Advice for 2026: That crazy quest no one else gets? Just do it!

Me and Lulu sticking out our tongues.

The best thing I did in 2025 was also the craziest: Driving several hours just to see a big wooden troll.

And while I still don’t know exactly why I felt compelled to see Lulu, the first Thomas Dambo troll to be installed indoors at the California Nature Art Museum in Solvang, I do know that meeting her sparked an obsession that soon had me driving across two states to see six more trolls in the Pacific Northwest.

That was cool.

Because after seeing Lulu, I started researching the other Dambo trolls I could drive to, and soon found myself visiting an old friend in Washington State who lived near five of his sculptures.

And though I hadn’t seen Patty in 10 years, she still dropped everything to not only offer me a place to stay, but to spend a full day driving us around (and across!) the Puget Sound so we could fulfill my dream of seeing all five of the Thomas Dambo trolls near Seattle in one day.

“That’s why we’re friends,” Patty said. “We both like doing crazy stuff like this.”

And after eight hours of searching that included two ferry rides, when we reached the fifth troll on Bainbridge Island and completed a mission we were told halfway through was “impossible,” I was high as a kite.

“We saw all five today, this is our last one!” I exclaimed proudly to a woman who just happened to be visiting the same troll with her young daughter.

“Wow,” she said flatly. “That's a lot of driving.”

At first confused by her response, I soon realized that she probably just wanted me to go away because I was not only a stranger, but a super strange stranger who was super excited about some super crazy quest that just sounded like a super big waste of time and gas.

So if you don’t want to find yourself on some super crazy quest like me, whatever you do in 2026, don’t go see Lulu.

Or on second thought, maybe do.

Because if I hadn’t gone down to see Lulu, I wouldn’t have climbed Valencia Peak in Los Osos and met my new favorite picnic table. (More on that here.)

And then I wouldn’t have completed my “impossible" quest with Patty, a great travel companion who I am already planning another grand adventure with for 2026. And though talking to that unimpressed woman at the fifth troll on Bainbridge Island had me briefly second-guessing my life choices, on my drive back to California I became even more grateful for Lulu and the troll fever she gave me.

While staying in Oregon on my drive home, I learned that my mother-in-law had taken a bad fall and would not be able to go home again. Even worse, she very likely would never walk again.

The next morning, I got back on the road as soon as it was light, and around sunrise I stopped at a covered bridge I spotted from I-5 in southern Oregon.

Named “Grave Creek” in honor of a 16-year-old who died while trying to complete a far more important quest than mine, that bridge felt like the perfect place to end my journey: Because while walking over it, all I could think about was how just being able to walk at all would feel like an impossible quest to my mother-in-law, which made me even more grateful that I could still take road trips. And, yes, that I decided to take that silly one to meet Lulu.

So my advice for 2026 is this: That crazy quest you're dreaming about? Just do it. And do it now.

Movies I saw in November: Prey, Predator: Badlands, Roofman, Beau is Afraid

I saw two Predator movies last month, and of course the one I liked the most was the one my husband didn’t like at all, declaring it tedious and, worse yet, “not a Predator movie!”

And while I agree that “Predator: Badlands” was more Star Wars than Predator, I disagree that it's a bad thing, since its many nods to my favorite movie franchise made it my favorite of the movies I saw in November:

1. Predator: Badlands (In the theater) Grade: A.

The only thing I didn’t like about this movie was the beginning, as the first fight felt too much like watching a video game, and the movement of the predators’ mouths felt too much like watching a surgery.

But the movie won me over as soon as our main character begins his mission. First with the interesting plants and animals Dek initially tries to fight, and next with introducing us to Elle Fanning as the bubbly sidekick he initially tries to ditch.

Fanning plays two androids in this movie, but of course the one I loved was her C-3PO-like Thia, who quickly convinces Dek that she is necessary enough to strap on his back like Chewbacca did for the golden droid when he also lost his bottom half.

And Thia being split in two created my favorite scene in the movie, as watching her top half and bottom half battling foes twice as effectively as a tag team was the funnest fight scene I've seen since the women fighting with plates in Ballerina.

