Mad Men, oh how I've missed you

Mad Men is almost baaaack! Season 5 premieres Sunday, March 25th. And I'm on cloud nine.

From Entertainment Magazine:

"The two-hour premiere will resume the story after a healthy time jump, and you may need a few minutes to get your bearings. I want people to feel like they're going to visit their best friend, and they open the door and everything's been going on without them," hints [the heart, soul and superbrain of the show, Matthew] Weiner. "The story is on page 30 when they open the door, so they'll have to catch up."

I'm just relieved the show is officially back on. I know there was some major studio honcho douchiness, and that AMC now admits it released an "inelegant" statement about the protracted negotiations in an effort to make Matthew Weiner look like the asshole holdout. Weiner says he's planning to do 7 seasons. Jon Hamm says he'd play Don Draper until he's 100 if he could. Let's hope so.

SPOILERS....

The resumption of the Joan Holloway (never Harris) storyline is the one I'm most anticipating. Mostly I want Dr. Greg to die a quick death in Vietnam so Joan can be free of him. Shitty rapist loser. I love how Joan is so together and kickass at work, but is the opposite with her personal life. Of course everyone wants to know if Joan's going to raise her baby. (Am I the only one still eye rolling over the odd pro-life message sent last season?) If so, she'll do it with style and aplomb, as always. But will Roger ever know the truth? Way to surreptitiously stick it to Roger's trophy wife, Jane, and to shitty Dr. Greg, too. Well played, Joan Holloway. Well played.

Of course everyone will want to know if Don and Megan have actually tied the knot. I predict they will have, and naturally, Don will have already started cheating before the ink on the thank you notes is even dry. Will Megan continue to work at SCDP in the higher-profile role she had wished for (in the footsteps of Peggy), or will she stay home? Probably she'll stay home, because I don't think Don would have it any other way. How else is he supposed to chase women if his wife's at work with him?

Then again, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Don's already dumped Megan. As Faye so aptly put it, Don only likes the beginnings. Hmm...

I hear Betty Draper Francis will have a substantial role this season. Should be neat to see how January Jones' pregnancy is cleverly hidden in the shots. Or perhaps they'll just make it so Betty is pregnant with her 4th child (oh joy). I know she's not exactly a fan favorite, but I really do enjoy the raw honesty of her character, and if I'm honest I see a little of my own darkest motherhood moments in her.

Looking forward to the late-60's era social conflicts working their way into the show, and for the youth generation to start moving on up.

I'll be re-capping each episode here. Who'll be watching with me?

Two October Birthdays, One October Anniversary

October is a very big month here at Casa hush. First comes DD's birthday, followed a week later by our wedding anniversary (7 Year Itch, anyone?), then DS's birthday, then Halloween.

If we had known then that we'd be so fertile around Christmastime, we probably would have re-thought the whole fall wedding idea. That said, I remain a huge fan of fall weddings. We got married in a large-ish Midwestern city, on one of those unseasonably warm, sunny October Saturdays. It was something like 70 degrees outside. We were such lucky bastards.

Every year on our anniversary we break out the photo album. This was the first year the kids really noticed the photos, and seemed to enjoy looking at them. I have to pat myself on the back a little bit: my wedding gown has aged really well. It was a form-fitting, lace-embellished gown, in the style of Monique Lhuillier. I think some of our guests thought it looked very conservative and maybe even a bit grannyish back in 2004, but it would fit right in with today's bridal fashions. Of all people, it was my mother who convinced me that it was, in fact, The Dress. She urged me not to go with the type of strapless, poufy skirt number that was all the rage circa 2001-2005. That was the first and only piece of fashion advice my mother ever gave me. And 7 years later, I still have to say: Hey thanks, mom. You were right.

So, DD is now 2 and DS is now 4. We no longer have any children in diapers, nor drinking from bottles, nor sleeping in cribs. Mostly we all sleep fine at night - if they wake up and get lonely, the kids just crawl into our ginormous bed. We seriously thought this time would never come. It is so good.

Halloween is the last of our Big 4 October events. We have 2 parties to go to this weekend, and on Monday we'll do some trick-or-treating in our friends' neighborhood. We live too far out in the country to ever get any trick-or-treaters ourselves. DS wants to dress up as either Iron Man or Captain America. Bummer. The days of my son in cute, cuddly Halloween attire are apparently over. DD is going as a bumble bee. I know it won't be long before she asks to be a frickin' princess. Gah. My friend who is Halloween-obsessed and also has a 4-year-old, was lamenting the fact that her daughter chose a "racy kitten" costume this year. Major bummer.

In other news, there is an older girl at DS's school who has a major crush on him. She keeps drawing him notes with stories and pictures depicting their future together. It is really too funny. The girl's mom approached me after class yesterday and joked about how we're going to be future in-laws. DS seems oblivious to it, and simply says "yeah, she's my friend." I think it's his utter nonchalance that keeps her coming back for more.

'Benign Neglect' of the '70s and '80s

"One sometimes sees these exhausted, devoted, slightly drab parents, piling out of the car, and thinks, Is all of this high-level watching and steering and analyzing really making anyone happier? Can we, for a moment, flash back to the benign neglect of the 1970s and '80s? I can remember my parents having parties, wild children running around until dark, catching fireflies. If these children helped themselves to three slices of cake, or ingested secondhand smoke from cigarettes, or carried cocktails to adults who were ever so slightly slurring their words, they were not noticed; they were loved, just not monitored. Those warm summer nights of not being focused on were liberating. In the long sticky hours of boredom, in the lonely, unsupervised, unstructured time, something blooms; it was in those margins that we became ourselves." -- Katie Roiphe in the Financial Times (as quoted in the December 3, 2010 issue of The Week)

Does Roiphe's jaunt down memory lane/dig at modern parenting strike you as gospel or gorilla shit? (...to steal a delightful line from "True Blood"'s Queen Sophie-Anne)?? Discuss.