers:
    1. Doing cartwheels in the living room and listening to Jewel’s Pieces of You album over and over and over.
    2. Watching The Sound of Music every day.
    3. Watching My Best Friend’s Wedding every day (this was the summer after the The Sound of Music summer).
    4. Accepting the religious pamphlets proffered by the Witnesses who came to the door one day, and then spending the next several hours meticulously altering the pamphlets into “The Monkey Bible.”

    Other kids–perhaps the types of kids who enjoy leaving the house and doing things–probably wouldn’t retain such fond memories of a boring summer spent at home with their mother’s CD collection and no video game console in sight. But I still think back very fondly on those summers.

    I hope my own kids enjoy their freedom from supervision as much as I did. I am certainly enjoying not supervising them!

  • That Disney Adult post that you all knew was coming.

    Casey

    I’ve been trying to think of a clever way to present this new information to you all, but I guess I’ll just come out and say it.

    I love Walt Disney World.

    We went during spring break this year. It was too crowded. It was too hot. The wait times were too long. And I still had the most fantastic vacation of my life.

    Magic Kingdom: fucking magical. Hollywood Studios: so fun. EPCOT: ehhhhh…. I maybe don’t quite get this one but it was still a great day. Animal Kingdom: amazing.

    I did not go into this experience primed to become a Disney Adult. I hate traveling. I hate warm places. I hate crowds. I really hate amusement parks and amusement park rides.

    But I love a good story, and that is where Disney excels. Every corner of Magic Kingdom hints at a new fantastic story. Every ride in Hollywood Studios is telling you a story. Animal Kingdom drops you right into the middle of a semi-real story about the world.* EPCOT… ummm… EPCOT teaches you about how to grow lettuce and… also you can go on a Finding Nemo ride? Like I said, still not quite getting the hang of EPCOT here…

    And Disney World is a complete removal from reality. I didn’t have to worry about finding transportation or food, a language barrier, or keeping the kids entertained. Disney World gives you everything you need right when you need it. It is actually the perfect vacation. And I will be returning as soon as I reasonably can.

    *In the Africa section of Animal Kingdom they had what appeared to be a real red mailbox with George VI’s royal cypher on it. I was amazed by this detail! Later, in Asia, I found prayer wheels to turn, something I did not think I would experience in this lifetime.

  • Margaret

    Casey

    I bring my kids to swim lessons on Monday afternoons. The swim school is great but overwhelming: too many harried parents and chaotic, wet children.

    There’s a toddler and father pair who are always there at the same time as us. The little girl must be around two years old and her name is Margaret. “Come on, Margaret!” her father repeats over and over as he tries to get her showered, get her dry, get her changed into clothes. “This way, Margaret! Over here!” She toddles along slowly behind him examining the other children, their shoes, the tile on the wall, the fuzz on her sock. “Come on, let’s go, Margaret!”

    My grandma was Margaret. She was ninety years old when she died in February and I only ever knew her as an old person. But time seems to fold when I hear “Over here, Margaret!” It’s my great aunts’ and great uncles’ voices calling to a young Margaret, the last of eleven children, in the yard of the old house on the farm. She probably ignored their commands too, or at least took her time in responding. I would only know her much later as a purveyor of fudge and apple sauce, a hilarious, happy woman who never worried, never hesitated to yell at her children and grandchildren, loved to travel, and always had ice cream in her freezer. But she too once toddled through life with the same brand-new curiosity of this little Margaret.

    It’s a strange thing but when I drive away from that swim school on Monday afternoons, I feel just a little bit closer to my grandma. Especially when I have to yell at my own freshly-showered children who are punching each other in the backseat of the car.

  • Spring Cleaning

    Casey

    I’m doing some spring cleaning around the house. This is the first time I’ve ever done an intentional deep clean in the spring, and I am largely motivated by our time spent at a Disney World resort last week. This place is a real dump compared to Saratoga Springs!

