A Newsy Kind of List

• My baby sister had a baby yesterday.  The baby of my family now has two babies of her own.  This would be strange except both my sisters somehow produce the most scrumptious babies you've ever seen in your entire life.  She and her husband (because she is an adult; I just realized I'm making her sound like a teen mom or something) didn't find out the sex of the baby while pregnant, which is one of my very favorite things ever.  I love the anticipation of not knowing and the hot debate of Boy or Girl, although I could do without all the "well, since you're carrying all in front it's a girl," and "you know you're having a boy when a birthmark in the shape of Bolivia appears on your rump" nonsense.  So before yesterday, nobody knew that Steph was gestating another GIRL.  They named her Elliot Ann (adorable!), and I can't wait to see how her tank of a big sister, Vada, attempts to smother little Elliot with love.

• I watched another documentary last night (no more Bronies, I swear).  It was Happy People: A Year in the Taiga, the one about the self-sufficient people of a small village in Siberia, and it was AMAZING.  I wish I could send Doctor Who to each one of your homes to kidnap you and bring you here to force you to watch it with me, only since I've already seen it, I'd probably spend half the time re-watching it on the television and the other half staring at your faces to watch your reactions.  It would be fun and not at all creepy.  There's so, so much I could tell you about it, but I'm afraid of ruining it for you if there's even the tiniest chance you'll ever watch it, so I'll just tell you about three of my favorite parts: 1) May 1st is Russia's equivalent of Labor Day, and one of their festivities is the curious practice of burning a scarecrow-type figure wearing a dress, which you don't really understand until the narrator informs you that they're "burning Winter in effigy."  RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU COULD DO WITH SOME BURNING OF WINTER IN EFFIGY.  2)  Gorgeous.  It is all fairy-tale gorgeous there: massive amounts of snow on the mile upon mile upon mile of forest, the breaking up of the river in the spring where it looks like the entire landscape has just decided to start moving itself along, the beautiful Russian language you get to hear as the trappers describe all their preparations and activities.  3)  It's truly remarkable everything they do by hand: making their own mosquito repellent from birch trees, making their own insulation out of moss and earth for their hunting huts, making their own skis, making their own everything.  If you loved Laura Ingalls Wilder or marveling at other cultures or if you're a human being, you should watch this film.  Incredible.

• At the direction of Cassi Renee and Common Household Mom, I picked up some Liquid Fence this morning, as the rabbits have been eating my tulip shoots and this is bad for my blood pressure.  Here's hoping I've finally found something that works, other than searching Pinterest for a good recipe for rabbit stew, that is.

Where I Destroy What Little Credibility I Ever Had

You guys.  We got Netflix.  (Said in the voice of that girl who says, "I GOT BANGS!")

You know it's going to be an utterly vacuous, shallow post when the first sentence is about Netflix and Legally Blonde.  Just wait:  It's going to get worse, and by worse, I mean so much better.

We recently got rid of satellite, and I've discovered that it was easier for me to say self-important things like, "I'm not really much of a television person, I just read these little things called books," and other statements that no doubt made people loathe me, but as it turns out, I'm just really, really lazy.  I couldn't be bothered to search through aaaalll those channels you get with satellite (my life is just so cumbersome, you know?  It's like a Dickens novel around here), so I just never turned it on, except to watch the odd program here and there.

But two weeks ago, we joined the 21st century and got Netflix.  We're not sure how long we'll keep it (FOREVER), as we're currently just trying it out free for a month (FOREVER).

There's just one word you need to know to understand my new-found allegiance to Netflix, and it is this: DOCUMENTARIES.

That's right:  I love documentaries.
You see what I did there?  I made you think I was spurning the intelligentsia HAHAHA for a life of insipid television-watching, but no!  I love Netflix for its documentaries.

The first documentary I watched this month?  Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony.  (Aaaaand we're back to the shallows.)

Now, I'm not going to completely ruin the whole feature for you, because I'm sure you've all been busy attempting to cobble 88 minutes of your lives together just to watch this jewel of a documentary, but, but, I just have to give you some of my own, personal highlights.  *Spoiler alert!*

• The part where one man drove past his local Wal-Mart in rural North Carolina and talked about the scarcity of "ponymerch" (that's Brony for My Little Pony merchandise) in his area.

• The part where two PhD psychologists talked about the psychology of Bronies and spoke at length about "the average Brony," who it turns out are "highly educated heterosexual males in their twenties who are most often very introverted," oh, except for a unique subset of extroverted Bronies whom they refer to as either "social Bronies" or "evangelical Bronies" (GUESS WHICH TERM'S MY FAVORITE?).  

• The ins and outs of BronyCon (this of course being a convention for Bronies, keep up, guys), which features appearances by the voice actors from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (and make no mistake, it is this newest incarnation of My Little Pony that they're all so obsessed with), tons of vendors of My Little Pony merchandise (PONYMERCH), presentations by the scads of Bronies who make online music, art, laser shows, etc, all inspired by My Little Pony, and, more than anything, it seems, the chance for Bronies to finally find their tribe and meet like-minded people.

I know I've just spent three bullet points sounding like I'm making fun of these people (possibly because I mostly was), but there really was something kind of heart-warming about watching all of these people find each other, and to be honest, there are lots of worse things they could be spending their time and energy and emotions on, and there were some unexpected stories in there, like the one of the young man with Asperger's who had trouble relating to other people, but strongly connected to the show Friendship is Magic and its simplified moral stories, went to a BronyCon, and made some new friends without his usual anxiety.

I do have some less, ah, brony-ish documentaries in our queue, not to worry.  Next up is Happy People: A Year in the Taiga- "explores life along the River Yenisei in Russia, where the industrious inhabitants of a rural village truly live off the land," It's a Girl- which seems to be about how much it sucks to be born female in so many parts of the world, both of which I will soon view unless I trip and fall and watch Jig- "Go behind the scenes at the fiercely competitive 40th Irish Dancing World Championships" (squee!).