Surviving winter and relearning a writing habit

There has been a GREAT silence on my end.  Well.  'Great' compared to when I was writing daily, and then five days a week.  But I find without those self-imposed deadlines, it has become much easier to put off writing on any given day for fear that my daily thought isn't interesting enough to post, or because I don't write it at the time of my thought and it fleets away, or perhaps simply because I am in partial hibernation.  

I know I am pushing on hibernation's door because I recently spent two days alternating between reading Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver (recommendable for her portrayal of both human life and relationships, and the migratory habits of the monarch butterfly) and watching the BBC mini-series for both Emma and Pride and Prejudice while knitting.  It wasn't even the weekend. Despite my unwillingness to write, I am still determined not to give this space up.  I recognise that it is an extra item I can add to my daily routine, a commodity supremely important to keeping me out of said hibernation patterns.  

After a brief warm spell - I didn't put my long johns on for two days - I have come out of my dormancy and am ready to move again.   Item number one on the agenda: find a life pattern that will allow us to live in any particular country only during the summer. 

A small convenience

We don't own a t.v.  We do have two laptops and for a long time, we'd watch the movies I borrow from the library on these.  The sound wasn't great and our dvd players don't always work as they should, especially in hot weather.  Last year we bought a desktop computer with a nice big flat screen and some great speakers off a friend for Christmas which Jbird set up as our media centre.  The computer has all our music on it so we no longer need to fuss around with hard drives and plugging in speakers.  Our viewing and listening experiences have improved considerably.  I often sit and watch movies alone and for a while I was in the habit of using Jbird as my remote: can you turn it up?  It wasn't ideal.  Even if I was close to the computer, the keyboard and mouse sits behind the screen so we'd have to kind of turn the screen and reach around, using the mouse left handed to work it.  For Christmas this year, Jbird bought me a wireless mouse.  My life has changed again for being able to pause a movie or change the volume or choose some different music all from the comfort of our couch, and always in front of the screen.

Breaking Away

Would you like to see a little picture of where we live?  Find and watch the movie: Breaking Away.  

I want to talk about it in more detail than I can without giving away too much of the story line.  It's based in and around Bloomington and the Indiana University campus (here in Bloomington) in 1979.  Dennis Quaid is one of the young actors.  He manages to come across as a fairly angry sort, I didn't enjoy his performance very much.  If I were to give an award for best actor, it would be to Dennis Christopher.  He's gorgeous, naive, funny, true to his friends.  I guess I'm unsold on whether the award would go to him or to the person who wrote his character but surely a lot of it was him.  The little 500, a historically important bike race at IU, is a big feature of the film, and more specifically, the inequalities between townies (or 'cutters' as they were called back then) and the students.  It felt very appropriate for me with all this talk on democracy I've been doing with a couple of my classes.  Oh, and the scenery is just what I see every day so if you find this movie, you won't even have to come visit, you'll see it all there.  I guess it's the 1979 version of what we see and walk in, but it's very similar.

Watch it, if you can find it, and tell me what you think.

NZ Media

Every Saturday my friend brings her troop of boys for piano lessons.  Only two of them are learning so we play with the three that aren't in the background.  Actually, we drink tea, chat, and knit.  And try to keep the boys a little bit quiet while Jbird teaches. 

This morning, we got onto the subject of NZ movies (didn't even mention LOTR).  I was telling her that we were going to see Boy tomorrow, as IU's showing it, one time only, on the big screen!  We are very excited about this opportunity.  It screened in NZ our first year here in the States and we watched it on the plane on our way home that 'summer' (NZ winter).  On a tiny screen on the back of the seat in front, sipping a Villa Maria sav. blanc. The drone of the plane's engines ringing in our very souls.

I recommended she watch The Piano and Whale Rider.  She had seen Once Were Warriors, and been horrified by it, as was I, though I know it speaks of the truth.  

NZ is a tiny little world and I happen to know the editor for Whale Rider, David Coulson, because I went to school and have remained friends with his daughter.  I'd wanted to recommend an American movie he'd edited but I had to look up it's name, North Country.  During that search, I was reminded that he also worked on Vintner's Luck - which I am yet to see.

Much to my delight, during my search, I discovered a website where I found a whole bunch of New Zealand stuff that will play for me over here.  TVNZ on demand does NOT play internationally, which is a huge sore point for me, but NZ on screen does!  I was able to watch an entire short film that Mr. Coulson worked on, Manurewa, which made me cry. 

Now I'm giddy, lost in NZ media bliss. 

Definitely, Maybe

Jbird was away for more than 12 hours today and I had a kind of lovely girlie day all to myself with no plans on my schedule.  Sometimes those days don't turn out too well but I was okay today. How does one express a smile without images?

I finished making my last Christmas present (and it's not yet February!), started a new crochet project, popped down to the library to read the newspaper and pick up some literature (recipe books, magazines, DVDs - I already have a few books on the go), had a video chat on skype to a lovely cousin-in-law and her bubs, and didn't bake anything except corn bread for my black bean chilli (how American am I?).  

