Buffy vs. Edward -- maybe the best YouTube vid EVER

I've been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer with the girls for the past few weeks, Buffy being one of my personal guilty pleasures. I am well aware that my devotion to the series is more than slightly ridiculous because I am, after all, MIDDLE AGED and a Church Lady of no mean stature.

I've mentioned here before that I am an ardent fan of the vampire genre in movie and literature, although I never could connect with Anne Rice's vampire series for some reason, and I seriously wish I had never read Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot, which I just hated. When I finally became aware of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, three of the four-book series were already available and the fourth was published within two weeks of my starting the first book, named Twilight, of course.

I was really, truly offended by the Twilight books, not only for Meyer's breathless, fan-girlie, gothic-y prose, but also for her barely concealed hatred of women. Yes, I went there. And I believe it: Stephenie Meyer, in my opinion, has an inner loathing of women that she expresses in so many ways throughout her four novels, beginning with Bella's mother, Renee, a mental midget who chooses her new husband, Phil, over her own daughter; to Bella, who is soppily, ridiculously accepting of Edward's abusive behaviors that would have raised a red flag the size of Kansas in anyone with a brain; to werewolf Sam's girlfriend Emily with her ruined face and her homemade biscuits; to the spiteful, jealous Rosalie; to the bitter, vengeful Leah, Stephenie Meyer has given the young women of this decade a group of the weakest, most pathetic characters I've ever seen. My only comfort is that the male characters aren't much better, and I'm looking at YOU, Charlie, Edward, Sam, Jacob and Billy. Carlisle is not enough to redeem you.

Meelyn and Aisling were very disappointed that my husband and I wouldn't let them read the Twilight books. So many of their friends have read the books, after all. I wrestled with this last summer, even giving the books to my husband to read (he made it until the first pages of the fourth book and said, "For the love of God, please don't make me read any more of this crap," only he didn't say "crap") because I thought maybe I had the Twilight series pegged wrong and I was allowing my inner Church Lady too much freedom -- sometimes he helps balance me out. I felt that my instinct was correct when his final assessment of the four novels was, "I can see why teenage girls would think these are good stories, but as a parent, I have to say that these are truly horrible books."

So the books were out. But I can remember how I felt as a teenager when everyone else was allowed to listen to the Eagles and Aerosmith and my mom and dad wouldn't let me buy records like all my friends did -- I used to visit my friend Lisa and feel sooo envious of her stereo and her Peter Frampton albums. That was such a sore spot for me as a teenager that I remember it well to this day: it did not improve my relationship with my parents and led to a resentment that was somewhat alleviated when I went ahead and bought records anyway. So when the Twilight movie was released early last winter, I was hoping that we'd be able to take the girls to see it; that maybe it would be somewhat toned down and less objectionable, or at least that it would provide me with ample opportunities to point out Edward's glaring personal flaws and Bella's marginal intelligence, not to mention the Greek-tragedy type triangle that exists between Bella, Edward and her dad, Charlie.

The movie Twilight proved to be more acceptable than the book so we let the girls see it, which went a long way in fostering happy interpersonal relationships here in our home: Meelyn and Aisling no longer felt like the only teenage girls on the planet who hadn't seen the movie or read the books. We watched it together once in silence, and a second time with me adding editorial commentary that was extremely biased, one almost might say prejudicial. Heh. Because I am a mother and I am allowed to do that.

And then I began to lay some careful plans.

Summer began, and with the cessation of schoolwork came the gift of free time. Only, what to do with all that free time? Gas is expensive and Anne doesn't have a working air conditioner anyway, so none of the three of us was motivated to go anywhere; we hadn't yet paid our dues for the swimming pool, and Kieren was here after his driver's ed class was over for the day.

"There's not much to do," the girls sighed.

"We could watch some television," I suggested brightly.

Meelyn and Aisling looked at me suspiciously. After all, am I not the person who limits their "screen time" and insists they go off with a book?

"I was thinking," I said with elaborate casualness, "that maybe we could watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

"What the heck kind of name is 'Buffy'?" said Meelyn with scorn.

"It's supposed to be ironic," I answered. "You know, 'Buffy' suggests kind of a powder-puff of a girl, someone who pouts if she breaks a nail and uses aromatherapeutic linen spray on her sheets every night."

Aisling rolled her eyes. "Sheeesh, what an idi-- Hey!!!!!" she said indignantly.

"Actually," I continued, "she is anything but that kind of girl. Buffy rocks. She kicks butt and takes names. She would dust Edward's whiny, angst-ridden tushie in about three seconds flat."

"'Dust'?..." asked Meelyn.

"That means 'stake through the heart.'"

"I thought Edward was like marble, impenetrable."

"That's only because Stephenie Meyer is a big, fat cheater and she will not be forgiven for totally reinventing an entire genre of literature to suit her own lame, fangirl agenda," I said heatedly. "'Oooh, Edward, I love your sparkleee skin in the sunlight! Oooh, Edward, I love your sharp, venomous teefies, even though you have no fangs!!!!! Oooh, Edward, I love the way your family can cook Italiano using lots and lots of garlic; you're all so awesome, I bet you serve filtered holy water for drinking in a Brita pitcher!!!!" I sing-songed in a mocking voice.

"Okay," said Aisling in a resigned manner. "I guess we can try it."

So we did. There's a lot to teach kids from Buffy's tightly woven plots. I know that all parents certainly would not agree with me and I admit that using a series about a vampire slayer is an avant-garde method of teaching morality to teenagers, but please remember that it isn't my only method. In the meantime, the girls and I are enjoying the shows, analyzing the plots and talking about the themes presented in each episode and throughout each season's story line.

While I was doing a little mild research for the final two episodes of season two ("Becoming," Parts One and Two), I stumbled across this awesome video on YouTube titled "Buffy vs. Edward." It is a bit of comedic genius and explains EXACTLY what I feel about Twilight, the book, the series and all the stupid movies.

I tried, but I can't stop laughing

You know that four book Twilight series about vampires that it seems that every girl in the United States has read except for Meelyn and Aisling because I think that Bella Swan is as dumb as a suitcase full of carrots and that the series author, Stephenie Meyer, hates women?

Yeah. That series. Even as I type these words, I am preparing for the onslaught of tearful hate mail that will come in from Twi-hard fans of the bedazzling Edward. I just don't understand love!!! I am too old!!! What Edward and Bella have is totally for realz!!! Somehow, whenever I write about this topic, they find me. All I can say is that I'm sorry, girls. I am! I wanted to like these books because I have been devoted to vampire lore all the way through the classic movies seen in my childhood with Frank Langella and Christopher Lee up to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, although I still maintain I wish I'd never seen Bram Stoker's Dracula because it scared the bejabers out of me.

But I can't like the books. Since I have teenage girls, I tried. I really did! Blame Stephenie Meyer for creating a human female character whom I utterly despised, a vampire character who wearied me with his angst and freaked me out with his abusive tendencies, and a plot line that was so....so....eighteenth century...in its way of depicting girls as people who are just carried along by the whims of fate with absolutely no power and control over who they are and what kind of people they should be....AAAAAGGGGHHH. Haaaaaaate!!!!

Anyway, here's a set of cartoons from the brilliantly funny artistand humorist Lucy Knisley that you have to read if you've brushed up against these books in any way (I own all four.) The first is titled My Lost Weekend in the Meyer and accurately describes how easy it is to get sucked into the Twilight. The second cartoon is sixteen panels (scroll down from "My Lost Weekend") that will take you through all four books, if you're lucky enough not to have read them. Lucy Knisley, I've never heard of you until now, but you owe me a new keyboard, girl. My old one has coffee all over it.

Here's my review of Twilight, which I did last summer. I intended to review all four books here at InsomniMom, but they just suck so bad and irritate me so much, I just couldn't do it.

And here's my favorite Twilight movie spoof video from YouTube.

