S is for...

Sister. In Sweats, silly slippers and a Santa Hat! So many S's!

Bwa ha ha! Yes, I did post it!

I love Christmas pictures in our house! There's always at least one of us in a Santa Hat, and we're in sweats all morning (up until Christmas Dinner, usually, when Mom makes us go change and put on 'real' clothes). We're so finicky about Christmas too! We have so many silly little Traditions That May Not Be Changed. Things like blueberry muffins for breakfast (except for Anne, who likes blueberry-less blueberry muffins, so hers are made before the berries get added in for the rest of us). Or each of us having our seats in the living room by the tree for opening presents. Silly little things, but part of the fun is keeping up with the tradition. With my having moved away, the past two Christmases have been a bit looser on some of the traditions, but we still try and keep as many as we can. I wonder how many I'll be able to incorporate into mine and Zach's first Christmas this year.... :)

So, I suppose silly traditions is part of my S, but it's also about my sister. We're about 2 years apart in age, and don't look a thing alike (well, we have similarities, but they're lost under so many differences, few people notice them!) In personality, however, we're very similar! Same ...odd... sense of humor. Very similar tastes in movies, hobbies, music, sports... We rub off on each other a lot, though some would call it enabling. I introduced her to knitting, and karate, and some book and movie titles ("You WILL have volume 12!"). She introduced me to Neopets, and caving, and other book and movie titles. And shopping - she's a great shopping buddy. The type who'll tell you "Honey, no. N. O." or "Yeah, it's cute, but it's not $30 cute." I don't have that sort of shopping buddy here. Granted, there's not much shopping here either, so it's rather a moot point, but still.

Yeah, maybe "enabling" is a better word...

We tend to feed off each other a lot. I've noticed it more the past few years, not living nearby anymore. It's always nice when you can make some reeeeeeeeally random comment, solidly an obscure inside joke, and have someone actually get it (instead of looking at you like your mind's half gone). Much easier than just telling yourself and laughing inside your head instead. The 3 hr time difference between the coasts makes it very hard to call her after a movie.

I'm not saying that we've a perfectly sappy sister relationship (we certainly had our share of growing pains), but I am lucky to have a sister that is a friend too - especially since I'd have to put up with her either way! ;)

Avast, ye scurvy dogs!

Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

For more information about this wonderful(ly silly) holiday, check out Wikipedia or the original Talk Like a Pirate website. :)

And here is my own little pirate. And his lorikeet. Apparently they were fresh out of parrots. ;)

Blaaarrgh...

Yup, trying to start running again.... Rough start.

Actually did about 3 miles today, doing a run-walk pattern. Not really my fastest, by any means, but I did the whole 3 miles, and lived to tell the tale. :)

The weather is just so frickin' hot here in the summer that any outside activities pretty came to a screeching halt. And with work as crazy as it was this summer, I was a leeeeeeetle on the stressed side, so that pretty much stopped most activity. I know, I know - when you get stressed, it's GOOD to be active. Work off all that negative energy and tension, produce endorphins, sleep sounder, all that good stuff. Still, when you're running around as crazy as I was this summer, it's hard to find the energy in the first place. :\

So, now that things are starting to cool down around here (tomorrow's the first day in MONTHS where the predicted high for the day is under 100!), I'm trying to re-enter my workout routine. It was actually really nice running this morning - still only in the 70s at about 7am when I went out. Still too early for the heat to really have picked up yet. I'm just sooooo out of shape. Maybe tomorrow will be better :)

Oh yeah...

Almost forgot - haven't had a knitting update this week (or last, or the week before...) Been very busy past few weeks :)

Anyway, the knitting continues, though unfortunately no new pictures to show.

I've finished Liesel (my ravelympics scarf) though no pictures to show. I did finish it in time for the Ravelympics, but I'm working on it still now, reworking the ends to have some beadwork, so it better matches Odessa. I'll have pictures of it (and the ravelympics scarf 'medal') when it's totally done to my satisfaction :) A really nice lace pattern though - looks more complicated than it is!

Unfortunately, I didn't get my WIP Wrestling ravelympics project done, so that's still on hold for a while. It will get done this fall though, I promise!

And the baby blanket continues too. It's getting wide enough now that you don't see as much change in it, even when you've been knitting on it a while. Baby blankets seem to hit that point, when it's wide enough for the blanket, so each row seems to take frickin' forever. I'm sure afghans have that point as well, though I've never made one.

