More on the Oscars

Seeing as I am several days late (and a few dollars short seeing as I didn't win any money with my picks) with my Oscar recap, I'll be brief in the things I'll share.

Ellen was a good host. I think the Academy has found a keeper. Her warmth was engaging and the celebs took to her. She really held the show together for the nearly 4-hour broadcast, and that's saying a lot. The only downside, perhaps, was she was a bit too casual for the fancy schamncy affair--but maybe this is a sign that the year's must-attend black tie affair is loosening its proverbial tie a bit.

I have someone new to adore. I present you with Ari Sandel.


Director of award-winning short film "West Bank Story."

Too adorable! I love me a nice Jewish man.


And though there were many beautiful people looking fabulous in their designer finery (i.e. Helen Mirren, Cate Blanchett, Jen Hudson (sans shrug), Kate Winslet, Reese Witherspoon, and Emily Blunt), there were just as many that need to fire their stylist immediately. I'm talking to you Kristen Dunst, Anne Hathaway, J. Lo, Beyonce, Penelope Cruz (what were those bird feathers?!), Nicole Kidman (channeling a Christmas gift, were we?), Adriana Barraza (seriously, I think you're a good actress but not a terrific dresser), and Tracy Evans (Eddie Murphy's date). I would also add Meryl Streep, but she's always so impressively dowdy and dull and eccentric that it's almost expected. Ladies, please look at your appearance on the red carpet and review forthcoming styles accordingly.

And with awards season officially over for many, many months, I return to my Countdown to Spring. 32 more days and counting.

Oscars on Ice

The 79th annual Academy Awards take place tonight, and I have to imagine that the weather in sunny California will be better than the ice and snow storms we have been experiencing. There has been a brief respite in the crap falling from the sky, but more is expected later today. As the Oscars are like a secondary holiday in my life, I'll try not to let the weather ruin my sunshine-y mood.

With that said, I'm long overdue in providing my thoughts on who will take home Oscar tonight. Let's see how close I come:

Actor in a Leading Role
Leonardo DiCaprio -- Blood Diamond
Ryan Gosling -- Half Nelson
Peter O'Toole -- Venus
Will Smith -- The Pursuit of Happyness
Forest Whitaker -- The Last King of Scotland

MoC's Pick: Forest Whitaker (the Academy has historically shown thir love of actors who portray real life people/situations well)

Actor in a Supporting Role
Alan Arkin -- Little Miss Sunshine
Jackie Earle Haley -- Little Children
Djimon Hounsou -- Blood Diamond
Eddie Murphy -- Dreamgirls
Mark Wahlberg -- The Departed

MoC's Pick: Eddie Murphy (although it would be interesting to see Jackie Earle Haley win and revitalize his "I've fallen off the face of the Earth after "Bad News Bears" and now here I am" career)

Actress in a Leading Role
Penelope Cruz -- Volver
Judi Dench -- Notes ona Scandal
Helen Mirren -- The Queen
Meryl Streep -- The Devil Wears Prada
Kate Winslet -- Little Children

MoC's Pick: Thought they're all fabulous, I'm going with Helen because I think she'll get it (though I would truly adore it if there was an upset and Streep stripped her of it).

Actress in a Supporting Role
Adriana Barraza -- Babel
Cate Blanchett -- Notes on a Scandal
Abigail Breslin -- Little Miss Sunshine
Jennifer Hudson -- Dreamgirls
Rinko Kikuchi -- Babel

MoC's Pick: Jennifer Hudson (go, Chicago connection!), even though they were all fantastic.

Animated Feature Film
Cars
Happy Feet
Monster House

MoC's Pick: Cars (hey, it's not about who I want to win; it's about who I think will win)

Art Direction
Dreamgirls
The Good Shepherd
Pan's Labyrinth
Pirates of the Caribbean
The Prestige

MoC's Pick: Pan's Labyrinth

Cinematography
The Black Dahlia
Children of Men
The Illusionist
Pan's Labyrinth
The Prestige

MoC's Pick: Children of Men

Costume Design
Curse of the Golden Flower
The Devils Wears Prada
Dreamgirls
Marie Antoinette
The Queen

MoC's Pick: Since I have no idea, I'm going with Devil, if only because those clothes were characters themselves. Fab!

