Fifty Shades of Edward

 
As a book reader, Twilight fan, and lawyer, I'm absolutely fascinated by Fifty Shades of Grey.

Just not for the reason that most people are.

You can't turn on the computer or tv this month without hearing about the phenom known as "Fifty Shades of Grey." The Today Show, Washington Post, CBS news, USA Today, the LA Times, and even the New York Times (on the front page, no less) have devoted good time to what the Times is calling "mommy porn."

Its this month's selection for my book club, although how one can talk about BDSM relationships in a room full of other moms, I have no idea. I finished Book 1 yesterday, and am starting Book 2.

I didn't like this book - you can read my lengthy post on Goodreads for more on that - but what I find really and truly fascinating about this book is that it started as Twilight fanfic. And most of these big news outlets aren't talking about that. And if they are, its with a casual mention to how it started out as a Twilight fanfic, and thus imply that people shouldn't take it seriously as a book because of that.

I've read my share of Twilight fan fic. Its fun. I read just about every Jane Auten "fanfic"  that gets published - that's really all that the re-imaginations and modernizations are, after all. Bridget Jones's Diary is probably the most famous fanfic, having been so popular that Helen Fielding wrote sequels and they made movies and even hired Colin Firth to play Mark Darcy, the modern Mr. Darcy, in the modern Pride and Prejudice otherwise known as Bridget Jones's Diary.

But its different when the fanfic authors base their stories and characters on people from Jane Austen's books. Those stories are no longer subject to copyright laws, and they are in the public domain.

Twilight isn't.

The whole reason authors like Stephanie Meyer and JK Rowling allow fanfic sites to exist on the internet is because they aren't done for profit. They OWN these characters, and you can write a story about them, as long as it is for personal enjoyment and Not. For. Profit.

E.L. James originally wrote a lengthy fanfic called "Master of the Universe." Its characters were Edward and Bella. Their physical descriptions matched Edward and Bella. Bella has a flighty, remarried mom who misses important events and lives in the South. She has a good male friend, who would like to be more than friends with her.Bella has no idea how beautiful she is, and how every guy she meets somehow falls in love with her. She is clumsy. She doesn't eat much. She hates to exercise. She doesn't care for fashion. She is drawn to an enigmatic, handsome guy with wild, coppery hair, whom every girl desires. He is drawn to her, but he pushes her away, for reasons she can't understand. He finally gives up fighting his intentions to stay away from her, even though he knows it would be the right thing to do. They fall in 'love.' He has a secret. She should run away from his secret, but she doesn't. He plays the piano, really, really well. He is controlling and expresses his feelings for her in controlling ways. She bites her lip repeatedly, and this drives him crazy. He is controlling because he just cares for her safety. And his big secret is that he is ... into BDSM. Or a vampire. Either way, he bites.

A publisher snapped up the rights to Master of the Universe, the author did a word search, and changed the names of Edward to Christian and Bella to Anastasia, and the people started buying the book. A lot of people. Its currently the #1 seller on amazon and the NY Times lists. The author has now signed a second contract, with a different publisher, for a seven-figure sum. And the movie rights are going to be auctioned off soon, which will probably also be a seven-figure sum. Not to mention the millions made from that movie.

Why isn't Stephanie Meyer suing?? I don't get it. I'm not an Intellectual Property lawyer, but this should be an easy-peasy (lemon squeezy, as Ryan would say) lawsuit to win. Slam Dunk.

I'm utterly beguiled by the forthcoming legal battle, so where is it? And why is no one wondering about it? I did some internet sleuthing, and the only mention I could find of it online were these two articles: an article at Twlight Lexicon, and a blog entry at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books (which I have to check out more - what a great title!). They seem to be wondering the same things I am. Why don't the big media outlets go more into this? Talk about dropping the ball.

So again, why isn't Stephanie suing? I know she doesn't need the money. Maybe she thinks its the nice thing to do for a Twilight fan to not sue. But these are her characters. She is Mormon, and clearly has a conservative view of things. Surely she must be more than a little stunned to see her Edward turned into a sadomasochist.

I know that I am.

