That Damn Red Balloon

Back in the dark ages when I was a lass, when the teachers wanted to have some free time during the day they would lug out the film projector and a couple reels of something innocuous and force us all to watch a movie. I suspect that the films were supposed to be educational, and maybe they were, but mostly I just remember what a pain in the butt those old projectors were and how technically incompetent most of my grade school teachers were. By third grade there was always some student in the classroom whose job it was to push down on that one bar when the film started jittering up and down, and even splice the film back together again with scotch tape if it got so damaged that it broke apart.

One of the films I have vague memories of watching is "The Red Balloon". I haven't seen this film in over 35 years, and all I remember is some little kid chasing around after a balloon. I'm pretty sure I saw it more than once. I'm not sure if I was just bad with metaphors when I was a child, or if this was not really something meant for children, but I do remember thinking that I really didn't get the point of it all. (See, some things never change.)

Anyhow, I noticed that Hulu has "The Red Balloon" in its Criterion Collection which is important because it means that I don't have to pay anything extra to watch it, so I figure I'll watch it (or as much as I can) and see if it makes any more sense to me now.

Here's the synopsis from Hulu:

Albert Lamorisse’s exquisite The Red Balloon remains one of the most beloved children’s films of all time. In this deceptively simple, nearly wordless tale, a young boy discovers a stray balloon, which seems to have a mind of its own, on the streets of Paris. The two become inseparable, yet the world’s harsh realities finally interfere. With its glorious palette and allegorical purity, the Academy Award–winning The Red Balloon has enchanted movie lovers, young and old, for generations.

Here are my actual comments while watching the film:

- 00:37 This is a silent film? I guess I remember there not being any dialog, but for some reason I thought it had a soundtrack. C'mon, this was made in 1956. They had sound then. On the other hand, apparently it's a French film. This doesn't bode well.

- 00:52 Okay, now music is playing. I guess it's not silent after all. It's still French, though.

- 02:26 So far a boy has walked across the street and spent twenty seconds petting a cat... sorry, a "chat". It's like watching a YouTube video except the lighting isn't as good.

- 03:05 This little kid (in pajamas?) just walked down a flight of stone steps on his own and climbed up a lamp post to get a balloon. Somebody call CPS.

- 05:15 Now the kid is running a marathon through some city, apparently still in his pajamas which may in fact be a school uniform.

- 06:00 Holy crap, there's dialog in this film. In French, but still.

- 08:30 I'm not sure what to make of all the people frowning and staring at the boy through windows. Is this some subtle reference to the Nazis?

- 10:00 A second line of dialog. I'm beginning to think this child is the village idiot and that's why no adult seems to mind that he keeps running out into the street without looking for traffic.

- 11:20 Hey, a younger version of my big dog just showed up and tried to bite the balloon. I'm all for it. I'm starting to dislike the balloon, idiot child, and especially this damned soundtrack with its happy little clarinets and flutes.

- 13:30 The balloon is stalking the little boy.

- 16:12 Now the boy is going to be punished for bringing the balloon to school because the headmaster can't catch the balloon. This plot is not very believable. The soundtrack continues to telegraph everything. The good news is that there is only 18 minutes left. I'm hoping the red balloon dies in the end, but this is a French film, not a German film, so I'm not getting my hopes up.

- 16:54 The balloon just went on a murderous rampage through the city. Just kidding. In reality it's just more shots of a red balloon following people.

- 20:20 Boy and balloon at a flea market -- the only interesting thing about it is that the flea markets today have exactly the same crap they did 55 years ago.

- 20:35 Dear god, there's a love interest: a little girl with a blue balloon. The soundtrack has gone all high and tinkly.

At some point the plot becomes confused with Frankenstein and the boy is chased by a mob of villagers. The boy and balloon are thrown out of a church.

- 25:00 The bullies have stolen the damn balloon and may be about to beat it to death. That actually wouldn't be a bad ending. However, the boy is now yelling at the balloon to do what he wants. And now he has it back.

- 27:30 Is that raw sewage flowing along the sides of the streets? It really looks like it. That's just nasty.

- 29:00 The kid has been running up and down narrow streets to get away from the gang for approximately five hours now, but he just got to a cliff and the villagers are right behind. Will this be the Thelma and Louise ending I've been dreaming about?

- 30:15 Hell, yeah, the balloon just died. With a whole lot of overacting, which I wouldn't have thought possible half an hour ago.

- 31:30 Now all the balloons in the city are getting away. Is this supposed to be some weird Christian metaphor? The red balloon died so the rest of the balloons can be free? No wonder I didn't understand this film as a kid.

- 33:15 Oh wait, the balloons are all offering themselves up to the little kid who is distraught over the demise of his balloon. Well, that makes it all better... because, you know, getting a bunch of new friends totally makes up for the horrific stoning death of an old friend.

