“Are you STILL HERE?!?!”

Yes, I am. Yesterday at church, three people asked me that—before the 8:30 service had even started. I told the last person that everyone who asked me that would have to pay me a dollar. You know that good-natured tone that also means business? I think I nailed it. Nobody else asked me the rest of the morning. Coincidence? You decide.

Boy have I got the energy today! Woo-hoo! Errands! Gift wrapping! Vacuuming! Oh my! Those of you familiar with the old wives’ tale that a burst of energy often immediately precedes labor will be encouraged by this news. I can also add that I woke up in the wee hours with some contractions, which subsided. With C, I experienced the exact same thing, then went into labor the following night. Hmmm…

However, I am expecting the big event to be days away. Perhaps it is the fact that Baby Jesus is very slowly starting to catch up in the poll, perhaps it is my own game of lowering expectations so I’m not disappointed, perhaps it is the fact that C was a week late, but I am preparing for the long haul. And that’s OK.

In other news, we went to see Narnia: LWW yesterday. Very nicely done. I was quite pleased. You see, he's not a tame lion. There's that initial jarring moment when Aslan talks and one is like, "Whoa! Schindler!" (if you're me) or "Whoa! Darkman!" (if you're R). But after that the voice works beautifully.

I absolutely adored Tumnus. The children were all excellent too, especially Lucy. I was mixed about the witch. In the books she is drop-dead beautiful--that's part of what makes her enchanting, right? And it's not that Tilda Swinton isn't beautiful, but they were definitely playing up the evil and creepy angle. They needed to Galadriel her up about, oh, 25% or so.

I was struck by the pace of the movie. Compared to the frenetic, "gotta fit it all in" pace of the Harry Potter movies, which are based on much longer books, this movie was almost contemplative.

That's all for now.