Granola Confession

You know I suffer from a yet to be classified by the AMA condition called weather paralysis that manifests itself in my inability to do anything but sit on my couch and watch Brit-flicks while eating cheese when it rains.  Well, it's been raining all morning and I am happy to report that I exercised for a full hour and showered and ate a real breakfast, not just a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles.  It wasn't until much later in the morning that I sat down with some brie and watched last night's episode of Downton Abbey (oh, that Thomas makes me so mad). 

One thing I don't mind doing when it rains is baking.  It just feels appropriate and it warms up my house without me having to turn on the heater (because I'm cheap and the heater makes my allergies cranky).  On the docket today is granola and bread.  I've been hiding the fact from you for months now but I make my own granola.  Because making your own granola just seems so, I don't know, granola-y.  And pretentious. Like, only people who use hemp toilet paper and brag about it make their own granola, right?  And yet, here I am, chopping up dried fruits and toasting the oats and measuring out flax seed (FLAX SEED!?!) What have I become?  Oh, right, I'm cheap.  I started making my own granola for the single reason that's it's cheaper than buying it.  The bulk granola over at Sprouts is so delicious, it's like crack, but it's also just as expensive.  So, yes, I'll admit it.  But that just means there's more room in my budget for cheese.

Lydia the Tattoed Lady

1.)  There are four more days left in NaNoWriMo and unless a freak finger accident is in my future it looks like I will finish.  That's right, I WILL FINISH!  I'm only 5000 words behind on my count, which, I have learned, is nothing.  I eat 5000 words for breakfast.

2.)  My toenails are a shiny gold right now and they make me feel very festive and also like a superhero.  It is my new favorite color.

3.) I saw The Muppets today and it was grand.  I mean, really.  And it got me thinking about one of my favorite clips from the old Muppet Show.  Enjoy

A short list of good things

1.)  Watching Casablanca outside on a big screen and remembering that it's an awesome movie.

2.)  Warming my hands on a cup of hot chocolate after watching Casablanca outside and fah-REEZING.

3.)  Finding out the Tigers beat the Yankees while warming my hands on hot chocolate.  WOOT!

4.)  Coming home and Katie remembering that she brought me a left over Lil' Debbie brownie.  Ah, childhood.

5.)  Watching Parks and Recreation while bundled up in my Dodger snuggie.

6.)  Finally getting around to switching to October on my Abba wall calendar and finding this picture:

Nice overalls, Bjorn.

The community who watches musicals together stays together.

There's a very large outdoor mall around here and they're showing old movies out on their grassy knoll on Thursday nights.  Tonight was Singin' in the Rain so Katie and I headed over.  I cannot pass up Singin' in the Rain.  It is one of my favorites.  Also, I cannot pass up watching a movie outside on a balmy autumn night while eating Mexican food.  Perfect?  If a Slurpee had been involved it would have been.

The group sitting next to us were clearly super fans.  You know how much I love super fans.  One of the guys was laughing at (and I'm not exaggerating) every single funny line, like it was his first time seeing it, and also like he was drunk, which I don't think he was.  I am a big proponent of communal events such as this for the simple reason that people who go to these types of things go with the intent of enjoying themselves.  It makes for a nice crowd.

It's Victoria Gardens if any of you locals are interested.  Next week is Casablanca, if you'd like to join us.  The movie starts around 6:45.

Because I'm curious, what is your favorite musical?  Mine - The Sound of Music.  Duh.

Girly Things

At book club tonight it struck me that what we talk about is exactly what men imagine large groups of women talk about.  That is:  bras, cramps, chocolate, labor and boobs.  We also talk about other things, like the book, but we will always come back around to those 5 standards.  I'm not ashamed.  Because we always have such a grand time. 

