Painting the Day Away

This weekend marks the start of life on my own for a little while. Todd flies out to Germany for work, followed by two more trips in quick succession. I’m going to be reminded what it was like to live alone, I think. I’m going to make use of Sunday’s downtime to paint an accent wall in our bedroom. We already have a pretty shade of green paint, so the big decision making is done. It’ll be kind of a nuisance dragging all the furniture away from the wall and taping — I hate taping — but it’ll be worth it. I think a bit of color in our room will work well. Between the new sofa and this upcoming splash of color, we’re really sprucing the place up! Todd bought some chalk board paint, too, for a project in our kitchen. I’m not 100% sure what we’re doing with that one yet, though, so I won’t tackle that one while he’s away.

Otherwise, it’s work, homework, and Netflix for me. I have a season of Big Love at home, and a show with that much togetherness will probably make me glad to have a little time to myself!

Oscar Fail

There was a time when I saw almost every Oscar-nominated movie. Caryn and I would do marathons. We’d sneak into the movies at the Pyramid Mall in Ithaca, see four films in a day, steal lots of candy and popcorn, and prep ourselves for Hollywood’s main event (Don’t judge us for the sneaking and stealing; we were poor, unethical college kids).  When the big night came around we watched the red carpet all the way through to the closing comments from the host. Living alone in Chicago I resurrected the Oscar-prep marathon, and in much of my post-college life I ruled at the office Oscar pool. Oh, how things have changed.

This year’s nominations came out today, and I’ve seen almost none of the nominated movies. Really, I’ve done spectacularly bad at keeping up. It’s especially laughable given that there are TEN best picture nominees this year.

Of all the nominated films, I’ve seen Avatar, Coraline, District 9, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Julie & Julia, Star Trek, and Up. Half of these are nominated only in below the title categories such as sound mixing. No one even knows what that is, let alone cares who wins it! In the top acting categories, I’ve only seen Meryl Streep work her magic in Julie & Julia. This is a weak showing, folks. Seriously.  It’s going to be hard to work up much enthusiasm on March 7th unless I don’t leave the theater between now and then.

I Liked Titanic Better

Todd and I went to see Avatar last night. I thought we were the last people in America to see it, but judging by the size of the crowd at the theater, I was wrong. This was a 9:45 showing of a 3-hour long movie on a Sunday night — and the place was packed!

We heard from multiple sources that the story and script were ok, but that the real reason to see the movie was for the visuals. As such, we splurged and saw the movie in IMAX 3-D. The movie really is visually very cool. James Cameron adapted features of our world in very interesting and visually arresting ways, so I’m glad we saw it on the big, big screen. Unfortunately, some of the 3-D effects gave me a bit of a headache. It seemed to happen most in the beginning of the movie and mostly when there was a lot of things happening up close (as opposed to a sweeping landscape or something). By half way through the movie I stopped feeling headache-y, but that’s a lot of an almost 3-hour movie to be feeling not so great.

The movie itself was only ok in my opinion. It’s hard to dispute now that James Cameron has introduced a new way to make movies, but without his special effects I don’t think this would have been much to rave about. The plot is fairly predictable and the script wasn’t anything special. On the way home I told Todd there were parts that brought to mind the children’s movie Ferngully. He remembered that Dances With Wolves had similar themes. I think the best thing that can be said is that it’ll be exciting to see what someone else does with Cameron’s technology moving forward.

Sitting Around Just Got A Whole Lot Better

Sofa: Achieved! Todd feels totally vindicated by his slow and methodical approach to making big decisions (as opposed to what he considers my trigger-happy approach). We looked at what felt like four million sofas before settling on this guy from Lazy Boy. Side note: Who would have ever guessed that there’d be a Lazy Boy store in Soho? Somehow those two things just do not go together in my head. Anyway, there is one, and this sofa was sitting in its window. We first saw it a couple of months ago, but of course Todd wasn’t willing to plunk down our hard-earned money before mulling it over for a while. Luckily, it was still there when we finally decided to go for it, and I was even able to negotiate the price and delivery down a little bit. After my success negotiating on our car, Todd has put me in charge of all negotiating. I really have no idea what I’m doing, so at some point I’ll completely fail and his image of me as some queen wheeler and dealer will be shattered. Until then, I’m enjoying my successes.

