Happy Birthday, RMK!

Happy Birthday to RMK, the best brother and friend a Heroine could ever hope for. I hope that we live to be 100 together, and that God gives me ample opportunities to rescue metaphorical CHiPS helmets for you.

Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connections can supply...

~Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, 1814

Future Plans with Die Suesseste

I can't wait til the day I can read this to Die Suesseste:

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you
can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive.

But the Skin Horse only smiled.

The Velveteen Rabbit

Die Suesseste

The most important thing that happened while this blog was on hiatus:


Our Heroine joyfully welcomed a fresh character into the panoply of people she loves: Die Suesseste.

Dear Die Suesseste,

One day when Our Heroine is old and gray (but hopefully still kicking around the place) you can read the archives of this blog and realize that auntie was just as eccentric as Mommy and Daddy told you she was. She loves you very very much and for always.

Love,
Godmother Auntie

Our Heroine Wishes You a Joyful Easter

I'll be gone for the Triduum, y'all, and back blogging on Monday. I'll be celebrating great and holy things by buying out the Bare Escentuals store with my sister-in-law in Vermont. And, like last year, I leave you this very lovely and appropriate poem by the wonderful John Donne:

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so,
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Our Heroine Thanks You For Your Votes

Thanks, everybody here - and at Frank's blog - for voting for my cousin Christine Kinneary.

Nine semifinalists were narrowed to three for the 2008 America East Women's Basketball Fans' Choice Player of the Year Award. My cousin was one of them!

Ultimately, Hartford senior forward Danielle Hood - who is a lovely lady - took first place. My cousin was psyched she won. So, thanks for pitching in to get her in the finals, and we'll win it all next year!

Postscript: If you voted and want meatballs, let me know! A promise is a promise, unless you're Frank; in which case you're still not dishing up the chateaubriand you owe me for losing that Oscars bet!

Our Heroine is Not Above Bribing People with Meatballs

A post even the curmudgeonly Frank can approve.

Y'all, I have been blessed with some adorable and funny and sweet and affectionate cousins, and one of the most awesome of them is Christine Kinneary - the superfierce starting point guard for Boston University. She's up for AmericaEast fan favorite this season, so please go to this web site and vote for her:
http://www.americaeast.com//quest/Questionaire.dbml?SPID=6549&SPSID=59742&QID=3079&DB_OEM_ID=14000

I will make you some of my Nanna Crispino's meatballs if you do. And trust me, you really want to try those meatballs.

Voting wraps in two days, so no lolligagging!

Special Guest Post by: Our Heroine's Brother

The Lost season finale was last night, and here are my brother's comments on the episode. Once again, the level to which he thinks these things out is sort of frightening. It should, of course, go without saying, that if you read further, you will encounter spoilers.

I was disappointed overall...I was expecting at least one big question answered and we didn’t even get a minor question answered, except for why Ben was so mean to Karl (so he wouldn’t get Alex pregnant).

We are now 60% of the way through the show and we know zilch about the Island’s location, origin, native population of “hostiles” and what they’re about (why do they follow Ben? Why don’t they age), the source of the islands powers, what the monster and the whisperers are, who Jacob is, who and what Naomi and Penny are each working and looking for etc. Where the visions of Eko’s brother or Walt are coming from. What happened to Michael? None of the billion inter-character coincidences have been explained, from Libby’s giving Desmond the boat to Charlie saving Nadia from a mugger. Why does Desmond get his flashes? Who was that old woman who told Desmond his destiny and how did she know so much? Is time travel really happening? Is the Island really in another dimension/world or just hidden from view in ours? What is Mittelos up to? Why do pregnant women die? Is Dharma still extant and trying to make contact, if not where did the food drop come from? And by the way, where did all the kidnapped kids go when the Others left Otherville? Ugh...I would have been happy with an answer to just ONE of these!! Still so many riddles wrapped in enigmas wrapped in mysteries. I feel like this was just a repeat of last season’s finale, where in the final moment some contact was made with the outside world. It’s basically the exact same thing...another fleeting glimpse of Penny trying to make contact plus a voice on the radio this time, and we’re still stuck at square one on the island. OK, sure, we know that one day Jack will have made it off the Island but will be depressed and want to go back...BFD. Normal psychology...he misses the excitement and the fellowship, just like I didn’t want to leave my study abroad program. That’s supposed to be a shocker! If I were Jack, and Ben told me not to radio for help, I would have said “You’ve lied one too many times, but this Island is freaky enough that I might just believe you this time, but you’ve got to start answering some questions about WHY & WHAT IS GOING ON and back it up with some proof before I decide not to radio anyone.” But of course, he doesn’t ask Ben to explain anything about why he shouldn’t radio for help. And, he just lets Locke KILL Naomi (who they have zero reason to suspect is there to do anything but help them)...I mean if my old “friend” just one day showed up and knifed what I thought was a totally innocent woman in front of my face one day, I’d be a little horror stricken at what the hell came over my old pal. But he doesn’t even check her pulse or object! End of thought train for now....

