Greetings from Brookside Gardens

The weather on Sunday was much more cooperative than the weather on Saturday, not too warm, not too cold, so after a fairly quiet morning and sandwiches for lunch, we went to Brookside Gardens, which now has a spring display in the conservatory and lots of geese in the ponds though the turtles are still hibernating. Only the very tips of daffodils and tulips have come up through the soil, but there are lots of snowdrops and some crocuses in the outdoor gardens. On the way home we stopped at Mom's Organic Market for quick and easy dinner stuff because we knew we were going to spend most of the evening in front of the TV.









Our evening from 6 p.m. on when red carpet coverage began consisted entirely of the Academy Awards. I loved not having a host; the show felt quicker and less full of itself, and I appreciated the range of presenters, which was a big improvement on the range of nominees and winners in a lot of categories. I love big maxi dresses like Vivien Lhuillier's layered wedding gowns, but what is with all the little-girl-looking floofy shoulders and sleeves? I felt like a lot of people wanted to look like Taylor Swift 10 years ago, which even Taylor Swift doesn't want any more. Regina King looked gorgeous but why was she wearing a dress she couldn't get up the steps in without Chris Evans' help? (She couldn't have known he'd be sitting there, ha!)

Of course the dress everyone will remember from this year's Oscars is Melissa McCarthy's bunny dress. She should win an Emmy for appearing at the Oscars in the bunny dress. I feel like the bunny dress won Olivia Colman the Oscar over Glenn Close; though I loved Olivia's performance, I did not expect it at all, and neither did Olivia, apparently, since she had no draft of a speech just-in-case, which was charming and will probably help her win another Oscar. Glenn should win an Oscar for pretending to be happy when Olivia thanked her from the stage.

I really thought The Favourite was going to win Best Picture if Roma did not, and I am still queasy that it was Green Book. Really? REALLY? I was mad enough when that won screenplay, since I was very, very happy for Mahershala, would have been okay with it if Viggo won, wouldn't even have objected if it won in directing or cinematography categories, but the screenplay is everything that is NOT good about the film for reasons I'm sure I don't have to explain to anyone reading this. Okay, racially insensitive pablum.

It's nice that Black Panther won costume and production design and soundtrack, it's awesome that Cuaron won for cinematography as well as best foreign film, and I don't really understand the difference between sound editing and sound mixing but it's charming that Bohemian Rhapsody won those and Best Actor without one single person mentioning Bryan Singer, who presumably hired all of them. Our power went out from the high winds for a few minutes right after the In Memoriam segment, so apparently I missed Barbra introducing Spike, but I'm very happy for him, too. Really the whole show was worth watching for Samuel L. Jackson and Spike Lee's bromance, especially without a host to gum up the works.

What else? Did they call Helen Mirren to be a presenter and she said, only if Jason Momoa walks me in? (Jason, you could have trimmed your beard. You aren't playing Aquaman this week.) I liked the Deadpool Google ad, I loved Jennifer Hudson, I LOVED Bradley and Gaga and I agree with the media that life would be sweet if they were dating but I don't believe it for one second. So, lessons learned: next year no host, someone other than the director's guild nominating directors because otherwise women directors and their movies will continue to be overlooked, and stop old white guys from choosing Best Picture. We're far from the shallow now!