The sofa was delivered yesterday, and since it was 6 degrees out, it was a perfect day to enjoy sitting around. The only downside to the sofa is that it came with two of the butt-ugliest pillows I’ve ever seen. So many sofas that we looked at came with hideous throw pillows — why do they do that? Why not just give us ones that match the couch? Anyway, it shouldn’t be too hard to find covers for them, and there is no shortage of throw pillows in our house in the meantime.

Revolutionary Road

This book is not for the weak-hearted. Yates might have some affection for his characters, but he spares none of them his critical eye, either. Unhappy husband and wife, Frank and April Wheeler; their dissatisfied friend and neighbor Shep; realtor and anxious mom Mrs. Givings —  all are splayed open for better and for worse.

Frank and April have settled in the ‘burbs after starting their family unexpectedly and ambivalently. They had their second child to prove that their first wasn’t a mistake, but they believe still something greater was in store for them. Frank, despite modest professional success, laughs off his job, lest people believe he actually cares about the office work he does. They mock their friends behind their backs to show one another that they hold themselves to a different standard.

And it’s this refusal to accept their lives as they are that provides the catalyst for the novel. April hatches a plan to upend their lives and provide them with the opportunities they always believed they deserved. And for a short time, they are happy together again. But life, as it always has for the Wheelers, has a way of intervening.

This is not a happy novel and not one likely to encourage anyone to marry or move to the suburbs. It’s a bit depressing but beautifully written. Yates makes every sentence count and provides such depth and back story to every character that in only a few pages that you know everything you need. I recommend it for all these reasons, but I caution you to read it when you’re ready for a downer.

Sugar Cookies, a Sofa, & Dim Sum

The weekend started with a sugar rush. Sofia and I collaborated on a batch of sugar cookies and watched — in my opinion — far too many episodes of iCarly. For the record, two episodes is too many. The cookies were a hit, though, and we had fun baking, decorating, and, of course, eating them.

Saturday was absorbed with a trip to the Apple Store’s genius bar to figure out what was wrong with Todd’s time capsule. What’s wrong is that apparently Apple sold a whole mess of lemons, and Todd got one. Unfortunately, I got my time capsule around the same time, so I’m worried that it’s only a matter of time before it poops out, too. I need a back up for my back up! After that, though, the day got better. Believe it or not, we finally got a sofa! Hooray! Some of you will remember that I’ve been looking forward to replacing our current sofa for a long, long time. It took ages to find the right sofa and commit to it, but we finally pulled the trigger on Saturday. Getting the new one in here will be a big-impact part of our apartment therapy.

And the weekend ended with a wonderful brunch with friends. Unfortunately, I’ve found that I don’t see friends as much as I’d like anymore. Between the fact that too many of you live far away, we’re pretty busy, and I’m naturally a homebody, it’s a perfect storm of missing my friends. But we were able to manage dim sum with Ben and Lorraina in Chinatown, and it was great. Truth be told, Chinese food isn’t my favorite, so I went in sort of bleh about the restaurant selection. I was surprised at how much I liked a couple of the things we got, though, and it was fun to see people in person and catch up across the table instead of over the internet. I’d like to do that with a lot of you guys soon, too!

January’s Have the Cake: Rugelach

In a throwback to our very first Have the Cake, Rena and I had great plans to bake together this month. That was, of course, until she tried to blow us both up with her busted oven. Luckily, we survived! That meant, though, that I was on my own for rugelach this month. In my fantasy life, I’m an impressively accomplished baker. In reality, though, I’m not only a novice but a busy novice and, accordingly, I sometimes take the easy way out. This was one of those months.

