Now THIS I can get excited about!

I'm not necessarily dying for the day when I get to (/have to) take Leila to Disney and other theme parks, but this one's another story! You all know what a self professed geek I am, but if they only had more illustrations, I'd be starting her on the books at bedtime now...

Harry Potter Theme Park Headed to Fla.
By JIM ELLISThe Associated PressThursday, May 31, 2007; 1:04 PM

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Universal Orlando Resort is opening a Harry Potter theme park that will let fans visit many of the iconic locations in the books and movies that endeared the boy magician to millions.

"The Wizarding World of Harry Potter" is set to open at Universal's Islands of Adventure theme park in late 2009, complete with the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the Forbidden Forest and Hogsmeade village.

"The plans I've seen look incredibly exciting, and I don't think fans of the books or films will be disappointed," said author J.K. Rowling, who has been working with a creative team to make sure the park resembles the books and films.

More than a dozen artists lead by Stuart Craig, the production designer of the movies, have set up house in the studio where the movies are being filmed to make sure every detail is considered, said Scott Trowbridge of Universal.

"We're really going to the people who know this world best to ensure that level of authenticity," he said.

The park will let visitors view the famed locations in Rowling's magical world, like Dumbledore's office in Hogwarts and the shops in Hogsmeade. Some locations may be in upcoming books, Trowbridge said.

Many tourists outside the theme park said the experience would boost its appeal to a younger audience.

"I'd go to Universal before I would Disney World to go on a Harry Potter ride," said 15-year-old Alex Moran, who was visiting Orlando from Pleasant Hill, Mo.

Brandon Wilson, another 15 year old from Pleasant Hill, said he can't get enough of Harry Potter. He has read every book and watched every movie.

"I hope we get to simulate flying like Harry Potter," Wilson said.

Trowbridge said while there would not be any character lookalikes at the park, fans wanting to see Harry Potter and his magical friends wouldn't leave disappointed.

"This is Harry's world," said Trowbridge. "Most every fan wants to have an encounter with the star of the show."

The Harry Potter book series has been translated into 65 languages with more than 325 million copies sold in over 200 territories around the world.

The fifth film in the series, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," will be released in theaters July 13 by Warner Bros. The seventh and final book of the series will be released July 21.

Yeah, I went there...On my first Lost-less Wednesday, I flipped to the CW to see what 'Hidden Palms' was all about. Yeah, I'm 32 going on 33 and I still need to see a little dark teen angst every now and again to fill the Dawson's Creek/OC void. And this one could be great OC filler w/ "Oliver" and "Zach Stevens" in the leads, tho' Oliver's not nearly so hot with a ridiculous mop - described as Jarvis Cockeresque (ha!) in one review - of blond hair. He wore dark dangerous psychopath stalking Marissa much better. And the perfect, worldly Zach Stevens the Senator's son is now kicking small pugs in the face. Anyway...I only saw the last 20 minutes or so because I was putting Leila to bed (nope, we STILL haven't upgraded to DVR), which was enough to get the gist. It's pretty bad. But I am one who did watch North Shore until it got the axe, so we'll see!

It's been quite a while since I've had a Wiggles song trapped in my head the whole morning because Leila will sleep 'til 7:30 if I let her so we tend to miss them now as we get ready for daycare in the morning. Cesar was home later this morning though, and wanted to see her before he left, so he roused her closer to 7:00 then left us with our friends Anthony, Greg, Murray, Jeff et al. And the song that is now haunting me is "Fruit Salad", but not just any old version of Fruit Salad, the SPANISH VERSION as sung by the "Mariachi Wiggles" (their cartoon selves in sombreros and porn-staches --- I've never seen a lot of mustachioed men in Mexico, but all those Mariachi caricatures must sport them!) "Ensalada, de fruta fresca...Ensalada, de fruta fresca...Que sabrosa, Que sabrosa, Que sabrosa es..."

And in other randomness, Jimmy Buffett is the graduation speaker at the American School of Tangiers this June. My dear old friend Joe McPhillips, the Headmaster - or rather his secretary Blanca - always sends me an invite. The speaker is usually someone from interesting artistic/diplomatic circles, but who knew that Jimmy Buffett was "An American Troubadour Who Loves Morocco." Curious!