Tonight, we were discussing Persuasion and the topic turned to the various adaptations.  The best is the 1995 Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root version.  Do not try to convince me otherwise.  But the more recent and substandard BBC version came up, which meant that I had to do my impersonation of Anne Elliot as she races across Bath, leaping over baskets and invalids in the street, in search of Captain Wentworth.  A scene which, by the way, did not happen in the book because it would have been a scandal.  What Jane Austen heroine ever ran - except for perhaps Harriet Smith when she's being pestered by the gypsies.  No, it is too ridiculous.  Anyway, all that sprinting ends with The Most Awkward Kiss in Cinematic History.  Naturally we had to pull out the copy and show everyone:



Oh, how we howled.  We shrieked and cringed and howled with laughter. 

And then we ate PMS Brownies and talked about boobs some more.

Movies to cry along to.

I went to see Harry Potter 7.2 tonight and to say that I cried a lot of tears is to say that Niagara Falls drops a lot of water.  It was a wet-land preserve in that theater.  Algae started to form in the pools around my feet.  A loon swooped down and snagged a fish.  Some guy was offering air-boat tours.  You get the picture.  There was a point in it when I was nearly in convulsions attempting to contain the sobbing and howling and renting of clothes.  At the end of it Lindsay, Katie and I all agreed that we can't remember a time of such sustained crying. 

What I'm saying is:  I loved every bit of the movie and can't wait to put myself through all of that again.

After we had taken several very deep breaths and began the discussion part of the evening we tried to think of where this would fall in the Pantheon of Movies That Make Us Weep. For me it is pretty high up there.  Most movies just contain a scene or two:  when Shelby dies in Steel Magnolias, when Matthew dies in Anne of Green Gables, the attic scene in Shadowlands, the end of Million Dollar Baby.  But I could basically add the entire last hour of this movie to the list.  Naturally my sentiment for the entire series and my inclination to cry at everything makes me more weepy than the average girl but I was not exaggerating about those convulsions.  (It was Snape, by the way.  Sweet Land of Liberty!  That part did me in.)  Incidentally, we were shocked at the lack of sniffling we heard.  Were we the only ones losing it?  Can people really make it through this film and not shed a single tear? 

Questions:  Do you cry at movies or do you not have a soul?  And also, what movie would you add to the list.  Do not say Twilight.

How hard can it be to accidentally be shot into space?

1.)  Remember how I told you that my niece was cuter than your niece?  I meant it.  She is Miss Eliza Jean the Beauty Queen.

2.)  In other news:  KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS, COULD PRIMARY HAVE BEEN ANY MORE OF A MAD HOUSE TODAY?  To say that being both the Primary president and the stake girls camp director was kind of a big undertaking is like saying the Grand Canyon is kind of a big hole.  But for the most part they have only converged slightly over the last 5 months and I've had a lot of help from very wonderful people and it's been manageable as well as miraculous.  So it just figures that on the day before I leave for camp we are short eight people - EIGHT PEOPLE - in primary and the kids seemed to have OD'd on lunatic pills.

3.)  In other, other news:  I watched Space Camp the other night (jealous?) for the first time in years and found myself a little let down that I'm not an astronaut.  It was my dream as a kid to go into space.  The first time I watched that movie at a cousins' slumber part at my grandparent's house I vividly remember thinking, "Those kids are SO LUCKY to have been accidentally shot up into space."  And I was desperate to go to space camp because, you never know, maybe I could be so lucky.  Who wants to join me in my letter writing campaign to NASA to 1.) reinstate the space shuttle program (let's not talk about my heartbreak over that) and 2.) institute a new Writers of Humorous Anecdotes in Space program.  Also, did you know that Joaquin Phoenix is in that movie?  As a young lad?  When he went by the name Leaf?  Crazytown.

Inconceivable!

I've mentioned before how we have a continual loop of documentaries on at the Pod and how we're getting a little tired of learning about trains and surfing and animals that eat other animals.  So I brought in a few movies to change things up a bit.  I walked in with a stack this morning and had the following conversation with some of the girls in the office:

Me:  I brought in some new movies!  Beauty and the Beast, Harry Potter, The Princess Bride...
L:  What's that?
Me:  The Princess Bride?
L:  Yeah, I've never heard of it.
M:  Me neither
S:  Me neither
Me:  (reeling, a bit)  Is this a joke?
L:  No.  I only have sons so I don't watch a lot of girl movies.
S:  Me too.
Me:  This isn't just some girl movie.  It's an 80s classic.  It's like saying you've never heard of the Breakfast Club.
M:  I've seen that.
Me:  But you haven't seen the Princess Bride?  Wesley?  Buttercup?  The Six-Fingered Man?
All of Them:  No. 

