Fabulous, Fashion, Humor, Movies

And the Award Goes To…

“That’s a bingo!  …Is that the way you say it?  ‘That’s a bingo?'”
“You just say bingo.”
“Ah!  Bingo!  How fun!  But I digress.  Where were we?”
– Inglorious Basterds

Today has been a lovely Sunday, it’s sunny and gorgeous outside, you can smell Spring in the air in spite of the snow on the mountains, J. and I made a to-die-for mac and cheese recipe that had pretentious enough ingredients to make it seem much more difficult than it actually was, and I’m whipping up cookies (plus snacking on kettlecorn as I dash back and forth between the kitchen and the red-carpet interviews, my dedication is being tested…).

I’ll be doing my annual Oscar dress review tomorrow, but let me just say this now:

If Christoph Waltz doesn’t win best supporting actor, I shall be extremely vexed.  And if Avatar wins Best Picture I will lose all faith in Hollywood.  J. wants The Cove to win best documentary.  I want the fabulous Carey Mulligan or divine Sandra Bullock to win best actress but Helen Miren (aka The Queen), the precious Gabourey Sidibe, and the goddess that is Meryl Streep will give them stiff competition.  I think Mo’nique will win best supporting actress (indeed that seems to be the real story of this Oscar Award Season).  I pick Up for best animated feature, The Young Victoria for costume design (might be wistful thinking, I wouldn’t mind Coco Avant Chanel either again based on personal prejudice for Chanel and Audrey Tautou), I pick Katheryn Bigelow for best director for The Hurt Locker (go women!).  The Hurt Locker seems to be the frontrunner for Best Picture.  And I can’t pick a best actor, I’d love to see Morgan Freeman win in this category after a career of famous supporting rolls, and who doesn’t have a soft spot for Mr. Darcy…er…Colin Firth.  And again, not to harp, but GO CHRISTOPH WALTZ!

Any last minute pics out there?  Raging debate?  Big bets?  Do share!

Remember this scene? Better than that whole "plot" of Avatar's.
Family, Humor, Husband, Marriage, PBS

Viewers Like You. Thank You.

“So Amanda stays with Darcy and Elizabeth stays in the modern world?  Why does she want to do that?”
“Birth control, indoor plumbing, and women’s rights?”
– J. and C.

Whether against his will or not, J. is slowly getting dragged into my PBS obsession, and it’s been fun to watch.

Pictured: a post-modernist moment. You may close your mouth now.

For someone who dislikes Jane Austen pretty strongly, he liked Lost In Austen quite a bit (granted, we both loved Pride and Prejudice and Zombies).  He laughed just as loud as me when the main character asked Mr. Darcy to take a dip in his pond so she could enjoy a Colin Firth-esque “post-modernist moment.”  He found the fact that Caroline Bingley was a lesbian hilarious, liked that Wickham was a good guy after all, and that Jane and Charles run off to America together.  One Sunday night he called back to where I was in the office and reminded me that Masterpiece was on in a half hour and asked if there would be another LIA installment.

She heard you, J.. Beware.

And when Dorcas Lane (of Lark Rise to Candleford fame) stated she doesn’t like to judge people, to the face of the man she’s refused to marry for having a scandalous, mistress-mongering past, and said man snaps back, “You’ve never had a problem with sitting in judgement before.  Good-day,” … it was incredibly satisfying to hear my red-blooded, football/basketball loving, hamburger devouring, man’s man, all-American husband cry, “Oh no he didn’t!  Burn!”

I’m sure he’d like me to reciprocate by learning to love basketball and Sports Center, but I’m not quite there yet.  I’ll work on it.

Books, Friends, Humor

“O, that I had but followed the arts!”

“Thereby hangs a tale.”
– William Shakespeare

Long ago, when J. was still a bachelor (side note, we’ve been officially together for two years now…weird) he lived with Scotticus, Cakes, Bear, Jaime, and Jazz.  They’re still very much around in our lives.  I affectionately refer to them as the Other Women when J. goes off to play basketball, get hamburgers, and generally boy about. 