BOOK REVIEW: Twilight

Book: Twilight

Author: Stephenie Meyers

Publication info: 498 pages (softcover), young adult fiction, published by Little, Brown & Company, New York, 2005

Jacket blurb: "About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was a part of him -- and I didn't know how dominant that part might be -- that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him."

My rating (out of five stars): * *

CAUTION: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.

As a child, I grew up watching every vampire movie I could clap my saucer-sized eyes on every time my parents played cards with Howard and Bea or Charlie and Sue. They always had such a high old time eating snacks and dealing out endless hands of euchre around the dining room table that Christopher Lee and Frank Langella began to seem like tall, unfriendly babysitters who stayed with me and my brother and assorted "company kids" and freaked us all out on a regular basis.

So first of all, let me say that this novel about a girl who falls in love with a vampire, is good. Stephenie Meyers is no Jane Austen, but then she never claims to be. But she can tell a good tale and spin it out plausibly, keeping her plot moving forward through the expected exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution, although the resolution was understandably a bit weak, since three more novels follow Twilight. Her character development was the element that suffered the most in this story, in my opinion, but since the intended audience is teenage girls, they might not be as fussy in this regard as a middle-aged English teacher would be.

The main character is a high school junior named Isabella Swan. Bella's parents divorced when she was an infant and she's been living with her mother, Renée, in Phoenix since then, spending part of each summer with her father, Charlie, in the small town of Forks, Washington. Bella dislikes Forks because it is dreary in terms of both weather and opportunities for entertainment, but at the beginning of the novel, she is moving back there to live with her dad full time.

The reason for the move is not a strained relationship between Bella and Renée, but rather because Renée has recently married a nice man named Phil. He's a minor league baseball player who travels a lot, meaning that he and Renée can't be together as much as they'd like because Bella has to be in one city, in school (if they'd ever heard of homeschooling, they might have considered that option and then this book could have ended on page three.) So Bella does what she thinks is the right thing and goes off to her dad's.

Bella seems like a good girl, a fairly ordinary teenager. She's a loving daughter to her dippy mother (referring to her several times as her "best friend") and a fairly dutiful, if not warm, daughter to Charlie, whom she seems to barely know. Charlie appears to love Bella and is glad she's come to live with him, but is at the same time bemused at becoming a full-time dad so suddenly. He's set in his ways as the bachelor chief of police in the small town, and doesn't allow his work schedule or his love of fishing to suffer in the presence of his only child. He really seems oblivious and grants Bella an extraordinary amount of freedom.

Charlie probably figured that there wasn't much trouble to get into in Forks and presumably as the police chief, he'd be in a position to know, but still. He didn't meet with my approval, even though Bella tried to excuse him on the grounds that he and she were both very reticent people.

One aspect of Bella's character that I immediately frowned upon was her readiness to keep things from her dad; to tell him she was going to do one thing when she intended to do another. This was played off as a desire not to worry him, and I don't buy it. If a teenager is getting ready to do something secretly to spare a parent from concern, that almost always means that the teenager is acting out of self-interest. But other than that, there wasn't anything about Bella to dislike. She was level headed and seemed mature for her age.

Until she met Edward.

Edward Cullen, of course, is the vampire. He's an extraordinarily handsome young man, and if you don't believe me, just ask Bella. Because she'll tell you. Over and over again, she'll tell you. His eyes, his hair, his skin, his physique, his intelligence, his athletic prowess...even his breath. Yes, you read that correctly. Several times throughout Twilight, she comments on the purity and sweetness of Edward's breath. Which is like, geeeesh, girl....GET A GRIP.

Edward himself is a character as mysterious and tormented as Heathcliff, as distant and cool as Mr. Darcy and as gallantly suave as Rhett Butler. He teases Bella a bit about her lack of gross motor skills (the girl is always tripping and falling over things, bruising her shins and bumping her head) and it turns out that one of the benefits of their relationship is that he is phenomenally coordinated and saves her from being concussed, among several other things.

Like any other teenage boy, he enjoys showing off his athletic prowess and Bella nearly becomes incoherent in her adoration. If you were her parent, you'd want to cool that thing off right then and there, but of course Charlie can't do that because he wasn't informed about his daughter's new boyfriend.

In his defense, Edward can't help it that he's a modern Adonis. He's very nice to Bella (once he gets over wanting to kill her by sucking all the blood from her veins, that is), yet very guarded and rather dismissive toward the rest of the population of Forks High School, although they're a friendly bunch of kids. He's charming and says all the right things that would make any teenage girl swoon. He even appears to mean them, but to that I can only say that he's not really a teenager. He just looks like one. (One of the weaknesses of Meyers's character development is that I never could figure out why Edward was so wildly attracted to the very ordinary Bella. Or maybe that's going to be explained in one of the other books in the series.)

Other than the fact that he's a creature of the night, Edward is the kind of boyfriend every parent dreams about because he is very protective of Bella and keeps his own urges -- both homicidal and sexual -- reigned strongly in. Their relationship is very chaste and limited to several brief kisses.

Twilight has a moral tone to it that I admired. Bella, immature at seventeen, can't figure out why Edward just can't bite her and make her into a vampire so that they can go ahead and be together forever, and this is when she's known him for all of four months. Edward points out that this would be an extremely unethical thing for him to do: first of all, he has pledged with his conscience to not bite humans, and she's asking him to do something that would violate that conscience, which would be harmful to him. Not to mention harmful to her.

Plus, he reminds her that being Mrs. Edward Cullen is going to be for keeps, forever. And in their case, we're not talking about "until death do us part," because these folks aren't going to die; she hasn't possibly had the time or the life experience to consider all of the ramifications of such a hasty decision.

Thirdly, she wants him to bite her without telling her parents about this, er-....life-changing experience she's about to make. Edward counsels her that this is a really, really bad idea. Parents have a right to know when their daughters are about to become the living dead.

Bella, through all his reasoned responses, just keeps whining, "But you're going to be seventeen forever! I'm going to be eighteen soon! I'm going to be older than you are through eternity! Waaaaaaahhhh!!!" Like that's going to matter in about three hundred years.

Which just goes to show you how completely unready she is to make such a huge leap into the unknown. Meyers carries that theme along like every argument you have ever heard about teenage sex and pregnancy, teen drug and alcohol use. By the time a girl reaches the last page, she'll have no leg to stand on when it comes to believing it should be okay for a person her age to get birth control or an abortion without her parents' knowledge. All a mom or dad will have to do is hold up one hand and say, "Neh neh nehnehnehneh....remember Twilight, dear?"

There were three things that really bothered me about this book, though, and those things concerned possible lessons teenagers could pick up from Meyers's casual treatment of some very important subject matter.

::The first I've already mentioned, and that's Bella's immediate dependence on Edward to get her out of every mess from breaking a glass on the kitchen floor to rescuing her from mugged and/or raped to saving her from a predatory vampire, one who has not sworn, as Edward and his family did, to live without drinking human blood. In many ways, she gives up a lot of herself, totally surrendering to Edward's leadership.

So it's a good thing for Bella that Edward (and his family) have her best interests at heart. But what about all the other girls reading this book who don't have a trustworthy Edward looking out for them, but instead have a guy who says all the right things because of ulterior motives and not out of the purity of his agape love?

::The second bothersome concept in this book is also one I mentioned previously, and it is Bella's desire to keep her father -- a grown man and a police chief -- from "worrying" needlessly by keeping him in the dark about what's going on with Bella, even when her life (and his, by extension) are threatened by the predatory vampire. Call me crazy, but adult have the right to know what their children are doing, especially if they are in some kind of difficulty or danger.

This business about keeping Charlie on a need-to-know basis is a bunch of crap, frankly. Bella even does something deliberately cruel to her dad and justifies it by saying that she didn't want to do it, but had to do it because it was the best way to protect him. WRONG.