It ended with the lovely movie: Definitely, Maybe.  From the makers of Notting Hill and Love Actually.  I'm not sure how I ever missed seeing this one when it first came out.  It's full of lovely shots of New York and that tough little actress, Abigail Breslin.  She's from Little Miss Sunshine.  It's the kind of movie Jbird will be happy he missed while I am wondering about buying it for our DVD collection.  

A Beautiful Portrayal

We saw a really nice movie the other day.  It's called 50/50 and it's about a young guy's battle with a rare cancer.  The guy is portrayed by the youngest cast member of Third Rock from the Sun, Joseph Gordon Levitt.  As he goes through this life changing crisis, he reaches a point of complete alone-ness.  He comes out of that to see there are people who love him and were simply showing their love in ways that he couldn't always identify with.  I found myself having a little lady crush on the psychologist too - she is so cute and acts her part so awkwardly.  It's perfect.  I don't want to say more than that because I think you should see the movie.

It was such a human and yet beautiful portrayal of love.  I wonder if I am able to find that love in my life, without needing a near death experience.

NB: If you are sensitive to language from today's popular culture, you may be distracted/upset by some content.

An Incredible Journey

Last night I watched the doco. - Turtles: An Incredible Journey.  It put my life into a new perspective.  Loggerhead turtles start their life digging, for three days, and then they swim some 70 miles.  Only when they find a raft of seaweed on the Gulf Stream do they finally sleep for the first time in their lives.  The next 21 years are spent swimming through several oceans, finally mating and returning to their home beach.  Despite the odds, they have outlived dinosaurs.  Man can't get in their way, though we try hard enough. 

I swam with wild turtles once, on a visit to Malaysia.  It felt kind of amazing, like I was engaging in something bigger than me.  I hadn't even seen the doco.  I have a friend who once stayed awake all night on a beach in Malaysia, hoping to see the Leatherback turtle come in to lay their eggs.  They grow to be the size of a mini cooper.  No kidding.

I just think they're kinda neat, that's all.  Not mysterious though, not when you know of the Great Creator.

The Movie Experience

I have a love hate relationship with popcorn at the movie theatres.  On the one hand, I always end up with bits stuck in my teeth, scattered all over my person and seat, and a funny feeling in my stomach.  On the other, it is delicious and makes you feel like you're at the movies.  

We saw Tintin in 3D on our annual boxing day trip to the theatre.  We didn't get popcorn but I definitely felt like we were at the movies - it's such a fun, exciting film to see.  Did you read the comics when you were younger?  I did, and I also loved seeing the images plastered all over Brussels on my trip to Europe with Syls in 2005.  I'm amazed at how accurately the movie portrayed many of the same story lines I read.  The images and characters were well represented - it was fun to see it all in motion.  Pre-movie, I couldn't muster much interest in going to this one, I thought it might be too dull. I definitely walked out with a smile on my face, ready for a late left-over feast back at home.

Girl's Night

Whenever I stay at my sister's house we eat and drink too much and fall asleep too early.  This time she had gone shopping at Sabato for lovely ingredients: valaroha chocolate (oh my!), fancy cocoa, dried strawberries and figs and other lovelies.  Even though she was tired after the usual excessive Saturday activities with two lovely children, we sucked it up and baked two types of biscotti.   Chocolate and Hazelnut, and Christmas Mix.  K.-Stakkas and I enjoyed the crumbs, I will have to sneak a little taste into my suitcase for Jbird. 

It is loads easier to bake with more than one person.  Biscotti is twice baked, the first is a log but then it's cut and rebaked.  The issue comes in the crumbling, how do cafes do it?  It was lovely and fast to cut with two people.

With a couple glasses of Strawberry Lindeur, highlighted by chopped fresh strawberries, we baked, had pedicures, and watched Bridesmaids.  This was a perfect movie after the recent sisterly nuptials where we were bridesmaids three and four.  We're looking forward to getting to know the new family member - too bad Jbird and I are soooooo far away.

What's a Hoosier?

We were given tickets to the Hoosiers’ basketball game on the weekend.  We’d done our research by watching the movie “Hoosiers” a couple months ago.  The game was a fun cultural experience, super super American.  I saw my first live slam dunk!  There was a brass band, cheerleaders and flags.  Bigger flags than I’ve ever seen in my life.  I’m not going to lie, the cheerleaders were a hit for me.  They wear big white bows in their hair and they’re soooo peppy!  Jump, jump, jump, arm pump. Back flip. Thrown in the air... Unfortunately, I missed getting the pyramid on camera by about a second.  Bah to that. 

It was a home game for the Hoosiers so they had home audience advantage.  By that, I mean the entire audience was decked out in red and white.  The women in the vicinity to me had had red manicures that day.  It was intense. 

I know I’m meant to be on the Hoosier’s side but I couldn’t help feeling sad for Chattanooga.  They played an okay game but the audience was pretty mean anytime they did anything ANYTHING decent.  It was quite lopsided.  I don’t think I’ve ever been to a game where the cheering was solely for only one of the teams.  It must be super demoralising.  Ah well, go Hoosiers!? 

What's a Hoosier?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoosier