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Movies:  Femme Fatale

 

“No acting required” must have been the wording on the cattle call for this movie.

 

Maybe “Must be able to lap dance”, or perhaps “Must enjoy gratuitous nudity which adds no redeeming virtue to murky plot” may have been the text used to advertise for the role that Rebecca Romijn-Stamos filled.

 

Sure, guys will enjoy it.  My spouse and one of our male friends did.  His wife was okay with the plot, but being a right-wing fundamentalist Lutheran (yeah, they have those), she found it convenient to exit for a potty-break during the girl-on-girl action.

 

Sad use of Antonio Banderas; I can’t believe he was this desperate for work.

 

I stayed busy in the kitchen making Boysenberry Shortcake and real whipped cream for dessert.  It was more rewarding than sitting through this debacle.

 

(No, I did NOT order this on Netflix.  This is what happens when hubby is left to pick movies out by himself.)

 

  4:01:28 PM    comment []

Z

 

Happy holiday of your choice

 

For those of you celebrating Easter or who’ve observed Passover this week, best wishes.  For those of you observing the passage of winter, Happy Spring.  If there’s some other holiday I’ve missed, feel free to remind me.  We could always use another reason to learn about culture, another reason to party around here.  Especially if only informal service is required to mark that holiday.

 

After four broken hours of sleep, I made an Easter-Bunny-Gumball-Rally run to drop off goodies for my nephew who lives 30 minutes away.  I fortunately had the BBC on radio to keep me company or I might have dozed off in the hour-long round trip.  Arrived home at 5:30 a.m., slapped some cinnamon rolls in the oven which raised during my four hours of miserable sleep.  Bunny-napped between putting them in the oven and getting them out.  Crashed in my bed until my son shoved a Easter egg in my face at 8:00 a.m., roughly the same time my spouse (who’d already been up for an hour internet-surfing) realized we only had 15 minutes to get ready for Easter Mass.

 

Damn.  I have a headache.  Was it the red wine last night, or the lousy sleep?

 

After snapping at hubby to be rational and reconsider going to a nearby church for 9:00 a.m. mass versus the closest church for 8:30 a.m., I pushed food at both kids; made and slammed some coffee; ironed clothes; shoved the kids into same clothes; hog-tied and wrestled the son into a different pair of pants (the first ones were too big, fell off) and tortured my daughter’s hair into pigtails.  Leaving me with a scant 10 minutes to shower, deal with a massive case of bed-head and halitosis, and attempt to appear like a calm and collected conformist Catholic. 

 

Gah.  My head feels like it’s going to erupt.

 

I throw down two ibuprofen between swigs of extra-strength coffee.  I reach for the all-purpose Euro-wardrobe of black and run out the door, looking like a Greek woman in mourning.  Inappropriate for a joyous Easter Day, but hey, bite me.  It didn't need ironing.

 

The too-loud speaker over my head during the service causes my daughter and me to jump every time they start a hymn.  My son is whispering a mantra for the later half of an extra-long mass, When is it over?  Can we go home yet?  When is it over?  Can we go home yet?  I can’t hear all his words, but he’s beating them in a silent tattoo against my palm as we hold hands.

 

Yes, please, Lord, when can we go home?  My head, my head…

 

Hubby is feeling extra perky because it’s Easter and Lent is over; he wants to celebrate by taking us all to breakfast.  Maybe food will help my head.  After debating all the options, we choose the closest restaurant to the house.  It’s a sad affair and we make a worse choice by seating ourselves in the booth area instead of moving to the “back room”.

 

The area in which we’ve taken refuge is marked non-smoking, but divided by nothing from the smoking section.  My sinuses are still vibrating from the music at mass as well as the sympathetic rhythm of my son’s tattooed beat.  The second-hand cigarette smoke accelerates the frequency of my sinuses’ vibration.

 

Our waitress is a newbie, a neophyte.  Very pathetic.  She obviously needs a different line of business, like accounting.  She can’t look us in the eye, struggles with the kitchen about our order, shuffles from table to table.  I tell my husband this, that she’s struggling – he doesn’t believe me until I point out that she’s arguing with the cook over what appears to be our meals, all in line of sight from our booth.  (What could one find to dispute about hotcakes and sausages? I try not to ponder on this, it hurts too much.)

 

I slam more tepid coffee, hoping to optimize the vasodilation effects of caffeine on my brain.

 

Agh, newbie doesn’t come back to offer a second cup until she arrives with the check.  We leave; I stumble through the grocery store to get oddments required for dessert tonite (Key Lime Pie and Rhubarb Crisp, along with some as-yet unnamed chocolate treat – all for guests this evening).

 

My daughter looks up at me in the parking lot as we leave the store, says, You’ve still got it, don’t you?  That headache? 

 

Oh baby, yeah.  Can you feel it too?  I ask her.  She says yes, squinting-wincing.

 

I try to read the paper.  I try to watch a movie with hubby.  Thwumpa-thwumpa-thwumpa goes my head.

 

My son offers a chocolate Easter egg.  I eat it, mindlessly, wanting to be polite and encourage his sharing gesture; my head hurts so bad that I can’t really taste it.  What a waste of chocolate.

 

Hmmm.  Or not.

 

Amazingly, my headache starts to dissipate after the rush of sugary chocolate.  It’s not entirely gone, still a little niggling, fading ache in the background, but damned if I can’t actually think straight.  I can almost choke out a blog post.

 

Happy Easter or whichever holiday of your choice.  Be sure to get some chocolate today.

 

  2:27:53 PM    comment []