Maralee was invited to give positive parenting tips for a television segment sponsored by Nebraska Children and Families Foundation at NET last week. As any friend-tographer would do (am I spelling that word right, Maralee?), I volunteered to come along and document the experience with my camera. The morning began with makeup and hair by the beautiful Emily Lovelace at Tangled Up Salon, and from there we continued on to the NET studio on UNL’s East Campus.
Look for Maralee’s parenting spots on NET in coming weeks. I’ll put out more information on air times as soon as I can.
Welcome to Entertainment Week on the Prairie Box. Audience participation required (suggested? demanded?). It’s the first week of August which means summer, as we know it, is quickly coming to an end. So this week I’m interested in what the masses do for fun.
Today’s question isn’t limited to summer viewing though:
What is one of the best movies and one of the best television programs you’ve seen in 2008? And why?
(Only answer why if you can do so without dropping spoilers. Oh spoilers! The bane of my non-cable-watching existence!)
I’ll go first. For movies I’ll pick Wall-E for all its Pixar-y goodness. It was great to see a movie on the big screen that my whole family could really enjoy. And while watching the film, I was very aware that I wasn’t catching every fascinating detail, that there was a lot more to discover during future viewings. Wa-a-ll-eeeee! Ev-ah! Who could resist such charm? For tv shows I’ll go with a recent delivery from my Blockbuster queue: Mad Men. I almost quit watching the show (note that it’s not recommended for everyone) because it got dark and somewhat discouraging. But I love history that comes alive and with Mad Men I’m constantly wondering about historical accuracy as it relates to the show’s central office, a marketing firm on Madison Avenue. It may not be the “best” of 2008, but certainly one of the most interesting programs I’ve seen.
I took a lot of photos at the Sunken Gardens, so I’ll continue to plug away at posting them. Our trip to the garden rounded out Flower Week and conveniently tucked into Bug Week. Speaking of bugs, one made his pictorial debut in this shot.
Aside from this brief moment of blogging, I’ve spent the entire evening reading Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Fascinating reading—my mind is bursting at the seams. I’m sure to have a few nightmares tonight, but in the waking moments between them I’ll try to remind myself of how grateful I am to live in the United States of America. Between watching HBO’s John Adams just prior to the Fourth of the July and reading this novel, I am finding that terms like liberty and equality mean much more than the lighthearted, cliched definitions I’ve ascribed to them over the years.