Two More Movies

Over the last two days, I watched two more Academy Award Best Picture winners.

You Can't Take It with You
1938
Jimmy Stewart
Jean Arthur
Lionel Barrymore
Edward Arnold

I LOVED this movie. Loved it. Not that my loving it was a huge surprise. It's a Frank Capra movie, and has a theme very similar to that of It's a Wonderful Life.

Basically, the story is this. Jimmy Stewart's character, Tony Kirby, is the son of a very wealthy business man, who is buying up all of the property on 12 city blocks in New York, in order to build some huge money making building. Tony holds the office of Vice President in his father's company, but since he is a wealthy man's son, it's mostly just a title. Tony has an office and a desk, but doesn't really do much. He does, however, have a secretary - Alice Sycamore, played by Jean Arthur.

Naturally, he falls for Alice, and wants to marry her. Alice is not only from a poor family - she's from the only family on that 12 block section of NYC that has said no to selling their house. For most of the movie, though, Tony's parents aren't aware of this fact.

Tony's parents are uptight rich people who look down on all below them (especially his mother). Alice's family is fun loving and is lead by her grandfather, who quit working 35 years before because he wasn't having any fun. Naturally, the two families clash quite a bit, even before you bring the property thing into it.

What I especially loved about this movie, is that Lionel Barrymore got to play a good guy, in direct contrast to a bad guy who was written very much like Mr. Potter from It's a Wonderful Life (who he played), so it was like seeing Mr. Potter in an alternate life, where he wasn't such an ass. I liked him much more in this one, needless to say.

And I'm explaining it horribly, but this is a very fun, feel good movie that made me say, "I loved that" out loud when it ended. (It doesn't hurt that I always loved Jimmy Stewart anyway.) (Oh, and not only was Lionel Barrymore, who played Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life in this, but also the man who plays Alice's father? Also played Peter Bailey, George's Dad from It's a Wonderful Life. That was fun to spot.)

I gave this movie 5 out of 5 stars. :)

The Lost Weekend
1945
Ray Milland
Jane Wyman
Phillip Terry

This one is the story of an alcoholic, 10 days sober, left alone by his caretaker brother and his girlfriend for a whole weekend. Naturally, as soon as they leave him, he's off finding ways to secure the only thing he can think of - rye whiskey. And he proceeds to spend the entire weekend drinking. He has various misadventures over the course of the time his brother is gone, including being locked into an alcoholics ward in a hospital after a fall down a flight of stairs. He sees a disturbing hallucination, and basically goes through the typical ups and downs of a man with this kind of problem. During this time, he had to face himself and his problem, putting his girlfriend through hell in the process.

It's not exactly a fun movie, like the other one in this post, but it sure does show the bad sides of alcoholism. I found myself relating to it a lot as the family member of various people who have/had this problem. Mostly what I felt during it, though, was amazement that this man had been putting his brother and girlfriend through hell for so long, and yet they stuck with him. Not many people would. I found myself telling the girl to hit the road, because people like this don't change very often, in my experience, and when they do, it has to be their decision, not yours.

But, mostly, it just made me grateful that I have never even liked the taste of alcohol enough to drink more than a few sips. I can't imagine having to try to quit something that is this addictive.

This was a very good movie. Like I said, not a fun one, but a good one, with a good story to tell. I gave it 4 out of 5 stars.

Numbers

I seem to have decided that 2009 will be the year when I finally get a handle on my weight problem. We all know how diets work - they don't usually. But I'm not really on a diet. I'm not eating anything different, really (although I did substitute wheat bread for white on my lunch sandwiches at work). I'm still eating chips. I haven't had any chocolate, but only because I don't have any (and I can't be trusted not to eat a whole bag of it if I do have it).

No, instead I found this website called sparkpeople, where I can track my food and exercise every day. And I like it. I like it a lot. Tracking every morsel of food that enters my mouth feeds some compulsive side of me. I like figuring out how many calories I'm going to be eating at work, and how much I'll have left to eat at night when I get home. I like to plan my dinners, so that I know if I can afford to have a small bag of chips or a piece of bread and butter afterwards.

