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Monday Memeing is Stolen


Or “borrowed”. I was reading David Bridger’s new live journal blog and it led me here. However since it doesn’t appear to be original to her, I won’t feel badly lifting it. Generally I prefer making up my meme’s but I was wrung dry creatively by the Christmas cookie baking thing yesterday. Baking is an energy suck.

And since I didn’t write a film review for the weekend (and I am working on something involving time travel), a movie meme is a good way to make amends to my patient readers.

1.Name a movie that you have seen more than 10 times.

Well, I watched Moonstruck again this weekend with Rob, who has never seen it. I have watched it many times over the last twenty years. Aside from Nic Cage’s horrid acting – it always makes me laugh.

2.Name a movie that you’ve seen multiple times in the theater.

I’ve seen all the original Star Wars movies more times than I care to admit in the theater. I even went to see the re-releases in the 90’s. But I don’t do that anymore. That is for young people.

3.Name an actor that would make you more inclined to see a movie.

No one can lure me to see a movie on the strength of the cast. I have to want to see the film based on the story and the reviews. I do read and take reviews into account knowing they are sometimes wrong because I don’t have the time or money to waste on potentially lackluster or bad movies.

4.Name an actor that would make you less likely to see a movie.

Easy. Tom Cruise. I loathe him and have seen but one film he was in since Top Gun and that was Interview with a Vampire which was awful, but I had loved the novel.

5.Name a movie that you can and do quote from.

My friend Sarah and I used to be able to recite dialogue from Raiders of the Lost Ark. I love Much Ado about Nothing.

“I wonder Signeur Benedick that you are still talking. Nobody marks you.”

“What? My dear Lady Disdain? Are you yet living?”

“How could disdain die when it hath such meat food to fed upon as Sig. Benedict?”

Or this one:

“If I were a man, I would eat his heart in the marketplace! but I cannot be a man by wishing, so I will die a woman weeping.”

6.Name a movie musical that you know all of the lyrics to all of the songs.

Okay, anything Rodgers and Hammerstein. If I have seen it, I know the lyrics. Grease, naturally. And The Nightmare Before Christmas.

7.Name a movie that you have been known to sing along with.

As a child (okay as an adult too), I would sing along with commercials, so there really isn’t an instance where I wouldn’t sing along – softly – if I knew the lyrics.

8.Name a movie that you would recommend everyone see.

I don’t think a film like that exists.

9.Name a movie that you own.

I own a few, but I don’t really go in for that kind of thing. Libraries are best for collections.

10.Name an actor that launched his/her entertainment career in another medium but who has surprised you with his/her acting chops.

Robin Wright Penn. I saw her on the soap opera Santa Barbara back in the mid 80’s. She was not notable.
11.Have you ever seen a movie in a drive-in? If so, what?

Did nothing but see films at the drive-in as a child and teen. Probably one of the last generations to have access. All the Disney stuff, horror flicks and James Bond. Cheech and Chong was drive in fare too.
12.Ever made out in a movie?

Theater? Not unless massaging my husband’s inner thigh counts.

13.Name a movie that you keep meaning to see but just haven’t yet gotten around to it.

Movie watching isn’t this high on my priority list.

14.Ever walked out of a movie?

No.

15.Name a movie that made you cry in the theater.

AI. It’s so sad. I cried the whole way home the first time I saw it and hated the film really. It wasn’t until I saw it again on tv that I developed an appreciation for it. I still think it should have ended with David finding the Blue Fairy but I understand the reasons for continuing and for his happily ever after to be a mixed bag because there are no fairy tale endings – just reality, which is what you choose to make of it.

16.What’s the last movie you saw in the theater?

Wall-E.

17.What’s your favorite/preferred genre of movie?

Eclectic.

18.What’s the first movie you remember seeing in the theater?

Song of the South at the Orpheum in Dubuque, IA when I was 6 or 7. My mom took me.

19.What movie do you wish you had never seen?

If I ever had that initial reaction, the film was ultimately unmemorable because I can’t think of a single title off-hand.

20.What is the weirdest movie you enjoyed?

Donnie Darko

21.What is the scariest movie you’ve seen?

The scariest stuff I have ever seen have been tv productions of Stephen King stuff not movies in theaters.

22.What is the funniest movie you’ve seen?

Something About Mary really made me laugh the first time I saw it but probably A Fish Called Wanda or Trading Places.

So I don’t expect full disclosure, but a couple of answers for a couple of questions for the comment box would be really nice.

Starving in the New Year


I was standing in line at the grocery behind a young mother and her little girl of about four. She was helping place items on the conveyor and at one point pulled a diet book out and hefted it a bit before remarking,

“This is a really heavy starving book.”

It was a diet book. Read Full Article

It’s Friday. Here’s Your Update.


Since I have been posting updates the last few weeks, I decided to again, but mainly because I am a little wrung out creatively speaking. I have written about four pieces over at 50 something Moms and adding pages to the memoir plus written the Christmas letter, a snarky little ditty that says nothing people who truly know us don’t already know and yet manages to remind others they could be keeping in better touch if they tried harder.

I am swamped with “to do’s” and find this amazing because I wasn’t this busy when I was gainfully employed. I have the Strathcona Writers website to try and log on to and update (not to mention create a blog and a Facebook group for) and the Fort writing group anthology is just taking off and is much more work than any of us thought it would be. And isn’t that usually the case?

My brother has been in touch several times this week too. There are things to worry about but not in print. Suffice to say, he is a long way from okay, but not in any danger that anyone in the family is aware of at this point.

Yesterday was my birthday. BabyD gave me a book called The Art of Column Writing that a writing friend and fellow blogger recommended. She is one who thinks I have the makings of a good columnist, one of my goals in the first quarter of the new year.

Yes, my year is now divided into frames of time as though I were a corporation. I am getting ready to map out the coming weeks and even meeting with someone at the bank on Monday to set up a “business account” because even though I have no inflow, I have expenses and, I think, a good business woman keeps those things separate from the household accounts for tax purposes – right?

Like a business card. I have gotten it into my head I need one. Now I just have to figure out what it should look like and say.

Rob gave me a digital voice recorder for my birthday. Instead of stopping in my tracks to pull out my notebook and a  pen (provided I can find them in my stuffed little purse – there is something else I need to “update”), I can whip out my recorder (yeah, definitely gonna need a new purse) and talk to myself. That will provide the locals something to give me “the look” about.

I got “the look” today from the spin instructor at the gym while I was snapping photos of the equipment for a piece I am going to write for 50something Moms.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking pictures for a column I am writing for a blog.”

And then comes the look. The one reserved for those of us who are a little bit off.

Tonight the Christmas Train is stopping here in Jo’berg. Country singers, sleigh rides and a bonfire with eats.

Later tonight the temps plummet and the weekend highs will be in the minus 20 c and colder range with minus 31c by Monday morning. Not cold enough for BabyD to need to be driven to school. Buses will run until minus 40. School, by the way, is never called off. Canadians are incredibly sensible about travel and road conditions. If they feel the roads are too bad to drive, they simply don’t. They don’t go to work. They don’t take their kids to school. There don’t seem to be repercussions for this because everyone from high up to lowest on the pole are of the same mind on the matter.

I am taking the elevation of my age by another year in stride. A thorough assessment reveals that I am not too fat, the skin under my chin is soft but not waddly and the white in my hair can still be camouflaged with minimal intervention. I do have crows feet. I am wearing progressive lens. But overall I appear to be maintaining.