Fast Movie Review - Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Episode III was a blur of emotionally stunted scenes and Anakin making idiotic decisions that endanger himself, Padmé, and the entire galaxy. In the final prequel episode, Anakin is pulled over to the Dark Side by a few cliché lines from Darth Sidious. The Jedis continue to unnecessarily perform back flips during combat, resulting in the amputation of three of Anakin's limbs. As a result, Anakin is encased in the Vader suit which he is obviously not happy about.

Meanwhile, Padmé gives birth, looses the will to live, and dies. Even though this is supposed to be a very advanced civilization, painkillers were not provided as Padmé gave birth, or as Anakin had his body turned into a cyborg. Ehh, pain is strength. Overall Revenge of the Sith gave the thrill of action as well as...yeah that's about it.

Rating: 1 Deathstar

~ by Anna & Sophie

Parenting dilemma: when is a toy a toy?

For Christmas this year, Anna asked for a set of Nerf Phoenix Lazer Taggers. As described by the manufacturer Hasbro: "Tag or be tagged in this intense, real-life lazer combat game!" I have no idea what it means to be in "real-life" lazer combat, but it involves these things called "taggers" which, to the untrained eye, look like toy guns.

Lazer tag works like this: each player gets a lazer gun which has settings for the "strength" of the lazer (10 or 25), the level of "ammunition" (up to five bars, like a cell phone signal), a "shield" which protects you from the other player's shots (but saps your own shield strength and ammunition) and a reload button.

Every time you hit the sensor on the other player's lazer gun, you diminish her strength and ammunition until, finally (well, actually kind of quickly when we play), they are out. Point. Aim. Shoot.

So, the dilemma comes to this.  In this sensitive time about gun violence, are toy guns -- lazer taggers, for example -- appropriate for children? Should we worry about Tamir Rice scenarios? Will we be judged as bad parents? Will our children be warped by holding the cold plastic in their hands?

I remember a similar dilemma in the girls' earlier years when they were eaten by the Disney Princesses. To feed the bedazzled, glass-slippered beasts or not? The girls loved those princesses. They loved the gowns. They loved the movies and the music. They loved the dolls and all the attendant merchandise. And, yes, for a period of two or three years, we totally indulged them.

Here's the thing: the danger of the princess storyline is that the girls grow up thinking that they are disempowered, waiting for a fairy godmother or a prince to save them or complete their lives, reaching for that golden ring of marriage and happily ever after. That is -- as every post-feminist mother will tell you -- a set up for disemboweling a girl's self esteem and years of therapy.

But that's not the game our girls were playing. When they played princess, they were the Center of the Universe. They commanded. They were Chief Executives with a tiara and they were not waiting around for anyone. The princess world is what you bring to it.

The same may be true for our daughters and lazer taggers. The girls aren't imagining that they are holding real guns or shooting to harm anyone, much less maim or kill. The toys are just that -- toys with which they are running around on the beach and in the park and around the house (okay, that's dangerous, but only because Grandma has some fragile antiques). This is a game with the emotional resonance and adrenalin rush of an old-fashioned game of tag or chase, but played with plastic guns rather than slapping your friend silly.

So, Anna got the lazer taggers, and we've been playing with them, and we've been having the conversation about what they mean or don't mean. For example, we don't let our littlest cousins play because they aren't really old enough to understand the difference between "pretend" and "real" yet. And in Santa Barbara, we thought it best to play with them discretely since (as you may recall) that city recently had a tragic mass shooting by a crazy person. Indeed, it seemed both insensitive and possibly imprudent to play in public spaces, even with the obviously toy-like bright gold and turquoise plastic guns. (Instead, we played near the abandoned tannery pit ruins of the old mission).

We know -- and are rather saddened -- that this kind of play isn't for everyone. We are thankful that for our family playing is just playing.

Beaches, blasters and butterflies

Part of the charm of a road trip are the serendipitous moments. For no particular reason other than the fact that it is on our path southward, we stop in Pismo Beach for the night. With a population less than 8,000 people, this quiet beach town touts its surfing, white sand beaches, wine tasting and Monarch butterflies.

Not a lot going on in the evening in Pismo Beach. We watched part of Star Wars Episode 2 - Attack of the Clones. We only watched part because, honestly, it was kind of hard to get through it in one sitting.