Weekend High and Low-lights

Finally got sprung from the office at 4:30 Friday and headed home for our standard Friday evening at Target. Diapers, detergent, wipes, sunblock a toddler swimsuit and hat = 80+$ The joys of Target shopping = priceless. Followed that up with a Thai dinner then watched The Last King of Scotland (Amazing acting. Disturbing, but most of Amin's brutality was implied rather than graphically presented - until the last 10 minutes or so - I did a little squealing and cringing then.) from bed.


Cesar played golf with my dad and grandfather Saturday, so Leila and I hit the playground and candy store. It was extremely hot and humid, so we were not out of doors for long. I ran about trying to do a half-ass cleaning job while she napped and midway through, that new bottle of Dreft detergent from Target fell off the top of the dryer, the lid and spout cleanly snapped off and it spilled all over the bathroom floor and into the linen closet. All our spare pillows are on that linen closet floor. More on that in a moment. Our bathroom floor has never been cleaner, nor smelled more fresh. Leila and I met back up with the family at my parent's for burgers and such. After she was all done with her burger, which she deemed "perfect" (where does this kid get this speech?) she was running about. She sprinted back in the dining room to give me some purell (why carry toys in your diaper bag when the bottle of purell hanging from it will do?), tripped over her sandals and landed head first into the leg of my chair. An instant black and blue egg sized knot swelled from her pretty forehead and we all melted down from there. Once she had control of herself and determined that it was funny that we were holding a bag of frozen corn to her head, she looked at me and insisted that I stop crying. Later, at home, I put two of the Dreft soaked pillows into our washing machine, turned it on and instantly had water pooling around my feet and leaking downstairs through a light fixture into the kitchen. Cesar chastised me for treating our washer as industrial strength (it was only two pillows!) and I threw a fit about how much I hated our house in between my hysteria that we were all going to be electrocuted by the kitchen light switch.


Massi and Hazem were in town for the weekend and she had us over for Persian BBQ at her parents. Carlo was also in town and he and his parents joined as well, which was a nice surprise. It's quite funny to talk Nicaragua with the Castillas. I never would have thought I'd be married to a Nica (and mother to an Ameri-Nic) when we hung out in and just after college 11-12 years ago. Everybody loved Leila, who was quite well behaved, and who had woken that morning saying she wanted to go to Massi's house. We'll have to go to NY for a visit soon. Massi's father remains the king of Kebabs. Because Leila had been so good, we took her into Old Town for ice cream early evening in spite of the gathering black storm clouds. We had barely sat down to orange sherbet in What's the Scoop before it began hailing! It was a quick storm, but amazing how quickly that lower part of King street becomes a raging river. I then actually got to read the Sunday Post on Sunday night since there was nothing on TV to my turn my brain to mush.


Yesterday we went and spent another 80+$ on Leila in Old Navy. For someone who wears a uniform 5 days a week, she certainly has enough weekend wear now, but the poor child had no shorts and I can't begrudge her shorts now that our humidity is sinking in. Plus, I can't feel too guilty when $80 at Old Navy buys 3 pair of shorts, 2 skirts, 5 tee-shirts and 4 tank tops (and the way we go through tee-shirts w/ pizza/tomato sauce/catsup and watermelon stains, that many is necessary!) Then hit the grocery store. Then my sweet mommy took pity on me for having no clothes of my own I suppose and took me out to TJ Maxx for a discount dress hunt. Anyone prepared to spent $150 on one dress at J. Crew or Banana should check the discounters first. I got 4 for less than that! Also, lots of cute Isaac Mizrahi stuff at Target now, but my store has been wiped clear of any aside from size 0 or size 14.


And that's all I have to report for now!

Modern Times

My husband had the brilliant idea to order pizza via the Internet last night. What a novel concept! He felt like Papa John's over our usual neighborhood joint Monterey's. I was preparing to go to the coat closet, dig the yellow pages out from layers of hats, gloves and scarves on the shelf and call through a handful to see which outlet delivered to us. He went up to the computer, plugged in our address, clicked through our order, paid on-line tip inclusive and voila! - we had hot thin-crust pizza and bread sticks (and yes, I do see how bread sticks sort of defeat the purpose of thin-crust!) at our door in under 30 minutes.