I decided to do a derivation on the posted recipe. It looked so easy, and I figured if it came out good I’d have an easy go-to cookie. My variation was to ditch the jam and head straight for the Nutella, because Nutella is basically happiness in a jar.

I made two mistakes. First was to spread the Nutella too thin. What was I thinking!? Obviously, a truth of life is that greater amounts of Nutella always equal greater amounts of deliciousness. But I ignored my instincts and kept the layer thin.

I also left these little guys in the oven a minute or two too long. After setting the timer for 20 minutes, I promptly got absorbed in an episode of True Blood. Todd and I were in the middle of a season 2 marathon, and between the vampires, shape shifters, and Stackhouses I temporarily forgot that I was baking. When the 20 minutes was up, I had slightly over baked rugelach.

These weren’t bad. God knows Todd and I certainly enjoyed them. But they aren’t a new favorite, either.

Berkshires, Baby!

The whole family loaded in the car on Friday night and made our way to Rena’s house in the Berkshires for the weekend. We had such a nice time! Rena was nice enough to have a late dinner awaiting us when we arrived on Friday, and thus began my weekend of eating!

Saturday morning was filled with bacon (we thought of you, Laura) and pancakes with the most delicious blueberries I’ve ever tasted. The boys hit the slopes right after that to work off some of their calories. The girls on the other hand…let’s just say we had other plans for the day.

We got really lucky with the weather, and it was warm enough to walk around the cuteness that is Great Barrington for a little while. We checked out the adorable used bookstore, a great toy shop, and hit the burrito stand in town. Back at home later that night we discovered that Rena’s oven wasn’t working, so it was back to town for dinner at the diner. I know it sounds like all we did was eat, and that’s pretty much true.  And with the broken oven, we didn’t even get to make the rugelach we planned to bake!

Massive consumption aside, it was really great to see Rena! I loved putting our new car to good use and getting out of the city for a couple of days. The boys loved snowboarding (though Todd was definitely feeling some aches and pains afterward), and Sofia found a new best friend in Aussie. All in all, a great weekend. Thanks, Rena!

Team Jacob

Shannon just wrote a scathing GoodReads review of Eclipse, saying that she doesn’t understand why she continues to read all the Twilight crap. I, on the other hand, am completely clear about why I keep reading the Twilight crap. It’s so wonderfully bad!

Yes, the writing is repetitive and heavy handed. And yes, Bella and Edward are the most annoying couple EVER. But there is something stupidly compelling about these books nonetheless. When Todd and I visited friends on Thanksgiving, many of us (admittedly all women) shared the exact same feeling about the books. We’re a little embarrassed to be reading them, and, throughout, our internal monologues go a little something like this: Jeez, this is really bad! I can’t wait to read more! I can’t explain it. Intellectually, there isn’t much to recommend these books. But they are mindless fun nonetheless.

And just in case anyone is keeping track of who is on Team Edward and who is on Team Jacob (and I realize: no one is keeping track): I’m squarely in Jacob’s camp. I’d take a less obsessively controlling and more fun werewolf boyfriend over a boring, soporifically responsible vampire any day.

Engulfed in Books

David Sedaris’s When You Are Engulfed In Flames was one of the books under the Christmas tree for me this year. The bad news is that this isn’t Sedaris’s best collection. Many of my favorite Sedaris essays are set squarely in his childhood, and I suspect that he’s mined that part of his history pretty thoroughly by now. There were moments throughout when I wondered if he was really struggling to make something of nothing and if he hasn’t already used up his best material.  I also felt a little sad that he and Hugh don’t actually seem more like a romantic comedy happy ending. Sedaris has certainly built a career on embracing some of the uglier sides of life, but I still like to imagine that he and Hugh are in a happily-ever-after situation.

The good news is that even sub-par David Sedaris is better than so much else you could be reading. There are moments of hilarity in When You Are Engulfed In Flames, and his closing essay about how he quit smoking is wonderful. This may not live up to Holidays on Ice or Me Talk Pretty One Day (at least for me), but I’d still recommend it for Sedaris fans. And really, who isn’t a Sedaris fan?