Fast Movie Review: Okay, so in Episode 1, little Anakin Skywalker (played by Jake Lloyd) could not deliver a convincing line, but at least he was cute. In Episode 2, Anakin is grown up (played by Hayden Christensen) and he's such a dreadful actor that no amount of cuteness will help. Worse, his tortured, saccharine relationship with the apparently un-aging Padmé is something between disturbing and grating. Padmé has a new outfit in every scene, and they are awesome. And she is a warrior badass, which makes one wonder what she sees in the bumbling apprentice Jedi Anakin. She should dump him like an overheating light saber. Effects -- particularly the Kaminoans -- are still cool. Rating: 2 Deathstars.

Back to Pismo Beach: it is nice to wake up to a view like this.

And we enjoyed some down time with Anna's new laser tag blasters, with a ukelele soundtrack from Sophie.

On the way out of town (cue On The Road Again, Willie Nelson version), we stopped at the Pismo Beach Monarch Butterfly Grove. Like all of us, the Monarchs want to escape the cold in the north. So, they head south for the winter, finding safe haven in eucalyptus groves down the Central Coast between October and February.

The Monarchs hang from the tree limbs, like shingles, one's wings sheltering another. The weight of these clusters keeps the butterflies from whipping around in the wind.

Evolution is cool.

La Cuesta Encantada

In 1919, William Randolph Hearst began an ambitious construction project on the hilltop of the Santa Lucia Range. As Hearst wrote to architect Julia Morgan that year, "Miss Morgan, we are tired of camping out in the open at the ranch in San Simeon and I would like to build a little something."

Over the course of the next 28 years, what started as a plan to put a small bungalow on Hearst's boyhood campsite evolved into an estate of 165 rooms and 127 acres of gardens, pools, and the world's largest private zoo. Hearst Castle, formally named La Cuesta Encantada ("The Enchanted Hill"), is now operated by the California State Park Service and open to the public. Stop at the visitor's center and then hop on the bus to take the winding road up to the castle. Bonus: Alex Trebek narrates the route to the castle. Double bonus: excellent time for a group selfie to pass the time.

Family Selfie

Back to the tour: admittedly, it's a little weird to be touring some rich guy's playland (what Orson Welle's would thinly veil as "Xanadu" in Citizen Kane). Hearst's hand in the project is so apparent, from the 17th century ceilings imported from Spain to the size of the pepper pots in the garden, that the tour is strangely voyeuristic.

On the other hand, this labor of love is truly remarkable. The design and construction of the estate -- financed by the Hearst wealth from mining and media -- went straight through the Depression with barely a flutter. Julia Morgan's invoice for the cost of construction from 1919 to1942 was a stunning $4,717,000. She ran the entire job -- from managing the carpenters, plasterers and stonecasters to purchasing Spanish antiquities, Icelandic moss and reindeer for Hearst. Between 1919 and 1939 when her health began to fail, Morgan made 558 weekend trips by train from San Francisco to San Simeon.

Some people collect stamps. Hearst collected antique European ceilings. When you get over the gulf in lifestyle that stands between you and the media magnate, admire the beautiful ceilings in each of the rooms which range from gilded plaster to Spanish fired tiles.

There are a number of tours to choose from and our State Parks guide was great with a lovely ability to tell sympathetic stories about the eccentric Hearst and explain the details of the construction. Whatever tour you pick, don't miss the pools. Ed knows his pools. He can find an Olympic-size pool in any city where he stays for more than 48 hours. So, the Hearst pools were a highlight.

The outdoor Neptune pool (named for the 17th century marble statue that overlooks the marble basin) holds 345,000 gallons and is lined with black and white Vermont marble. Because it leaks 5,000 gallons a day, it is currently being renovated. The indoor Roman pool is modeled after a Roman bath and, in case you didn't get that point, it is surrounded by eight Roman gods, goddesses and heroes. Subtle. Camille Solon, the English muralist and ceramist, designed the mosaic which covers walls, floor, ceiling and pool in one-inch smalti glass and fused gold tiles.

What we would give for a quick dip! But, alas, onward. More photos of the lovely La Cuesta Encantada here. Next stop: Pismo Beach.

Christmas roadtrip!

OBJECTS IN THE MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR. It's been over two years since we last posted on The Honeychurch Chronicles and time is flying! So, happy Christmas, merry holidays, and here goes.

The week before Christmas, we embarked on a big family road trip. We don't usually take to the road because some of us are prone to motion sickness. But we thought that if we take it slow and enjoy the sights, it would be okay. So, we've abandoned the soccer fields of the Greater Bay Area and headed south with the geese and Monarch butterflies (more on that later). A rental car, five longish audio books, six stuffed bags, two girls and a ukelele (yes, more on that, too).