It satisfies me, somehow. The act of entering all of my food items for the day fills the part of me that would otherwise be looking for junk food to snack on, even though I'm not hungry and don't need it. It may sound weird, but it's working.

Will I stick with it? Will I have the flat belly I dream of in some reasonable time frame? Heck, there are almost 9 months before the end of the year. Will I be at goal before 2010 gets here? I have no idea.

But for now, I'm enjoying tracking my numbers; the number of calories I eat, which have to be within the range I can eat and still lose weight and be healthy; the number of minutes I spend walking to and from lunch at work; the number of minutes I spend on J's exercise bike at night. So many numbers. I like them.

It's fun to have a new (healthy) thing over which to obsess.

Yin and Yang

This picture makes me smile. Rosie and Zelda, curled up together. Aww. :)

Stuff I've Done (and Not Done)

I saw this list on Sarah's blog, and since I haven't gotten back in groove of updating here since the beginning of the year, and haven't been posting as much as I like to, I decided to do it, too. (Here's Sarah's list, by the way.)

Place an X by all the things you’ve done and remove the X from the ones you have not.

Things you have done during your lifetime:
(X) Gone on a blind date
(X) Skipped school
(X) Watched someone die
( ) Been to Canada.
( ) Been to Mexico.
(X) Been to Florida.
(X) Been to Hawaii.
(X) Been on a plane.
( ) Been on a helicopter.
(X) Been lost
( ) Gone to Washington, DC.
(X) Swam in the ocean.
(X) Cried yourself to sleep
(X) Played cops and robbers
(X) Recently colored with crayons.
( ) Sang Karaoke
(X) Paid for a meal with coins only.
( ) Been to the top of the St. Louis Arch
(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn’t
(X) Made prank phone calls
( ) Been down Bourbon Street in New Orleans
(X) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose
(X) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
( ) Danced in the rain
(X) Written a letter to Santa Claus
(X) Been kissed under the mistletoe
( ) Watched the sunrise with someone
(X) Blown bubbles
(X) Gone ice-skating
(X) Gone to the movies
( ) Been deep sea fishing
( ) Driven across the United States
( ) Been in a hot air balloon
( ) Been sky diving.
(X) Gone snowmobiling
( ) Lived in more than one country
( ) Lay down outside at night and admired the stars while listening to the crickets
(X) Seen a falling star and made a wish
( ) Enjoyed the beauty of Old Faithful Geyser
( ) Seen the Statue of Liberty
( ) Gone to the top of Seattle Space Needle
( ) Been on a cruise
(X) Traveled by train
(X) Traveled by motorcycle
(X) Been horse back riding
( ) Ridden on a San Francisco CABLE CAR
(X) Been to Disney World
( ) Truly believe in the power of prayer
( ) Been in a rain forest
( ) Been to Niagara Falls
( ) Ridden on an elephant
( ) Swam with dolphins
( ) Been to the Olympics
( ) Walked on the Great Wall of China
( ) Saw and heard a glacier calf
( ) Been spinnaker flying
( ) Been water-skiing
( ) Been snow-skiing
( ) Been to Westminster Abbey
( ) Been to the Louvre
( ) Swam in the Mediterranean
( ) Been to a Major League Baseball game
( ) Been to a National Football League Game

There are things on this list I wish I hadn't done (watched people die) and hope to never have to do again, and there are things on this list I would love to do someday (watch the sunrise with J, go to a Dolphins game with J, travel to some of the places listed here).

I'm not tagging anyone for this, but if you read this and do it yourself, let me know, so I can look at yours, okay? I'm on my way to Sarah's blog to let her know that I did it now.

Happy Saturday night, people.

You're the Best

It's silly, but I just got two e-mails in a row, from people who work for the same company I do, thanking me for something I've done for them today. They even both used the words "You're the best," I believe. And it just makes me feel good. It's my job to do these things, it's not like it's anything special, but it's just nice to be appreciated, you know?