::The third issue is one that just makes my skin crawl and I honestly can't believe that Stephenie Meyers's editor didn't cut it out. Edward, among having the perfect hair, skin, teeth, breath, et cetera, is also able to do a number of supernatural things, like run reallyreally fast and kind of appear and disappear (maybe by becoming a bat or a shadow like Dracula?) As the plot unfolds, we find that Edward has been coming into the Swan's house by night and watching over Bella as she sleeps.Without her permission, or most importantly, her father's.

Watching over her as. She. Sleeps. To protect her even while she dreams, he says.

Girls, I'm sorry, but this isn't sweet and romantic behavior. This is creepy, obsessive stalker behavior and Bella should have risen up in a furnace of white-hot indignation and told him a thing or two about personal boundaries and personal privacy and respect, right before she doused him with a bucket of holy water.

But what did Meyers have Bella do?

First, she had Bella balk, troubled by the fact that Edward has been standing sentinel at her bedside, presumably watching her drool and scratch and fart....and talk in her sleep. But then, a typical smitten girl, Bella acquiesces to this invasion of her privacy. And is okay with it. Even a little flattered that this handsome, charming vampire loves her so much, he can't even bear to be separated from her when she sleeps.

That is not the reaction a normal person should have when she's just discovered that she's being spied on, particularly in a vulnerable time like sleeping. A normal mature person, anyway. Which kind of shows us all that Bella is not ready for even the limited relationship that she and Edward have; never mind about anything more permanent. She is far too willing to subjugate herself to his authority, even though he is a benign leader.

Bella accepts what Edward tells her, and is willing to make herself an open book, while he remains a bit aloof. She's willing to trust him completely with her safety, without ever thinking what she can do to save herself from harm.

And most worrisome of all, she allows Edward to take the place of her father as her main counselor, guide, teacher and protector. That's not a wise idea for seventeen year old girls, even fictional ones.

Because of the seriousness of the last three issues, I can only give this book a two-star rating for Meyers's skill in storytelling and forwarding her plot with finesse. The character development was very spotty (although I'm willing to cut her some slack because of Twilight's being the first book in a four book series). In some ways, it was very morally commendable, but I find that I just can't get past those last three things.

I recommend that parents proceed with caution before allowing their daughters to read this book. If it's allowed, it definitely seems like the kind of book that a mother is going to want to read first so that she can discuss it with her teenager. This isn't Anne of Green Gables, Mom. You should be prepared to talk this book over with your teenage girl.

Stephenie Meyer: Now with more of the hating!

I was reading a couple of articles about the Twilight series at Decent Films ("Twilight Appeal: The cult of Edward Cullen and vampire love in Stephenie Meyer's novels and the new film" by Stephen D. Greydanus) and at National Review Online ("In Love with Death" by Gina R. Dalfonzo) and wound up at Meyer's official website, where I read this absolutely enchanting message by Steph herself:

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"There are those who think my stories are misogynistic—the damsel in distress must be rescued by strong hero. I emphatically reject the....accusation. I am all about girl power—look at Alice and Jane if you doubt that. I am not anti-female, I am anti-human."

*************************************

Okaaaay.

Stephenie, I kind of hate it that you've put me in the position of having to EXPLAIN YOUR OWN NOVELS TO YOU, but I'm going to point out a couple of things about Alice and Jane.

1) Alice is Edward's sister and she colludes with him on keeping Bella under house arrest in the Cullen home. She enables Edward in his role of the insanely jealous boyfriend/stalker/abuser. If Alice was a strong female character, she would have told her brother to BACK OFF and, I don't know, maybe driven Bella to a women's shelter?

She's also a pushy twit who has absolutely no respect for Bella as her friend: When Bella says she doesn't want a big graduation party, Alice throws one for her anyway. When Bella wants a simple wedding, Alice goes all-out. Alice knows that Bella is uncomfortable with the idea of wearing sexy lingerie on her honeymoon (Bella's more of a t-shirt sleeper) so what does Alice do? She fills Bella's suitcase and closet at the vacation home with sexy lingerie. In short, Alice is constantly trying to make Bella over into someone different. This was Alice's underlying message: If you would just submit to me, you could be as cool and pretty as I am, Bella. You are so lucky to have me to guide you out of your geeky, unattractive ways. Because I am sooo adorable and cute and you are so....not. But your blood does smell really good, so I can see why my brother likes you.

2) Jane is a psychotic vampire, a young girl, who has an unusual supernatural power: She can torture people using the power of her mind. And so she does, and delights in it, relishing the pain and terror of her victims. Now there's some real strength of character. I know when I look for role models for my teenage daughters, I bypass people like St. Catherine of Siena or Helen Keller or Condoleezza Rice or Venus and Serena Williams or even -- God help me -- Hillary frikkin' Clinton and GO STRAIGHT TO THE CRAZED SADISTS.

If this is your idea of strong female characters, Stephenie, then you're even weirder than I thought you were. You live in a strange, strange world, lady.

BOOK REVIEW: Breaking Dawn (Book #4 in the Twilight Series)

Book: Breaking Dawn (Book #4 in the Twilight Series)

Author: Stephenie Meyer

Publication Info: 756 pages (hardcover), young adult fiction, published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, New York 2008

Jacket blurb: none

My rating (out of five stars): [none]

Ohhh, Edward and Bella, Bella and Edward! Here we are at the beginning of the fourth and final and longest book in the Twilight saga, wondering where your true, pure and endless love will take you next. And let me just say that, since Breaking Dawn was published nearly two years ago, everyone in the world knows that the altar is where the two star-crossed sweethearts are headed.

Why? Well, you could be pardoned for thinking that it was about love, right? Because ever since Bella and Edward first laid eyes on one another in the Forks High School cafeteria a mere twenty months ago -- minus the time when Edward left town to spare Bella from further harm and Bella drearily marked time with the wolfy, hunky Jacob -- they have been all about being toether. Edward in the more traditional sense that requires vows and Bella in the sense that requires, er, interconnecting anatomical features.

At the end of Eclipse, the third book in the series, Bella and Edward brokered a deal for their future which included them getting married before Edward would either "turn" Bella or have sex with her. With negotiating skills like that, he should run for a political office. Bella agrees to this with bad grace, and Breaking Dawn opens with Bella at a level of excitement about her wedding day that people usually reserve for running sores. Given the fact that she's been pining for an eternity in which to drink in Edward's physical beauty, listen to his musical voice and even smell his breath, you'd think she'd be galloping altar-bound down the aisle like Seabiscuit in the final furlong at Pimlico, but Bella's vision for her future evidently doesn't extend as far as death, as in "until death separates us," which is kind of a joke on both of them. Because she's going to do just that -- die -- in approximately three hundred pages. THE LONGEST THREE HUNDRED PAGES OF YOUR LIFE.

So Bella stands like a wax figure while Alice dresses her, does her hair and makeup (Bella doesn't even bother to look in a mirror before leaving Alice's dressing room) and steers her to the staircase of the Cullen home, which is where the ceremony is to take place. At that point, plan to be wishing that Alice will just give her a solid push. Few people will blame you, if the reviews of this book at Amazon.com are any indication. Friends and family members of both the human and vampircal variety are in attendance and the whole thing kind of passes in a blur. Bella mentions "profusions of white blossoms....hung in garlands" and "long lines of white gossamer ribbons" and "white petals swaying above [her] head," but that's it.

Bella's description of her wedding gown?

"Shiny fabric."

Honestly.

Things pick up at the reception, especially when Jacob shows up to pay his respects. He's just back from traversing all of Canada in wolf-form, trying to outrun his feelings for Bella in spite of the fact she treats him so badly. Things sour abruptly, though, when Bella artlessly reveals to Jacob that she and Edward plan to have a "real honeymoon," in spite of the fact that Bella will still be a human.

Jacob reacts in outraged shock and dismay. After all, Edward is immortal, cold, as hard as marble and possessed of superhuman strength. It has been indicated more than once that a human woman and a male vampire having sex would be extremely physically dangerous for the woman, but Bella handles the situation with all the maturity we've come to expect from her over the past three books.