One of my favorite memories of Jazz was one day hanging out at their flat.  I had glanced around and discovered that they had made a home entertainment system supported almost entirely by books.  I was remarking on a tome of Shakespeare upholding a television speaker when Jazz explained the reasoning.
“Girls will come over, see all these thick books everywhere, and think we’re all really intellectual.”
“Not if you’re using them as furniture, dear,” I replied laughingly.

To be a paper weight, or not be a paper weight, that is the question.

However, while making a V-day present craft for Marie (sidenote the second: Marie, beloved, would you send me a picture so I can brag shamelessly about it?) I noticed that the canvas had bowed annoyingly in the middle.  And the only thing I could think of that would be heavy enough to fix it, were Shakespeare and a dictionary.

Apologies, Jazz.  I now suspect you of secret genius.

Family, Humor, Husband, Marriage

Money Honey

“Are you buying lunch, or am I?”
“I will.”
“Thanks.  Oh!  You also need to write me a check to replace the savings we used for car repairs.  Wow…I sound like a gold-digger.”
“You are a gold-digger.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“You’re expensive.”
“I am not!”
“Well, someday, you will be expensive, so someday you will be a gold-digger.”
“No I won’t, I’ll be a trophy wife.  They aren’t the same thing at all.”
– C. and J.

Gold-digger!  The nerve of him!

Fabulous, Fashion, Humor, Movies

Fabulous, Darling

“Fashion is what one wears oneself.  Unfashionable, is what other people wear.”
– An Ideal Husband

I’ve been following both the New York and London Fashion Weeks, and last night I celebrated both by renting The September Issue and drooling over the beautiful spreads.  I’ve been resisting the desire to wear large sunglasses indoors and limit my smiling to almost unseeable bursts of rare approval ever since. 

And for those who love fashion and also have a sense of humor, here’s a website for you to check out.  Enjoy!

Books, Drama, Fun, Humor, University

Creative. Writing (Pt. II)
“All writers are copycats, unless they’re bad writers.  Then they’re plagiarists.”
– My writing professor 
 
 A sample of my writing classes offerings from last night. 
You called?

1) The Unintended Romance:  one person turned in a piece that had a paragraph including the words “the sun delicately kissing her skin,” “white teeth flashed in his olive-skinned face,” and “thick muscles and strong torso flexed as he picked her up.” 

The teacher asked us all to review it and determine what was wrong with the paragraph.  Some people said that some alliteration threw them off, other said it was an imagery technique.  I said it sounded more like ripped-bodices-and-heaving-bosoms writing than what she was going for (a murder mystery).  It’s good she and I get along because half of the class gasped/blushed and murmured things like, “Oh dear!” while she burst out laughing.

This seems...oddly familiar...?

2)  Teen Angst:  Another girl (a rather rude one who has to have the last word in every group review we do, and likes to toss her editing experience in people’s teeth) turned in a piece that took place in a high school science class between a completely uninteresting girl and a boy acting strangely and awkwardly, seeming tormented by a secret pain.  My pal (the bodice ripper) piped up immediately and said one word: “Twilight?”

The whole room dissolved into hysterics and debate.  Some people tittered quietly to themselves while one or two started roaring about how amazing the Twilight series was and everyone else wouldn’t know great literature if it smacked them in the face!  Others countered that it was adolescent fiction and no more, while some snapped that young adult writers have produced some first-rate literature, though not Twilight they hurried to say.  The writer was mortified, while our teacher seemed secretly delighted.

Family, Humor, University

The Not-So-Fantastic Fox

“With foxes we must play the fox.”
– Thomas Fuller

Apparently I have pets (namely dogs) and foxes on the brain! 

I had a dream the other night that J. and I had a pet fox named Gordon.  The major drama of the dream was keeping him a secret from our landlords who were snooping around tried to prove his whereabouts.  Gordon was a sleek, sophisticated animal with delightful house manners, directly at odds with what I understand a pet fox to be like. 

