Saturday, January 25, 2003

I discuss the weather with SuRu on the phone and she thinks a movie is a good idea. We decide on Adaptation which FFP has already approved before he went off to the club to work out. Yep, I've decided to give my knees a rest except for the usual walking around and to go back to full exercise tomorrow. (One thing about an exercise program is that you have to vary it or skip a day once in a while. For many reasons.) The knees start feeling great as soon as I promise them this rest.

I buy the movie tickets on Fandango because I just like to know that I'm going to be able to get them quickly. We will still go reasonably early to try for good seats. This one has been playing a while, though, but the weather may send crowds to the movie.

I decide to think about placecards and menu handouts for the dinner next Saturday. This involves lots of fun playing around with images of old cowboy postcards (theme of party is 'New Texas, New Friends' but our buddies all signed up so I think it should be 'New Texas, Old Friends' or 'New Texas, (re)new Friendships'). I also need to worry about centerpieces, wine, plates, silver, glasses. I'm in charge of the non-food. Gayle is in charge of the food. FFP is in charge of Gayle and I and coordinating with the benefit givers and guests and entertainment. Therefore, he is assigned to find out the name of the 'and guest' on the guest list we got. For name cards although, failing that, we will 'write it in' at the last minute. I fret over these little things because I don't have to cook the food!

I decide to use a real picture of me on my name tag and I use one in a shadow box my sister made for me about a dozen years ago. The shadow box also contains a toy gun and a doll. I shoot a digital picture of the picture through the glass using a light panel to provide enough light without using the flash. Worked pretty well I think. That's the actual doll that is displayed in my shadow box but the clothes on the doll are different. (My sister actually saved the doll and had to improvise some repaired clothes.) The gun in the picture is long gone. It looks like a great toy gun, doesn't it? My sister put a different, slightly vintage, one in the shadow box. Wonder what this kid is thinking? I'm a little over three years old here, I think.

So, yeah, we go to see Adaptation. Does it matter whether the screenwriter, writing a fictional work starring himself trying to write a screenplay of a real non-fiction work about a real strange characer, actually has a twin brother or just an alter ego? Does it matter if the he he writes about and names after himself is him at all? No, movies are fiction. But, it's that old truth thing. People just can't give up the truth even though they know somehow that it's a fiction.

<digression>

(Speaking of fiction, as I was: Have you noticed how everyone feels that they can smugly laugh at the Raelians because they believe life here started from outer space and that the spokesman is alive? But no one has the courage to disparage Allah, God, Abraham, Jesus and stuff? [Except maybe Kinky Friedman.] Even if they aren't believers people are shy about making fun of people's religions. These Raelians are based in Quebec, says here in the news. That doesn't surprise you, eh? Tolerant folks, the Canadians. I like that. And, no, I don't believe any of it. Except that they might have cloned a person or that someone will eventually do it. Sheep, humans. Not so different, really.)

</digression>

After the movie, it is really, honestly dreary outside. Still. SuRu suggests the book store, in fact says it's the perfect place for a dreary day, and, as we are headed home then, we go to the Central Market center and BookStop. Which is really just Barnes and Noble. I finally buy a copy of The Hours to replace the one on loan. SuRu buys the complete Dorothy Parker stories in a companion edition to the Poems I got for Christmas. And The Orchid Thief in a paperback edition. We look around for thirty minutes or more, I think. I read bits of books to see if they would be interesting, glance over the bargains.

We decide to shop Central Market in spite of the usual Saturday rush. Pushing one cart we make piles for SuRu and us. Hers ends up with spinach, flax seed, special croutons and a small Blue Bell. Ours ends up with a package of meat for chili, a package of meatloaf already seasoned and mixed, a package with two slender veal scallopine cuts, two sacks o' salad stuff, two sweet potatoes, Brillat Savarin cheese (a little piece, cut from the big wheel by a friendly cheese helper), a mini loaf of Lemon Poppyseed cake, a frozen Michaelangelo eggplant Parmesan, a small can of tomato sauce, a package of Wick Fowler Two Alarm Chili Mix.

We drop SuRu off and go home. She's eschewed our invite to veal to make a vegie soup she'd planned. FFP cooks the veal in lemon juice and capers and we have it with a salad of spinach, tomatoes, green onions (me only) and mozzarella and parmesan cheese. Then some Lemon Poppyseed cake to which I add a Clementine. Did I mention that we finished off a delicious Honig Sauvignon Blanc that we started a few nights ago and then plugged with VacuVin?

Did I mention that for 'lunch and breakfast' (at about 1:30, just before going to the movies), I had cheese, some chips, an apple, half a grapefruit and some green onions? Shake your head in unison for my 'diet.' Still, I'm out to prove that my cheese and tortilla chip diet allows weight loss if you do three hundred minutes of aerobic exercise a week. Do you buy it? I'm donating my body to try it.

And, no, we didn't drink those giant sodas and eat those enormous bags of bad popcorn. You would think they would find some food to actually tempt people. But enough seem to succumb to the awful stuff they purvey. [Reminder to self: go back to Alamo Draft House. The food there is pretty darn good and a nice draft beer doesn't hurt the experience.]

I read papers and idly watch TV programs until bed time. I read The Hours for a few minutes in bed. I'm still reading the Lily Tuck short story collection but I'm reserving that one for the bicycle.

Christmas 1951

"Beyond the obvious motivation for wanting to write a book--hoping to win fame and fortune-- my guess is that many people who feel they have a book 'in them' doubtless see writing it as a way of establishing their own significance."

Joseph Epstein in The New York Times, September 28, 2002

It is not enough to be h

JUST TYPING
Is Saturday different?
For me and Chalow?
You bet.
SuRu doesn't work and might walk.
FFP doesn't work and might join me for a movie.
But.
It can still rain.
All day.