Basketball 2012

In January and February, the boys played winter basketball. Our pediatrician has predicted Alex will be 6'2" and that Ryan will be 6'4" when they are fully grown, so I figure we have high school basketball in our future, and they should start learning to play now. Which is why I started both of them in the Y leagues at age 4. :)

Alex returned to his team from last year, now called the Mavericks, and Ryan was on a new team, the Nets.

Ryan improved so much this year, it was such a joy to watch him play. Here he is making a basket.

Swoosh!

Alex had a harder time with basketball this season. He has slowed down quite a bit as he recovers from HSP, and the first few games, he was just exhausted by the second half. We finally wised up and stopped bringing him for the 30 minute practices before the game, and that helped a lot the second half of the season.

His best games were  his last two games, and he scored in each of them.

We're so proud of both our little basketball stars!

Captain Ryan's LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean Party

For Ryan's sixth birthday, he wanted to have another LEGO party. But not just a LEGO party, like last year. No, he wanted a very specific Captain Jack and Pirates of the Caribbean LEGO party. I wasn't in love with his idea at first. We've done a pirate party before (for Alex's 4th) and we did LEGOs last year (for Ryan's 5th). But my little party planner was not to be deterred, so we started to make our plans.

First and foremost was where to have it, a decision that was made incredibly easy for us after I noticed a little blurb on the Pump-It-Up website: "Coming Soon: Adventure Parties," with a picture of a pirate and a superhero next to these magical words. A few phone calls later, and we had booked Texas' very first Pirate Adventure Party at Pump-It-Up.

INVITATIONS: I used evite, again. Its just too easy.

 I added this text to the evite, in the message box:
Ahoy, mateys!

Arrrgh you ready to celebrate Ryan Swanson's 6th birthday? The Black Pearl will be docking at Pump-It-Up for a special treasure hunt and pirate adventure party.  Ryan needs all his friends to help locate the Dead Man's Treasure Chest before the bad Pirates in the Caribbean can get to it.

Don't forget that all pirates, empresses, mermaids and mateys will need their socks if they want to jump. Otherwise ye'll be stuck as a landlubber for the parrrrrrtay!


The birthday boy was a bit saddened at not having physical invitations to hand out, though, so Carl also made a few of these for us. They work well for grandparents and great-grandparents who don't email very well.

Pump-it-Up did a great job with the Pirate Adventure. Our party hosts wore some pirate gear and spoke in pirate talk for the whole party. Considering that it was for two hours, I was most impressed! The pirates, including Captain Ryan, were given a treasure map. They needed to find three clues, in three different rooms, and as the party moved along, they would have a new clue to find.

They also took a pirate oath, and played a lot of pirate games inside the jumping rooms.

And played a lot of pirate games inside the jumping rooms.

It was great that they weren't just sliding and jumping the way you usually do at a bouncy party.

Ryan felt this made his party extra-special (and it relieved some of my mommy guilt that we weren't having his party at home).

DECORATIONS: I couldn't hang anything on the walls at Pump-it-Up, so I did my best at trying just about every other kind of decoration.

Ryan has a lot of LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean toys, and each box has come with its own poster. I framed a few of these and propped up the frames on the party tables. It worked. I would have liked to have used more of them, but space was limited.

We also brought his Black Pearl LEGO ship. Santa had given it to him for Christmas, and made a perfect centerpiece on the table. I also framed one of my recent favorite Ryan pictures - where he is smiling with pride at his LEGO creation - and we put the picture in our new LEGO picture frame. Ryan and I made it ourselves, with a hot glue gun (my favorite new toy. How I've lived this long without using one, I'll never know). You can see it below.

We have a pirate chest filled with gold coins and necklaces left over from Alex's pirate party a few years ago, and we placed it on a table as well, along with the LEGO "RYAN" nameplates and a "6" from last year. It was easy to change the 5 to 6! We also put one of our Captain Jack wigs on the giant LEGO head storage box we have. Carl thought he looked more like a hippie than Captain Jack, though.

Carl's mom made us this Captain Jack cutout, and we used it as a photo prop. We got pictures of just about all the kids, which I'm sending out with the thank you notes.

We used the official Pirates of the Caribbean paper goods. How can I resist Johnny Depp?

One of Ryan's favorite bits from his previous party was that all his friends had some LEGOs to play with at the tables during food and cake time.

I had seen these fabulous LEGO heads made from baby food jars on pinterest, and I knew I needed to do this somehow for the party. These were the perfect containers for the LEGOs for each child!

