Sigh. When will
America come around?
Oscar Sunday is wonderful because I do nothing strenuous to
prepare except clear the day of any and all activities. Laundry, cooking, bathing: all these
extraneous and annoying chores are done quickly and early on so as not to take
away from all the schmoozing on the red carpet, unintelligible acceptance
speeches, and fashion choices gone awry that the Oscars reliably bring me each
year. When the last task is complete,
red sweatpants and I kick it comfortably on the couch starting at 5 o’clock, remote
control and a box of wine nearby.
My family knows to either stay away, tiptoe around me, or
just join in and let the ridiculous extravagance lull them into a stupefied state.
Except none of that happened this year. This year, my husband was unavailable for
offspring duty, and my daughter had a birthday party to go to on Oscar Sunday. So, even though I might be on the Top Twelve
Most Selfish Mothers Of All Time list according to how many mothers volunteer
for the PTO in our local elementary schools, I DVR’d all the Oscar Sunday
coverage I would miss, which after shopping for a gift, getting the kids ready
to go, going to the birthday party, and then coming home and getting the kids
ready for bed and What? Why do you have homework to do at 8:45 on a Sunday
night? totaled to about 4 hours of prime red carpet coverage, and about an hour
of the show itself.
(I ended up taping about 7 hours of Oscars which I have yet
to watch because I ended up starting at the red carpet coverage and I fell
asleep, waking up to skip to the live show, where I saw Ang Lee win Best
Director for my beloved Life of Pi, and Jennifer Lawrence fall going up on
stage to receive her award, which is what I would totally do if I won an Oscar
except my dress would probably also find a way to flip up over my head.)
Not once in my adult life can I remember missing the Oscars. Magically, Oscar Sunday has historically not
been a day crammed with activities, and I haven’t ever had to drop something
major to watch the event on TV. In
contrast, I think a lot of serious soul-searching would take place before any
of us would plan something other than Super Bowl-related activities on Super
Bowl Sunday.
That includes me, and you know how I feel about football.
But this year we had something to do on Oscar Sunday, and we
did it. I was not about to allow a silly
awards show consisting of a bunch of strangers voting each other as most
popular, the winners taking the spotlight to tell us how amazing their lives
and jobs and coworkers are, to interfere with my daughter celebrating her
friend’s birthday. The Oscars, like the
Super Bowl, have nothing to do with me.
But my life has everything to do with me, and unlike the Super Bowl for
so many, I can drop it to do life.
Oscar Sunday is major, and it is fun, but it is not real
life. That is why I love Oscar Sunday:
because it knows where it stands.
That, and because I can digitally save 7 hours of Oscar coverage
to watch later.
*******
No comments:
Post a Comment