"I'm not putting anything off," I snapped. "And yes I can have a real honeymoon! I can do anything I want! Butt out!"

Jacob goes all wolfy at this bit of unwelcome news and begins to undergo transformation right there at the reception, which is slightly more awkward than someone slipping and falling down on the dance floor. He threatens to kill Edward as the other members of the wolf pack try to hustle him away into the woods behind the Cullens' house, but I myself was still right there, thinking What a really stupid thing to say. She is such an idiot.

I proved to be the idiotic one in about thirty more pages, because Edward and Bella did it. They consummated their marriage despite the fact that Edward knew beforehand what the likely outcome would be -- Bella injured, if not killed. To be quite clear, Bella knew beforehand, too, but she is so pathetic and stupid, I didn't really count on her to do anything that made sense, relying on Edward to be the rock of self-control he's always been, in spite of his indications of being a potential abuser.

And somewhere in the murky fade-to-black of page eighty five, this book completely and irrevocably lost me.

Meyer chastely refuses to describe what ensues, but the morning after the night before, Bella awakens to a brooding, haunted Edward, a bed full of feathers and, "large purplish bruises...across the pale skin of my arm...up to my shoulder" and relates that her naked body was "decorated with patches of blue and purple" and admits that she'd "look even worse tomorrow." The whole scene, in which Bella soothes Edward by telling him that the experience was "wonderful and perfect" and that she's "totally and completely blissed out" and that "[she] can't imagine that life gets any better than [this]" was utterly ghastly, a total mockery of two young lovers meeting one another for the first time in the sweetness of their wedding night.

Edward feels so remorseful. He vows that it will never happen again. Aaaaand...does anyone have that checklist for Things Abusers Typically Say and Do handy? Because Edward, you see, is no longer a potential abusive partner.

I didn't get actual bile in my throat until the next night, when Bella and Edward do it again. She wakes up from a powerful dream about makin' the sex and boo-hoos and begs and whines until he finally gives in and nails her.

Okay. Could there be anything sicker than lovemaking on one's honeymoon that ends with one spouse battered? That is wrong and bad on so many levels, I'd be hard put to list them all. Let me just start by saying that a decent person would NEVER DO SOMETHING that would put something he loved in danger of being physically or emotionally harmed. Edward knows how physically fragile Bella is compared to him, but he goes ahead and gives in to her infantile pleadings for sex and PHYSICALLY HURTS HER.

That's sick, Stephenie Meyer. Really, really sick. Especially since Bella's extra-mature way of dealing with her aching, black-and-blue body is to basically tell Edward it's okay if you bruised me because I know you love me. God help us all.

Since this book is seven hundred fifty-four pages long, I'll spare myself the anguish of exploring every nuance of this unbearably hefty plot line. Frankly, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense in places anyway - events happen here and there that simply don't hang together, are left unexplained, or are referred to once and never mentioned again. So I'll hit the low points from here on out -- after that honeymoon, I can't bring myself to call them high points -- designated numerically.

1. While Edward and Bella are still on their honeymoon, a curious thing happens: Stephenie Meyer breaks another rule of vampire lore, only in this case it's her own vampire lore. According to Stephenie, vampires have no liquid inside them except for their venom, so imagine everyone's surprise -- theirs, Carlisle's, Alice's, yours and mine -- when Bella suddenly gets nauseated, develops a stubborn appetite for certain foods and discovers a baby bump between her hip bones. Yes. In spite of the fact that Edward supposedly cannot produce sperm cells, Bella is pregnant.

The two of them head back home, where Carlisle and Edward press for an abortion: they know that any child created by this union is likely a monster of unknown quantity. Bella allies herself with the baby-wanting Rosalie and refuses to consent, protecting her "little nudger," which is growing at a pace that is faster than the speed of a vampire running through the forests of Washington state with his girlfriend clinging to his back. And not only is the baby growing fast, it's also killing Bella. The story takes over in Jacob's first-person narrative and he describes Bella's weakness as she lies on a couch in the Cullen's living room, fading away by the moment. Edward fades right along with her, becoming a total helpless wreck, moaning and brooding and generally doing all that he can to make sure that the family has two invalids to care for.

Until, of course, someone thinks that maybe the baby and Bella aren't really being properly nourished on pickles and ice cream and those giant vitamin pills pregnant women have to swallow. No, this baby and this mother need some blood. Big ol' cups of it, with straws. Straws that will allow Bella to gulp it down and burp gently.

Human blood.

I'll pause to let you process that and maybe go find a small wastebasket to vomit into.

There. Better now? Oh, too bad, because you're going to be sick again very shortly.

So the Little Nudger gets stronger and starts nudging her a little too hard. Jacob relates that Bella's entire body is bruised, and before long, the baby starts cracking her ribs. When Bella experiences placenta abruptio and vomits "a fountain of blood," the Cullen gang realizes that it's now or never and they whisk Bella to Carlisle's study, which has been turned into a birthing center. Jacob performs CPR a little too roughly while Edward struggles to deliver the baby (Carlisle is not at home at this crucial moment) and CHEWS THE BABY OUT of Bella's uterus WITH HIS TEETH.

I found it very ironic that Meyer, who did that coy fade-to-black on Bella and Edward's honeymoon sex just freaking UNLEASHES on the birth scene, with blood and anguish and broken spines and floppy legs and a cracking pelvis and the sound of Edward's diamond hard teeth scraping and rasping and tearing through his wife's flesh... It's not the kind of thing you'd want to read while eating a bowl of chili. And it goes on for pages, like my gosh, the soldiers who stormed the beach at Normandy didn't see this level of violence.


Yum.


2. Slightly before the baby is born, Edward and Jacob have a conversation at the Cullen's house. Jacob is there because he can't bear to be away from Bella, which is.....huh? I mean, she is another man's wife at this point, right? So Jacob's continued worried presence is there and he makes himself useful by sitting next to Bella and warming her up when she gets cold.


Uhhh, okay.....


Not many husbands I know would be all that thrilled to have their main rivals for their wives' affections before marriage present and accounted for in order to warm her chilly pregnant body, but whatevs...By this time, who expects any sense out of all this?


Given what Edward does next, though, you may want to find that little wastebasket you just used, because what's coming now won't make any sense, either.


Out on the front porch of the Cullen residence, Edward suggests to Jacob that perhaps, if this baby, erm, DIES and Bella survives, that she's going to want children someday. She loves her little unborn devil-baby, after all, and he, Edward, just KNEW that the maternal urge would grab her someday, so if Jacob could be so kind as to oblige....


I think the charming way Edward put it, this whole notion of putting his wife out to be bred, was "She can have puppies if she wants them." With a sidelong glance at Jacob. The shape-shifting wolf.


Jacob takes a personal moment to consider how awesome it would be to make the weekend sex with Bella and give her a little pack of wolfbabies to cuddle and then send them all back to the Cullens on Monday mornings. And could there be a bigger EWWWWWWWWWW!!!! than this?

Honestly, just when you think Stephenie Meyers has already hated the idea of independent, strong, smart women enough, you find out that she has deeper levels of loathing to explore.


Fortunately, Jacob sees that this preposterous and SICK idea is going to be absolutely unworkable because how are they ever going to get Bella to agree to it? At this point, I had a mental flash of Spike and Angel discussing Buffy in this manner and both of them saying nervously, "She's going to stake both of us with a telephone pole for even thinking such a thing," but come to think of it, there's no way they'd ever have such a conversation because their respect for Buffy and who she is and what she can do is so immense. It would never cross their minds, this kind of perversion.


The fact that Edward could even come up with an idea like this and be serious enough to entreat Jacob to help him convince Bella that this plan could work is just.....wow. Edward has no respect for Bella as an autonomous person, like, at all. This is his wife, his companion for eternity, and yet he feels free to come up with a plan like this behind her back? Stephenie Meyer, what the HELL is wrong with you??!!