Of course, as we head out of town, it started raining cats and dogs (where does that phrase come from?). Not ideal driving conditions, but it's raining in California and we are not ones to look a gift horse in the mouth (again, what?!?).  First stop: Monterey.

We arrived in the evening, and too late to visit the world-famous aquarium. But we checked into the lovely Clement Hotel, snuggled under the covers and started our Roadtrip Star Wars Marathon. Yes, we will watch all six Star Wars episodes on the road and then make our way to a theater for The Force Awakens (no spoilers, please!). No, we are not those crazies who are watching 30 hours of Star Wars phantasmagoria in order to get their names on a movie house seat.

Fast Movie Review: Episode One - The Phantom Menace is the 1999 prequel in which George Lucas revives the Star Wars saga. The special effects are cool, but the dialogue and acting make The Big Bang Theory sound sophisticated. CGI-created Gungan Jar Jar Binks is neither comic nor a relief; he is annoying. The styling of Padmé Amidala is totes awesome, tho. Rating: 2 Deathstars.

When we woke the next morning, the clouds had parted. After a quick family selfie by the Bay, we made our way down the Big Sur coastline. We have spent a lot of time in the Monterey-Carmel-Big Sur area, so we didn't dawdle. And there's that motion sickness thing, remember?

To keep our minds off the swooping highway and sharp cliff edges, we chose our first audio book for the trip: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. We are huge fans of this beautiful book, but the audio story -- told by the uber-talented Jim Dale (you may remember as the voice of the Harry Potter series) -- is very good!

For on-the-road entertainment, we also have Sophie and her ukelele (an early Christmas present). Sophie is teaching herself to play with the help of YouTube and the Greater Internet. So far, her repertoire includes: Somewhere Over the Rainbow, The Lava Song, and Rip Tide. Live entertainment is lovely. In moderation.

Next stop: Hearst Castle

What better time to be in the Cradle of Liberty?

We are minutes away now from the end of a rather dismal chapter in American politics, as the House votes to end the 2013 government shut down. So, before Nicole goes back to work, we post our trip to see a true East Coast fall and remind ourselves about the origins of our democracy.  Hello Boston!

It is true that California doesn't do much in the way of seasons. The trees go from green to yellow to bare.  By contrast, Massachusetts looks like a firebox -- all golds, oranges and reds. While I would like to report that our first stop was the Boston Public Garden to see the turning of the leaves, that would be a lie. We were hungry and the leaves would have to wait.

Our first stop in Boston was Hei La Moon in Chinatown because THERE IS NO DECENT DIM SUM IN WASHINGTON.  We have been craving a good chau siu bao for months.  There is none to be found in the nation's capitol and, believe me, we have looked.  Maybe the terrible partisanship in DC is because of the inability to come together over tea and har gow?

In any case, Hei La Moon was the real deal: carts bedecked with dumplings, bottomless pots of tea and barely polite waitstaff.  It was awesome.  But not to be outdone, the nearby Gourmet Dumpling House has amazing xiao long bao -- soupy pork dumplings -- and serves the until 2 in the morning. On the same day we had our dim sum feast, we had more dumplings at 10:30 that night! For the record, yes, four of our meals on this four-day trip included dumplings.

Ok, back to the leaves.

We took a stroll through the Boston Public Garden -- almost familiar because we read Make Way for Ducklings countless times to the girls when they were young.  The ducks look about the same; our girls, not so much.

Make way for ducklings.

Duckling #2 strikes a pose.

We did some historical sightseeing as well, taking the Freedom Trail with William Molineux who looked pretty good for someone born in 1717.  We toured Faneuil Hall (the "Cradle of Liberty"), Paul Revere's house and the Old North Church. We also took a day trip to Sturbridge Village and saw how New Englanders lived in the early 1800s.  With the current government shut down, at least we could go back in time to learn about our country's origins.

We also got a chance to visit with Cousin Emelie who started her freshman year at Harvard!  She gave us a great campus tour and even snuck us in for a peek in Annenberg Hall (which, indeed, looks like the Hogwarts dining hall).  Ed and Nicole are probably not ready for the girls to leave for college just yet, but we hope they'll be as smart and gracious as Emelie!

Of course, we couldn't leave autumnal Massachusetts without a visit to the countryside for apple picking!  We picked a peck!  (And bought some cider as well.)  Well worth the trip.  

Empire apples!

Sophie photo bombing my apple picture.

We're looking forward to our next East Coast adventure!  In the meantime, back to work!

Greetings from the Nation's Capitol (Under Construction)

Dear Friends,

It has been over a year since we posted our travels to the Honeychurch Chronicles.  There's been a lot going on.