This seems, well, inconceivable to me (a reference, by the way, that no one in my office would get!)  It's not like I go around quoting the Princess Bride all the time, but I always just assume that when I say, "Have fun storming the castle!"  or, "Wove.  Twue wove," or, "Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line," people are going to know what I'm talking about.  And it's not like I can blame it on their youth because both L & S are roughly my age.  Is the Princess Bride as obscure as they made it seem?  Have I just been living in a bubble my whole life believing that everyone knows it?  Please tell me I'm not the only one shocked by this.

Weekend Math

Slept in

+

Lounged about in my bathrobe while watching The Empire Strikes Back

+

Surprise invite from Liz and Mary to join them for brunch

+

Biscuits and gravy

+

Mary's baby Peter and his enormous and adorable head

+

And very spur of the mo decision to go see Jane Eyre

+

Still checked multiple things off of my to-do list

=

A pretty good Saturday

Things that I am loving lately

1.  All the custom felt orders that I have in the queue.  All of them are gifts so I can't show you until after Christmas but we've got some fun and creative people out there and they've turned the World's Largest Felt Collection into a party.  Also, a sweat shop - because oy, the time I spend hunched over it.

2.  The movie Enchanted April.  I rewatched it tonight and wept all over the felt.  Some people have told me that it's dull.  But some people have told me they like vanilla ice cream.  Which is to say we cannot always trust some people's judgement.  I will recount that once I got a screeching phone call from Amanda that went something like this:  "I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU NEVER SAT ME DOWN AND MADE ME WATCH ENCHANTED APRIL BECAUSE IT'S WONDERFUL AND I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS!!!!!!!!!"

3.  Shiny produce.  For the last 2 weeks, every time I've been in the produce section of the grocery store, I've been mesmerized by how shiny it all is.  The produce in Tunisia looks exactly as it does in its natural state - dirty.  This is a good sign and it almost always tasted amazing.  I know that shiny fruit equals pesticides and wax and mediocre flavor.  But gosh it's pretty.  I spent about 5 minutes yesterday just gazing at the celery because I couldn't get over how sparkly it was.  And don't even get me started on the apples.  It was like the Vegas strip - all aglow.

4.  Mint truffle Hershey kisses.  Knights of Columbus!  I've eaten my weight in them in just 3 days.

5.  The giant disco ball ornament on the top of my Christmas tree.

I can't wait for July!

I saw Harry Potter tonight and LOVED IT.  A lot.

There was a guy who was sitting a few seats down from me and anytime anything remotely exciting or dangerous or scary came on the screen he would say, "Oh, boy.  Oh no."  And start to fret and fidget.  It was hilarious.  Mostly because he was saying and acting exactly the way I was feeling inside.

Also, there was a women who was laughing to the point of wheezing at the preview for the Yogi Bear movie.  I have never felt so dejected about the human race than I did right then.  I took a long hard slug of my Icee and tried to face the world again.  Thanks to Harry Potter for bringing me out of that brief but deep funk.

Still Cold

1.) Still...freezing...in...office...send...help. The repair guy came and found me huddled in my chair with my hoodie zipped all the way up and my hood tightly secured around my head. He told me it needed some major repairs and had to get the approval from the building owner which means a few more days of this arctic chill. On my break I went outside and stood in the sunshine. There were pools of ice in the shade. If I wanted to live in a place that had ice I would move to Switzerland where I could at least count on finding an excellent cup of hot chocolate and could reasonable get away with wearing one of those really large fur hats.