- 34:00 Nope, the other balloons are banding together to kidnap the boy, leaving behind the cold deflated carcass of the original balloon.

The kid is last seen clinging to a bunch of balloons high above the city skyline. I'm thinking that at some point the balloons just dump him in the ocean to drown, but that part isn't shown.


Okay, so that's over and done with. I completely understand why this movie made no sense to me as a child. Because it still doesn't make any sense.

Let's face it -- as much as people complain, films really have improved over the years.

I Survived Vacation 2012

Notable things from the vacation:

- K-poo asked for engineering-related Christmas puns to amuse her coworkers, then shot down my first three attempts. Is it my fault that mechanical engineers don't study stability and keeping the poles on the left side of the plane? Also, I still think my Santa yelling "Mho Mho Mho!" (For the non-EE crowd: an mho is a unit equal to 1/ohm) joke was worth some consideration.

- Why did it take 6 hours to drive south, and eight hours to return? Okay, part of the problem was the accidental detour onto the 580 which I've never done before. I was so entranced by the synchronized blinking of the red windmill lights (except for one of them which was out of phase) that I didn't stop to wonder why I was even seeing the windmills.

- I got to drive through snow for the first time going through the grapevine. Okay, there wasn't actually any snow on the road but it was starting to build up on the areas of my windshield the wipers didn't touch. However, the only real danger was from all of the idiots stopping on the side of the freeway to get out and experience it snowing.

- Note to self: never stop in Kettleman again.

- Unlike last year, the big dog seemed to recognize me when I picked her up at the kennel. Then she spent the first ten minutes at home racing up and down the hallway like she'd never seen the house before.

- Scooter the Wonder Cat spent the last two days hiding from the pet sitter, then sat next to my head and stared at me all night long last night. If he were a teenager I'd think drugs were involved.

- I think I'm done leaving the house for the next year. This could impact my work performance. Or maybe not.

How to Plan a Vacation

In order to ensure an easy stress-free vacation, it is essential to plan ahead. Therefore, I suggest you do exactly the opposite of what I do:

1) Vacillate on both the leaving and returning dates, thus making it impossible to book any travel arrangements.
2) Finally make a decision on dates, then call to arrange boarding for the dogs, only to find that other people like to travel during the holiday season as well. This has the side effect of changing the travel dates slightly because there is no room at the inn.
3) Armed with these new dates and four days advance notice, contact your pet sitter to arrange for care for the cats and birds. Or try to. Leave a message on the new answering machine with no outgoing message (hmm...). A day later dig around in your backpack until you find the other card with her home number and call that only to learn that the line has been disconnected. Search the online obituary archives to find out if she died or just moved away to avoid you.
4) Start calling random pet sitters to see if anyone can take care of the herd.
5) Fantasize about a vacation at home.
6) Eventually get a call back from one person who agrees to take care of the animals.
7) The night before you are supposed to leave, remember that you never actually reserved a room at the hotel.
8) Give up on cleaning the house and go to bed.

Anyhow, Merry Christmas and all that crap.

The Couch is Dead, Long Live the Couch!

While I was at Home Depot last week buying everything except the one thing that I specifically went there to get (something to put up my new wall hanging, and I searched the store for an hour and never found it), I picked up a new utility knife.

Let me tell you, if you ever need to tear apart your own couch it's a lot easier with a sharp knife than with really dull scissors.

Anyhow, I finally finished breaking up the couch into bite-sized pieces that will fit in my trash bin. I'm sure my neighbors are happy about this, although I still maintain this is all their fault for not rushing forward to take it to the dump themselves.

So now the question is: do I continue just serially destroying my existing furniture (entertainment center, I'm looking at you!), or do I buy a replacement couch first?

I guess it would be kind of nice to have someplace to stretch out in the living room, but on the other hand, I kind of like the spartan look that I've got going.

More importantly, what would impress the pet sitter more?

In other news, I finally closed up the house and turned on the heat last night. Then I got to listen to the big dog wandering around for an hour trying to figure out how to get through the closed door to the cat porch. Not the brightest bulb that one...

A Musical Review

Yesterday was Woodland's 48th annual holiday parade, and just like every other year, I've been excited to see it coming. Not because I actually go to the parade. Let's face it, I'm not really a big-crowds-and-standing-around-to-watch-things-drive-by-slowly type of person. No, I'm excited that the parade is here because it means the students at the middle school in the next block are done practicing for it and I will not have to hear their medley of Christmas music until next year.

The middle school marching band is the perfect storm of a bunch of things I can't stand, namely:

- Children
- Christmas music
- Marching bands
- Music played very badly
- Loud music played in the street in front of my house while I'm trying to sleep

First the disclaimer: These are middle school kids. They only get two weeks (at most, depending on the weather) to learn how to march and play at the same time. I know it's really not their fault, but holy crap, if I have to listen to that four song Christmas medley again any time before next December, there will be hell to pay.