The "You're the best" e-mails make the work worthwhile.

Movie and Book Catch-Up

I haven't been very good about writing in here about my progress on watching the Academy Award Best Picture winners and on reading 10 Pulitzer Prize winners. At this point, knowing myself as I do, I won't be writing an update about the ones I never wrote about, so just know that I've watched a couple more movies than I've written about, and I've read one more book than I've written about. :)

In an effort to be better about this, though, I will say that my next Pulitzer Prize winning book is on hold for me at the library, so I'll be starting that soon. I chose Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides, which won in 2003. It looks like an interesting book, and I look forward to reading it.

As for the movies, Netflix is sending me All Quiet on the Western Front, so I'll have that tomorrow. And J and I watched Milk the other night. That's not a winner, but it is a current nominee, and I'm going to watch all the current movies that are nominated for Best Picture until my 1001 days are over.

Milk was a very interesting movie. Sean Penn did a great job, I can see why he won the Oscar for Best Actor. What surprised me is that this fight for gay rights has been going on for this long. I was only a small child for most of the time that this movie was set in, so I had no idea of the fight that was going on even back in the early 70s. It was interesting, though, to see some of the same arguments used from people who were trying to keep gay people from getting equal rights back then and in the present. Those arguments didn't make sense in 1972, and they don't make sense now, and yet they're still being spouted by people who think letting gay people get married and be equal in every way is going to hurt heterosexuals, or that it will go against their idea of God. Ugh. People just make me sick, they really do.

Anyway, I'm not going to get into that here, I just wanted to say that I was surprised by the fact that this fight was going on back then, and is still going on now. It seems like we'd have wisened up by now, you know?

This was a very good movie. I enjoyed watching it. It's not one I feel the need to own, but I enjoyed it. I give it 4 stars out of 5.

I had taken a break from reading the Pulitzer Prize winners, and watching the Oscar winners. It feels good to get back to them. I really can't wait, especially, to catch up on all the movies, and to be able to say that I have watched them all. Well, all except the ones that aren't on DVD (there are still a couple of the early ones).

Boring movie/book entry over. Resume normal activities. :)

A Correction and SU!

First - I have a correction. I said yesterday that I had Frost/Nixon waiting for me to watch it. Well, no, I didn't. I had Frost Nixon - a documentary from the 70s. Sigh. The movie that I was actually trying to get isn't even out on DVD yet. D'oh!

Second - I really wish I was one of those people who could get through a day with very little sleep. SU played UConn last night in the Big East basketball tournament. They went into SIX overtimes and finally won the game. Woo! I watched a video highlight of it on ESPN this morning, and I really wish I could have been awake to watch it last night. But I know me - if I had stayed up watching the game until 1:30 in the morning, I would be dead on my feet today. It's really much better that I went to bed and got my sleep. Still, I would have loved to have seen it live.

Of course, the bad thing is now SU has to play West Virginia tonight, after playing a game plus 30 extra minutes last night - they're going to be exhausted. Here's hoping it doesn't hold them back.

Third - there is no third. That is all. :) Happy Friday, people.

Handwritten Entry! Sort Of

Click on the image to read this - it imported really tiny. :)

Ick, Ick, Ick!

J wasn't home with me last night - he stayed in Syracuse because of work. So I spent the night with the critters, playing the Sims and watching TV/DVDs. Finally the time came to head off to bed, so I closed things down and headed into the bathroom to get ready.

I walk in and head to the toilet, looking over the toilet at the wall and ceiling, like I always do, to check for spiders. It's all clear, so I sat down and peed, then got up and washed my hands.

I need a spider detection system upgrade or something, because what did I see on the curtain? The curtain that is right next to the toilet and mere inches from the sink where I was standing? You guessed it, a HUGE fucking spider.