Can I just say that I am slightly bitter that it is now 3:41 the Friday before Memorial day and I am still in my office. Yes, yes I brought my kiddo to work with me this morning and have accomplished nothing beyond scribbling all over post-it notes with highlighters with her (actually, that's not much less than I accomplish on your average day), but I do remain bitter!

Un-freakin'-believable!

That's about alls I have to say about the Lost finale. Wow! Phenomenal mind-blowing stuff. It may be good to have the 8 months or so until January/February 2008 to mull over all this. And R.I.P Charlie. Though I was prepared to see you go last week, your heroic demise did hit hard. I will continue to sing "You All Everybody" in my head in tribute.

Playground Pics

Mommy could never do this! She's still traumatized by those Presidential Physical Fitness Tests...

MISS MESS!! But I am my daddy's girl w/ my clubs and my attitude!

In case anyone's dying to know what we did this weekend...

...This got tacked on to an earlier entry that I posted from draft.


Will get some pictures up soon, but I foresee a summer full of visits to every playground in Alexandria. That is all the child wants to do (and I don't blame her in light of our close living quarters.) We went to playgrounds three times in two days. The newest discovery is the sandbox and I was still finding grains in her diaper this morning. Other highlights included the parrot rescue people by the Torpedo factory, the balloon man, and a visit to a mammoth candy store (yep, she has my sweet tooth - anything gummi is the current obsession.)


In TV/Movie news, watched Notes on a Scandal. Excellent acting and score. Tracked well with the book and Judi Dench managed to play Barbara even more brilliantly creepy than she read. I can't get too jazzed about Housewives even though a lot went down. Brothers and Sisters was great. Loved the McAllister clan and Jason + Kevin = HAWT!!


And in randomness. Does anyone else know a two year old who asks their mom to sing "Ring of Fire" to them at bedtime? We do have one funny child!

The 2nd to last time I'll write about Lost 'til Jan. '08

And this one will be brief, because there was not nearly so much kuh-raziness to ponder as last week, though still a solid show.

Darn you Charlie! Just when I go and get myself all psyched up to watch you die for reals, you go and make me cry my eyes out throughout the show. His 5 "greatest hits list" meant to be given to Claire after Desmond's premonition played out with "meeting you" as #1...his goodbye to Aaron and Claire when he told "Turniphead" he loved him...when he processed Desmond's flash meaning he had to cowboy up and drown for Claire and Aaron to be rescued...Hurley's "I love you man" and his return I love you too...Leaving the DS ring in Aaron's crib so it would stay "in the family" as brother Liam insisted it do (and yeah, funny that I was just discussing LOTR with Massi yesterday. I was just waiting for Liam to refer to it as "the one true ring" that Charlie had to guard.) Very fine acting Dom. And I always do love the episode that presents the opportunity for me to have "You all, Everybody" stuck in my head for days on end.

Other good stuff:

You go Karl and Alex (or Karlex as I just saw them dubbed.) Good warning/gun running mission. And when Alex queried "is he my father?" to Karl re: Ben. Interesting.

Nadia! As in Sayid's Nadia. That's who Charlie saved in the Manchester alley. Wild. She's now been in Locke and Charlie's flashbacks in addition to Sayid. Wonder if anyone's mapped out all the overlap connecting these guys in their previous lives. I imagine it's out there on the web somewhere.

And Sayid. Awesome as always. Love how he sent Jack off with his tail between his legs to lead the troops to the radio tower.

Danielle! Good work joining with Jack and Juliet on mission rig the tents with lethal TNT. That is, if Jack and Juliet are really working for the forces of good now.

Rose and Bernard! Alive and well and sweetly bickering away. Though I wonder if Bernard will be a casualty of the final showdown as he's stepped up for operation shoot the dynamite laden tents. Hope not.

Richard Alpert?? He of the well lined eyes. Clearly knows Ben is off his rocker. Will he do anything about it?

Was Jack telling Kate that he loved her in the preview or was that an editing trick?

I can hardly wait for next Wednesday and am trying my darndest to stay away from the spoilers.

I love the mornings...

