I need a VACATION.

I want a vacation on a tropical island where I am encouraged to lay on a lounge chair under an umbrella, reading and being waited on hand and foot by young, tan men with trays full of refreshing drinks.  

 

I want to lay in a warm mud bath with cucumber slices over my eyes.  

 

I want to wake up in the morning with a maid smiling over me, holding out a fluffy white robe while an attentive waiter is setting up my continental breakfast on the balcony.  As I sip my second cup of coffee my bath is being drawn and my ensemble for the day is being chosen from a closet full of comfortable clothes made from all natural fabrics; I don’t know if I’ll wear shoes today.  

 

I want a private lagoon where I can swim nude without worrying about whether or not my middle-aged body is up to the task; the little waterfall makes a marvelous shower.  

 

I want a music chosen especially with me in mind playing softly during my hour-long massage.  After a wonderful dinner that makes my mouth and brain wonder how on earth each dish could be better than the last, I want to hear The Gipsy Kings play wild, unrestrained music at a late-night bonfire; I think I’ll dance.

 

I want to see a full moon shining down on a white sandy beach that evening, the only sound the surf breaking against the reef; there are a million stars in the sky.  I want to fall asleep hearing the sound of a thousand bubbles sinking into the sand as a wave retreats back to the sea.  My dreams will be sweet, playful and I will fly in them, joyful.

 

I really needed that.

Getting Ready for Christmas: The Big Bake

So, I have a huge bake scheduled for tomorrow.  Biscotti, my Grampa’s molasses cookies, sugar cookies, chocolate chip cookies, maybe oatmeal.  I hope all goes well — I have my trusty Kitchen Aid stand mixer at the ready.  

Funny thing about that mixer — it was one of the first things my husband bought me.  He got it from some people who were moving back east and were paring down before the packing; it was brand new, hardly even used at all.  It remains one of the best things anyone has ever given me.  Thoughtful, unexpected, quirky and so very useful.  I am one of those people who like getting things I will use for gifts; it’s weird, but I’d rather get a vacuum cleaner than a new sweater, a cast iron frying pan than a bottle of scent.  And nobody gets that like my husband.  You know, I don’t give him enough credit for things like this… 

…hmmm.  Food for thought.  I will try not to be so flaky by not posting.  Suffice to say that November was kind of a shitty month and leave it at that. 

– and STILL nobody beats Hitchcock!

Yeah, yeah, I know — Paranormal Activity 3 is the big scary movie EVERYONE has to go and see at the movies this weekend.  It’s one of those spine-tingling BOO!!! kinda movies, the kind that surprise you with unexpected things crawling at you and jumping into the screen and all that crap.  I get it.  But what you don’t get with movies like those is a story.

A scary STORY is a thousand million bajillion times better than a scary MOMENT.

And there was no one, I mean NO ONE, better at the scary story than Alfred Hitchcock.  Let’s take a look for a moment at the some of the films our illustrious Mr. Hitchcock has given us:

• The Man Who Knew Too Much
• The 39 Steps
• Rebecca
• Suspicion
• Spellbound
• Notorious
• Rope
• Strangers on a Train
• Dial M for Murder
• Rear Window
• To Catch a Thief
• Vertigo
• North By Northwest
• Psycho
• The Birds
• Marnie

…not to mention all of the delicious “Alfred Hitchcock Presents:” TV shows.  I maintain that any one of the above-mentioned films is a lot more worthy of your time than just about any horror film that’s been made in the past 30 years.  If you’ve never seen “Rear Window“, you have never seen brilliance.  I mean, total brilliance. The Mel Brooks parody film, “High Anxiety,” pays comic tribute to Hitchcock’s brilliant suspense films.  Really, if you’ve never seen any Hitchcock besides “Psycho” you’re not doing yourself any favors.

Don’t get me wrong, “Psycho” is fantastic!  But “The Birds” scared me more when I saw it (accidentally) as a child.  I couldn’t put my finger on why I was so terrified during a school trip to Bodega Bay in the 6th grade until I realized I recognized the scenery from the movie.  No wonder I was so freaked out by birds on telephone wires… they just looked so SINISTER.  Like they’re WAITING for something….((shudder)).

So my recommendation for you is to spend some time familiarizing yourself with some of these movies.  Paranormal Activity 3 will seem… well, sort of silly by comparison.

How Many Movies Have I SEEN?!

I’m starting to build up my DVD library.  One of the first movies I asked “my movie guy” to search out for me was Bill Murray’s “Quick Change,” starring Bill, Gena Davis and Randy Quaid (pre-weirdo-house-wrecking/squatting-Randy) as bumbling bank robbers.  Gosh, I just love this movie!  This is my favorite scene:

It just doesn’t get much better than this.  At 1:14, a plane passes directly overhead and Loomis asks, “Is that our plane?”  And Phyllis answers, “No, if it were our plane it would be crashing.”  Perfect dialogue.  This is an absolute MUST SEE movie, an underrated gem.