I gasped, said "oh, fuck me," and walked out of the bathroom, shaking a little and maybe even hyperventilating mildly. I HATE spiders. Hate. Hate, hate, hate. Then I said, "why do these things always show themselves when J isn't here? Fuck."
Then I manned up, grew a pair (figuratively, not literally), went into the mudroom and fetched the vacuum cleaner, and went into the bathroom, fully armed and ready to do battle. I plugged that vacuum in, I put the extender wand on the hose (the spider was perched too high for just the regular hose), I took a deep breath to gather my courage, and then I vacuumed that fucker up.

He tried to get away. He heard the noise (I assume spiders can hear), he saw the wand coming at him, and he scurried. I jumped and almost ran, but I regathered my strength, and I sucked that fucker up. And then I vacuumed the curtains some more, just because. And then I put the hose, with wand extender still attached, back in its hole on the vacuum, and then I let it run for a minute, just to make sure that horrible, ugly, menacing creature was way down in that vacuum cleaner bag.

(Oh, and this right here is why I won't have a bagless vacuum anytime soon. If I had sucked him up in a bagless, I would have been able to SEE him scurrying around in that canister. Uh, no thanks. I want all of the spiders I suck into the vacuum cleaner to be surrounded by dirt, dog and cat hair and dark, until they slowly asphyxiate and die a horrible death.)

Anyway. So I won that battle, but now the ghost of that damn spider is going to be hanging out on my bathroom curtains for all time, just like it's cousin, who was once on the cabinet doors right in front of the toilet while I was sitting there doing my thing. If you know what I mean, and I think you do. (There's an entry about that in this here blog, which I'd link to if I could find it, but I don't feel like searching for it, sorry.)

I didn't even want to go into the bathroom to pee this morning. Ick. (I did, though.)

Stupid fucking spiders. Sigh.

Yum and Weather Weirdness

J was at work most of the weekend, so he went grocery shopping without me. I love when he does that, because I hate grocery shopping (although it's less horrible going with him - he makes it more fun). Also, he sometimes brings me surprises. Like this, that he brought me yesterday:


I actually got excited when I saw this in one of the bags. Yes, I might need help. :D Seriously, though, I love these so freaking much. A regular bag doesn't last a whole day - this one may make it two or three days. Hee. (And he's helping me eat them, so it won't be just me making them disappear that fast.)

****

I'm having a weird feeling of weather foreboding. I live in an area where winter doesn't really end until the end of March, and spring comes in April. But it's March 9th now, and we're having temperatures in the 40s and 50s, with rain instead of snow. It's not quite normal, and it's making me hold my breath while I wait for the huge snow storm that surely has to be coming.

(But at the same time, there is a small hopeful part inside of me that is hoping for early spring flowers. I yearn to see a daffodil.)

****

The time change kicked my butt this morning. Well, that and the fact that I'm still fighting my tonsillitis (which seriously sucks, by the way. I am not a fan). I'm just starting to wake up, even though it's practically lunchtime. And I seriously feel a need for one of these:


I think I'm going to be picking one up on the way back from lunch. I need the caffeine today.

****

I was cleaning off my camera yesterday, and I took off a video of J playing with Willow. She was loving that little red ball that I showed her with in the picture of her in Duff's little bed (side note: she still loves Duff's bed, and still lays in it sometimes, even though it lives in a dog crate, which she hates, and she has her Willow Pillow right under the window). Anyway, so one day J played with her with it, and it was so funny. He'd take it from her, bend over in front of her like he was a football player, and call out the fake football stuff about blue 32 or whatever, and then he'd hike it to her. She'd take it and he'd run off, leaving her sitting there with the ball in her mouth. It's hysterical. It made me laugh so much when I watched the video yesterday. (And no, I can't share, so you'll have to take my word on the hilariousness of it.)

****

Okay, random entry over. Happy Monday, everyone! I hope the time change didn't kick your butt.

Tonsils Schmonsils

Tuesday morning I woke up to a very swollen gland in the right side of my throat. I felt fine, but it was all swollen and tender to the touch. Over the course of the day, my throat was a tiny bit sore and I had a small headache, but they were easily taken care of with Advil.