To recap briefly, after nearly a year and half after leaving her job, Ed and the girls started asking Nicole questions like, "What do you do with your day?"  This struck her as unfair, having caught up on 2 seasons of Mad Men, the Battlestar Galactica series and all 6 books of the Game of Thrones.  Much discussion ensued.  But since the girls were in school all day and there was no one around to play with, Nicole started doing some teaching, then a little consulting and finally was lucky enough to land a job working with her excellent friends at Twitter.

And then she got the call.

It is in fact one of those I-need-to-sit-down moments when the White House calls.  President Obama was looking for a new Deputy Chief Technology Officer to advise him on Internet policy and the White House wanted to know if Nicole would like to throw her hat in the ring.  At that moment, no answer but "yes" seemed appropriate.

To make a long story short, Ed, Nicole and the girls discussed the opportunity at length and agreed (in Sophie's words) "if we don't do it, we'll probably regret it."  Several months later, here we are:  a rental house in Georgetown, two girls doing beautifully in school and on traveling soccer teams, Ed working on new and exciting projects, and Nicole sitting in the Executive Office of the President.

Well, until today, when Nicole got furloughed.

So, this seems like a good time to reboot the Honeychurch Chronicles.  This will be a purely personal account of our adventures.  Do not expect to read about Internet policy or the Administration's position on anything.  But this is a marvelous new journey for our family, so we thought we would share it with you.  And I've got some time on my hands for at least a little bit.

Stay tuned.  More to come.

La Ville-Lumière

On the backside of our trip, we are returning to familiar and much-loved ground.  We exit Europe via the City of Light.  Paris. 

On this trip, we visited a temporary exhibition in the Tuileries Gardens by South Korean businessman, entrepreneur, inventor and budding 71 year old photographer, Ahae.  The exhibit, called, Through My Window, distilled from 2.6 million photographs taken over the course of four years from Ahae's studio window.  They are beautiful -- some of the photos are more than 12 feet tall and you feel like you walked right into the scene.  

Because we could not wait one more minute, we satisfied our need for Asian food by finding a hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese restaurant which served excellent pho.

Then we visited the legendary Shakespeare & Co., a favorite site for Grandpa Wong who once met its owner, George Whitman.  According to Whitman, Shakespeare & Co. was "a socialist utopia masquerading as a bookstore."  That sounds like a place Grandpa would love, and all it's missing is a bar that serves Coors Light.

To round out the trip, we visited the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle for the first time.  When Sophie was a baby, Mom brought her a book from Paris about Siam the Elephant.  

Kind of a longish book and all in French, but the gist of it was that Siam was brought over from Thailand to France, did some time in a circus, became famous and had his own TV show and ultimately was lovingly cared for at the National Zoo until his death.  Now here's the important part:  when Siam died (so explained the book) he was stuffed and displayed at the MNHN for future generations to admire and love!  (I know it's a weird kid's story.  It's French.)

This is a long wind-up to say that we saw him!  Siam!  In all his taxidermied wonderfulness.  A childhood story turned reality (albeit real in a stuffed kind of way).  We would not have been surprised to turn the corner and find a stuffed Lorax.

We found one more must-do Paris activity: climb the Eiffel Tower.  Sure, it's 279.1 meters of stairs, but that's better than waiting in the mile-long line for the elevator.  La Tour Eiffel is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower.  It was erected in 1889 as the entrance arch to the 1889 World's Fair.  Eiffel actually had an apartment at the top where he entertained guests!  The views are, indeed, spectacular.  

We are looking forward to our next return to Paris.  Our goal is make it a city where we feel like locals and not tourists.  Anna declares she may live there one day -- as either a fashion designer or chef.  So, we all need to start working on our French!

Life without a cell phone

Warning: This is a geeky diversion.  Feel free to move on if you're not obsessed with your devices.

Is the cell phone a blessing or a curse?  Well, both of course.  In planning for this trip, I assumed that I would just get a local SIM card in each country so that we didn't have to ransom a child to pay for roaming fees.  I would not, of course, go naked sans cell phone.

As it turns out, local SIMS are not so easy to get - deciding on a local carrier, finding a retail store where the staff speaks English, reconfiguring the phone without breaking it.  For 3-5 days of stay?  Once on the ground, it didn't seem worth it.  Ok, fine, I'm lazy.  And ransoming a child started to look more reasonable.

