The Oscar Party I'm Not Having

Happy Oscar Day!

You know, there was a time (not too long ago) when the Oscars were right up there with Christmas for me. They definitely had the Fourth of July beat, if that gives you any hint as to how much I loved them. (That's a lot of love, people. A lot of love.)

It all started in high school, when I decided I was going to win an Oscar. And believed it. Because when you're in high school, you can decide things like this and it doesn't even occur to you that it might not happen. For the record, I also decided that I would win a Tony, marry for money, and be thin forever. Ha ha.

Even after my Oscar dreams dimmed with the end of my career as a costumer, I held onto my love for the awards show. I made an event of it every year, eventually culminating in elaborate costume parties with themed desserts, signature cocktails, and prizes for Oscar Bingo.

And then...well, I suppose life happened. It's harder to throw costume parties in mid-March when you get older because that's a whole lot of silly for a Sunday night. I managed to pull it together only once in law school. The other years were either half-hearted attempts with short guest lists or plain old failures (although sitting on the floor of my apartment with Nate and Drew, eating Velveeta Mac-n-Cheese while I hold onto the TV antennae to get reception, will probably remain one of my favorite Oscar parties to date). I don't know...I just got kind of cynical about the whole thing. The jokes were less funny, the fashion was less interesting, and most of the time I hadn't even seen the movies.

So, here we are this year, with only a couple of hours before the big show, and no partyness in sight. I could have pulled it together. I could have called people and organized and taken advantage of our housesitting situtation, instead of having a dinner party last night that was completely unrelated to any Academy whatsoever. But I didn't. I just let it slide by and tonight Kyle and I will watch the show in our pj's, eating enchiladas that aren't themed to correspond to any movie whatsoever.

Am I bummed? Yeah, a little bit, but only because I feel like it's just another step away from something that used to be pretty cool when I was 18 or 22. But, like clubbing and wearing crushed velvet, I guess it's just one of those things I accidentally grew out of...

(Remind me to cite this post next year when I spend $400 at the local party store on mini-Oscars and lifesize cut outs of George Clooney and Brad Pitt...)

In California

During my extended stay in northern California, Kyle flew out for a four day weekend. Unfortunately, I had severely underestimated how much work I needed to do. What should have been 6-7 hours a day, five days a week, ended up being a straight run of 14 hour days with no breaks. So, Kyle spent a good chunk of his California time watching The Price is Right while I turned high school students into kitchen utensils and provincial peasants.

I did manage to sneak away for a couple of half days, though, so the Morgans got to play in the big city and we finally made it out to The Walt Disney Family Museum. Yay!

Unfortunately, you can't take pictures inside, which completely stinks but makes sense because the whole thing is like a giant bulletin board from those 5th grade biography oral reports. We loved the museum (naturally), but I will say that the museum might be kind of boring if you aren't a major Disney fan who also happens to be over the age of 12. There were tons of people there who brought all their little kids, but the displays are full of things like business telegrams Walt Disney received from people who are sort of famous. Not exactly six year old friendly.

My other tiny complaint is that the gift store was kind of...well, it wasn't bad but it wasn't that great. Instead of having a bunch of MoMA inspired Disney stuff, it was sort of like the local college art gallery gift shop with a combination of awesome stuff and random stuff that you wouldn't buy even if it wasn't that overpriced. But, of course, we did drop a good eighty bucks, half of which was spent on this amazing Mary Blair stuff that was on loan from a museum in Tokyo.

The only picture I dared to sneak while I was inside.
I love this floor!

The other half day trip was around wine country. We hit a couple wineries, took a good tour, and had some amazing wine and these chocolate truffles that might have actually been the best thing I've ever eaten.

Robert Mondavi


Rubicon Estate

In addition to random glasses of random things, we indulged in some greek salad and I talked Kyle into buying me a cigar. I know, I know, but I only have one once a year and I only do it in really nice places. It's a bad habit left over from when I used to have a whole lot of bad habits all at once, so at least I can tell myself that this is just one little tiny bad habit. And really, if it's only once a year can you even call that a bad habit?

Kids, don't try this at home. It's soooo much better in wine country.