3. The baby is born alive, but Bella is dying quickly after the traumatic birth and Jacob tells us that Edward goes to work on her with a syringe full of vampire venom so that it can spread throughout her body while her heart is still feebly beating. She is going to die, but the venom will heal her. And it will take a few days, but then everything will be like, YAY! because being a vampire is something only very, very special people get to do and aren't you sad you're not one?


But then.....


While Edward is injecting deadly venom into his nearly-lifeless bride, Jacob is holding the baby. If you read New Moon and Eclipse, you might guess at what's getting ready to happen: Jacob imprints on the newborn baby. Yup. He looks at the newborn baby and is all SCHWWWIIING!!!


Yeah, you made it past the honeymoon and you struggled through the idea of Edward and Jacob sharing Bella for sex and you hung on through that revolting birth scene, only to arrive at the place where Jacob decides that this baby is the person destiny has picked out for him to spend his life with. The bewilderment and gagging just start all over again, don't they?

What kind of life does Stephenie Meyer live that she can think up all of these unbelievably disturbing male-female relationships and present them as if they're acceptable? Like, sure it's okay for a little girl to grow up with a young man that she would probably perceive as a brother or even a father figure, someone who's poured juice into her sippy cup and taken her to the potty and then....marry him? The fact that an imprinted relationship between a baby and a teen wolf pre-supposes that someday, they're going to be sexual partners is just so messed up, there aren't enough negative words in the English language to convey how wrong that is.

4. Thankfully, Stephenie ends with the crazed and possibly illegal and definitely immoral relationships and we move on to Bella, who is now a vampire.

Through all three of the previous novels, we've been warned repeatedly that not only is the process of "turning" very painful and difficult, but that the first few years of vampirism are difficult to navigate: the new born vampire will be a creature of enormous strength and thirst, making him/her a danger to everyone around, both human and vampire. So Bella goes through her change -- and of course, we have to go with her, this heeeeyooooge rite of passage Meyer has been preparing us for, and I was expecting Bella to fly up off that table in Carlisle's study and start with the killing, maybe making that snotty Lauren she graduated high school with her first victim.

But guess what? Meyer lets us down flat. There is no conflict. None. Anywhere. There was a great opportunity here for Bella, who has been possibly the lamest, weakest and most clueless heroine in post-modern American literature, to grow into a character of substance and depth. The biggest conflict we experience in Bella's turning is the fact that, while she was out of it, Alice dressed her in a gorgeous, shimmery dress that made it hard for Bella to run in the woods on her first hunt with Edward. So guess what? She had to tear the dress. OH THE AGONY!

As she moves into vampire life, the Cullens are stunned and incredulous that Bella can control herself. Sure, there's a brief moment of wanting to indulge herself in a yummy-smelling hiker out in the woods, but Bella just claps a hand over her nose and runs in the other direction: problem solved. And they're concerned that she might attack Renesmee, who has a heartbeat, but her great love and bonding with the baby lead her to be able to see past that moist and luscious sound and cuddle her daughter protectively. And Esme's antique dining table is in a moment of danger as Bella and Emmett consider it as a place for an arm-wrestling match, but that's all.

That's all. Really. Truly. There is no conflict. Bella is the most beautiful, the most strong, the most gifted, the most graceful vampire ever, like, in the whole world. Her voice is like the music of tiny bells! Her ability to leap over the river surpasses even Edward's, and as for speed? Well, up until now, Edward has been the undisputed Speedy Gonzalez of the Cullen clan, but Bella leaves him eating her dust. No one has to buckle her seat belt for her anymore; no one has to carry her anywhere because she can't twist her ankle; Charlie is a little freaked out by her but prepared to accept the unacceptable; brown contacts hide her bright red new born vamp eyes; who knows what happens with Renee and Phil, because they're never mentioned again; and it's really kind of too bad that Bella doesn't have to poop anymore, because you can be certain that Meyer would go to great lengths to tell us how beautiful and fragrant her bowel movements are.

I mean, really, girls, who wouldn't want to be a vampire? Bella can die and go through this incredible change that makes everything different and yet there's not one single consequence. She has everything! Supermodel looks! The most perfect husband ever! A lovely baby, who's so perfect, you just want to brush your brain with toothpaste to get all the sticky sugar out of your mind after reading about her! The perfect adoring family! Who are, like, mind-blowingly rich! Closets full of designer clothing! A perfect little rose-covered fairy-tale cottage! A Ferrari! An alliance with the werewolves! Amazing talents that surpass the talents of everyone else around her!

There is a tiny misunderstanding with the Volturi and Meyer builds us up for pages and pages, leading us to think that there's going to be an epic battle, like the one between Voldemort's followers and Dumbledore's army, or the one between the forces of Mordor and Aragorn's troops, but it all amounts to nothing. Just a misunderstanding. The Volturi literally turn around and drift away sulking and go back to Italy. And it's all because of Bella.

This is just.....unconscionable. At nearly eight hundred pages, you'd think there could have been room for some real plot and character development - that Bella would have to go through some massive internal and external struggles to make her ready for her new life, to help her grow and change into the person she is going to be, um, ETERNALLY. Harry Potter had to do that along with all of those Hogwarts kids we followed from the first book to the last. Bilbo and Frodo and Sam had to do it; it took Aragorn three thick books to come to terms with his rightful place as the king.

But Bella? She can just jump from one milestone to another with no struggles whatsoever. Oh, sure, she had to wear the brown contacts. And the stupid things kept dissolving on her, because of the venom filming her eyes. And she had a difficult time figuring how to meet up with J. Jenks and discerning his relationship with the Cullen family. And she was pretty ticked with Jacob for imprinting on her baby, but that actually turned out to be a blessing. I was ready to see her go on a killing spree and for Charlie to be caught up in the investigation for this string of brutal murders and for the Cullens to be providing moral and physical support and then for the Volturi to show up and for there to be casualties on either side.

But no.

Bella was perfect from the start of her vampire life and when the book ends (with Edward referring to Jacob as -- PUKE! -- "My son"), everything is just like a really stupid fairy tale. It is the laziest and most shiftless writing I've ever read and it galls me that Stephenie Meyer could write this pap and be smirking all the way to the bank with her stupid books and her stupid Bella and all those woman-hating, freakishly messed up male-female relationships. This, my friends, is what passes these days for stellar literature for our young adult readers.

Read it and weep.

Cityscape from my front porch

I took this from my front porch a few minutes ago with the wistful thought that it looked, maybe, just a little bit like Paris? Not the 7th arrondissement, which is home to the Eiffel Tower and the L'Hôtel National des Invalides, where Napoleon is interred, but maybe more like the 19th, where there are streets that look a lot like this one, as long as it's twilight. And I'm squinting. And humming something by Edith Piaf. I can see a little Paris on my street then, but that's the only time, and it is fleeting. All other times, it looks like home, which is not a bad thing at all.

One of the cutest -- Flipped, the movie

If you've ever read Wendelin Van Draanen's celebrated young adult novel Flipped, you know what a sweet and funny book it is - a totally different thing than what you (if you're a mother) are possibly envisioning when I say "young adult novel," what with the barfy visions of Twilight dancing through your head.

I was excited to find out that Flipped -- a romantic comedy about first love and true love and what might be love but probably isn't -- has now been turned into a movie. And if you're looking for something that would be a pretty much universally appreciated gift for Christmas, this would be the movie, a great film for the family to watch together or for mothers and daughters to watch while curled up on the sofa with a big bowl of popcorn while the winter weather does whatever it plans to do outside.

Flipped is available on DVD and Blu-Ray at Amazon.com and Wal-Mart and other usual retailers. HIGHLY recommended!

Another gift from Christmas past

When Meelyn was around three years old, my brother and sister-in-law got her a cute little doll with a head full of blonde curls and a cherubic, smiling face for Christmas. This doll operated on batteries, and she was able to tell you when she needed a diaper change, a bottle of milk, a sippy-cup of juice or some food from the little plastic dish she came with. Meelyn was absolutely delighted: it would be fun, she thought, to take care of sweet dolly the way that Mommy took care of Baby Aisli.