I was very, very pleased at how well they came out. Even with the ones Ryan decorated himself, bless his heart. (A note for those who may try and do this themselves: online decorations call for a coat of sealant to be applied after the faces. DON'T DO THIS. We had a few emergencies because of this which necessitated late night runs to HEB to buy more baby food which I sadly washed down the drain, when the sealant caused my perfectly executed jars to have crinkled paint.)

CLOTHING: Ryan wore a new shirt from Old Navy that had a pirate on it. His LEGO Pirates t-shirt from the summer was pretty well worn and ratty looking, so I vetoed that for his big day. Alex's was less worn, so he wore his t-shirt.

And there aren't many pictures of me since I was the photographer, but I thought my top was semi-pirate-y looking. The picture below doesn't show it very well, but I wore a Captain Jack LEGO bottlecap necklace I ordered from etsy.

 
FAVORS: I found these treasure chest goody boxes at Party City. Inside, we included some chocolate gold coins, a few pirate gold coins to play with, and some POTC goody favors: the notepad, eraser, pencil and some tattoos. And of course, they had their little LEGO heads full of LEGOs to take home with them. What kid doesn't need more LEGOs?!

FOOD: We didn't serve lunch, just some snacks, and then cake. I loved our cake! The baker is a mom at our school who does this out of her home, and she did an amazing job.

In fitting with the pirate theme, they gave Ryan a special air cannon to blow out his candles. He was so proud of it!

Carl made these water bottle labels for us. I just printed them out on normal paper and taped them over the small bottles. I know that people who sell them on etsy and other places recommend using waterproof labels, but I didn't find that to be necessary.

PRESENTS: Ryan opened his presents from his friends there, and he did a great job of expressing pleasure and happiness at all his gifts, even when he received duplicates of ones he already has. He was especially thrilled to get the one Star Wars LEGO he has wanted ever since Disney World (which I had talked him out of getting).

And then it was time to head home. He carried his own bag of presents out the door with him.

Doesn't he look like Santa Claus?!

(apologies for the rotten last picture. Carl had already spirited the camera to the car so I did a quick iphone shot)

Thank you, Cub Scouts

One of Alex's achievements for his Wolf year in Cub Scouts was to make us dinner one night. And clean up afterwards.

He knew exactly what he wanted to make: Frito Surprise.

I had gotten the recipe from one of those kid-friendly meal sites last year, and its been a favorite ever since. You take a bag of Fritos, and then add the ground meat to the bag, and then whatever other toppings you want (cheese, lettuce, sour cream, tomatoes, etc). The boys LOVE this meal - who wouldn't want to eat out of a bag?

So Alex went to work. He browned the meat, he washed the lettuce (and spun it to dry in the salad spinner) and he even used the slicer on the lettuce and tomatoes.

And the best part of his Cub Scout meal?

He had to clean up afterwards, too.

I'm loving the Scouts!

Valentine's Day

For much of February we've been fighting illnesses. The boys have had strep (again) and sinus infections (again) and I've had bronchitis. Hence the delay in these posts.

Valentine's Day was pretty low-key for us. I did minimal decorating - only this buffet had anything Valentine's on it. I'm still loving my Keep Calm printables.

Alex had to decorate his own box at home and bring it in, while Ryan made his in class.

Leslie gave me this great idea, and we made Alex an iPad box.

He also gave out iPhone Valentine's to his classmates, wrapped around a box of conversation hearts.

They came out so cute Ryan decided he needed to give them out, too, even though he had already brought in his LEGO Ninjago valentines. So Ryan handed out two Valentines. ;)

The boys had parties at school, and Carl and I split up the rooms.

While I was in Alex's class, he was in Ryan's class, and then vice-versa.

There's a lot of kinder/2nd grade families, which means there is a lot of shuffling down that hallway going on.

I wish the school would set the parties at different times, so you could go to both, but for whatever reason, they schedule all parties in the 1:30-2:30 slot.

The boys enjoyed their new books for the holiday, and I enjoyed my flowers at work.

I'm just sad I missed the guy who delivered them. He was dressed up as Cupid, and according to my secretary, he was wearing nothing but tight shorts and wings and was HOT.

Carl, on the other hand, thought it was a fine thing I missed him.