Harry Potter And The Deathly School-Night Movie

I know that's not the title of the movie. Although, for all I know it could be called 'Harry Potter And The New Moon' or even 'When Harry Potter Met Sally.' That's because I'm not a big Harry Potter fan - haven't read the books and only saw one of the movies and not even sure which one it was. The third one? Or was it the twenty-seventh? All I know is that one of them is a wizard.

Which makes it all the more bizarre that I'll be going to opening night of 'Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows' at MIDNIGHT TONIGHT. Even more strange – I paid for the tickets.

And wait, even STRANGER STILL - I'm going to see a movie where it's possible that one or more of the characters will be in a period costume and whose plot doesn't feature a romantic relationship between two endearingly quirky modern-day city-dwelling adults who find friendship, then love, over cups of steaming cappuccinos.

The things we do for our children.

Kiyomi became a huge Harry Potter fan over the summer. She read all of the books in three consecutive weeks, and after that it's all she's talked about. The books, the movies, some odd online-only production called The Harry Potter Musical – Harry gets more attention than her homework, our cat and Rigel and I combined. The only thing that gets more attention than Harry is her Facebook page, although a great deal of her postings have to do with the boy wizard and his fabulousness. Things like, "OMG HARRY POTTER IS THE SHIZ."

So of course when she became aware that you could head to the movies at midnight and be one of the first rabid, costumed, obsessed fans to see 'Deathly Hallows', she begged me to take her and a friend. And me, not ever being able to say no to a crazy, once-in-a-lifetime pop-culture event, I said yes. Besides being concerned about being able to sit through a movie that I'm not really interested in seeing, I'm worried about taking two twelve-year-olds to a movie on a school night that probably won't end until nearly 3am. (Kira's coming too, but being a teenager, staying up until all hours of the night is now second nature.)

The understanding between me and her friend's mom is that we'll see how they're doing in the morning when their 7am school wake-up time rolls around, but we aren't against letting them miss their first period. God I hope none of their teachers are reading this. If you are, we promise to make the girls write 300-page essays on 'The Deathly Hallows and Their Relation To Historical Deities.'

Am I crazy? Probably, but chances are she's going to remember this night forever, and isn't that what life's all about?

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Thanksgiving Recipes: The Unwavering and the Unforgivable

Every Thanksgiving my mom makes a lime green Jell-O mold. She insists that the only reason she keeps making it is because she failed to bring it one year and then my brother was disappointed and wondered where it was. My brother swears he's never asked about it, but knowing him he probably said something like, "The only reason I came to Thanksgiving dinner was for lime-green Jell-O and now that it's not here I may as well go to Denny's." That probably sent my mom into a guilt-wracked tailspin after which she vowed to make that lime-green Jell-O mold until the end of her days.

I don't mind it, though, because it really has become something of a tradition and to be perfectly honest, if I didn't see that fluorescent green ring sitting next to the turkey I might actually miss it. It's almost kind of majestic in its lime-green absurdness. And besides, it makes my mom happy to bring it and what kind of tyrant would deny an 89-year-old woman the joy of setting her jiggly gelatin creation down amidst the Thanksgiving splendor?

However, if she ever showed up with one of these I'd grab her walker, turn it around and send her out into traffic:

What is this? It's a Thanksgiving Turkey Cake. What you see are layers of ground turkey, stuffing, cranberries and sweet potatoes all held together by mashed potato 'icing' and finished off with a marshmallow topping. Think of it as the chalupa of Thanksgiving meals. Not to be mean to the hardworking chef who created this, but I think everytime one of these is made a turkey loses its wings.

But oh, how it makes me appreciate the lime-green Jell-O mold.

If for some reason you feel compelled to try it on your own, the recipe is here.

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If this doesn't make you laugh you are dead to me

Check out this video called "Inception Animals", a montage of surprised animal faces set to the score from the movie. If you don't let out a loud guffaw or two to this I'm not even going to bother sending you that video of squirrels blinking to the music from "Saw II.



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Daily Celebrity Dropping: Conan O'Brien Returns Tonight With A Beard

In case you haven't heard, Conan O'Brien's new show Conan premieres tonight at 11pm on TBS. Unless you've been living under a rock with no Wifi and no internet, you probably know that Conan was fired from The Tonight Show after Jay Leno took it back after previously leaving.

It was mean, and everyone was all, "Boo, Jay you suck" and pledging allegiance to 'Team Coco' and spending way too much time on Facebook trying to comfort Conan showing up at rallies (!) and wishing bad things on Jay which, if you've seen his show, kind of worked.

Now Conan is back, with a beard.

And I can't wait. Are you going to watch?

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Daily Celebrity Dropping: David Cassidy Says 'I Think I Love You' To The Bottle

Holy puka shells - Keith Partridge is in the slammer.

From MSNBC:

David Cassidy, best known for his role as Keith Partridge on the 1970s classic "The Partridge Family," was arrested Wednesday night for DUI.

According to the police report, Cassidy, 60, told police he had a glass of wine around lunch time and took a Hydrocodone — also known as Vicodin — around 3:30 p.m. A half-empty bottle of bourbon also was found in Cassidy's vehicle.

Celebrity DUI's are nothing new. But the thing that shocks me about this article is - David Cassidy is 60? That must make me...at least 30.

Let's hope David's out on bail and back on his tour bus soon. Where's Reuben Kincaid when you need him?

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Daily Celebrity Dropping: Gwyneth Paltrow On Glee Singing Cee-Lo And Making Me Cringe-y

Wow, you look away for a second and it's been four months. Who named this Daily Celebrity Dropping anyway? 

Maybe you remember me mentioning that I'd taken a liking to a little show called Glee. It's about this guy who talks about diseases, food and politics.

Oh wait, that's Nightline.

So these Glee people are always trying something different. I think the experts call it 'breaking new ground.' The latest thing is, they're putting Gwyneth Paltrow on the show and having her sing Cee-Lo's "F--- You." Is it me or does that seem totally wrong? (To those of you who are saying, "She sings?" she's set to make her singing debut on next week's Country Music Awards. Huh.)

I love the song, but the idea of Gwyneth singing Cee-Lo is making me cringe. Couldn't the producers have come up with something that suited her better, maybe a waltz or even some classic Whitney. Gwyneth singing the theme from The Bodyguard – now that I could almost stomach. Almost.

Also, not to worry – they're saying Gwyneth will be singing the words "Forget You" on the show instead of spewing a bunch of expletives. There'll be enough of that from the viewers.

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Put down those Whoppers and Do Something

Halloween is over. Which means it's time to stop breaking off a piece of that Kit Kat bar and lay down that box of Whoppers just for a minute. Yes I know they're like little balls of malted heaven, but I need you to do me a favor. Take a break from savoring that rich caramel and chocolaty nougat in that Snickers bar and leave a comment on my Texting & Driving post or any of these that are part of the LG TextEd BlogHer Engagement Program. It's for a worthy cause – for every comment left on these posts 5¢ will be donated to DoSomething.org.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled pillaging of your kid's Halloween bag.

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