RNFs at 4 a.m.

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My new year’s resolution to try to care a bit less about what people think is being mightily tested. Here is what I observe (in lieu of sleep) this morning:

  1. I am being refined by fire. It’s good for me. By “refined by fire,” I mean watching my character (and that of a colleague) be assassinated in an open forum. And by “it’s good for me,” I mean I did not respond to it.  Those who know me best know that it is not at all like me to take that kind of treatment silently. Win.
  2. There are those who think I have never suffered rejection or disappointment, so I couldn’t possibly identify with what they are going through. Oh my, the stories I could tell…
  3. People who have never spoken more than a few words to me in my life appear to have intimate knowledge of why I make certain decisions. If they were actually correct in their assumptions, it would be beyond cool, ja? It’d be like, I dunno, magic.
  4. It is always easier to assume than to ask. Maybe it’s because we are afraid we won’t like what we hear. (I’ve been guilty of this, too.)
  5. This will all pass, and the sun will come up, and things will again be good. I have 35 years of experience with this stuff telling me that’s the case.
  6. I hate auditions.

What I really want is for someone to get up and make the coffee. Nah, nevermind — I’ll do it. Happy Thursday! I can smell the end of the week…

In-Cuisi-tive

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That’s me this day.

Yesterday, this lovely assistant arrived in the mail. I had a food processor back in the 90s — a big ol’ honkin’ thing — and just never used it, so it ended up on the garage sale table one year. Well, now that my life is buried in recipes and cooking, I decided to jump on a 50%-off sale at Amazon. Now this cute little thing is on the counter top.

I wonder, though — what do people use it for the most? Do you have one? If so, how is it the most handy? What’s your favorite thing to put in it?

Ready, steady, go. I covet your ideas.

PS — speaking of food, a big thank you goes out to several Finkites who have signed up at TCF to receive an email update when I make a new post. To those who haven’t, no worries — I won’t spaminate ya; I’ll just auto-send a mail when a new post is up, which should be Saturday night — and it’ll be sweet. :-)

PPS – Hugs go out to our fiend BoomR, who’s down for the ten-count with the stomach flu. XO And here we are, talking about food… :P

Trippin’ the creepy meter III

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Not really creepy at first, as much as disgusting.  From this article in last Saturday’s Wall Street Journal:

Many Asians regard all cheese, from processed American slices to Stilton, as utterly disgusting—the equivalent of cow excrement.

Hmmm. And I turn up my nose at bird poop soup. Maybe it’s the same thing. I mean really, what is cheese? Rotted, fermented animal juice. And my wonderful Velveeta? The cast-off waste product of rotted, fermented animal juice.

Food for thought. :P

And speaking of head scratchers, I humbly submit the following for your consideration:

Have a lovely day, fiends. :-)

Review: The Tree of Life

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Hmm.

I’ve deleted several sentences right out of the gate this morning. Talking about this film is like spooning up mercury, or herding cats. First, let me tell you what type of movie this is not:

  • a date movie
  • linear in its narrative
  • “feel-good”
  • transparent; without deep symbolism
  • for the easily bored or impatient viewer

Au contraire, mon frère. This movie takes work. With a 2.5-hour runtime — some scenes going as long as 10 minutes with no dialogue — and a seriously convoluted plot presentation, one has to pay attention. Bigtime.

Amidst back-and-forth scenes from the late 1950s to the present day, we’re shown the troubled life of a man named Jack (Sean Penn), who, while now in his mid-50s, still struggles to reconcile the death of his brother (we’re led to believe during the Viet Nam War) at age 19. Through Malick’s eyes, we see Jack’s choices in life as a comparison to the ins and outs of basic survival from the beginnings of time.

No, really — he shows us stuff from the beginnings of time:  a dinosaur conflict (one dinosaur emerges from a thicket to find another on the shoreline, wounded and unable to defend itself), exploding nebulae, the dawn of the universe, a giant asteroid hitting Earth, the seas forming, prehistoric ocean creatures…he runs the gamut. For a while (during the first extended period of wordless scenes), I thought I was watching a tribute to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick-like images like this, this and this took over the screen for lengths of time that seemed to push the edge of what the average moviegoer would tolerate. After a while, I became a bit suspicious. Was this going to be one of those pretentious outings by a reeeeeally serious director who just likes to hear himself talk about abstract concepts? Is it one of those movies that’s so weird, people will automatically ooh and ahh and call it art and nominate it for Best Picture? It also won the Cannes Film Festival’s top honor, by the way.

Fortunately, the acting of Brad Pitt saved me from jumping to that conclusion. As Jack’s strict, inventor father, Pitt gathers the pieces together for us. Tragically frustrated (he chose, out of necessity, to be an engineer rather than pursue his love of music), Pitt delivers the perfect picture of a man so driven by his failures, he is determined beyond all else to see that his sons don’t repeat history. The effect on his eldest son (Penn) is profound and long-lasting — as things like this usually are.

So after all these words, I’m still not to the core of the thing. And as it’s 5:54 and I’m running out of time, I won’t get there today. Suffice it to say that if you watch this film, open up your mind and forsake all preconceived notions of storytelling. Enjoy the stellar performances by Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain, and let other chips fall where they may.

On the Rat-O-Meter scale of five cheeses, I give The Tree of Life:

 

L’hiver est arrivé

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Sure looks like it. And about time, too.

Rousseau, at his relaxed happiest at 6:30 this morning…

You know, as much as I complain about the weather (and lack of weather on school days when I’d rather stay home in my jammies), winter is very pretty here. Peaceful and quiet.

Until, of course, you get in your car.

Happy Saturnday, fiends — hi ho, hi ho…