A Big Dose Of Darcy

All of us chickens are lounging around our troublesome telly tonight watching the silly movie What A Girl Wants. Now we don't give a flip for Amanda Bynes, it's the adorable Colin Firth as Lord Dashwood that has us tied up in knots.

We've been watching the 6 hours of the BBC's Pride and Prejudice for many years. I like to pretend I'm the vexed into a chronic state of nervous breakdown ala Mrs Bennett until my teens start throwing pillows and pelting me with ice cubes to make me stop.

I don't know why her shizzle about needing to take to her bed never works for me. My family would simply let me succumb to my vapors alone in my room and be miffed at my inability to give them a ride somewhere.

I've never mastered the art of throwing a righteously dramatic fit. When I was in 5th grade my mom took me shoe shopping. All the girls my age were bigger than me so they had graduated out of the children's shoe department. Me, not so much. My mother was not moved by my dramatic angst over being stuck in a child's fashion warp. This was a long time ago when kid's shoes were not tiny replicas of current women's fashions.

Did my mother take one ounce of pity on me? No, she was annoyed with me to say the least. Many decades later...I have often been accused of having no pity for my children's situations. The apple don't fall far from the tree.

I'm far too practical to be good a pitching fits, because who ends up cleaning up the mess? The first year of marriage I threw a jar of pickles at my husband's head. I found out it was not an effective method of conflict resolution and the momentary vengeance surge I felt upon pitching that jar was not worth the energy it took to clean up the mess (nor the continued conflict with my spouse).

Let's get back to a more intriguing subject than the origins of my personality, my Oscar night observations. Not that I have many astute original thoughts on a show that is usually a bit torturous for me to try to watch. I don't get excited about sifting through hours of viewing time for 15 minutes of juice. Twittering made it a little bit more interesting so my boredom threshold was tolerated a bit longer than normal.

Matthew Broderick & Colin Firth

I didn't realize he was nominated for his role in A Single Man despite confessing our favor of the actor. So I'm putting that movie on my to do list. The John Hughes tribute was nicely done, warming my heart and reminding me of my fondness for Ferris Bueller and Matthew Broderick. That leads me to my snarky observation about the weirdness resting atop of Sarah Jessica Parker's head. I'm thinking  The Bloggess was way ahead of the curve regarding the popularity of wearing cats as head dressing.

There were two delightful moments that stood out for me this year. I thoroughly enjoyed Kathryn Bigelow winning the best director category giving her arrogant ex-husband Mr I'm King of the World James Cameron a very cool beat down for all the world to see.

Last but not least I thought Sandra Bullock rocked the night with her look, the grace in which she conducted herself and her absolutley engaging and original acceptance speech when named best leading actress for her role in The Blind Side.

When you think about it, her win for portraying Leigh Ann Touhy in  the Blind Side and the awards associated with the film The Hurt Locker both shared the theme of courage.

One a fantasic visual on the war front unquestionably demonstating the courage of the troops in Iraq. But The Blind Side, more subtly made us all appreciate the difference one stubborn and courageous southern woman made.

She had one of the best quotes of the night when she ended her speech accepting the award for "the moms that take care of the babies and children, no matter where they came from".