2.) Guess what I found last night. My missing address book. And guess where it was? THE LOWER CUBBY OF MY DESK RIGHT BY MY DICTIONARY! WHICH IS EXACTLY WHERE I ALWAYS PUT IT BECAUSE THAT'S WHERE IT BELONGS!! THE PLACE WHERE I LOOKED A DOZEN TIMES AND IT WASN'T THERE!!!!!!! For months I looked for it. I would sit at my desk and peer into the place it was suppose to be and wonder where it had gone off to. As predicted, I purchased a new one and hunted down everyone's address again and filled it all up and last night I went to put the new one where it belongs and there wasn't any room so I reached in and pulled out the old one. The old one that wasn't there 2 weeks ago. It is a mystery and I would like for someone to please explain it because I think I may be going a little bonkers.

3.) Katie and I decorated our wee apartment for Christmas last night and, as per tradition, we watched White Christmas. Which reminded me that over Thanksgiving I was down at my parents house helping them with their Christmas decorating, and we were, of course, watching White Christmas and when The Best Things Happen While You're Dancing came on my brother-in-law Chris, who is a DANCE INSTRUCTOR, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!, says, "This is the most boring part of the movie." And a stunned silence fell over the room. Because everybody knows that it's a GREAT part of the movie. And everybody also knows that the most boring part of the movie is Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep. Duh, Chris! It's a good thing you're likable and can reach the top shelves in the kitchen.

The Siren Call of the Lake House

It's True Confession time. And this one is embarrassing. Don't judge!

Whenever the movie the Lake House is on, Katie and I watch it. Every time! And it is on a lot. It's not like we set the DVR to record it or anything but if one of us is flipping through the channels and we see that it's on, we pop on over to see if it's the part when Keanu Reeves sneezes and then we get sucked in like an ant in a vacuum hose. That sneeze may be the worst bit of acting ever recorded in the history of all acting. Which is really saying something because have you seen his performance in A Walk in the Clouds? Abysmal.

I haven't completely figured out why we can't pass it up. It's pretty slow and that sneeze isn't the only bit of bad acting Keanu gives us. But it isn't quite at the level of so-bad-it's-good, like, say Spice World.

(Perhaps Spice World is the movie I should be embarrassed to admit to not only watching but owning. Except that I'm not ashamed. For it is MAGICAL.)

So it's a mystery why we cannot fight the siren call of the Lake House. And I'm not sure I want to fight it. It's kind of comforting in a way. Like listening to Barry Manilow songs or eating oatmeal for breakfast.

What is the one movie you're slightly embarrassed to say that you can't stop yourself from watching?

Six Degrees of Tony Danza

My sisters and I play this game where we try to connect ourselves to celebrities through other celebrities we've seen in person. Like 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon.

For example, let's say I want to connect myself to Tony Danza. I saw Matthew Perry at a Ducks game last year - Matthew Perry was in Fools Rush in with Salma Hayek - Salma Hayek was on Ugly Betty with Judith Light - Judith Light was on Who's the Boss with Tony Danza. The trick is to see how close you can get. It helps if you have a lot of random knowledge about movies.

This game if fairly easy to play if you go to sporting events in Los Angeles. Celebrities usually show up there. We were at Dodger Stadium on Saturday and it was a cavalcade of stars. Rob Lowe, Mario Lopez (who would show up to a JV badminton team's spring car wash if it meant getting his face on camera.), Tom Arnold, Dawson from Dawson's Creek, and Larry King (to quote my brother: "Thus proving that he is not just a corpse with a microphone. Although, in this case, he looked like a corpse in a Dodger hat.) And the lead singer from Creed (bleh!) growled the national anthem. and said the lines: "through the perilous flight" and "ore the ramparts we washed." It's wrong to laugh through the national anthem, right?

Most of those won't get me very far. Well, except for Rob Lowe because he was in the West Wing (I LOVED that show. Love it!) and tons of people guest starred on that show. I once crossed the street with Laura Innes (she played the doctor with the cane on ER) and that has exploded my possibilities because if you can get yourself connected to George Clooney that connects you to Oceans 11 and that movie is gold when it comes to playing this game. Especially if you are connecting to dead actors.

So, how many people does it take for you to connect to Tony Danza?*

*Wait! I just remembered I've seen Judith Light in person. Ha! One!

