Random Quotes Meme

The husband is all about memes. Seriously, he's been weirdly obsessed with memes since before blogging ensured that the average person has a slim chance of knowing what a meme even is. Don't get him started on it, he can talk for hours about his fascination with all things viral (well, maybe not all things, in that I don't think he's obsessed with actual viruses).

That said, I offer up the meme that he posted here, requesting that readers visit the Random Quotes Generator, then share "the first five quotes that reflect your outlook on life." My five are as follows:

• "Silly is you in a natural state, and serious is something you have to do until you can get silly again."
  -Mike Meyers
  
  
• "Never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. People will take you very much at your own reckoning."
  -Anthony Trollope (1815-1882)
  
  
• "Food is an important part of a balanced diet."
  -Fran Lebowitz (1950 - )
  
  
• "If little else, the brain is an educational toy."
  -Tom Robbins (1936- )
  
  
• "The price of freedom of religion, or of speech, or of the press, is that we must put up with a good deal of rubbish."
  - Robert Jackson

"You Do Everything On Internet"

Went to the 'burbs last night for dinner with my dad and stepmother (so nice, even at 32, to be able to rely on the 'rents for dinner now and then - even though I am now capable of cooking "home-cooked meals," they're never as good as my parents' home-cooked meals!). We discovered that we had all been to see Little Miss Sunshine over the weekend (and all loved it, for the record).

My stepmother, knowing that one of my superpowers is the freakish ability to remember and identify actors from all kinds of movies and TV shows (even those I've never seen) asked why Greg Kinnear was so familiar - she knew she had seen him in something, but had no idea what. The husband and I immediately hit on As Good As It Gets as the most likely suspect, and the conversation would have ended there, if I hadn't suddenly said...

"...Wait, do you not know about imdb?"

"I-M-D-What?"

A few years ago, back when I was in grad school, before the husband was the husband and he was still toiling away in Boston, I flew back and forth to the east coast on a fairly regular basis, as we tried to see each other at least once a month. At one point, I mentioned an upcoming trip, and my stepmother, who had heard about increasing fares, asked how I had gotten such a cheap ticket. When I told her I relied heavily on Travelocity's Fare Watcher, and generally bought tickets online for those weekend trips as soon as prices dipped below a certain level, she sighed, and said, "You're so good... you do everything on internet!"

Since then, "You do everything on internet" has been code between me and the husband representing that generation gap between us and our parental units - we, who cannot imagine spending a day without looking something up online, v. them, who cannot possibly imagine why one would be "on internet" VIRTUALLY EVERY DAY (it blows my father's mind... of course, he's still on dial-up, but that's another story entirely).

And I'm sure it would have been invoked again last night, had I not suddenly remembered the conversation I once had with someone a good five or six years younger than I (for perspective, e-mail was a common tool by the time she was in college, whereas I got my first account junior year and rarely used it). After seeing Syriana and wanting to look up some "Hey, It's That Guy" or other, she said, "Wait... there's a web site where you can just find this stuff? For, like, any movie? Really?"

Maybe I'm just overly pop-culture-obsessed... but seriously, how does anyone, particularly anyone under 40, get through the day without imdb?

Familial Evolution

It's always startling to realize you have begun relating to your parents as adults, rather than as "your parents." This is certainly not the first time I've had that experience, but with my mother visiting for a few days over the weekend, it struck me again. She was expressing some frustration with certain facets of her life, and acknowledging that she was being a bit of ostrich, and the husband and I were asking what we hoped were helpful, insightful questions, and expressing opinions, and at some point I thought, "Damn, this is the woman who once taught me how to tie my shoes." And it was a little surreal.

And then we left the restaurant and discovered a Jim-Beam-sponsored-race-car-simulator outside, and she got totally excited and all semblance of seriousness was gone. Thank heavens, because it got a little heavy there for a while.

Mom loves to visit us in Chicago and, as with all other visitors, we love showing her the city. Her visit provided an excuse to check out the gardens at Millennium Park for the first time in a couple of years, as well as going on a garden walk in our neighborhood (she's a big gardener, clearly). Other than that, though, everything we did with her were things that we likely would have done on our own: checking out the DaVinci exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry, going to the Ditty Bops concert (which, by the way, was AMAZING, and if they are coming to your city, you must run out and get tickets right away), heading out to some wonderful restaurants for dinner, brunch, lunch....

And she was so excited about all of it - she divides her time between Maine and Tucson, and certainly has cultural and educational opportunities available to her, but it's clear that coming here strikes her as coming to the big city. And that she relies on us to help her navigate, both literally and figuratively. And that that navigational assistance is only going to increase as the years go on - again, both literally and figuratively. I guess we're all constantly learning how to deal with family, and I certainly wouldn't want these relationships to remain static, but it does provide some interesting food for thought....