This doll had some sort of sensor implanted within her -- a microchip that would zing into action at certain intervals so that it could say, "Baby is firsty!" or "Baby so hung-wy!" As my husband put the batteries in the doll's back, he and I had a lot of fun joking about the kinds of things we'd say if we had microchips implanted in our heads. He thought that he might say, "Evwy one be quiet! Football is on!" and I would say, "Dis compooter is mine and I won't share wif you."

The doll was supposed to go into sleep mode in the dark and she had an on-off switch for the times when you just couldn't tolerate another squeaky little voice in the house demanding to be played with. So imagine our surprise when, late one night a few days after Christmas, we heard the doll's voice speaking cheerfully from Meelyn's bedroom, which was across the hallway from our own.

"Baby so hung-wy!"

My husband, who was reading a John Grisham novel in bed by lying flat on his back with his arms in the air, suspending the book above his face (a posture which I think is very strange and painful-looking), said, "Is Meelyn awake and playing with her doll?"

I was curled up on my side holding my own book. "I don't know," I murmured, not taking my eyes from the page. "I can't see her from here."

"Meelyn!" called my husband. "If you're awake, get back into bed right now, young lady."

There was no response, so we figured that Meelyn had shut off her light and climbed back in bed. I was awakened a few hours later in the pitch dark by a little mechanical voice: "Baby so hung-wy!"

Because the house was so quiet, it sounded like the voice was close. Like, right behind my exposed back. I poked my husband with an urgent forefinger.

"Honey," I hissed. "That doll...it's in there speaking."

"Whuh? Huh?" He flailed around with the blankets and refused to open his eyes.

"Wake up," I said, prodding him again. "Honey, it's that doll. It's...speaking."

"Doll?" my husband croaked groggily. "Whudoll?"

"Baby so hung-wy!" the doll said obligingly.

"Is Meelyn out of bed?"

"No," I whispered. "Everything is dark. That doll is not supposed to be able to talk in the dark."

"Baby so hung-wy!"

My husband and I both spent a lot of time watching re-runs of The Twilight Zone when we were young, and if you've ever seen the episode with Talkie Tina -- you know, the one where the adorable talking dolly chirpily says, "Hi! I'm Talkie Tina and I'm going to kill you" and then DOES -- you will know exactly the irrational fear that seized us both.

"Holy crap," said my husband.

"Yeah," I said, fervently. "Boy, I wish I'd never read 'Salem's Lot or maybe it was The Tommyknockers, because there's this part in there where there are all these dolls this lady collected and they come alive, only they're not very nice to the lady who collected them and they all looked at her with their eyes and then they, well, they....."

"I know," my husband assured me. "I watched those Chuckie movies."

"Baby so hung-wy!"

"If this goes the way these things usually go, she's already eaten the kids' brains and she'll be in here in a minute to finish us off," I quavered. "Why don't you go get her and...take her batteries out?"

"No, that's okay, but thanks for asking," he said.

"I don't want to get up, because what if I see her run past the door out of the corner of my eye?" I said. "What if I stand up next to the bed and she grabs my ankles and bites me? What if...."

"Okay. Shut UP."

"Because Talkie Tina and Chuckie, you'd think they were gone, but they kept coming back and they usually had knives with them and...."

"SHUT UP."

"Baby so hung-wy!"

"I cannot freakin' be-LIEVE this," my husband groaned and threw back the covers, hurling himself forward and landing on his feet in one leap; far, I noticed, from the edges of the bed where the bed ruffle tantalizingly concealed what was beneath.

"Baby so hung-wy," said the doll. And it might have been my imagination, but it seemed to me that she was starting to sound a little unpleasant. Like, she'd waited far too long for her next serving of warm human brains and was thinking of coming to get them herself.

My husband strode purposefully into Meelyn's room, made certain that she was unharmed, and came back to our room, carrying the doll by the hair. He rummaged in the drawer of his bedside table, found a Phillips head screwdriver and flipped the doll's dress up to expose the place on its back where the batteries were housed.

"Yippee-ky-yay, mo......" said my husband with grim pleasure.

"Baby so hung-wy," the doll interrupted. And thank heaven she was turned face downward, because if we'd had to meet her eyes when she said that, our bed would have been soaked and dripping with the contents of two adult bladders.

I dove under the blankets and my husband removed the two batteries with an energy he seldom displays in the middle of the night. And I kid you not, that insane doll mewled out "Bay-bee....sooo...hunnnn-gwy" one last time in the slurred, drunken voice of thwarted evil. She departed hastily from my husband's hands; he threw her unceremoniously into the corner of the room.

"She can't stay there all night!" I protested, coming out from under the blankets. "She'll be watching us sleep and...plotting our deaths or something."

"I'm not getting up again," my husband said flatly, lying back down and pulling the blankets up to his chin. "I'm safe. Your brain is bigger than mine is, so she'll go for you first and that will fill her up. I'll have time tomorrow to summon a priest or drive a stake through her heart or whatever. Good night."

I summoned up all the courage I could muster, climbed out of bed and grabbed the doll by the hair. On my way through the house, I took my car keys off the kitchen table, carried the doll out to the garage and imprisoned her in the trunk of the car.

The next morning, Meelyn woke up joyfully, ready to feed and change that hungry, thirsty baby. "Where is her?" she asked me in concern, finding the toy cradle empty.

"Her...I mean, she, went to go get donuts with Daddy this morning," I said and went out to the garage to retrieve the doll, barely able to cradle her lovingly in my arm without flinching, but I knew Meelyn would not be pleased if I came in carrying her by the hair.

Meelyn stretched her little arms out happily. "Her is the nicest baby," she said fondly. "Do you love her, Mommy?"

"Oh, uh...sure," I lied. "I just love, love, love her. Why don't you go feed her, honey? I think she may be hungry."

To my Mom on Mother's Day

My mom is one of the best people in the world to spend time with. She's really pretty, she always smells good (I just found out that she likes Coco Mademoiselle too, and actually has a bottle and I wonder if it is a moral failure to sneak into one's mother's bathroom to snitch little dabs of perfume) and she's very funny and interesting.

My mom is actually not all that much older than I am. I mean, she is a respectable amount of years beyond my own -- I don't want anyone to have the idea that she was dragged to the church bawling with a baby doll tucked under her arm and a lollipop stuck in one pigtail -- but she was only twenty when she had me, her oldest child. She had, let's see....just completed her sophomore year at Ball State University, majoring in elementary education.

My mom has always been a little bit silly, which is one of the things that makes her so much fun to be around. My father, Poppy, told me that when they went on their honeymoon to the family's cottage at Wall Lake in northern Indiana, they were out on the lake in a rowboat. Or maybe she was on a float or something like that. The details are sketchy.

But anyway, she fell off of whatever she was on: boat, raft, who knows; into the drink she went, where she squealed and flailed and splashed about frantically, shrieking, "Bobby! Bobby! Save me!"

My father, who was apparently on the pier, bent double with laughter (he was only twenty and was not used to being a husband yet or he never would have been so foolish), didn't answer. He couldn't.

"He-e-e-l-l-l-l-l-l-p-p-p-p meeeeee!!!!" she screamed, spluttering and floundering.

My father staggered around, unable to speak, wiping tears from his eyes.

"I'm dr-o-o-o-w-w-w-w-n-n-n-ing...." she cried.

Finally, my father found his voice. "Linda," he called across the water. "STAND UP!"

The water was only about waist deep, but how's a girl to know that? It would require putting her feet on the mucky lake bottom and eewwww!!! Who wants to do that?

My mother and I became acquainted through something known as the Rhythm Method.

On my mother's wedding day, my grandma attempted to speak to my mom about the Facts of Life, but my mother, like many a silly girl before her, insisted that she already knew everything she needed to know, probably just to avoid an embarrassing discussion while wearing stays and a formal gown. Embarrassing discussions are bad enough without the corset.