So, yes, stayin' busy, keeping the needles going during all the movies we're watching lately. Should have pictures to post by next week, too, if all goes as planned :)

Our Labor Day trip, Pt 2

(Pt 1 being San Juan Capistrano.)

We also hit up the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. Because, well, it's me.. and an aquarium... so of course we had to stop by :)

I really liked it - a very good aquarium. The Aquarium of the Pacific is like the Monterrey Aquarium or the Virginia Marine Science Museum (now the VA Aquarium). It's a very good learning aquarium, not just big tanks of fish. Lots of good fun facts, descriptions of the fish and their habits and habitats, good interactive exhibits. That was my biggest frustration with the GA Aquarium in Atlanta - not enough interactiveness, not enough to read. Beautiful tanks, lots of good animals there, but not as much to read or do. But the Aquarium of the Pacific is very good about that. It's been around 10 years this year, too, so I think that helps - more time to get those interactive displays going.

There were a lot of touch tanks, too, which is always fun. I love sting ray tanks. The cownose rays are just so cute! Those are east coast rays though, I think, because I didn't see any in the touch tanks here. There was a tank that had sharks to pet, too. Something very unusual! It's neat feeling sharkskin, though, because it's so much rougher than you expect. They don't have scales, but small cartilage pieces called denticles. And now you know :)

One of the points we really enjoyed was the lorikeet forest. The lorikeets LOVED Zach! At one point he had 3 of them perched on his arm! He enjoyed feeling like a pirate for a moment there :) The lorikeets are very fearless when it comes to getting their nectar, though. Will land right on you and settle in to lap up that sweet stuff. It's really fun to watch, because you can see their tongues busily sipping away!

The Aquarium of the Pacific is definitely worth a stop. However, don't make our mistake and go on a holiday. Or mid-afternoon. Or both. It gets busy. That's a good sign in a way - because it's such a good stop, people want to go see it. For us, it meant that our last several exhibits were zipped through rather quickly. They were getting a touch overcrowded with families of small children. Like I said, it's popular - you just have to plan for it. No biggie. :)

When the swallows come back to Capistrano...

And if you can say that without hearing Bugs Bunny crooning, then you obviously grew up in a different generation than I did :) As for me, I was singing it in my head the whole day while we visited the mission.

As I've mentioned, we went down to the coast over Labor Day weekend. Able to squeeze in a few days of vacation over the holiday. One of our stops was to the mission at San Juan Capistrano. Growing up on the east coast, I know really very little about CA history, and the missions and so forth. The mission at San Juan Capistrano is very well preserved, with a lot of work gone into making it a very interesting historical center as well. Besides the mission's religious importance, San Juan Capistrano also was the center of the local Indian tribe (pre-Spanish) and had a big commercial importance as well - had interests in ranching and metal work and wine-production too. Was actually the site of the first wine production in Alta California (they can claim being the birthplace of the California wine industry!)

The gardens in the mission are absolutely stunning. I might be a little biased, since post really doesn't get much in the way of greenery or flowers. But, still, it was a beautiful garden. There were bright, bright fuchsia flowers cascading all over the walls, and a fountain in one of the courtyards that was full of koi and water lilies. So much was in bloom, and butterflies flitting around... if it hadn't been right in the center of town (with the associated traffic background noise), it would have been one of the most peaceful places I've ever been.

The town of San Juan Capistrano was very nice too, a very pleasant walking town. Plenty of standard quaint-little-town shops. There was a lovely shop where we browsed for a while - antiques and old books and so forth. Found several interesting old books, so was quite pleased. Another interesting shop was full of cooking stuff - not Williams-Sonoma sort, but more artsy (would've been perfect for you, Julie!). Lots of beautiful glass serving pieces. Very fun shop :)

The final high point of our trip to San Juan Capistrano was the restaurant where we had dinner. Granted that we have so few eating establishments here on post, that doesn't change the fact that Ciao Pasta was DELICIOUS!! I had a salad with mixed greens (not a bit of iceberg in sight!) and grilled salmon and strawberry vinaigrette. Simply delicious. Even makes me want to figure out a version for ourselves (their vinaigrette was homemade - if they can do it, so can we!). Heck, Zach even said that he'd eat salad with a dressing like that! (For a guy that normally eats so healthily, he's not a big salad person). The pasta was delicious (Zach got a pasta dish) and they are very open to customization. Yes, all in all, a simply delicious meal. Definitely worth stopping by if you ever head down to see the San Juan Capistrano mission.