Directing
Babel
The Departed
Letters from Iwo Jima
The Queen
United 93

MoC's Pick: The Departed

Documentary Feature
Deliver Us From Evil
An Inconvenient Truth
Iraq in Fragments
Jesus Camp
My Country, My Country

MoC's Pick: An Inconvenient Truth (not because I like Gore, but because of his recognition for Nobel Prize for this work)

Documentary Short
The Blood of Yingzhou District
Recycled Life
Rehearsing a Dream
Two Hands

MoC's Pick: [pure guess] The Blood of Yingzhou District

Film Editing
Babel
Blood Diamond
Children of Men
The Departed
United 93

MoC's Pick: United 93

Foreign Language Film
After the Wedding
Days of Glory
The Lives of Others
Pan's Labyrinth
Water

MoC's Pick: Pan's Labyrinth

Makeup
Apocalypto
Click
Pan's Labyrinth

MoC's Pick: Pan's Labyrinth

Music (Score)
Babel
The Good German
Notes on a Scandal
Pan's Labyrinth
The Queen

MoC's Pick: The Queen

Music (Song)
An Inconvenient Truth
Dreamgirls (thrice)
Cars

MoC's Pick: One of the Dreamgirls one...I think the one with "listen" or "love" in the title.

Best Picture
Babel
The Departed
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen

MoC's Pick: This is really hard. Babel was a bit too "Crash"-esque, and I don't think the Academy will go for that again. The Queen was good, but was it that good? I would really love to see the indy Little Miss Sunshine squeak it out. I really would. And it'd make for a little-film-that-could story.

Short Film (animated)
The Danish Poet
Lifted
The Little Matchgirl
Maestro
No Time for Nuts

MoC's Pick: The Little Matchgirl (because what do I know about this category?)

Short Film (Live Action)
Binta and the Great Idea
Eramos Pocos
Helmer & Son
The Saviour
West Bank Story

MoC's Pick: West Bank Story

Sound Editing
Apocalypto
Blood Diamond
Flags of Our Fathers
Letters from Iwo Jima
Pirates of the Caribbean

MoC's Pick: Pirates of the Caribbean

Sound Mixing
Apocalypto
Blood Diamond
Dreamgirls
Flags of Our Fathers
Pirates of the Caribbean

MoC's Pick: Pirates of the Caribbean

Visual Effects
Pirates of the Caribbean
Poseidon
Superman Returns

MoC's Pick: Pirates of the Caribbean

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
Borat
Children of Men
The Departed
Little Children
Notes on a Scandal

MoC's Pick: The Departed

Writing (Original Screenplay)
Babel
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
Pan's Labyrinth
The Queen

MoC's Pick: The Queen

Update to follow.
Update: 27 February -- I never claimed to be psychic, evidence of which can be found in my (bad) picks.

New Chicago Favorite Thing

I love it that I still stumble across really exciting things in my fair city, and here's one that I am already loving but will have to wait to truly adore for one more year.

In the meantime, I'll just have to keep engaged by sending all of my "going to be secondhand anyway" books to them for a year. So completely worth it.

Get This Girl Some Help

First she checks into, and then out of, rehab. (And boy, it sounded like a nice one!)

Now, Britney does this.

If this isn't all some sign that she's just a touch off these days, then maybe her cries for attention and help need to be a little more undertstated and subtle for someone to take them half-seriously.

I'm beginning to think I should've put her in my Dead Pool this year instead of Nicole Ritchie.

What's with all of these self-destructive, way addicted, young celebs?

The Lying Rodent

Remember when I said the city has learned about winter advisory warnings? Though it's true they now alert Chicagoans about impending bad weather well in advance of said weather battering the city, they obviously have learned nothing about clean-up.

It took me 1 1/2 hours to get barely 3 miles by taxi yesterday. The streets were a mess, full of slush with cars sliding every which way. My cab driver said the plows stopped driving around 2pm. Apparently, there was too much traffic for them to work properly and they'd reconvene after rush hour. I think that's a bunch of b.s.

The dinner party was awesome and when I left at 10 I was pleasantly surprised to find that streets were cleaner (but still had a long way to go). The drive to the train still took more than 30 minutes, leaving me to mill about aimlessly until the 11:30 train. Lemme tell ya, there's absolutely nothing to do in a train station at 10:30pm besides drink--and the bar was so packed with people coming home from the Opera I didn't even want to bother. Plus, I already had a nice buzz going and didn't want to push myself too far in the wrong direction.

The 11:30 train left 20 minutes late and I finally made it to my stop at 12:30am. And then waded through snowdrifts up to my knees to go the remaining two blocks to home sweet home. 4 1/2 hours of sleep later, I awoke to it still snowing and no clean-up on my suburban streets and sidewalks. What the hell, right? It was as I waded back to the train this morning that I cursed my association fees and whatever plowing company handles my suburb's streets. Cars were spinning out and I was grateful in more than a small way that I didn't have to drive in this crap.

The snow lasted for well over 24 hours and has finally stopped. I have yet to brush off my car, but from what I can tell there is an angel among us for it looks like someone dusted it off quite nicely. At least it appears that way. Now the cold is supposed to set in and stay. And I want to kill that lying, no good rodent that got all of our hopes up that for once in many, many years spring would come sooner rather than later. Damn Phil.