    It’s amazing how much time this takes. Yesterday was bathroom day. I was a young woman listening to the first song (Anti-Hero) on the Taylor Swift Essentials playlist when I started. By the time I finished I was nearing the end of the playlist (…Ready for It?) as an old woman. And I only have two bathrooms!

    I am also appalled at how much crap we have managed to squeeze into this little house. It’s tempting to blame the kids (I threw away an awful lot of plastic junk toys this morning), but I can’t quite figure out a way to blame them for the six bottles of expired calamine lotion I discovered in the basement bathroom yesterday.

  • Happy Little Hops

    Casey

    My kids are eight and ten years old. They both have this strange habit of adding in happy little hops as they walk. Four steps, hop, five steps, skip, three steps, hop.

    It’s very cute, and I know it won’t last. I would like to remember this.

  • Hot Topic

    Casey

    One day you’re twenty-two years old and walking out of Hot Topic for what must be the last time.

    And all of a sudden, you’re forty and walking back in to buy a Demon Slayer shirt for your anime-obsessed kid.

  • Documentary Review/ The Pez Outlaw

    Casey

    High on entertainment value but largely lacking in depth, I enjoyed this quick peek into the life of Steve Glew, the “Pez Outlaw.”

    Steve Glew spent many unhappy years working as a machinist in Michigan before he began importing European Pez dispensers to sell to US collectors in the 1990s. His rise to Pez infamy is of course followed by a fall from grace, but Steve is eventually reborn as a minor Pez celebrity.

    I enjoyed Steve Glew’s frankness about how much he hated his pre-Pez job as a machinist. He repeatedly stated how depressed he was to have to go to work every day, and how he felt like he was in a prison. The transformative power of money is made clear when the Pez profits started rolling in and Steve and his wife, Kathy, get to quit their jobs and start doing what they love instead. For Steve that meant buying and selling Pez full-time, for Kathy it meant getting certified as a horseback riding therapist. They were able to build a new house on their property and pay for their daughter to go to college. Money allows us to be the best versions of ourselves.

    I also appreciate Steve and Kathy’s honesty about Steve’s struggle with depression and OCD over the years, and his eventual diagnosis with bipolar disorder. There is no shame in their voices when they talk of it; it is a simple fact, just like Kathy’s Parkinson’s diagnosis.

    The Pez Outlaw is enjoyable and well done. The reenactments–which I normally hate–were irreverent and often made me laugh. Steve Glew is a multidimensional hero surrounded by engaging supporting characters and a likable wife. This is not a life-changing documentary, but it was a solid ninety minutes of entertainment.

  • Documentary Review/ Torn

    Casey

    , ,

    Emotionally raw and superbly edited, you don’t have to be a fan of climbing culture to enjoy this documentary about family, grief, and love.

    Alex Lowe, arguably the world’s best climber, was killed in an avalanche on Shishapangma in 1999, leaving behind his wife, Jenni, and three young sons. Alex’s best friend and favorite climbing partner, Conrad Anker, married his widow Jenni just a few years after Alex’s death. Torn was directed by Alex’s oldest son, Max.

    I read Jenni’s book Forget Me Not several years ago. Jenni strikes me as both deeply emotional and extremely pragmatic, an unusual mix of strengths. I love her. She speaks very frankly in this documentary about the difficulties of raising three boys alone while Alex was working in the mountains, how she coped with the grief after his death, and how her romance with Conrad blossomed after that.

    Jenni’s ability to move forward in life and love after Alex’s death is contrasted against Max’s inability to move forward. When Max questions Jenni about how quickly she and Conrad became romantic partners, she replies: “In part, Max, it was a validation of my love for Alex. I’m not going to let the painful end to those years with him be the end of me opening my heart to love someone else. It’s worth it.” To this Max can only respond “Why?”

    Max was ten years old when his dad died and is the only one of the boys who has solid memories of Alex. Max has carried an emotional burden that the other boys have not, and remained adamant for years that his father was still alive. “I was frozen with Alex,” he says. More than the other boys Max has struggled to accept Conrad as his father, going so far as to keep his last name as Lowe when the rest of the family converted to Lowe-Anker years ago.