Wednesday morning I woke up feeling horrible - sore throat, headache, sore, still swollen gland. I called in sick to work. I stayed in bed most of the day, watching TV and resting.

Thursday morning I woke up feeling even worse than I did on Wednesday. I went to work anyway, and made an appointment with the doctor for that afternoon. I made it through the day (grateful for Advil and for the fact that I sit at a desk all day), and went to my appointment in the afternoon. They did a strep test, which didn't show strep, but my tonsils are "nasty looking" according to the doctor, complete with pustules. So she decided to treat me for strep even without sending a culture out for further testing. I picked up my prescription on the way home, and have now taken two doses of antibiotics. I'm hoping to feel better soon, but right now my throat still hurts quite bit when I swallow - I haven't even eaten breakfast yet, because I'm a little afraid of how much my wheat cereal is going to hurt when I try to swallow it.

I hate being sick. :(

Quiet Life

Did I write in here about the cold from hell? The one I had that has me still coughing pleghm out of my throat a whole two and a half weeks later? Well, just as it's starting to clear up, this morning I woke up with a very swollen and tender lymph node in the right side of my throat. I also have a slight headache and a very slight sore throat. If I get another sickness from hell, I will be SO MAD. Damn it. This is the bad part of working at a college - you get exposed to every sickness known to man. Sigh.

So, things have been pretty quiet in here lately - partly because I haven't felt like writing in here much after doing it every day for two months in a row, and partly because life has been kind of quiet, too. Which is nice, really.

My Sims desktop got a virus or malware or something horrible, and had to have its memory wiped and all of its programs reinstalled. Thankfully I was able to save my Sims game first, so all is well there. Although it took me about 8 solid hours to reinstall the game and get it working again. I'm happy to have it back, though (and thanks go out to J for that, because without him the computer would still be sitting at the repair shop, since I didn't have enough to pay for it - keep your computer clean, people, because if you don't you'll have to pay a fortune in repair bills).

I continue to love on my animals and J on a daily basis. As far as the animals go, Gracie and Sable have been especially lovey lately. And of course Zelda always is. Bernie and Willow are still being their usual lovable selves, as are Rosie and Duff. Even Lucy has been coming around asking for pettings lately, which I love. I have a special place in my heart for that cat, I really do. Okay, I have special places in my heart for all of them. It's amazing that they all fit, really.

Anyway. This is how quiet life has been - that's all I can think of to tell you about. So I'm going to end this post here. Toodles.

(And send me good health thoughts, please. I really don't want to be sick again.)

This Was Fun

I stole this from Sarah:

1) Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random” and the first article you get is the name of your band.
2) Then go to Random Quotations and the last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3) Then, go to Flickr and click on “Explore the Last Seven Days” and the third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4) Use Photoshop or some other image editor to add text & spiffify.

(Those links will take you right where you need to go on those pages - I didn't realize that when I was stealing this from Sarah, so I did it the hard way. Save yourself the trouble and just click the links, kay? Kay.)

Here's what I got (the picture was photoshopped by me to make it more interesting, because it was boring).

Happy List, 2/22 - 2/28

Sunday: Spending the day with J. Watching the SU game with him, and just hanging out. Watching the Oscars! I love them. Getting Bernie a new bed, which he seemed to appreciate. Seeing Willow somehow fit herself into Duff’s little bed. :) Too cute.

Monday: I may be just two months away from having a second credit card paid off! I’ll get to see J when I get home, for a few minutes, which I didn’t think I would. :)

Tuesday: Playing the Sims on my laptop. I was going through withdrawal!

Wednesday: Playing my legacy founder on my laptop. She’s fun. :)Seeing J! I miss him when he’s gone so much.

Thursday: Spending the evening with J! Watching Hell’s Kitchen, which I love watching with J. Getting my computer back! Thanks J. :)

Friday: Getting a sweet phone call from J while I was getting ready for work. :) Spending the evening with J – he even makes getting groceries fun. Getting a Willow Pillow! (A bed for Willow, which she loves.) Saying Willow Pillow over and over. Hee.