I was also a sucker for the movie’s main messages about how respecting the plants and animals we live with is always the best choice, even if you don't need them to complete a quest, and how finding a new family is often better than clinging to our first. 

2. Prey (On DVD, rented from the library) Grade: A-/B+

Like “Badlands,” this movie was directed by Dan Trachtenburg and centers on a warrior needing a successful hunt to prove themselves worthy of their clan, only this time the warrior is a young woman. 

And while I certainly appreciated having our hero be a heroine, I was taken so far out of the story by such an unrealistic-looking CGI bear that I could never get fully immersed again. 

Or maybe, I got so spoiled by all the Star Wars that Trachtenburg put in his other Predator movie that I couldn’t enjoy one without it. If you haven’t seen either yet, maybe learn from my mistake and check out Prey first.

3. Roofman (In the theater, 11/4/2025) Grade: B-

There was a lot to like in this movie, especially if you enjoy the Channing Tatum cocktail: Two parts a sweet goof who looks great with his shirt off, one part that pal you can call when you need to rob a bank.

Served with that cocktail is a great heel played by Peter Dinklage, because that’s what his prickly charm is best suited for, and a love interest played by Kirsten Dunst, who perfectly channels the hopeful angst of a single mom daring to believe Tatum’s handsome stranger isn't too good to be true.

And though I certainly enjoyed the extra seconds devoted to watching a completely naked Tatum scramble up a wall to his hidden toy store bedroom, this movie was far too long. Even with all the fun and apparently realistic details the movie includes about the true crimes and people this movie is based on, there was no reason it needed more than 90 minutes to tell us its story, let alone more than two hours!

4. Beau is Afraid (On DVD, rented from the library). Grade: D-/F+ 

This movie was an impulse watch, one that I picked off the shelf mostly because of Joaquin Phoenix, and which I now mostly regret.

Because the best thing about this movie was also the worst: An opening sequence where our main character is trying to get out of his apartment to catch a flight to his mother’s funeral, but everything that can go wrong does, especially since he appears to live on a city block full of actors trying out for the next spinoff to The Walking Dead.

The opening is both brilliant and horrible because it is anxiety come to life, with everything a fearful person could possibly imagine going wrong when they open dare their front door not only going wrong, but spectacularly so. If you’ve never felt such anxiety and have always wanted a master class, then watch the beginning of this movie for the best visual representation I’ve seen yet.  

The only other reason to watch this movie, other than another admirable performance by Joaquin Phoenix, is to see the huge penis monster our hero battles in an attic, an absurd scene that gave me the only laugh in this dismal and confusing slog of a movie that took me two days to finish watching after giving up more than once.

And the movie remained a confusing mess until I read a review by Richard Brody of The New Yorker, who neatly summed it up as just another story about a mom who tries to keep her son from having sex. And Beau’s mom achieves that seemingly impossible goal by telling her son he inherited a horrible infliction that causes a fatal heart attack during the act, a theory he never tests for decades, though Brody rightly wonders how we are expected to believe that not once, not even during his teen-age years, did Beau get desperate enough to decide sex was an experiment so tempting and necessary it was worth dying for?

Movies I saw in October: Bride of Frankenstein, One Battle After Another

Now, finally, I offer my grandmother’s movie reviews from November of 1998. (And boy, do I wish I could know what she would have thought of Beau is Afraid!):

11/7/1998

Wrote letter, to Kmart for lunch at 11.

To show, “The Siege.” Good. Annette Bening, Denzel Washington. Bruce Willis, not listed in front.

11/14/1998

To post office, KFC for lunch.

To show, “The Celebration.” Danish. Man is 60, has abused his children, son tells all. Odd photography, mostly face shots!

11/18/1998

Slept til 8. Usual breakfast. Chores.

To show, “Meet Joe Black.” Liked. Anthony Hopkins.

Home, washed clothes. 

11/26/1998: Thanksgiving

To show, “Elizabeth.” Good.

11/28/1998 

To Show, “Enemy of the State.” Will Smith, Gene Hackman. Great suspense.

Bed 9, awake 12:30. Drank milk, read New Yorker til 1:30.