    “For all intents and purposes, Conrad is our dad,” Sam, the middle brother, says. “Maybe less so for you since you had four more years knowing Alex.”
    “You think Conrad is aware of the comparison?” Max asks.
    “Yeah, I know he’s aware of it,” Sam says, slightly uncomfortable. “We’ve talked about it a lot.”

    Seventeen years have passed by the time Alex’s body is located on the mountain. In a dreamlike sequence we follow the Lowe-Anker family into the Himalayas. The boys are young men now; Jenni and Conrad have grown old. It feels as if Alex is coming alive with every step they take, only so that he may die again. The family cremates his body there in the mountains, in the Tibetan tradition of fire burial. “You never think you’re gonna have to confront the body of your hero in that state,” Isaac, the youngest brother, says.

    Putting his father’s body to rest allows Max to finally begin dismantling the wall that has existed between him and Conrad all these years. In a touching penultimate scene in the kitchen of the Lowe-Anker home, Max finally acknowledges Conrad as his father. One father has been lost but another father has been found.

    “I hope this will help you accept that you can lose someone and love someone else,” Jenni says to Max.

    Grief and joy, always in orbit together.

    I love this documentary. It’s a beautiful memorial to Alex Lowe, the father who died, and a moving tribute to Conrad, the father who stepped in. The story is told through phenomenal editing; the music and scoring are particularly effective. I love the honesty of the family, especially Jenni and Conrad’s vulnerability. This documentary–like all the best documentaries–gives us a greater understanding of what it means to be human and is not to be missed.

  • Fatty on a Treadmill

    Casey

    , , ,

    I signed up for Facebook in 2004. Back then it was still new, and slowly opening up to various colleges across the country. I navigated the site on my trusty Dell desktop computer.

    I noticed that an acquaintance of mine had joined a new group, something along the lines of “Hey Fatty Get Off My Treadmill.” The group description was full of hate, a tirade about how disgusting fat people are, and how they belong at home with their many packages of Oreos, not taking up space at the gym.

    I’ve thought about this a lot in the last nineteen years. This hate group’s screed has stuck with me through several years of gym memberships, many hours of Jillian Michaels* workout DVDs, and too many months of dieting. I was working hard to make my body smaller, to earn their approval. I was going to deserve my spot on that treadmill.

    Years went by and my weight crept up and culture started to shift just a little bit and I started to have some very radical thoughts, which is not something I expected in my mid-30s.

    A list of radical thoughts:
    1. What if my health and my body size are actually two separate things?
    2. What if I started eating salad every day because it makes me feel good and not because I’m trying to lose weight?
    3. What if I exercised just to get fit and not to lose weight?
    4. Maybe I’m not the problem. Maybe the guy who started that group is the problem. Maybe the people who joined it are the problem. Maybe I can choose not to participate in their culture of fat hate.

    I just started at a new gym this month. I am 5 feet 6 inches tall and almost 250 pounds and you will probably think I’m lying when I say this but I am not currently trying to lose weight.

    But I still deserve to be here.

    It’s 2023. I am the fat person on the treadmill. And I’ll be back tomorrow morning whether you approve of my body or not.

    *I adore Jillian Michaels and her workout DVDs. More on that later.

  • We’re going to Disney World.

    Casey

    ,

    We’re going to Disney World next month and instead of turning into a proper Disney Adult I’ve turned into a Disney Monster.

    Ask me about my attractions spreadsheet. It’s color-coded and notes whether or not the queue has air-conditioning and if the ride is going to give me motion sickness.

    Ask me how many times I have checked the current wait times for various Magic Kingdom rides today. (It is 11 AM in Orlando and the current wait time for Haunted Mansion is 45 minutes.)

    And ask me how excited I am to meet Chip and Dale at EPCOT.

    I just don’t know that my reputation as a cold-hearted, unexcitable, type B vacation planner is going to survive this trip.

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