Cactus Flower

Lately, Katie and I have been feeling like maybe we have magical powers - like we can speak things into existence. Like, for instance, the other night we were watching an episode of Alias and we both wondered whatever happened to Michael Vartan. And then the very next day Katie sees that he is on a new show. This is just one of several examples.


Well, in a recent post I mentioned the movie Cactus Flower, how you should watch it. And then I watched it a few days later. There's a scene in the movie when Ingrid Bergman comes back into the office after a night of revelry and high spirits and she sees that her cactus has flowered. She takes it as a sign that good things are ahead. This was primarily manifested in the form of Walter Mathau's love and affection, which, I guess is a good thing if you like the cranky, jowly type. Anyway, the cactus. When that scene came on I said, "I wonder if my cactus is ever going to flower."


Because I've had this cactus for years and years. And it has only flowered maybe every 3 years. And every time it has, I have been out of town. I would return to find the brown and withered stem and the people who witnessed it would say, "It was lovely!" So you can understand, right? Why I would say this as Ingrid Bergman does a little dance over hers?

And then last night I came home from work and saw this:

You know what this means, right? That I'm one of the X-Men and this is my mutant power. OR that my cranky and jowly Wealthy Benefactor is on his way.

I picture my Wealthy Benefactor looking like Gilbert Blythe

I turned my tv on before going to bed the other night and there was Anne talking to Gilbert in the gazebo in Anne of Avonlea. Which meant that I wouldn't be going to bed for another 30 minutes because I can't be expected to not watch the end of Anne of Avonlea. Even though I've watched it hundreds of times.

I actually did the calculations. I've probably watched all 8 hours of the series* at least twice a year, every year, for the last 20 years. And there have been periods in my life when I've watched it once a month, because sometimes you just really need Anne. But that still only puts me at about 100. But the ending of it all, on the bridge with the "diamond sun-bursts and marble halls", that I have watched way more times than I can probably count. Because it's almost mandatory that after you're done with the whole thing you watch the ending a few times. You have to! You've just watched 8 hours of Anne shunning Gilbert with a firm hand, and then finally, when he's on his death bed, she comes around. You need that bridge scene. You've earned that bridge scene. So it's only right that at the end of it all, whoever has the remote control hits rewind for a few seconds and you watch it again. And maybe again. Okay, and maybe again. You deserve it.**

I couldn't rewind it that night but I did, even after 20 years and hundreds of viewings, clap as the credits rolled.

*I don't count that last one. What was that? An abomination, that's what.

**To be fair to the books, I've read that same scene in Anne of the Island hundreds of times too. Even though it's in a garden and not on a bridge, and there was a different guy in love with Anne (who's with me that Roy Gardner would have been a better choice as a romantic rival in the movie than Super Old Morgan Harris?), and Gilbert was never engaged to Christine Stuart. As if.

Who Doubted!?

I forgot to mention this but I got a message from Amanda last night reminding me.

I'm almost positive that one of you doubted the swami hat and now your doubt has caused Fate to issue us all a swift kick to the head. About 2 hours after I predicted that Renee Zellwegger would ruin a movie that I would want to see I saw a commercial for a new movie she's starring in with none other than Harry Connick Jr. HARRY! That really got me where it hurt. Because I'm pretty sure she hasn't loved him as long as I have. Nor was she there that night at the Hollywood Bowl when I nearly swooned while he was playing Caravan on his piano. And she certainly doesn't have Amanda's nail marks permanently embedded in her leg from said show at the Bowl. What I'm saying is that I've invested a lot in my love for him and she should not be allowed to go and ruin a movie that I would, under normal circumstances, endure a crowded movie theater with all those obnoxious movie goers to see. It's one thing for her to do a movie with Colin Firth, or George Clooney, or Ewan McGregor. But Harry Connick Jr. should be off limits to squishy faced actresses who sound both like a 5 year old and a drunk.

The deep blue sea, the deep blue sea, there's lots to see in the deep blue sea.