The bright spot that came this week that I am clinging to in order to (mentally) escape this mess: I am off to Italy at the end of March. Work in Milan followed by a weekend holiday in Florence. Delovely, I tell you, just delovely.

(yeah, yeah...so much for no travel 'til June. But I'm actually ready to get back on the road and I've never been to Italy so I'm in no way upset by this news.)

Snow Day! (...or at least half of one)

A mass amount of snow has been falling from the sky and blowing all over Chicagoland since late last night. It's accumulating rather quickly, and as I walked to the train this morning I recalled the big snowstorm of January 1998, during which I was snowed into my garden apartment for 2 1/2 days and eventually had to climb out the kitchen window. Yeah, that was fun.

Though I think the city has learned something about snow storm warnings since then, it did occur to me that it would be nice if our office could alert all of us employees when we may be called off work due to weather-related reasons. And then I realized how silly that would be since we would never be called off ever.

So imagine my surprise when an email came through this morning from the president of the company telling us we could leave at noon. Wahoo!

So now I am snuggling warm at home where I can lounge around and do nothing (sooo perfect when it's crappy outside) for a few more hours before heading back into the city for the monthly dinner party with the Jeunesse Doree gang. Braving the weather will be a feat, but I'm sure it'll be uneventful.

...As opposed to NYC which had anything but bad weather. In fact, (imho) it was perfect winter fare. Too bad I couldn't bring that home with me. NYC folk may not think it was a good weekend, but it was high 30's and sunny and that was fine by me. As for NYC, it was wonderful (as always). When is it not? The Met, Central Park, 30 Rock, NBC Studios (and an impromptu concert from Keith Urban-who, by the by, I have never heard sing before but found interesting only because he just got out of rehab and is married to Nic), Times Square, and lots and lots (and lots and lots) of walking. Oh! And Spamalot was truly, amazingly awesome! It was the perfect weekend getaway and just what I needed.

Recuperating

It's been a really rough few days. Extremely emotional. I'm not claiming to soon be over it. Mary's wake and funeral was heartwrenching. It was an extraordinary tribute to her. Despite having experienced this last farewell, it's still so hard to believe. I need to recuperate on an emotional level.

Luckily, I am off to NYC this weekend and that will provide the emotional haven I need along with lots of fun and laughs. It's been ages (literally) since I've seen Sue, and good times are guaranteed. Plus, I *heart* NYC. And, it's about 20 degrees warmer than it is here. Woohoo! 30 degree weather, here I come!

I'm All For Safe Sex...

... but this is going too far.

Honestly, feed the people. Put a roof over their head. Give them books and increase their education. And yes, even make birth control more readily available. But this just seems awfully irresponsible. Especially if the government plans on making this available in all schools to children of all ages -- and in a vending machine no less.

Grab that Diet Coke and a condom for later. Nice.

Who Will Be Our QB in '07-'08?

Though I am not a fan of Grossman's, this article raises some excellent points. Although...I am still all for acquiring someone new (and better) and/or playing Griese more.

Where Were the Bears?

And the answer to that question, in case you didn't watch the game, is obviously not playing for the Lombardi trophy.

The best coverage of the game can be found here. It's non-biased and sadly all too true. We just didn't show up to play. At least not after the first quarter. And by the fourth? Well, most people at the bar were filtering out and one woman even passed out (but that could've been because she drank too much).

As much as I adore my Bears, I dislike Grossman with a passion. We've given Mr. Inaccurate enough chances and he just isn't Big Game material. Plus, it appears as though he waxes his brows and has them shaped, and I just can't swallow that sort of behavior from our QB. We can lose him tomorrow and I don't think anyone would care. We may even throw a big party.

But it wasn't all Grossman. Even our almighty defense lost their mojo, and when that happened things went downhill.

But...It wasn't a blow-out and we at least made it to the SuperBowl after 21 looooong years.

Football aside, the kick-off show was about as lame as they come. The commercials sucked (although I did chuckle at the CareerBuilder ones) and were a complete waste of $2.6 million. And the halftime show (which generally isn't much good anyway): Prince? Ummm... Who came up with that amazingly bad idea?

The good news: We had a fantastic season and deserved to be in the SuperBowl, and winning would've been nice.

The bad news: We really weren't the best team and therefore lost.

Mediocre and slightly un-newsworthy drivel: Though I would always root for the Bears regardless of any extenuating circumstances (after all, I root for them with Grossman as the QB), I adore Peyton Manning- who by the by used to be on fantasy squad for 4 years running- and am therefore happy to see him victorious--even if that means his victory was our sad loss.

Heartbroken

She was the most incredible of women. Smart, funny, and eternally happy. Everyone that knew her in ways big and small instantly liked her. She was, in a word, phenomenal.