At any rate, my mother didn't know as much as she thought she did (this wasn't readily available until 1971) and consequently, I am what's known as a Honeymoon Baby. My parents were married on September 1, 1962 and I was born on June 29, 1963 and if you think I haven't had people counting on their fingers for my entire life as they attempt to process this information, well, think again.

When my mother went into labor, my father took her to Ball Memorial Hospital (the same place where he was born) where she spent the several hours of fairly easy labor wailing like a banshee. Finally, she said, a nurse with a furious scowl on her face poked her head in the room and said, "Will you please be quiet? You are upsetting everyone on this entire floor."

I was born after only about four hours of labor, back in those lovely days of Twilight Sleep; a blonde, complacent and really very beautiful baby. The nursery nurse said I looked like Jayne Mansfield, only I hope without the false eyelashes. I'm not sure what happened. Shut up.


Me as a newborn. No, wait....that's Jayne Mansfield.
It's hard to tell the difference.

Anyway, my mother and I kind of grew up together. She got her Master's degree while I learned to read and jump rope. She did cartwheels on the front lawn and drove me to nursery school. She betrayed me utterly by presenting me with a baby brother when I was six, but he turned out not to be so bad, maturing like a fine wine and growing better -- much better -- with age.

We went through some rocky years together when I was a teenager, although she fondly told me just the other day that I wasn't as bad as I remembered myself.

One time, we were in a terrible, terrible argument together, standing nose to nose and screaming at the tops of our lungs. Neither one of us can remember what this was about now, and now this makes us laugh, but at the time, oh my goodness. Poppy kept coming to the kitchen where this smackdown was taking place and saying, "Now, girls. Now, GIRLS..." but we were much too involved in our shouting match to pay attention.

Finally, I must have said something just marvelously smart-mouthed because she slapped my face. As quick as lightning, I slapped her back and the next thing I knew, I was pinned against the kitchen wall by my shoulders, my feet dangling helplessly a couple of inches above the floor. She put her face very, very close to mine and breathed in a quiet, deadly voice, every inch of her taut and quivering, like a cobra getting ready to strike. "Do not ever. Raise your hand. To your mother. Again."

"Okay!" I responded, wide-eyed, and she let me go and the next minute, we were both laughing and crying and hugging each other and saying we were sorry, we were very, very sorry. My poor dad probably went to hide behind a newspaper, or perhaps to arm himself with a sturdy golf club.

(It isn't strictly true about my feet dangling above the floor, but that's what it felt like.)

Our relationship evened out when I was in my early twenties, and once when I was teaching in northern Indiana and was felled by the flu, she took some personal days from her own teaching job and drove up to take care of me. That was one of the best four-day periods of my whole life, sitting in my apartment, watching the stack of videos she had brought from home (we watched Jimmy Stewart in Shenandoah and both cried buckets). Every now and then, we'd think of something that sounded good to eat and she'd go out and reconnoiter at the grocery store down the street, bringing back bags and bags of food and Ny-Quil.

Later on, when I had babies, she took more personal days to come and stay with me. Meelyn was born in April and my mom came every day for a week, arriving in the mornings just as my husband left for work and staying with me until he got back home. Meelyn, Mom and I worked together through the rigors of breast-feeding, which none of the three of us had ever done before. We also learned about baby washing and nap time and the pleasure of rocking a baby while reading a book.

"Quit hogging the baby," we'd complain to each other, pouring glasses of iced tea and getting out more cookies.

Aisling was born in the summer, so no personal days were involved. But my mother came to help me out, knowing that I was in a very precarious mental state due to a crushing post-partum depression. Aisling had terrible colic, probably due to some food allergy that I never was able to identify because I simply didn't know then what I know now. At any rate, she was a really difficult newborn, not sleeping, wanting to be fed every two hours, crying for hours and hours on end.

Mom came over during those really bad days and was cheerful for Meelyn, rocking the inconsolable Aisling while gently and wisely pushing me into the shower, into real clothes instead of pajamas, into makeup and an actual hairstyle. I was so emotionally fragile that it was a huge effort just to get into her car while she drove us around the summer countryside during one of Aisling's quiet moments. It was bad enough that the idea of going through McDonald's drive-thru for a Coke could make me dissolve into helpless tears and the idea of going to someplace like Wal-Mart to buy some toothpaste paralyzed me in fear.

But my mom just drove along, patiently patting my hand and encouraging me to sing with her and Meelyn, "If all the raindrops were lemon drops and gumdrops, oh, what a rain that would be..."

I sang, sort of. She prayed for me when I couldn't sing, out loud so that I could absorb the words, "Jesus, be with Shelley. Help her during this hard time. You said that we could give You our burdens...please help Shelley carry hers. Restore her, Lord Jesus. You are the shelter in a time of storm."

One day when Aisling was a couple of months old, it was really bad. She had been crying for hours and I had fed and soothed and rocked and walked and sung until I was exhausted, knowing that her schedule was to cry every day from 1:00 until about 5:00, with nothing to be done for it. At some point, I realized that I needed to put her down. I needed to put her down. Meelyn was fast asleep at her nap, safe in her own room, but I was there with the baby and something terrible seemed to be happening to me.

I fearfully carried Aisling to her nursery and laid her gently in her crib, as if she were made of fine china. She continued screaming, so I backed out of the room, closing the door and walking to the living room to sit down and read.

The book I was reading was All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot, a book I always turn to when I'm feeling sad and worried because it is so real and so funny and so lighthearted. But this day, it wasn't having its usual effect. I sat with it unopened on my lap, listening to Aisling scream, wondering why she wouldn't stop crying, why she hated me so much, why God had given me this beautiful baby that I couldn't understand. I looked down and noticed, to my horror, that I had unconsciously been destroying my book - it was ripped to shreds, pieces of pages floating down around my ankles and littering the floor like confetti in the parade of the damned.

I knew I was in a dangerous place.

The phone was right next to me and I picked it up and punched in my parents' number, my hands trembling so hard I could scarcely hold it. Mom answered with a bright "Hello!" on the second or third ring, but my voice didn't want to work.

"Mom?" I finally managed, quavering. "Aisling, she won't stop crying. And I...I can't....She just won't stop crying. I'm...." and then I started crying, horrible sobs that tore through me, guilt weighing me down. I was a bad mother, maybe even evil. My baby hated me. And God help me, right then I hated her, too. What kind of person feels that way about a little baby?

"Honey," Mom said in her kind, matter-of-fact voice, as lightly and pleasantly as if I'd just told her I'd won the Nobel Peace Prize, "I want you to just hang up the telephone now and go over and lie down on the couch. Just lie down there and say the name of Jesus, over and over. Close your eyes, now. Just rest. I'll be there in ten minutes."

She came over and somehow, that whole nightmare day turned around. I know it was largely through the power of God, His great might and ineffable comfort expressed through one mother to another. As always, she was able to make everything okay and handed me tissues as I wept, telling me quietly that she understood, that this was just colic and it would end, just like my crazy hormones would sort themselves out. Things would be normal again and the baby didn't hate me, and mercy, what silly nonsense was this? Hating the baby? No, you don't hate the baby, she said, looking at me with her sweet blue eyes. Of course you don't hate the baby. You hate the crying, the colic. Who wouldn't?

I was a good mother, she assured me. Some women have a bad patch after their babies are born -- she'd had a rough go of it after my brother, Pat, had been born, she said. And some babies have colic. It's awful, for the baby and the baby's parents. But I was doing everything right. I was snuggling her and singing little songs while I nursed her; pushing her in the stroller around the block to get some fresh air, changing her diapers and giving her Mylicon drops for gas, bathing her in her little tub...there was no end to what a wonderful mother I was to this baby, my mother explained. Right now she wasn't so likeable, but she'd grow out of it, I'd see.