So here's the review of this year's band:

First off, the marching:

I initially thought the band instructor was just getting his yayas when he was still yelling "left...left...left, right, left" well into the second week, but then I saw the kids outside when I was walking the dogs. Turns out there was a reason he was reminding them. Perhaps he should have clued in the guy on the front left corner as to which foot was his left foot. Maybe that would have helped.

Then there was the kid that is either a musical genius who will go on to write complicated jazz music, or a musical moron who will be the worst dancer in the history of white people. Somehow this kid was managing to play the music and stroll to a completely different beat. I dare you to try that sometime. It's a lot harder than it looks. In general though, I have to say that it's fine to move to the beat of your own drum, but not when there is an actual drum section three feet behind you.

And then there was the saxophone player... While technically stepping in time with the music, he looked like he was imitating Snoop Dogg (er, I mean, Snoop Lion now I guess) walking up to receive an award. Not because he was black (because he wasn't), but because he managed to make each step about eight different moves with knee dips and hip pops. Also, if I really wanted to find some weed amongst that group, I'd probably start with the sax case. Just sayin'.

The music:

It's a medley of Christmas music. There's a lot of really, really crappy Christmas music and anything that didn't start out that way gets moved to the crappy pile after I've heard it for the five thousandth time. Which is to say that there is no good Christmas music and I have been known to avoid all stores from Thanksgiving to the end of December just to get away from it all.

Note to the band director: giving a run of sixteenth notes to the brass section while everyone else cuts out is pretty gutsy. Especially when your brass section consists of two consistently out of tune trumpets, a beginning trombone, and a baritone. It's hard to get crisp notes out of the brass section during the best of times, and this was definitely the worst of times. Next year just pick one of the notes and have them stick with it and maybe it won't sound like a cow falling down a flight of stairs.

The woodwinds (by which I mean about fifteen clarinets and a couple of flutes) weren't bad, but since you can't actually hear the clarinets in a band, it doesn't really matter. (I say this as someone who played clarinet in a marching band. You know all this bitterness had to come from somewhere, right?)

I was pretty excited this year about the percussion section as I lay in my bed at seven in the morning. In years past they've given the musical Forest Gumps of the world the bass drum and cymbals (because that way they don't have to read music or try to play in tune), but that's been a disaster because those are the two instruments you can hear from half a mile away, and the Forest Gumps of the world can't keep time.

This year I noticed early on that the percussion section sounded much, much better than in years past. It took me two days to notice that it was because they just had a snare drum and xylophone and didn't have either a bass drum or cymbals. Sadly, two days before the parade they flushed out two extra members and once again we had the crashing of cymbals at random moments during the songs. The bass drummer still wasn't as impaired as the one two years ago (a kid who seemed to be playing in time to a drunkard's walk), so at least it wasn't all bad.

Anyhow, there you have it. Not as bad as some years, but I'd still donate money if they'd start practicing somewhere else.

The Couch Strikes Back

It's time to do all of the official December stuff:

- Rake up all of the leaves from all those damn trees that I don't own.

- Remember that I really should have gotten the roof fixed or redone over the summer because I can't sleep when there is water dripping in my bedroom.

- Clean up the house for my pet sitter.

- Consider getting a maid service so I don't have to clean up for my pet sitter.

- Remember that I'd have to clean up in order to hire a maid service so I don't have to clean up for my pet sitter.

- Neglect to put up holiday decorations again.

In other news, the couch on the patio is steadily getting smaller. Had a slight setback today when my hand slipped and I whacked the knuckle into a board with some staples sticking out. I'm not sure whether the pain is from hitting the board or hitting the staples, but my hand looks like I was bit by a small snake which is kind of cool, so maybe it's worth it.

Now if I could just remember exactly when I got my last tetanus vaccine...

Happy Thanksgiving

Things to be thankful for:

- Pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, and stuffing. Or, put more simply, carbs, carbs, and more carbs.

- Everything ended up cooked at about the same time despite the absence of a Gantt chart.  (However, Patrick had a pretty impressive Gantt chart for his four burners at his Thanksgiving dinner. Understandably, K-poo was on the hook for bringing bread. I'm sure she slaved away all afternoon baking it. Or not...)

- Jeff didn't end up in jail or on some CPS list when he pulled down his crying 8-year-old son's pants in a public park to check the damage after a scooter accident.

- Eric had just enough chairs for everyone to sit in. I'd make comments about the lack of furniture in his house, but that would be beyond the pot calling the kettle black.

- Eric gets the "Tacky Neighbors Award" for the people next door who put up three inflatable Christmas lawn ornaments on Friday.

- The cheap table that my parents bought forty-eight years ago in El Paso (because there weren't any furniture stores in Alamogordo) is still around to hold a giant turkey and a bunch of side dishes.

- Did I mention carbs?


Mmm, carbs...