See, one of my favorite pre-us-kids tales of my parents is that when they were newly married and at university, they rescued a little fox from a fur farm and brought him home.  Stanley (for that was his name) repaid their generosity by instantly behaving like a demon from the ninth circle of Hell.

Train ME will you?!

He destroyed things.  He ran away multiple times.  He chewed everything.  He was so hyperactive that they eventually tried tying him up while they were at work/school and he tangled himself in the cord to the point that he dislocated a hip (costing a hefty vet fee for starving newlyweds). 

My father thought that foxes were sort of feline so Stanley might be litter-box trained, but that plan backfired.  With a dog you can stick their nose in their mess, put the mess in a litter box with them, etc. and they will eventually connect the dots.  Evil Stanley, however, only learned to infuriate my dad by trotting into whatever room he was in, defecating on the carpet on purpose, and then running to sit in the litter-box with a smug expression as if to say, “What can you do to me?  I’m already here!  Pthfffbbt!”

One day, Stanley ran away (again) and my parents disgustedly got in the car to search for him (again).  After driving for a while, they spotted a furry smudge in the road, a tail fluttering in the traffic wind.  My mother peered at it for a second before throwing her hands triumphantly in the air (which my dad likes to impersonate when telling the story) and crowing, “It’s STANLEY!”

Such is their hatred that years later, when they took me to their old university stomping ground to show my their first house, the church they got married in, and so forth, my mother pointed eagerly to a spot on the road and said, “There!  That’s where we found that miserable fox!  Ha!”

It’s too bad they are such terrors; I think a pet fox would be, well, fantastic!

Humor

Ready To Spring!

 “Winter is a ball hog.  It’s time to warm the bench and let Spring play a bit.”
– TenFour 

I make this same error every year: sometime around mid-February we get a week of warmer temperatures and sun instead of thick, low-hanging clouds, and I will invariably mistake this for the early signs of Spring.  

I'm ready to be right regular March Hare!

I’ll start gleefully stripping my closet of turtlenecks, sweaters, and wool trousers and putting them in plastic tubs for storage.  I’ll shun hot chocolate and tea and valiantly start drinking lemonade.  I’ll start sporting brightly colored shirts and colorful accessories.  I’ll shave my legs with more enthusiasm than I’ve done in months! 

However, immediately after one (foolishly) locks the last of one’s winter gear away, the snow clouds roll back in and one has to snag a cardi from home on one’s lunch break because the temperature has dropped.  It’s been snowy and gray all day and I’m in a strop.  See here and here for last year’s thoughts on the subject.    

Admittedly, it’s been an irregular winter to begin with.  Here I’ve sat (mostly) high and dry in the Rocky Mountains while two nasty snowstorms have walloped the East coast.  Where’s the logic?

Health, Holidays, Humor, Husband, Working Out

Self. Denial.

“You should give up hamburgers for Lent.”
“Why on earth would I do that?”
“Well, I’m giving up something bad for me, so you should too.  Be supportive.”
“I’m giving up smoking.”
“You don’t bloody smoke!”
“See?  I’ve improved myself already.”
– C. and J.

I’m at a loss.  New Year, the time for such bursts of ardent revamping passed without so much as a guilty twinge.  The number on the scale creeping upwards gave me pause, but not enough.  The subtle tightening of my trousers was acknowledged, but then dismissed (though oddly enough my shirts displayed no such variance).  No no, friends.  What gets C. back into the gym, swearing off junk food and dedicating herself anew to salads?  

Alright, I'll work out. I'LL WORK OUT!

Lent. 

Of course I’m not going down by myself so J. has been bugged, hounded, and generally harassed until he agreed to give up Mountain Dew (though not all sodas, he would like it noted).  He’s also being dragged to the gym with me to keep me on the straight and narrow.  I got on an elliptical machine today for the first time in six months and clocked nearly three miles before doing a half hour of weights, so I forsee the traditional Lenten feelings approaching tomorrow: sorrow, remorse, and reliance on prayer to get one through. 

I’m already craving sugar.  Keep me strong, friends!