Step in Time

So lets talk about Mary Poppins. Love that movie, but when I watched it last night on ABC Family, I forgot how weird it was.

This is what StuD had to say about the movie:

"Its a demonic movie about the hardships of the children."

What? Are we talking about the same movie? Those kids have a nanny that sings them beautiful songs and cleans up the nursery with the snap of her fingers. That woman is a dream.

But she is also really vain and in love with herself. When she firsts arrives and starts to unpack her magic carpet bag, the woman whips out TWO mirrors: one gigantic mirror for the wall so she can "see all of my face at the same time" and one hand mirror. And then there is her description on the tape measure she measures Jane and Michael with. Her measurement reads "Mary Poppins. Practically perfect in every way." After she reads it out loud, she smiles sweetly as if to say "Duh, of course I'm perfect." And then when they jump into the sidewalk chalk painting, she wins that freakin' horse race sitting side-saddle on a carousel horse. Rosy-cheeked beeyotch.

But lets talk about some other aspects of the movie. What's the deal with the man who lives next door to the Banks' and shoots a cannon off his roof every hour. The "admiral" has recreated a ship deck on his roof, apparently not over the fact that he used to be a boat captain or something. He is also quite knowledgeable about the weather. Even though the man shoots a cannon off his roof, I would take him over Mr. Wilson any day.

Another interesting character is the man who loves to laugh. Uncle Albert. Whose uncle is he? They call him Uncle Albert, but I really do not think that Jane, Michael, Mary Poppins, or Burt are his nieces or nephews. In my opinion, it is bad news if a man prefers to be called "Uncle" and he is no one's uncle. In any case, he loves to laugh. And float on the ceiling. Drugs must be involved.

And then they go to the bank. Good heavens, the bank and the goddamn tuppins. Michael just wanted to feed the birds, but no. Those rickety old bankers attacked that little boy for his tuppins. But if I were Michael, I sure as hell would not want to feed the birds. That bird lady with her deep, hollow "Feed the birds, tuppins a bag" always freaked me out. And those birds are crawling all over her! Birds are disgusting, and terrifying. Michael, I think you should keep your tuppins.

My sister and I grew up loving Mary Poppins. We used to watch it in our sweet gigantic conversion van, eating chicken nugget happy meals. How charmingly Midwest. We also used to stomp around our living room shaking sticks, dancing along to "Step in Time." Best number of the movie, I say. God, I wanted to be a chimney sweep so bad.

Hey Mr. Wilson!

Before I get into Mr. Wilson, I will give you a little information on my place of residence. I live in an affluent area just south of DC, lets call it "Alexandria". Ha, I really do live there. Anyways, I stumbled across this lovely little town home on craigslist. Two girls were looking for a third roommate, and there I was, ready-made awesomeness ready to move in. My roommates, Care and Suze, are pretty sweet (if you want better code names let me know). Suze works her ass off, but really she has the best job ever because they send her around Europe. Care loves wine and cheese (who doesn't?!) and we always enjoy some together while watching the most recent ridiculous reality TV show. Our neighborhood is quite nice and charming, and we have a wide variety of neighbors of all shapes, sizes, and colors. You know, artsy folk, young couples, a few kids...and then there is Mr. Wilson. He hates us.

So let me tell you about Mr. Wilson who lives across the street. We've always called him that, but who knows what kind of wretched name he really has. He always sits on his front porch with his dog, a drooling mess of a Golden Retriever. I don't think he works, but makes it his job to sit on his front porch all day and night with his dog, keeping watch on our 'hood. I've seen him go inside his house maybe once since I moved in, which was 6 months ago. One evening Care and I saw him with a pillow and blanket, bundled up on his porch with his dog. I swear he slept on that porch that night.

Anyways, Mr. Wilson and I got off to a bad start the day I moved in. I had used a POD to move my things, and was going to leave it in my parking space for a week so I could have time to unload everything. Mr. Wilson was perched on his porch the morning the POD and I showed up. I smiled and said "Hi!" and he promptly informed me "You know you can't keep that thing here in this neighborhood." Thanks for the warm welcome, Wilson.

Not wanting to piss my new neighbor and my community off, I asked the POD driver if I could just unload everything real quick and then he could just take the POD back right away. He seemed really annoyed, because that meant he would have to help me move everything, but grudgingly agreed. I ran to my car to get the key to unload the industrial sized lock on the POD. Classic move, I had locked my keys in my car. So basically I'm stuck with a pissed off Wilson, a pissed off POD driver, and a big POD container which could not be opened sitting in front of my townhouse. What a dream.

Long story shortened a bit; the POD driver was apparently skilled at breaking into cars. We busted in to my car, retrieved my keys, and managed to move out a bedroom and a half of belongings within an hour. All under the watchful eye of Mr. Wilson.