Yesterday I was in a bit of a funk. Not a huge funk, just your average you're not sure where it came from or why you're in it but you know what it is and you want to get rid of it kind of funk. It was enough to make me want to put a blanket over my head and call it a day. But one of my goals for Liz's YOLTILALALB is to use my time after work more productively and while the act of putting a blanket over my head could count as exercise if I did it about a 1000 times, I doesn't quite fit into my ideal life. So I went to the gym, in the hopes that I would sweat out the funk, or at least see the Cat Woman. No luck on either. (Sidenote and possible future post: I have a feeling the gym is making me less funny. I'm concerned. Maybe my giant butt is the source of my sense of humor. Like Samson's hair. And here I am writing a "what I did last night" post. I'm officially dull as oatmeal. Drat!)

I came home and ate a bowl of cereal (because that's what I always want most when I'm in a funk) and decided that it was time to bring out the big guns. I needed Doris Day. I had a friend in college, Betsy, who loved Doris Day movies and would make us get one on almost every free-rental-Wednesday down at Scene One Video. We would pick up some brownie mix and when they were done baking we'd pull them out of the oven, put them in the middle of the living room floor and eat the brownies right out of the pan with forks while we watched Doris sing and prance around in cute outfits. Happy memories. There is are few things better for the soul than a warm pan of brownies and a Doris Day movie*.

So I popped in The Glass Bottom Boat, because even if Doris didn't do the trick Paul Lynde in a dress would. And while I watched I worked on Liz's stocking for a bit (Hey, I can't help that her birthday is in January. She'll have a whole year to enjoy it. And sorry, no hints. Wait for the picture.)(If you want a stocking for your birthday you had better put in your order now, with the minor celebrity of your choice, before I put them up on Etsy.)(Okay, one hint, because I can't stop giggling over it: lunging is involved. Picture me laughing like a loon right now.). So the Doris/cereal/lunging combo worked magic, but what really got me out of the funk was that wee little bird you see over there. I made her out of scraps from the World's Largest Felt Collection after I had gotten as far as I could on the stocking. I've named her Evelyn. She has issues with her equilibrium but she's pretty cute.

*Although not the one where she's married to an alcoholic Frank Sinatra and he gets into some accident. That one was depressing. So depressing that I've completely blocked the name of it out of my memory.

Things I loved about Saturday

1.) Going to the gym which justified a breakfast of Holy French Toast, thus cancelling out all of the gym points but increasing my Eternal Total Happiness points by 1000.



2.) Working on a new bird:



3.) A present on my door step (thank you, thank you, thank you Amanda!):



4.) Dinner and a movie with the girls:



As you can see, it was a good day.

Brief Complimentary Movie Review: Bring a tissue. Maybe two. Seriously. I knew how it was going to end, (Hint: She died a spinster. I don't know if she owned any cats.), and it was HIGHLY fictionalized (they based the entire movie off of one letter she wrote to her sister mentioning a man she danced with several times at a ball.), and I'm not the World's Biggest Anne Hathaway Fan, or the World's Biggest They Casted a Marginally Famous American Actress to Play an Iconic British Character Just So They Could Appeal to the American Audience Fan either, and while these people beat me out as the World's Biggest Jane Austen Fans, I have read all of her books multiple times and I love her, which I think makes me a big fan in the lower-case sense. Let's just say that while I was excited about seeing it I was fully prepared to be disappointed. And yet...well, it was pretty much fantastic. Anne Hathaway didn't annoy me, the rest of the cast was terrific, including James McAvoy, who I wanted to tuck inside my pocket and let him say nice things to me, and the story they concocted was fanciful but entirely compelling. Go see it, preferably with your mom and sisters so you don't have to cry alone.

And on the banana front, I think we can safely say that the idea people at Reese's are brain damaged monkeys. Check the poll results out. I think that's fairly significant. Rac e-mailed me this weekend stating that she didn't get to vote but if she had it would have been for yum. Sorry, it will only count as an asterisk. The results I'm sending to Reese's will state that 100% of my readers* hate banana flavoring and they should immediately stop production.

*If I didn't love Rac so much I wouldn't even put the asterisk in.