Saturday: Getting my game all reinstalled on my newly repaired desktop! (Thanks J!) Then getting rid of a piece of custom content that was messing with the Sims’ ability to make phone calls. Sigh. Why it couldn’t just be easy to put my game back together I don’t know, but I’m really glad to have it back. Watching the new Futurama movie with J at night before falling into bed like I hadn't slept in weeks, I was so tired.

Ahh, Caffeine...

I love my Diet Pepsi sometimes. I try not to drink too much of it - I quit altogether when I realized I was addicted to the caffeine, and now I try to stick to just drinking it on the weekends.

But then there are days like today. I stayed up late on Sunday night watching the Oscars. I shouldn't have, because I've never been a person who could stay up late and get up early and not feel any repercussions from it. But I did it anyway, and while I felt fine yesterday, today it caught up with me, and I am exhausted.

So on the way back from lunch, I picked up a bottle of Diet Pepsi. I've drank about half of it, and now I feel fine.

Thank goodness for my little caffeine wielding friend. :)

Unofficial Doggy Day

After seeing Bernie do this:


I bought him a new bed, which is actually big enough for his whole body. (This is McDuff's bed, and is about half the size that Bernie needed.)

Then Willow must have wanted to tell me that she wanted a new bed, too.


Message received, Willow, you like having a dog bed to lay on. Willow actually managed to curl her entire body up into this bed, actually, which is very cute. Especially when she takes her toy to bed with her:


(Okay, she isn't curled up here, but she was about three minutes after I took this picture.)

Happy List, 2/15 - 2/21

It's been a while since I've posted my weekly list of things that made me happy. I've also slacked on the dog and cat picture days, and on my Oscar winning movie entries (I owe one or two) and my Pulitzer Prize winning novel entries (I owe one). So, to start getting back on track, here is a list of the things that made me happy this last week!

Sunday: Spending the day with J. Going to see Taken and getting Chinese food for dinner! That makes any day great, really, all by itself. Bernie Day!

Monday: Seeing my Bernie Day pictures again when people commented. I love that dog, and am so happy I adopted him three years ago. Playing and laughing with J at night. So much fun, and he makes me so happy.

Tuesday: Watching TV, reading, petting critters. Feeling J come to bed when he got home from work in the middle of the night.

Wednesday: Spending a quiet evening watching TV and movies and knitting.

Thursday: Seeing J when he got home!! Watching Hell’s Kitchen with him. :)

Friday: Seeing J in the morning before I went to work. Cupcakes!

Saturday: J finally coming home! A nice evening with him before bedtime. Goldfish! Gertrude Hawk caramel smidgens from his father!

Bernie Day!

Three years ago today I went to the SPCA and signed the papers to adopt my Bernie man. Since I have no idea when his birthday is, today was the day we celebrated having Bernie with us.

We stopped at Walmart and got some party treats:

Vanilla cupcakes, yum.

Bernie approved - can't you see it in his eyes? :)

Happy Bernie Day!

Happy Valentine's Day From All of Us

Bernie

Willow

Rosebud

McDuff

Lucy

Kate

Zelda

Gracie

Sable

Our friendly stairway Grim Reaper. :)

Valentine's Comes Early!

An intern started working in my office area at work, and in his first week there, he had a cold. So it only stands to reason that I would catch his stupid head cold. I noticed on Saturday that I was feeling a bit congested, and then yesterday I woke up with a sore throat, headache and the whole stuffy head thing. Sigh. Head colds suck. So I'm at home today, taking a sick day, which turned out to be a good thing, because I got a special delivery for Valentine's Day.

I saw the UPS truck out front, and J went out and got a package and brought it in.

A Vermont Teddy Bear box?

It has an air hole! So you know I couldn't wait until Valentine's Day to open my gift from J!

Isn't he cute? He's my J bear. He's wearing underwear that say I heart you on them!

And here's the best part:
He has a tattoo of a heart with my name on it! Aww. :)

Thank you, J. I love my J. bear.