She was a fiery redhead with the biggest heart and the most engaging laugh. She was always interested in anyone's stories, even those in which the most mundane details would bore the average person.

She loved children, and not having any of her own doted on all of her friend's and family's offspring. She was a second-mother and dear friend from the time of birth to the path through adulthood.

She was Baby Brother's godmother, a role which she took so seriously and in which she took such great joy.

She was a caregiver--in all aspects. Though she was a part of my life since I was 2, my earliest memory of her was when I was 5 and my mother was in the hospital giving birth to Baby Brother. She sat for us during the day, and we had great fun. And I know she did as well. Her dog gave birth to a litter of puppies the same day Baby Brother was born, so in the day's following she took Middle Brother and I to go see the puppies--and what a treat that was for little ones like us!

She adored family stories--hearing them or telling them. Her favorites were my favorites: Those which centered around my mother, her brothers, and the cousins. Those in which her husband and the boys would wreak havoc on the neigborhood. Those in which we all got the the biggest belly laughs.

She was a shopper. I was always invited along on those excursions with my Mom and her. Whether it was Water Tower, Woodfield, Stratford Square, or Oak Brook, I have many memories of traipsing through those malls with her by my side, always enjoying every last minute of those days. Every time I go to Oak Brook especially, I think of her. When I was little, I was always given the job of remembering where the car was parked. Whether she was humoring me or not, she always made me feel like a million bucks for getting us safely back to the car.

She remembered the little things: my childhood friends (which she still asked after), who I was dating, who I broke up with (and the real reason(s) why), and where their family was from to name just a few, as well as those fleeting comments that seemed unimportant at the time but were a level of detail after the fact.

She remembered every occasion regardless of importance, always quick to send a card or a thoughtful note.

She was a premier party hostess and adored family gatherings. Her smile was radiant; her laugh is something I will never forget.

She was a world traveler, and her passion for seeing new places and visiting old favorites was unmatched. When I began my career 11 years ago and began traveling the world, I would love to sit with her and discuss the places I've been and hear her stories. I am sure one of her favorites was her "homegrown" heritage tours to Ireland, a place I have yet to visit and now have an even greater passion to experience.

She tsk tsk tsk'd when she heard something bothersome or sad in lieu of the average person's "aww." Something I have since acquired (it has always seemed more sincere or composed).

She loved animals.

She had unmistakable flowery handwriting (and I wish so dearly that I had saved her last card).

She was my Mom's best friend. (And oh! My mother. How sharp her pain and sense of loss must be!) She could engage in the longest phone conversations with my Mom, and my Dad and I would tease them about them but it was no secret that I loved overhearing them; loved hearing the replay of all the news when it was over.

She took such joy in the little things. She gave the best hugs. She was safe and warm and eternally loving.

She was devout in her faith, and I always admired that quite a bit. And as I now battle with my faith, I wonder how through all of this she could have stayed so strong. Because I question right now what sick sense of humor God must have to let all of this happen. To her. To us. To everyone she touched. But really to her.

She was a wife and dear friend. She touched our loves...she touched my life. And my sense of loss is overwhelming.

She was a survivor, facing her last illness with incredible strength and fortitude. She was looking forward to being a cancer survivor.

The cancer isn't what killed her. It was the chemo. During her last treatment.

My family was alerted to the quick but quite serious situation Thursday evening, and though it didn't sound good I refused to think the worst. Not until someone told me in no uncertain terms that she was gone. She was a fighter.

Mary passed away Thurday night. On Friday afternoon, I was startled to hear her voice in my head- clear as day- telling me everything was alright. I was immediately comforted--and then immediately angry; mad that I should think this was a "sign" that she was gone; mad at myself for even letting my subconscious believe what no one had confirmed.

She was 62, and there were supposed to be many, many good years ahead of her. I was supposed to be able to see her again; experience her smiles and laughs and hugs and stories and tsks. She wanted to wait until after last week, when chemo was over and we could all celebrate.

I am a better person from knowing her and loving her and being loved by her.

I have shed an uncountable amount of tears and will shed many million more.

I love her and miss her.

Nothing will ever really be the same.

I am, in a word, heartbroken.

Chicago, Meet Polar Vortex

It's just as ominous as it sounds.

Brrrrr...

As Luck Would Have It

Some people are naturally lucky. DXB is not one of them. However, when we knew the Bears were going to the SuperBowl, he told me with utmost certainty that he would get tickets and be in Miami to see his beloved Bears in the Big Game.

Admittedly, I was skeptical. But DXB is now My Super Ex-Boyfriend, the one with the horseshoe up his arse. He recently shared the happy news, and though I am green with envy I can only say that I suppose it couldn't happen to a better person -- unless that person was me.