And I did. From that time on, with my mother's prayers and good common sense to back me up, I was better. Every day got better. Aisling still screamed her head off on a daily basis, but following my mother's advice, when it got to be too much and I felt tense inside, I'd take her to her nursery, cover her with a light blanket, turn on the Baby Mozart cassette and leave, gently shutting the door behind me. There were no more shredded books. Aisling continued to gain weight and started smiling, then laughing.

I started smiling and laughing.

We both stopped crying.

Because of God and His loving care for us, yes. But also because of my mother.

My beautiful, funny, amazing mother. Happy Mother's Day.

Like, first there was a whole lot of emo and then I zoned out

We have a love-hate relationship with the Twilight series at our house: I gagged my way though all four books because I had to since the girls were so curious and all their friends were reading them; Meelyn got halfway through the final book before she threw in the (bloodstained) towel; my husband went doggedly forward until the first third of the third book like a good dad would and finally said plaintively, "These are the stupidest books I've ever read and I hate Bella so much...please don't tell me I have to keep reading them." Aisling read the first book and liked it, but only got halfway through the third book before announcing that she hates all vampires, all werewolves and all stupid, stupid girls who can't even fasten their own seatbelts, except for Spike and Buffy and Willow and Angel, of course.

That's my girl.

Anyway, it is a really cozy night tonight with the rain pouring down and preparing to turn itself into snow; I made Mexican chili after church tonight and my husband, searching for something for us all to watch, found Eclipse, the third movie in the Twilight-on-film saga, on Comcast's pay per view. He said we didn't have much of anything worth watching on the DVR and we're trying to save our Christmas movies, sooo.....

Let me tell you, that movie? It is two hours and ten minutes of pure hell. There's a whole lot of Bella having angst, and a whole lot of Edward having angst and a whole lot of Jacob having angst, but since he tends to experience his own inner turmoil while shirtless, I am kind of okay with it all. There are twenty more minutes left as I'm sitting here typing; I managed to get up from my seat, pretending that I was going to get a diet Coke and instead did a nimble side-step here to my desk.

"HEY!" they all screamed at me. "Get back in here! No fair on the computer! Big cheater!"

I remained firmly planted in my chair and called out to them with dignity: "Hey. I read ALL FOUR of those pestilential books. I dealt with Bella through several thousand pages of her goofiness and Edward's potential abuser traits and Jacob's sadness that this foolish girl wanted to go off with the vamp instead of moving out to the rez and having a litter of wolfbabies with him. I SHOULD GET A FACEBOOK BREAK."

Boy howdy. It's the last few minutes. Bella is giving Edward a big speech about how his world is her world and he's all she ever wants and she oughta know because by gosh, she's just the smartest little eighteen year old who was ever raised by a feckless mother and a clueless father. Oh my preciousness, he just put the engagement ring on her finger and the credits are rolling.

Will someone please remind me of this suffering just in case I try to watch the fourth movie?

MOVIE REVIEW: New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Part 2)

As part of the ongoing Christmas cheer around here, my husband and I took Meelyn and Aisling to see New Moon yesterday afternoon. This was a major treat because we only go to the movies once a year or so and also because nearly all of their friends have seen it multiple times already.

"We may be the only two teenage girls in the United States who haven't seen this movie yet," Meelyn said eagerly when we told her of our plans yesterday morning. "Well. Except for the Amish teenage girls."

I can assure anyone else who has read the book but who has not yet seen the movie that it followed along with the novel surprisingly well, which, if you're me, meant that you wanted to feed Bella to an alligator about five minutes in. She is possibly the worst protagonist in modern American literature.

The roles of Bella and Edward are played by young actors Kristin Stewart and Robert Pattinson, and if you've ever wanted to see an unsmiling pair of mopey dullards, it would be those two. Well, I mean when they're in character. I'm absolutely certain that Kristin and Rob are lovely, smiley people in real life, but in this movie, they make true love -- even at a birthday party -- look about as desirable as a colorectal exam.

The only ray of light in this whole mess (both book and movie, but ESPECIALLY THE MOVIE) is Taylor Lautner, who should probably have sonnets written to his bare chest and poignant melodies to his dark eyes and bright smile. (Don't believe me? Click here.) *ahem* Young Mr. Lautner plays the role of Jacob Black, the werewolf, although anyone who is as much of a stickler to the codes of rightness and decency surrounding the horror genre of literature and film as I am knows that Jacob is technically not a werewolf, Stephenie Meyer, he is a shape-shifter. EVERYBODY knows that. But I digress.

Anyway, Edward leaves Forks with the rest of the Cullens, thinking that it is the best way to keep Bella safe because she smells so luscious to all the undead who flock to Washington state, which must be a hellmouth similar to Sunnydale. Joss Whedon, would you care to weigh in on that? He leaves her even though it just about flat-out kills him. Well, if he weren't immortal. And here's the point where I urgently need to add that there is a lot of talk about Romeo & Juliet here, but seriously. Seriously. Stephenie, do not flatter yourself.

At one point in the early scenes, Edward and Bella are in one another's arms, gazing humorlessly and with great angst into one another's eyes. "Bella, you give me everything I need just by breathing," Edward said with a facial expression indicating a severe migraine was coming on and he'd left his Flexoril back at home. My husband thought that was the funniest thing he'd ever heard and jacknifed himself over in his seat, wheezing. I sat tensely, wondering if we were going to be attacked by a swarm of Twi-hard fans, who would try to bludgeon us to death with the rolled up movie posters they bought at Barnes & Noble. Luckily, none of them appeared to hear him.

So Edward leaves and Bella becomes catatonic in spite of the fact that the hunky Jacob is hanging around, helping her repair some motorcycles she rescued from the junkyard because when she finally snaps out of her Edward-induced coma, she finds that she can discern his dreary presence warning her not to be reckless, which for the two-left-footed Bella is a simple matter like walking down the stairs. Jacob is big and handsome and endearing and he has a sense of humor - he likes life and he likes Bella and he couldn't have made it more obvious if he'd worn a great big sign.

But no. No. Bella needs must continue to pine for the absent Edward. And I would have been all, like, "EDWARD WHO??" but who can explain this dope? I know that Meelyn and Aisling can't, because when Edward, in an attempt to end his immortality by exposing his sparkliness to a crowd of humans after getting some bad info concerning Bella's demise (she tried to butter a piece of toast and cut her arm open and they thought she was going to bleed to death right there at the kitchen table: no, not really, but she probably could have) and ripped open his shirt to expose his twinkly skin there in the town square, his chest was so....narrow. So pallid and skinny, like a plucked hen, that the girls groaned audibly and Meelyn leaned over to hiss, "I HATE BELLA."

Bella and Edward are reunited there in Italy -- oh, yeah, there's a bunch of in-betweeny stuff like the wolf pack and the vengeful Victoria and the stolen Porsche and the Volturi -- and you might have hoped at this point that Bella and Edward could reach deep down inside and summon, I don't know, A SMILE??!! Because, you know, they're glad to see each other? But no. No. All they can do is hang around looking dejected and funereal together. I'm thinking that that one key scene, the one where Bella and Edward are lying together in that field of improbable flowers? It would have been better filmed in a freaking mortuary.

The unlucky Jacob gets kicked to the curb in spite of his heartfelt plea for Bella to give up her vampire-lovin' ways (prompting another outraged gasp from Meelyn and Aisling) and the movie ends with Edward popping the question, the BIG question, the question which causes most young women to clasp their hands and look at their sweethearts with starry-eyed delight. Instead, Bella looks like she's experiencing intense gastrointestinal distress. My husband and I both agreed that the director majorly missed the boat: this final scene would have been perfect if accompanied by the music of Meat Loaf singing "I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)". Bummer.

The fight scenes in the movie were wonderful and made up for all the time when we had to watch Bella sit there longing for Edward while in the presence of the nicest, kindest and good-lookingest guy she could ever hope for. The special effects were pretty decent too. If you go to this movie prepared to exit the theater as a confirmed member of Team Jacob, I think you'll enjoy it.