...when I'm downstairs at 6:30 a.m. marinating chicken breasts for dinner and chopping cantaloupe for Leila's breakfast, squeezing in a 2 minute shower before waking Leila and getting her dressed and ready for day care while watching 10 minutes of Curious George on PBS, dropping Leila at day care, driving the 10 year old car to Tony's Auto for a check of the brake pads and tire rotation on the way to the metro (now I love Tony's - the place is so old school that my parents used to take their cars there when I was a tyke - but I'm just waiting to get the call that we need $500+ in brake work after dropping $350 on a new muffler last month - ouch!), and making it to the office at 9:00 on the dot to be greeted by a client before the first sip of chai has passed my lips. At least I had that 20 minutes of peace on our hassle and stress free metro system to blast the Chile Peppers in my ears and read the "If You Knew Sushi" article in Vanity Fair (can one imagine a single blue fin tuna auctioned for $170,000? Mind boggling stuff!) And I keep telling myself that I'm going to start getting up at 5:00 to do pilates a couple days a week. Not happening! At least not until the TV season's over and I can go to bed before 11:00...

Weekend

We took the munchkin to Annapolis Saturday to get some fresh air, eat seafood and enjoy the water views. The highlight of the trip was space shuttle gummi candy from the Naval Academy bookstore! And ice cream. The child didn't come off her sugar buzz to nap until around 4:00.

Mother's day was breakfast at my Grandparents, laundry, and grocery shopping - fun! But seriously, it is sort of a treat for me to get out by myself to do the shopping without the smurf in tow. And I got about 20 extra minutes of sleep when Cesar took her out to pick up coffee. Good stuff.

Darn you Donny Osmond...

...and your as seen on TV Love Songs of the 70s CD. Caught the commercial this morning and now I just can't shake "sometimes when we touch, the honesty's too much..." from my head. The infectious power of The Wiggles was not even enough to banish it. Out, out damn song!

You know you're a mom when....

...your kid pees on your lap and you merely dab at your jeans with a few wipes to minimize any odor and go about your day. I know, gross, but I don't imagine I'm the only parent out there who arrives to work with snot stains on their shoulder on a near daily basis. Plus, they're my Rock & Republic jeans and now that they're stretched sufficiently to the point I can breath properly, these babies aren't going back to the wash after one wear.

Happy Mother's Day to all!

Holy Mackerel!!

Ok Lost fans...What the f#*&?? I don't have time to read any of the message boards or recaps this morning, so this is not informed by any other opinions/theories - just my attempt to process that very troubling, yet entertaining, hour of TV we saw last night...

So, we know Ben lied when he claimed to be born on the island. He was actually born two months prematurely on a hiking trip somewhere around Portland (Portland! Recall Juliet's first flashback ep. "Not in Portland." Is Portland the gateway to Hell, er...the Island?) resulting in his mother's hemorrhaging to death (or not? Though not the first case of dead parents appearing on the island, young Ben saw her repeatedly.) And Ben's father? Roger, as in "Work Man." Judgement apparently clouded by grief, he rejoins the hippy dippy Dharma dude who gave them a lift after Ben's early/tragic birth and heads for the Island. And he (of course, because all father's on this show do) treats Ben like crap and blames him for his mother's death and lays around in a Dharma beer stupor most of the time...

Young Ben cleverly turns off the security fence one night to go into "hostile"/native islander territory (an air raid type drill in Ben's school one day gave hint that the hostile/natives and the Dharma bums don't play nice) in search of dead mommy - she tells him he's not ready, whatever that means, and then he bumps into...Richard Alpert! With longer hair, but still nicely made up eyes. I always find it amusing how the show uses a longer 'do to portray the actor at a younger phase (recall Jack's pseudo mullet in flashback.) Dude hasn't aged a bit while Ben evolved from pre-teen to adult, only clipped his hair. So, anyway, Richard Alpert is a native? And then, fast forward to an older Ben - now a "Work Man" himself (this Dharma caste system is the pits) reminding his father it's his birthday and Roger suggests they have a father-son moment over a few brews after he makes his run to Pearl or Swan or one of the stations and Ben calmly grills him about whether he's really blamed him for his mother's death for all these years, then takes out and puts on a gas mask and gasses dear daddy to death! But that's not all. When he returns to camp, we see that Richard and his hostile band have gassed all the Dharmas to death in a genocidal fashion (looked like Jonestown!!) Yikes.

