Bringing in mother's day with gerber daisies, Thor and turkey burgers

I knew it was coming.

It happens every mother's day..or has since Liv was in kindergarten.

That was when Bing came into our lives again....and took up permanent residence.

She and Liv always buy flowers every year and hide them in our backyard shed. On mother's day morning, they get up at the crack of dawn and plant them somewhere in our yard, usually around the naked lady bird bath.

This year, as always, I heard Bing's cell phone softly beeping, waking her up in the dawn's early light. I heard her slightly annoyed sigh and then the resolute swinging of her legs over the side of the bed and lightly padding across the room into her shorts and tee shirt. No bra, I noticed out of the corner of my eye. I hoped the neighbors weren't up early or they would get a show. Bing is not flat like me....

I heard the back door thwap shut and knew that when I got up several hours later, my mother's day gift would be in place.

And it was lovely: gerber daisies planted all around the naked lady bird bath. I went out in my nightgown and oohed and ahhed. So pretty!

Liv danced around happily with the dog, Bing hugged me and handed me a big cup of coffee, laced with real cream. A happy start.

I was told at breakfast that I would be selecting the movie that we saw today and also what we would have for Sunday dinner. I picked turkey burgers on the grill for dinner, since typically...Spring has come running to the prairie finally full throttle. Supposed to be in the 90's by mid week. Typical Spring here. Two days and then Summer. But, I also picked mint ice cream and angel food cake to be eaten while we all watch the season finale of The Amazing Race. Pig out time.

After perusing the newspaper, I realized that there was absolutely nothing that I wanted to see, so I told Liv and Bing that they could pick the movie. They chose THOR. I was okay with that. When Liv was younger, I had read several Norse God stories to her and we had both liked Thor a lot. The god of thunder. The god with the temper who made lightning come on earth when he threw his heavy hammer, Mjollner at enemies.

We went to a morning showing of the movie. It was packed. LOTS and LOTS of teenage boys. I wondered at this. I never knew that Norse mythology was so popular.

And then the film started and I was immediately befuddled. Wait a minute here, missy. This was not right...

Ok...Thor was gorgeous. The gods all lived in the realm of Asgard. Right. But...Thor's father, Odin was married to some chick named Frigga. What happened to Jord, the earth goddess? Wasn't he married to her? And since when were Thor and Loki brothers? What the fuck?

I smiled at Volstagg, Hogun and Fandral. All god buddies. And there was Sif, the goddess of fertility. I waited for a love scene between her and Thor because in Norse myth, they marry.

But no.

Thor gets banished to earth. He meets this girl named Jane, an astro-physicist. Played by Natalie Portman who does not seem like the astro-physicist type to me.

Liv was bewildered too. She leaned over and said, "Why is Loki Thor's brother? Isn't he the god of mischief?"

You can't say I don't educate my child. She KNEW this was all caddywomple.

But, as I looked around me and listened to the heavy breathing and testosterone flying around me by all the teen boys, I realized that this was not the Thor that I remembered from my journey into Norse mythology. Nope. This was based on some comic book.

Okay. I would deal. I tried to get into the story. And actually, it wasn't too hard. But...I found myself doing what I always do in movies and TV shows. I was far more interested in Loki than Thor. Loki, the perennial bad boy, the shape shifter who one never knew was friend or foe. 52 years old and I still crave those bad boys...

Loki.

Thor had a body that rocked and hot flashing blue eyes that managed to let us all know that he had no intention of going back and marrying Sif, even though in this movie, she was his bud. Nope. He wanted a slice of Jane (Natalie Portman)...and how dumb was that? I mean, Sif lived in his neighborhood realm, was a hot, super smart bad ass goddess and all that but...no. He wanted that earthling astro-physicist who kept hitting him with her car.

And poor Loki! He was so misunderstood all the way through the movie! No one got that he really just wanted to show that he was smart too. Ok, so he wasn't even close to as good looking as Thor, but he was smart and clever and could shape shift. I call that a girl's/gay boy's dream. I wanted to give him a sassy girl hug and tell him that he could come home with me and have some sheet time...but hey...that hat with the horns was going to have to go, dude. No sense in one of us getting hurt now was there?

On the way home, Liv and I re-hashed the movie in the car, comparing the film to the actual mythology. It barely meshed. And, boy howdy...how did they manage to make Anthony Hopkins look so buff as Odin, Thor's dad? He looked almost virile, nothing like Hannibal. I confessed that I secretly wanted him to take off his eye patch and look into the audience's eyes and say that he had offed some other god and eaten his liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti. But, no. He just kept looking all wise and strangely muscular and playing Ward Cleaver to his god sons.

Bing finally shook her head and laughed at us. "Can't the two of you just sit and enjoy a nice action packed movie? Must you go all scholarly on me? Hey. It was a good fun movie and now my wife has the hots for yet another bad boy. At least it isn't some stale coffee house singer who shall go unnamed..."

We all agreed that Thor was pretty good.

But it still pisses me off that they fucked up Norse mythology. Just sayin'....

Dinner was yummy. Liv, Bing and I dragged out all the Adirondack chairs, the picnic table and the stone bunnies from the shed in the back yard and ate outside for the first time this year.

And now we are getting ready to watch The Amazing Race finale and eat ice cream and angel food cake.

Oh, and Liv presented me with a list a few days ago with 50 questions on it that she proposed that I answer one by one as a goodnight story to her this summer. So, I will also answer those questions on the blog and I was pretty impressed with some of her questions ("Describe your high school bedroom. Were you neat?" and "Did you pass your first try at getting your driver's license? How did that go?"), so this could be really, really fun....

Not a bad mother's day...

How was yours?