So, I started thinking; just how many movies have I seen?  How many fabulous, wonderful films have I missed out on?  My God, there must be THOUSANDS of movies out there that could have worked lasting, permanent change on my psyche, that could have molded me, scared me, aroused me, disgusted me, saddened me, stirred me,  made me frickin’ pee my pants and gasp for air while laughing until I cried and I’ve MISSED OUT!  So, I did a little research…

I found this great list:  http://www.nytimes.com/ref/movies/1000best.html

…but quickly noticed that “Quick Change” wasn’t on it.  Hmm.  Further research ensued…

Well.  It turns out that EVERYONE has opinions concerning which movies are the most underrated of all time.   It’s not even worth putting up any of the lists that I found because they are all so arbitrary.  Some are arty lists, some are campy lists mixed with tearjerkers, some are foreign-stuff-Americans-just-don’t-get lists.  So, I’m not even going to put them in here.

Instead, I am setting myself a task.

I, the great Bringer-of-Truth, shall compile the ultimate List of Movies Thou Shalt Not Miss.  It will take me some time to do this, I know.  But I will succeed.  I will watch movies on the “Best” lists; I will watch the ones on the “Worst” lists (I have to admit, some of my very favorite movies are on those lists.  ”Mars Attacks,” anyone?) and I will watch at least some of the European crap, and I promise to watch at least one Australian film.  It’s going to be pretty painful, some of it.

And when I’m done, I’ll get my copies of “Muriel’s Wedding,” “In Her Shoes,” “About a Boy,” and “The Sixth Sense” and watch Toni Collette until I can’t stand it anymore.  And then I’ll watch “The Quiet Man,” “The Parent Trap” (the original, NOT the one with Loser Lohan) and “Only the Lonely” to cleanse my soul with some Maureen O’Hara.

Because that’s how I roll.

Not a BAD day…

So, I tried this morning to sit down and write about how I feel about baking. Of course, being that I’m totally new to this whole “posting” thing on the blogosphere, I completely erased everything that I had written for about 40 minutes.

What a complete bonehead.

So, instead of writing about my baking, I posted the finished product as a photo. ‘Nuff said for now about that, but I promise to let you in on that little conversation in my head at a later date.

Today was actually not a bad day. I was sick all day, called in late to work (asked for and received 3 hours of reprieve) and then took The Boy with me to the job. He parked it in the break room with his laptop and played games for a few hours, wandered out and helped front-face shelves, washed off some counters…. nice of him.

On an aside, The Boy has some sort of compulsion regarding front-facing. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, “front-facing” is what you do in retail to make your shelves look awesome, full and appealing to customers — you pull everything to the very front of the shelf and face all labels out, keeping it all even and straight. The Boy has been doing this in stores since he was maybe 3-4 years old; I remember him doing an entire section of dry-roasted peanuts at Bel-Air once while I was reading labels on granola bars. When I asked him what the heck he was doing he said, “looks pretty now, mama!” And he’s quick at it, too. Anyhoo…

…back to work. I actually work with a kid nicknamed after an amphibian.        He’s very sweet and a good worker, if a little distractable.  I got him  on task just fine, The Boy is facing all of the end-caps and I’m getting  all of the paperwork done in a snap.   So, we got everything done in  record time and got to go home a little earlier than usual. But OF  COURSE since no one else in the house seems to be able to put a  meal together, I came home and made dinner — at 11:45 p.m.

Nothing like being sick all day, sleeping until noon, calling into work and then napping for 3 more hours, working until 11:20 and then cooking and eating after midnight.  Oh, and did I mention no one volunteers to clean up the kitchen?  So guess who does it.

And people wonder why I’m not a morning person.

banananutbread

Sleeping with your mouth open sucks.

So, I guess I must have slept with my mouth wide open or something because now I have a stinking sore throat.  And weird loogies.  How do you even spell that word?  The awesome thing is that I have to work today.  I can’t stay home because that would make my co-worker’s lives rotten; of course, if I am actually coming down with something, I SHOULD stay home so I don’t get them sick.  But, I’m in retail, so what that really means is that I don’t have paid sick days available unless I’m out for three days in a row and have a doctor’s excuse.  At that point,  I qualify for paid sick time for the third day and any subsequent days for three days of available paid sick time.

What this means is that EVERYONE at my job comes to work sick and spreads their illness to all.

Because none of us can afford to stay home.  Parents where I work have left sick kids at home by themselves to go it alone rather than stay home to care for them because of our sick leave policy.  Not to mention that we have a “points” system for absences that won’t let you just say, “I’m sick,” you’re required to get a note from your doctor.  Which means going to one.  Which means either paying a co-pay of $20-30 or for many of my co-workers who can’t afford insurance (I pay 1/4 of my paycheck every month for health insurance) they have to go to the county clinic or pay around $50-100 to go to an urgent care clinic.  That is a day’s wages for lots of folks where I work.

Which kind of defeats the whole purpose of staying home to get well.

So — Chloraseptic and tea.  With a lot of honey, but no lemon ‘cuz I don’t like it in my tea… unless there’s booze in it.

Which doesn’t sound like an entirely bad idea.