And the creepiest part of all, as if genocide is not creepy enough, Locke has returned to the Others/hostiles/whoevers with dead daddy in a bag and his balls apparently intact and insists that Ben take him to see Jacob. Ben pulls all this you don't go to Jacob, Jacob summons you wishy washy stuff, but Locke stands firm. Alex appears out of nowhere to give Locke a gun and tells him he'll need it if he's going to see Jacob. Ben and Locke get to Jacob's cabin in the dark of night and Ben instructs Locke to turn off his flashlight because Jacob, like you and I (??) doesn't like technology. They enter the cabin with a lantern and Ben starts speaking to Jacob - ummm...an empty chair - in apologetic terms. Locke is all hate to break it to you Ben, but you are KUH-RAZY. But then there's a very odd sequence of events where Locke shines his flashlight on empty chair/Jacob and there's this flash of flame zipping across the floor and Locke turns in the direction the flame's going and hears a deep voice clearly say "Help Me." But Locke thinks the voice is Ben playing tricks on him because Ben is clearly delusional! Now when they first entered Jacob's lair, I was thinking that maybe Jacob is actually "smokey", but the whole scene played out to me very reminiscent of Harry Potter - you know, when Voldemort is in hiding when he's first gaining his powers back...Does Ben speak Parseltongue? Does Locke speak Parseltongue? I'm sorry, DID Locke speak Parseltongue? Past tense because we end with Ben showing Locke the shallow, OPEN (now we know where Vincent disappears to on his prolongued absences - lots o' crunchy munchy bones there) mass Dharma grave, and shooting Locke at close range and leaving him to perish in said grave after getting Locke to admit that the words he heard Jacob say were "Help Me." And that, dear reader, is what I say. Help me make some sense of this!!

And there was some other stuff going on at the beach camp with Juliet's tape and Ben's response with the timing of their raid and Jack suggesting that they had some catching up to do, but I'll have to leave that for next week.

DC'd out...

We now have two out of our three summer interns on board. 3! We are a 6 person firm. Huh? The good news about that is I can give what little work I regularly have to them, so I can dedicate more time to my perpetual job search. The bad piece about that is I have no idea what I want to do with myself professionally and am in no frame of mind to be chipper about this place and my work here in front of young, fresh-faced interns. I continue to apply for legislative assistant/government affairs type positions, but sadly my experience here has led me question whether I even want to continue in this line of work. If I can get myself paid twice as much and in a position that allows me to represent only positive, consumer friendly issues maybe... I have an interview Wednesday at the National Marine Manufacturers Association. Right. I know nothing about the recreational boating industry, but it's got to be better than spinning high-interest tax refund anticipation loans as a good deal, no? I'd like to be called for the government affairs position I applied for at Bono's DATA (Debt AIDS Trade Africa) organization, but I think that one's a little out of my league. Oh well. Time to keep plugging away.

And in weekend news, will get some pictures up soon, but I foresee a summer full of visits to every playground in Alexandria. That is all the child wants to do (and I don't blame her in light of our close living quarters.) We went to playgrounds three times in two days. The newest discovery is the sandbox and I was still finding grains in her diaper this morning. Other highlights included the parrot rescue people by the Torpedo factory, the balloon man, and a visit to a mammoth candy store (yep, she has my sweet tooth - anything gummi is the current obsession.)

In TV/Movie news, watched Notes on a Scandal. Excellent acting and score. Tracked well with the book and Judi Dench managed to play Barbara even more brilliantly creepy than she read. I can't get too jazzed about Housewives even though a lot went down. Brothers and Sisters was great. Loved the McAllister clan and Jason + Kevin = HAWT!!

Yummy!