So here are a few notes for the lazy American cell phone addict:

* In London, we used OneFineStay which, in addition to setting us up in a lovely Notting Hill flat, provided a complimentary iPhone.  Exactly what we needed for the basics of making local calls and using the maps and search features.  (Yes, MAPS - the Google-powered ones.  Take note, Mr. Cook.)  Why don't more hotels/apartments with international clientele do this?

* In Istanbul, there is a sheaf of paperwork involved in getting a SIM card and bunches of personal information, including your passport number, given to TurkCell.  Ick.  Overcome with paranoia, I decided to just eat the roaming fees and use the phone for emergencies only.  Well, the "emergencies" (defined as urgent needs) are surprisingly frequent.  Phone use to find our landlord and straighten out transport to our apartment.  Maps and texts to find my friends on the other side of the Bospherous.  Search to find the correct ferry terminal.  Suffice it to say, emergencies are not rare and not cheap.

* It is critically important to have wifi access where you're staying if you don't have the local phone.  You might be able to get wifi access on your phone, but I found that to be more difficult than it should have been.  We traveled with a laptop, iPad, 3 Kindles AND the phone.  Without wifi at our place of rest, there would have been no outlet for the pent-up cravings for email, Tweets, video entertainment and photos.  And, of course, you have to blog.

* So, bottom line and in order of importance when traveling abroad without a local cell phone: clock (no connection needed), maps, phone/txt, local search.  If you can find a good replacement for those functions (e.g., a watch), then you might get to keep your first-born.

Ok, but here's the important discovery: I really only needed those 4 functions from the phone.  On the go, it's all about those real-time, location specific needs.  My random grazing on new Tweets and emails that I usually do at home isn't actually necessary and wasn't really missed.  When it's not available, the girls and the local scenery get my full attention.

But don't ask me about my T-Mobile bill.

Au revoir, La Croix-Valmer

La belle mer

The mediterranean sun is strong and gorgeous in La Croix-Valmer.  We spent the week with our dear friends, the Merlin family.  Sun, sand and surf accompanied by good friends, food and laughs?  What's not to love?

Beautiful markets in La Croix-Valmer

Capitaine Merlin

A day on the water

(And back safely!)

Pizza on the beach

Saint-Tropez w/out a tourist in sight

The remarkable view from Chez Merlin

More photos here.  Thanks and love to the Merlin clan.  We hope we'll be back soon.

The hamam

While in Cappadocia, all the grown-ups took advantage of the hamam, or Turkish bath.  This is an ancient sauna meets shower and massage experience, and it is awesome after a day of being dusty and hot.  No wonder the Ottomans perfected the art.

You start in a sauna (as if the desert outside weren't enough) to relax, then move to the hamam.

This beautiful marble room has a large running basin of water and an enormous low marble table, which is gently heated.  This is where you are washed, soaped, exfoliated and massaged.  (There are well-run public baths throughout Turkey, but the hotels tend to offer a more private, attentive experience.)

The hamam remains an active part of life in Turkey and locals often reserve a day in the week to go and enjoy the relaxing and social atmosphere of their neighborhood hamam.  Something to think about when we re-enter our American lifestyles....

The world's a nicer place in my beautiful balloon

Definitely one of the coolest things on our trip was a hot air balloon ride over the Goreme Valley.  Wow!  It's not easy: we had to get up before the sun and I hate getting up early.  But after a bumpy van ride and fast breakfast (that I wasn't hungry for), we got to the field just as five balloons were filling up with air.  If we got up early, think how early the balloon guys have to get up!  The balloons are really big - we had 12 people in our balloon but some balloons fit 30 people!

Our pilot was a guy from Australia who has done this a bajillion times.  He said that Goreme has the most hot air balloon flights in the world on any day, except for a festival in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

We were the last balloon to take off, so when we got up the whole sky was filled with balloons! 

It's noisy in the balloon when the pilot tugs on a chain for gas and fire.  But once you're up in the air, it's very quiet and you just drift wherever the wind goes.

This is Anna and me hiding from the gas flame.

We got really close to some of the pigeon houses that were carved into the mountains: 

A long time ago, people used pigeons to make fertilizer for growing crops.  That's disgusting.  Glad I don't have that job.

This is one of those cave houses, like our hotel, but old and not taken care of:

We were the last balloon in the air and the last one to come down, which was kind of cool.

Our silhouette

The pilot lowered us so close to the treetops that we could pick apricots off the tree!  And they were tasty!

We had champagne at the end, but it was nasty (not like the apricots).  Anna and I just had orange juice.  And we got medals for riding in the clouds!  Bye bye balloon!  That was super fun!

~ Sophie