A somewhat random collection

Our consolation is the longer days, although we still find ourselves a little thrown off to find it still light at nearly 7 p.m. Getting warmer, too.

Friday's movie, thank you Mr. Netflix, was 1776!, a film version of the Pulitzer-winning Broadway musical. I had fond memories of having seen it in 8th grade; that was 1976 and our class did a lot to prepare for our trip to Williamsburg, Mount Vernon, and D.C. in celebration of the bicentennial. It's an odd movie in many ways, and watching it now I'm utterly amazed that the good sisters of St. Ignatius deemed it appropriate for us. Apparently Love American Style was a big influence on the playwright, as a constant presence in the story is the, ah, yearning that our founding fathers had for their wives back home.

Anyway. Dean's very interested in early American history and he thoroughly enjoyed the movie. What makes this worth watching is that so few re-tellings of the days leading up to the writing and signing of the Declaration of Independence (especially those aimed at children) make these key points clear: the Continental Congress was an assortment of primarily wealthy men who wasted a great deal of time on petty matters; that they, as a group, had no clear vision of independence and that about half of them actively opposed it; that it was the unrelenting drive of John Adams that brought the Declaration to the table at all; and that the Civil War was inevitable right from the beginning (political and philosophical division of the north and south, the abolition of slavery given up for the "greater" cause of independence, the sovereignty of the states). The sexual innuendo went over Dean's head as it went over mine when I first saw it. It does take a pretty static situation (roughly the month before July 4, 1776 in congress) and make it a good story. I'm not saying you have to see it (if I did, you'd be cursing me through a few regrettable showtunes, I KNOW you would), but you might want to see it and might want you older kids to see it if they are interested in history.

We got Dean's bike tuned up and road-ready this weekend, and wondered about the economic 'downturn' given that every errand we ran found us surrounded by what seemed to be lots of people shopping. I find myself feeling anxious and uncertain about things, and more than a little freaked out every time we buy something that isn't food.

AH -- big news -- I knew there was something: Caleb was born March 11, the second son of my nephew Nick and his wife Erin.
We're planning to get to Chicago next month to meet him, and his big brother Noah, and reconnect with family. And go to the zoo. And eat decent pizza for a change.