Fish 'n Chips is not something I find myself often craving, but that may have just changed. Leila and I met up with my old college friend Layton and her adorable 8 month old son, Eamon in Old Town on Saturday. The plan was to stroll up to Eamonn's (yeah, in honor of the namesake in the stroller with us) for a bite and as luck would have it, the afternoon had turned into a cool, gray, drizzly one to rival the UK. This hole in the wall "Dublin Chipper" is the younger brother (literally - Eamonn is the Chef and Manager's son and Eve their daughter) to Old Town's acclaimed Restaurant Eve. I've never made it to Eve and it is completely out of my budget these days, but I'll take battered cod and house cut chips on a grease soaked brown paper bag as a tasty compromise any day! And next time I go, I'll walk so I can enjoy a Guinness - or two... I may just have found an alternative to Five Guys. And for those of you without toddlers in tow, who may still go out at night, there's a swank looking 1920's style "speak easy" on the upper level. Enjoy! http://www.eamonnsdublinchipper.com/

There was a time when I didn't think McCain was such a bad guy...No need to add my own commentary. Y'all know where I stand here:

"In a letter released yesterday by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) expressed his support for the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy that bans lesbians, gays, and bisexuals from serving openly in the military. McCain said he staunchly opposes openly gay servicemembers, asserting that “open sexuality within military presents an intolerable risk to morale, cohesion and discipline” and national security."

And in other DC related news, should be interesting to see if our very own Madame reveals anything juicy on 20/20 tonight!

TV TV TV...

Wow. I didn't have the energy or brainpower to put any thoughts about Lost down yesterday, and I still don't, but Wow. Such interesting and puzzling stuff going on. Huge props for Josh Holloway's fine acting at a point when I thought it wasn't possible to love Sawyer any more than I already did. Locke's dad (Biggest. Bastard. Ever.) turning out to be the original con-Sawyer whose actions had the consequences of robbing our dear Sawyer of his parents and childhood innocence and making him the man he is today was not a huge surprise, but very well played out. The whole need to kill your father to free yourself and be the "special" person the Island means you to be thing fit well within the shows greater mythologies. I kind of loved the Rousseau/Locke exchange on the Black Rock where she casually strolls in for dynamite and doesn't bat at eye at the fact that there's clearly some torture going on behind locked doors while Locke whittles away. Ben is so freakin' diabolical. I have to believe that he's turning all these screws - he wants the beach bound castaways to know they're coming for the pregnant women, to know that Juliet's a plant...but WHY, WHY WHY? And what did Juliet want to tell Kate that Jack wasn't ready to expose? And does Naomi's story hold water? Neither Sayid, nor Jack seemed to buy the mechanics. And Richard Alpert wears eye makeup better than I do. And, and, and...I just drive myself batty thinking about it.

Grey's w/ the embedded Addison pilot spinoff... Eh. It was OK. I adore Addison and if her show is picked up I may just switch to that from Grey's if Grey's continues to be the angsty whine fest it has become. Will somebody kick George to Mercy West never to be seen or heard from again already? And Izzy too for that matter. I had more emotions over learning that Addison's barren (she'd be the coolest mom) than watching Mere's stepmother's rapid demise and I think I felt Thayer's slap. Ouch. I'd do tequila shots w/ Alex any day. Goes w/o saying that Bailey is awesome. And Tim Daly + Taye Diggs = McDreamy/Steamy to the nth degree!

The last of the birthday celebrations (until Cesar's next week...)

The party girl:

The cupcakes:

The Gift:

I don't feel so bad for cheating the child out of a proper birthday party as the result of our travel. She did wind up with cupcakes at school, cupcakes with my family this past weekend and the German engineered Mercedes of Tricycles as her gift from her parents! And while the two year olds at St. Anthony's got cupcakes of the Duncan Hines variety, I did put the effort into making Magnolia Bakery cupcakes for my family - while my husband may not agree (What is wrong with him??) everyone else knows these are the best cupcakes ever and hands down, the best thing I am capable of creating in the kitchen (entrees? who needs them?) If anyone wants to tempt themselves with two dozen of these babies lying around the house, you can find the recipe online, and with a little muscle power into the mixing they are pretty darn simple to make. What could be complicated when the ingredients are: BUTTER, flour, BUTTER, milk, BUTTER, eggs, BUTTER, sugar, BUTTER, vanilla extract, BUTTER, confectioners sugar, and BUTTER. Mmmmm....thank goodness I only have two more left at home, so after Leila and I kill those tonight I can begin my Quixotic quest to lose 5-10 pounds!