"Leave the saving of the world to the men? I don't think so!"

May I just say how much I enjoyed seeing The Incredibles recently? I was struck by a remark the director, Brad Bird made in an interview:

What was the inspiration for the title characters?

The goal was to make the family based on archetypes. If you're going to have superheroes and it's a family, what are the family archetypes? The dad is always expected to be strong, so I made him really strong. Moms are always pulled in a thousand different directions, so I had her stretch. . . .

No wonder I identify so strongly with Elastigirl. That describes my life exactly. See? I am a superhero!

Getting ready for Twelfth Night

The girls had fun tonight decorating a gingerbread house with icing and candies. It turned out better than I was afraid it would--the gingerbread walls came pre-made, but several were broken, and we had to patch them together with icing.

We had wanted to do our usual Twelfth Night celebration tomorrow night, but it's a bad night: the girls and I have karate, and Rob's not even coming home for dinner, so I had a brainstorm: why not have a Twelfth night breakfast? Hey, why not? I've whipped together a fancy scone batter: I'll just add the wet ingredients and bake them in the morning, and we'll have fresh hot cranberry chocolate chip scones. And I'll brew hot cocoa. The table is set with some Christmas dishes, with the gingerbread house as a centerpiece, and there's a miniature stocking at each place with gifts. I went a tad bit over my usual Twelfth night budget, but oh well. I included a couple of books for each girl, a DVD movie each for Rob and me, and chocolates and silly plastic toys. (I put an Elastigirl keychain in mine.) The table looks very festive.

So we'll have a cozy, celebratory breakfast in the morning. A last Christmas hurrah, before we face the long cold slog of bitter January.

Edited to add: Fiona asked, "Do the scones have to have cranberries in them?"

I looked her straight in the eye and told her, "Yes, they do."

Yep. Sometimes they really don't deserve me.

Computer report

I'm still not writing, because my main computer still isn't fixed. Still no e-mail. Rob hopes he'll get it fixed tonight or tomorrow.

I really hate this.