Anyone who can help our heroine or her brother answer these questions is invited, nay, entreated, to do so in the comments boxes. It's going to be a loooong summer y'all.

Our Heroine Notes Family Differences

Warning! Contains spoilers, the word "weenie" and a brief discussion of quantum physics and string theory. Proceed at your own risk.

Y'all, one of my favorite parts of watching Lost is the emails that fly back and forth the next day between me, my cousin Steph, my cousin Mish and my little brother Ray. We so totally represent a hilarious spectrum of personalities

Email from our heroine (try not to be awed by it's intellectual heft):

Why does every dork on that island have a girlfriend but Sayid, the hottest and smartest of all of them?

Email excerpt from cousin Mish (she's the softy):

...I totally think we learned a lot last night.
First, we learned how utterly hot Sawyer can be when hes in love. I mean, the face he made when he saw Kate was priceless.

Email excerpt from cousin Steph (she likes old-school justice)

I HATE JULIETTE! Sayeed should have killed her when he had the chance. Is it just me but isn’t it strange that no one is making her tell them everything. As soon as I saw her I would have made her spill the beans!

Contrast all of the above with...

Email from my brother Ray (I have known him for more than 30 years, and, nope, I still don't know what to say about this. He's just freakin' awesome, I guess):

Agreed. Jack is so whipped. He sees a blonde and he starts thinking with his weenie. I too wish the Losties would ask more questions, but I’m willing to accept that doing so would put an obvious end to the show. As it is, it’s a TV show people, and we need to keep some mystery through to the end, at least of this season. I think the writers actually do a decent job of throwing us a bone by having the characters at least attempt to ask (via Sayid, who is like the audience’s representative) and then craft some quasi-credible reason for Juliet not to answer yet. We can assume that the other random Losties may have wanted or tried to ask their own questions but have been given the same brush off by Jack and Juliet for now, we just aren’t shown all the question-asking on camera.

That said, I suspect that Juliet may be a double agent. I mean, after seeing what she went through with Ben and her sister, I can’t imagine she has totally forgotten how Ben treated her and I wonder if she isn’t biding her time, doing Ben’s bidding, and secretly playing both sides waiting for her chance to break out or turn the tables. Of course, I still hope she dies a gruesome tortuous death – I’m just telling you how I think the plot may be heading.

It is very possible that Sun’s baby wasn’t implanted, but that has not been stated for sure. It was Claire who was implanted with something that could trigger an illness, so maybe Michele mixed that up. Of course the Others did view the Losties as potential moms for their experiments, so it is quite possible that they engineered Sun’s pregnancy somehow as another control test just like Claires. We must wait and see. In fact, this may be why Juliet is being planted with the Losties...to continue their research on Sun just like Ethan was doing with Claire.

I am starting to think the Island is in some alternate dimension involving quantum theory of strings and wormholes. There may be designated places on the planet where you can walk through larger wormholes into this other dimension, and that is how flight 815, Desmond’s boat etc all accidentally ended up here, and why Juliet must drink the tranquilizer before her “bumpy ride” from Portland. It would explain alot and still be anchored to real accepted modern theories of physics.