Entries in the Category "holidays"
It's a new year!
The last day of 2009 was a pretty low-key one for me. I spent the afternoon running errands and buying groceries (BAD IDEA! BAD IDEA! GROCERY STORES WERE VERY VERY CROWDED! LIKEWISE BANKS AND POST OFFICES!) then came home and made tacos for dinner. I watched several reruns of 30 Rock, made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, which I then ate and chased down with a glass of Shiraz.
At ten to midnight, I sat down with Skylar to watch the ball drop in Times Square.
I chose CNN for my Times Square coverage, the only channel that's not afraid to pair Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper (pictured above) and give them 90 minutes of live air to fill with conversation such as the following:
Anderson: What's your New Year's resolution?
Kathy: To make you say 'balls' more.
Finally, at 12:05am I took the dog out for her final bathroom visit of the evening and was greeted by a neighbor (presumably) streaking in the new year! I might've thought he was just an escaped mental patient or similar, but he jubilantly wished me a "Happy New Year!" as he raced past. I was amused; Skylar was baffled.
So...that was 2009. Vive le 2010!
Movie Reviews: Holiday Weekend Edition!
Thanksgiving is a movie-loving time.
I mostly watched this under duress; it was playing at my parents' house on Thanksgiving Day, and to avoid it I would have had to leave. I don't really want to review these kinds of movies, because it just seems petty--I mostly hated it, yeah, but I knew that it wasn't made for me, it was made for someone who finds people getting slammed into the floor and kicked in the balls and whatnot hilarious. For someone who isn't totally fed up with the "uptight woman who loves her independence secretly wants a baby of own; she didn't even know it until she saw the negative pregnancy test" trope. Also for someone who can suspend belief enough to think that someone as aggressively uptight as Reese Witherspoon is a good match for a laid-back wiseass like Vince Vaughn (I like both actors and I think they are both capable of really good performances, but they so do not belong together). On the positive side, there were some great actors of a previous generation playing the four parents, the best of which was Sissy Spacek, who also had an awesome artist's colony house.
Click ahead for more! Many are holiday-themed.
Continue reading "Movie Reviews: Holiday Weekend Edition!"
Tonight's Mad Men: "The Gypsy and the Hobo"
I just watched tonight's episode of Mad Men twice in a row. In the words of Groundhog Day's Ned Ryerson, "it was a doo-hoo-hoozy!"
SPOILER ALERT for those of you not keeping up with the show (i.e., Mom) but Don Draper 'came out' to Betty about his true identity, telling more truths in a row than I believe he has ever done before. This all occurred while his most recent dish-on-the-side waited for him in the car so they could go away for the weekend. He never made it back to the car--did he forget that she was there, or, did he, cool-as-a-cucumber, just let her figure out that he wasn't coming back? Oh, Don.
But forget all that, because none of it was as awesome as the moment Joan clocked her husband over the head with a vase.
This guy's a real jerk, not in the least because when she married him, Joan quit working at Sterling Cooper and is thus in the show less than she used to be. Less Joan = bad. But also, he's a bastard who failed out of his surgery rotation (or...whatever) and can't get himself back on track. Also he's a jerk, he doesn't talk to her, he belittles what's important to her, he fails to recognize the real contributions she could make as a wife, because he thinks women are useless and just bred to sit around, when Joan's smart and super-capable. He's been nothing but trouble for her, dashing all her dreams for her marriage.
Well, in this episode, after another bad interview, which all of her helpful preparation couldn't keep him from screwing up, he snapped at her that she couldn't tell him anything, that she didn't know what it was like to want something your whole life and have it not work out. Which of course she does--it was marriage she planned for, and that he has single-handedly ruined. And then she clocked him over the head with a vase. Oh, Joan.
Note: this weekend I put together preparation for my Halloween costume. It is Mad Men-inspired (think sassy Sixties secretary!) and I am incredibly excited. I have cat's-eye glasses!
Woo. Too much excitement for a Sunday night.
Edited to add: Joan SMASH!
My Epic Journey
The other day I wrote about the difficulties I’ve encountered trying to obtain Lawrence of Arabia. By some miracle, I got my hands on a copy yesterday, checked out of the Cleveland Heights-University Heights library system.
Another problem had already taken its place: the Lord of the Rings problem.
Jeremy and I have been planning an Epic Sunday in which we watch all three Lord of the Rings movies back to back. (In case you’re curious, the first LOTR movie appears on the AFI redux list from 2007; the complete trilogy appears on the EW list--in one slot, cheat much EW?)
Unlike most nerds of his caliber, Jeremy does not have the LOTR movies on DVD. We've been trying not to pay for any of our rentals if possible (libraries are free, and my Netflix account is a standard expenditure) so I set about trying to obtain the movies that make up the trilogy. In the following story, I will identify the three films as LOTR1, 2 and 3 respectively.
Earlier in the week, in preparation for Epic Sunday, I checked Case’s library. LOTR1 and LOTR2 are in the system, but not LOTR3. No problem; I’ll get #3 via Netflix. I put what I think is the right movie in my queue. It'll be here in time for the weekend.
I go to Case’s library Tuesday of this week and discover that, while LOTR2 is on the shelves, LOTR1 is “missing.” Code for “someone took it out and then they disappeared off the face of the earth,” usually. Jeremy says no problem, we will download LOTR1 from one of the many nefarious web outlets that he knows about. We check; only the extended edition is available for download. I would prefer not to add 30 minutes of probably unnecessary extra scenes to a 9 hour+ movie viewing. We will return to that only if necessary.