Review: A History of Violence

Yay Netflix! I seriously don't know what we'd do out here without it. After a particularly trying week at work (yeah, I don't want to even BEGIN to go into it!), I actually had a whole day to relax yesterday. You may not realize how exciting it is to have a whole day off, but it was really wonderful because my phone battery died too, so I didn't even have phone calls interrupting me! Unintentional, but a welcome break - lots of reading, a movie or two, actual rest. Wonderful. :)

The movie we watched (well, one of them) was A History of Violence. So, here goes:

Simple plot, actually. Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) is a normal guy with a normal life, two normal children and a normal wife (Maria Bello). He lives in a small town, and runs the local diner. Everything moves quietly and ordinarily in his life, until one night two thugs attempt to rob his diner. Tom defends his diner and patrons, defeating the violent robbers like he had years of practice. He becomes a local hero, bringing upon himself a great deal of unwanted publicity. This marks a turning point in Tom's life, as the coverage brings more unwanted guests to Tom's diner. Some very suspicious men, led by Carl Fogarty (Ed Harris), show up, claiming that Tom is not Tom and he is in fact one Joey Cusack, a particularly violent hit man with the Philadelphia mob. A game of cat and mouse ensues, with Tom maintaining his innocence, while trying to protect his family from men who believe him to be someone else.

This would be a good sort of movie to write a term paper on - how violence permeates lives, how inescapable it is, how society sees "good" and "bad" violence. It's unsettling, because if you let it, this is more than a thriller, but a movie that can make you think, and about topics you would rather gloss over in your mind. A review on imdb said that the director, David Cronenberg, enjoys creating disturbing situations and imagery, and wants to get under your skin and to stimulate your mind on as many levels as he can. Like with most attempts at this goal, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I'd say that this would be one that works.

The story is the violence that enters this family's life (and was perhaps already there), and it is told through the dynamics of the family itself. What makes this work is the cast. The acting is AWESOME. Makes the movie totally worth a view, even if this sort of story isn't quite up your alley. Viggo Mortensen and Mario Bello are great as the leads. There is a nice chemistry between them, and both are just so talented. You watch their reactions, and feel that you are watching real reactions to the events unfolding. Mortensen, too, is capable of displaying the power and force of Tom's darker side - such an underrated actor. Ed Harris plays a wonderful villain, not too overdone, either. He is nicely threatening, a subtle sort of menace. William Hurt was in basically 1 scene, and earned an Oscar nomination for his work - says something, right? And Ashton Holmes, who plays Tom's son Jack, is worth keeping an eye out for in the future!

(Good actors, but silly actors too - According to imdb, Viggo Mortensen stated in an interview, that during the shooting of the first bar scene with Ed Harris he could not stop laughing, and as a result, the scene had to be re-shot several times. Due to Viggo Mortensen's behaviour Ed Harris completed the scene without pants; he only wore his underwear, yet this cannot be seen as the bar table impedes our view. Thus, Viggo Mortensen had to act seriously while Ed Harris was not wearing any pants, and this is the scene that is used in the movie.)

I was a little surprised by the graphic nature of the movie. Not the violence, honestly (can't expect something too tame from a movie titled "A History of Violence") but there were some very graphic sex scenes as well (well, two). They weren't gratuitous, though, just graphic, and a little unsettling. Both scenes were between Tom and his wife, Edie, one before the robbery, and one after Carl and the others arrive. The scenes really depict how things have changed between them, how the suspicion and violence and such have permeated their lives. Very effective scenes, actually.

The story, though, reminded me a little of Hitchcock (well, Hitchcock with graphic sex and violence). It was very nicely paced, and definitely suspenseful. The little scenes, the quiet touches, I think were what reminded me of Hitchcock.

Overall: 5 of 5. Beautiful acting and nicely handled direction turn a simple story into a very entertaining movie. Definitely worth a view if you enjoy a good thriller. Makes me want to see Eastern Promises even more (same director working with Viggo Mortensen again). :)





SPOILER!!

I LOVED the last scene of the movie. So much expressed, and not a word said. Tom returns from Philadelphia to his family, uncertain of where his life now stands. The way the family welcomes him back - all the little things in the scene showing that the family ties may need some work, some reconstruction, but are there to be saved. Hope in spite of everything. The facial expressions on Jack and Edie, and especially Tom are spot on, and sooooo expressive, more than anything the script could have added. Beautiful scene.