Wow

I'm at a loss for words (almost)

Pia brought home "Drive" for our viewing pleasure.  The girls love Ryan Gosling.  I don't love him but he seems kind of harmless and cute.

Then this movie.  Most violent thing I've ever seen.  Plus it has car driving, a "genre" I hate almost as much as the circus genre.

And it's not even on my Oscar list, so I didn't get to knock a film off.

I'm going to have to watch Stewie say "Whheat Thins" about 200 times to cleanse my mind of the picture of Christina Hendricks getting her head blown off.

This Makes Me Laugh

Every Time.

A Date With Al

Friday night my man Alex and I went out for a fun date.  I had originally intended to take him to Beauty and the Beast (Broadway show), but missed out on tickets for that.

We settled for dinner at Chili's and "Hugo".  He was full of chatter, including regaling me with a little hijinks where he and some pals took those plastic bags of chocolate milk (the kind they serve in the school cafeteria instead of cartons) and threw them against the walls of the school.  They didn't get caught (yet), hope Principal Skinner doesn't read my blog.  He had a corn dog, pineapple and a Slurpee type drink.  He was super stoked about the pineapple, weird kid.

We then fueled up for the movie with Skittles and popcorn.  After the film, we dropped into Game Stop and got a Bakugan game for their XBox.  Lucky for Lavs, he only looked at the sale table, and didn't ask for something rated T.

I don't get to see my little men very often anymore, so it was a fun evening for me.  And I think it was fun for Al to get a special evening with no brothers.

Watching the Oscar Nominees

I'm trying to watch all 9 of this year's nominees for Best Picture.

"The Tree of Life" directed by Terence Malick.  We watched this yesterday.  Not "Bridesmaids", for sure :-)

"Malick, a deeply thoughtful director who studied philosophy at Harvard and Oxford, reflects on the interconnectedness and interdependence of all living things, no matter how miniscule or magnificent. The death of a brother lingers profoundly in the life of his emotionally damaged sibling just as the Big Bang reverberates throughout the cosmos, and a relatively small meteorite crash instigates a cataclysmic ripple of death for the dinosaurs."

 "The Artist".  My favorite so far.  Loved everything about this movie.  Charming!

 "The Help".  Loved this too, mostly for the performances by Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis.  This was a movie that stayed pretty faithful to the book, and didn't disappoint.

 "Hugo".  I took Alex to see this on Friday, and it was still good the second time around.  The sets are amazing, and there were some good knitted costumes (always a plus for me lol)  I really enjoy the history of film, so the scenes showing the making of early silent movies was fun.  But maybe a tad long for little kids (though Al liked it)

"Moneyball".  I was amazed that a good movie could be made out of this book.  Brad Pitt is very good in this one, as is Jonah Hill (does anyone else like him better chubby?)

So that's 5 down, 4 to go:  The Descendants, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Midnight in Paris and War Horse.  I'm not too excited about the 9/11 movie (the previews are kind of annoying) and I don't love Woody Allen.  But War Horse is World War I (one of my favorite eras) and The Descendants has Cloons, so I'm up for seeing both of those.

And why didn't Tin Tin get a nod for Best Animated Film?  I liked that one.

Saturday Morning

Saturday mornings around here tend to be rather lazy affairs.  We've watched all of the HGTV shows we can handle (and yet we haven't managed to clean anything in our house today).  We are all still in our PJs. 

And while channel surfing, we came across the 80s classic "Ski Patrol".  Which was exciting, as Katie and I had just been discussing this movie, and how it was one of the seminal films of her tween  years.  And that one of the stars of the movie is BEVERLY LESLIE from "Will and Grace".  Who was the only "star" I saw when I visited Katie in LA.  Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon...

God this movie is terrible.  I may have to go clean something.

The Latest Fashion (in 1890)!

Here I am, doing my best Queen Victoria imitation.  Wearing "The Barrister's Wig" I just finished for My Year of Weldon's.

It's warm and cozy, also lightweight.  But maybe not my best look.  Still, it was fun to knit.

You're Never Too Old To Learn Something New

My daily learning generally involves The New York Times Crossword Puzzle, or something I've seen on The History Channel (well it used to involve the History Channel.  Since they've gone to airing nothing but Swamp People and Ax Men, I'm not learning too much).

But yesterday, I taught myself to crochet.  I've been avoiding crochet for the nearly 50 (ack) years I've been knitting.  I think being a lefty bolluxed up the instructions for me, and anytime I tried to crochet, I ended up going backwards and upside down or something.

But so many of the Weldon's projects I want to do this year involve at least a little crocheting.  So last night, I dug this 1946 booklet out (and it has instructions for the left handed -- sort of.  Basically it says to put a mirror in front of the page and follow the reflection).  And within a few minutes, I was merrily chaining, single crocheting and double crocheting all around my Barrister's Wig! 

I'm sure experienced crocheters would wince at my speed (though I did get faster) and I'm pretty sure I am not holding the yarn quite right, but I produced a decent looking lacy edging so I'm pretty happy.

And I can say that I learned something new.  That wasn't about a Real Housewife, Heidi and Seal's breakup or what those crazy Brits are doing at "Downton Abbey" (though I learned about all that stuff too)