Friday, we get the Netflix disc in the mail. I open it and discover that it is LOTR2, not 3. Let’s recap: two days to go, and I have two copies of LOTR2, and zero copies of the other two movies. The mix-up is my fault; I got confused between my queue and Jeremy’s (both of which are filled with my movies right now, incidentally).
I know I’ve already checked the Cleveland Heights library system; on Friday, I try Cuyahoga County. The closest branch, South Euclid-Lyndhurst, has LOTR3 in DVD and LOTR1, in video only. Good enough; I still have a working VCR. I go to that branch and find LOTR3 easily enough; the video wall is a bit of a mess and I’m unable to find LOTR1. Anybody I ask for help just tells me to request it from another library. Easy enough; wish I’d thought of that four days earlier when it would have mattered.
I go back to Cleveland Heights library because a book I wanted (unrelated to this story; but also a book I’ve been attempting to track down for weeks which was “missing” from two different libraries, story of my life). I wander into the audiovisual section just to see. What do I find? Lawrence of Arabia! Also, LOTR2, because apparently that’s the wallflower of the trilogy--the one who never has a date on Saturday night and is thus always available. LOTR1, needless to say, is currently checked out.
I go home and check the online catalogs again. I’ve only been looking at libraries I know; is it possible I can find it at a library that’s not familiar? I checked Clevenet—a consortium of a huge number of libraries in the Greater Cleveland area. I filed away the names of a few branches that were relatively close to me. Then I searched on the first movie again, and lo and behold, the DVD of LOTR1 was available at the Rice branch of the Cleveland Public library, less than 4 miles away. The only drawback? They don’t deliver, because at this point I am so done with driving to and searching around libraries.
I head out anyway. The library is easy enough to find, but I sail right past it in my car because the parking lot is closed due to construction. No problem; I U-turn around a fast food parking lot and park in the street. I wander around the library for a few minutes, find the DVD section, and scan over the L's. Nothing. I try the F's, in case it's filed under the subtitle, "Fellowship of the Ring." It's not. Increasingly desperate, I begin asking strangers standing nearby who have DVD cases in their hands if they have Lord of the Rings. I'm too frantic to even be embarrassed.
And then, there it is. Its alphabetic identifier sticker missing, filed amongst the K's. Somewhat breathlessly, I check out the disc and bring it home.
And so, tomorrow is Epic Sunday: Lord of the Rings edition. Jeremy is excited, I am dubious.
But that's tomorrow; today is the remainder of the 4th of July. In honor of our nation's birthday, here's a clip of Homer Simpson buying fireworks. Enjoy.
Birthday weekend
Saturday: My birthday
Jeremy decided to gift me with two experiences checked off my 30 by 30 list! So thoughtful, that guy. In the afternoon, I went to a massage, which was wonderful, and afterward, we had dinner at Melt Bar and Grilled. I had the Godfather, basically ricotta, tomato sauce and spices between two huge pieces of garlic bread.
Yes, it is literally a lasagna sandwich. A carb, re-carbed.
We came home and, after some debate, chose Spider-Man 2 (a list movie) for the evening’s viewing. I’d seen parts of that movie, on TNT or whatever, always when Jeremy turned it on and I was reading or otherwise engaged in the same room. I’ve never sat down to watch it for its own merits, and now I can for sure state that I will never do so again. What a crap bag of a movie that is!
Sunday
A lazy day. We did some packing, I watched another House marathon, and spent most of the evening letting the precious hours of my life slip away while I surfed the Internet.
On the plus side, I visited SimpsonizeMe.com and Simpsonized Jeremy and myself.
Hee! Jeremy is blond Milhouse! I couldn’t get mine to look like me no matter what I did to it, but I’m posting it anyway because it’s a flattering non-resemblance.
Monday: Memorial Day
More packing! Jeremy went to see the new Terminator movie, and I watched two list movies: All Quiet on the Western Front and Bonnie and Clyde.
Jeremy made burgers and hot dogs on the grill and homemade fries, and we had s’mores for dessert; classic Memorial Day fare.
In other news, we have our new address now and I’ll be e-mailing it around to friends and family this week. Moving day is set for Sunday, May 31! It will be a relief.
Isn't it romantic?
How did we spend Valentine's Day? Well, the day having been set aside primarily for a birthday outing for Jeremy (he turns twenty-something-or-other on Thursday), we went at his request to the Great Lakes Science Center on the lovely Cleveland lakeshore. Some highlights:
Jeremy feeding dialogue to a talking robot (talking robot: "I like ribs! At lunch I'm going to put ribs in my belly!")
Me feeding dialogue to the talking robot (talking robot: "Jeremy is a geek!" made extra funny by the fact that the robot thought the word was pronounced 'jeek')
Playing a giant tilting pinball maze game
Building a Roman arch out of padded blocks and then excitedly destroying it by removing the keystone
Having electrical current run through us (in an exhibit which warned against people with pacemakers taking part in it and which Jeremy mostly made me do)
After the museum, we had lunch at Rick's Cafe in Chagrin Falls, then came home, where Jeremy went immediately to bed (he's mostly nocturnal now, of course) and I did some studying, watched about three hours of videos on VH1 Classic and had cheese and crackers for dinner.
All in all, a really nice day! Much preferred to some of the more hackneyed Valentine's traditions.