My Father's Music

Housesitting is pretty lovely. I really don't mind living with my parents and I definitely didn't mind spending a month out in Napa living with my extended family, but there's something about having a place with only two people rattling around in it that makes me rethink our plan to ever have kids...

Of course, we're not staying in the crummiest of houses. Dad and Chris's house isn't huge, but it's very comfortable and beautifully decorated. It's also located in one of Salt Lake's better neighborhoods, so Kyle and I are just a walk away from great bookstores and restaurants. Plus, Kyle's commute has gone down from one hour to ten minutes, so he's definitely not complaining. And, best of all, someone around here doesn't know how to secure their wireless internet. Yay!

One of the big perks of housesitting for my father is his insane music collection. Although I never had to deal with a deadbeat dad, my Deadhead dad used to get lost in his music when I was little, spending hours in the basement blasting Jerry Garcia. He used to take me to all of the record stores in town, trying to get me interested in the difference between the '69 live album and the '74 live album. Unfortunately, I wasn't the best pupil, even when we took a special trip to Haight Ashbury to see the house that the Grateful Dead used to live in...a trip that was perfectly time to coincide with my I-Hate-That-I'm-On-Vacation-With-My-Dad-Leave-Me-The-Hell-Alone phase.

It wasn't all rock and roll, to be fair. My dad has a real penchant for jazz, folk, blues, and great original cast recordings of classic Broadway shows. I got to see John Prine, James Taylor, Jimmy Buffett, and countless others before I turned ten. I also had a pretty impressive record collection for someone who couldn't tie their shoes...but I just could never see why Dad seemed to constantly need a fresh feed of music. So many CDs. So many CDs!

No matter what was going on my dad's life, the music collection continued to thrive. As we went from house to house and my dad's family situtation changed a couple of times, there were always the trips to the record store to replace the albums that a person simply shouldn't live without. Kind of Blue from Miles Davis. One Fair Summer Evening from Nanci Griffith. Truckin' Up to Buffalo from Grateful Dead. Learning to Flinch from Warren Zevon. And always John Prine Live, the album that has my parents and I on the cover. No, really, we were there and now we're immortalized in music legend. Bit of trivia: this album also has my favorite version of my favorite song in the entire world, "Angel from Montgomery".

We're on the right hand side...see the Asian looking woman, the little kid in red, and the guy with the intense facial hair? That's the Lane family.

Pic for comparison:

I always thought that his music addiction was just one more thing that I didn't get about my dad. Until, of course, we stopped in at a used music store last spring and I stumbled on a copy of Deadicated, a Grateful Dead tribute album that's pretty fantsatic. I was lamenting the fact that I had pawned my copy in college when Kyle mentioned that he didn't know any of the songs. Apparently, Kyle made it all the way to 26 without listening to the Grateful Dead. I immediately bought the CD and then made him sit in the car while I tried to download everything I knew about the Dead into his underprivileged brain. "Listen to this chord change...isn't that incredible? Mellow and powerful all at the same time. Oh, and listen to these lyrics. Do you get it? Here, wait, let me back it up again so you can really listen to it. There. Isn't that just mind blowing?"

Apparently, the answer was no. But my husband laughed and shook his head and said, "You're so your dad. You're more like your dad than anyone else on the planet."

It's the truth and every day I see it more. I used to hate his retreats into seclusion, but now I get manic if I don't get a couple of hours to myself every day. I thought the road trips to all of the crappy Utah historical monuments were a trial I had to endure to get into heaven, but now I really like getting in the car, picking a direction, and just driving until something interesting happens. And while I used to think that my father's basement music sessions were just a noisy way to keep us all at arm's length, I find that I have to take twenty minutes every now and then, lock myself in the bathroom with my headphones on, and just crank that iPod up as loud as I can get it...which is never loud enough. I'm looking forward to the day when they can permanently implant Eric Clapton music directly into my ear canal.

And so, while my father tours Argentina (with his iPod safely anchoring him in the sixties), I'm slurping all of his music into my computer and making playlists of all those songs I always thought I never got. And, oh, there might not be anything better.

Hanging with Warren in front of some of my father's music collection.
If you don't own Learning to Flinch, I'm sorry to tell you that your life is woefully incomplete.
Best album ever? Very possible.