Tag: entertainment

State of The Compound

LJ has been so quiet. Maybe it’s because everyone is on Facebook trying to say twenty-five new things about themselves. If you want to friend me or read my LJ through FB, just let me know. Same with following me on Twitter. Comment here or do the becky(at)beckycochrane.com e-mail thing and we’ll connect.

Speaking of the e-mail thing, in the days before Tim and I set up accounts and web sites for me, I used to get e-mail at his account. I haven’t used that address for so long that I forget to check it. Unfortunately, several people or businesses still use it, and thus did I miss a signing that I really wanted to go to on January 17. More details later when I pick up the actual book I’d planned to buy.

Today, Tom, Tim, and I–no doubt preparing for our upcoming visit from Endora Joan–cleaned all the windows inside and out. They’re not perfect, but they’re much better–they still had a lot of the dust kicked up by Hurricane Ike on them. He just NEVER LEAVES, that Ike.

Then tonight, I asked Tim if he’d color my roots. They are–I don’t know–some color people call gray or something. I can’t be bothered with those details. While he was doing it, he said that thing you never want to hear from your dentist, gynecologist, or hairdresser–WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? After my heart rate dropped back down to 100 or so, he realized the brush he was using had a little of HIS color on it–as in BLUE. I was almost one of the cool kids! But since he caught it, my hair’s a sedate brownish/reddish color again. (Note to Tim: It looks good. Thank you!)

Ah, the Boss just began playing on my iTunes. That’s the only part of the Superbowl I watched, though I did catch a couple of the commercials later. Somehow, I ended up reading people’s comments on the halftime show. You know, I want to know all these critics and naysayers who could kick ass on stage like Bruce or Madonna when they’re in their fifties. Because frankly, I couldn’t have done what they do in my freaking twenties.

This is why I shouldn’t read comments on news and entertainment stories. I told Marika the other night that I think they should just shut down that whole comment function since people are so very, very brave and perfect and superior when they’re sitting at a monitor and no one can see them. I’m betting they don’t have blue hair, either.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day

I’m a little late with wishes for the day. I was busy witnessing some of the best and worst behaviors of humans as I went about my errands over the past few hours.

That seems appropriate, actually. The halting progress of civil rights in our nation showed us at our best and worst. This year, the day seems more poignant because tomorrow our first black president will take his oath of office. For me, it feels like a milestone when we should stop looking back and start looking forward. And when I say that, I include my fervent readiness to shake the last eight years out of my brain and move toward a better future for all of us.

In the meanwhile, I’m on a bit of a cleansing mission. There are so many nagging duties I’ve gotten out of the way over the past month–financial, physical, emotional–and I’ve decided to detox my body. I’ve upped the water intake, added twenty daily ounces of green tea and about eight ounces of orange juice a day, and I’m going to omit meat for a few days. This really isn’t a hardship for me, as I’m a passionate raw and cooked veggie lover, but I don’t want to deny The Compound menfolk any culinary pleasures. Some nights I’ll probably cook two different meals.

But for tonight, they’re my guinea pigs. I’ve created something. I don’t know if it’s a pie or a quiche or what. Leeks sweated down in butter, nestled among thinly sliced potatoes, with a milk/egg mixture lightly flavored with nutmeg, salt, and pepper, poured into a crust, then topped with the thinnest layer of grated Gruyère cheese. It’s baking now, too late for me to throw in the garlic I’m wondering about. I sort of adapted the recipe from several I found online. It’s an adventure!

Also, because I know Lindsey’s going to care, here’s a photo of some things I picked up today.


Tools for cooking and for wrangling logs!

My baby heater that I keep in my office sparked and hissed at me today. It was very dramatic, and I don’t do drama, so into the trash it went. Even though Mercury’s retrograde, I got a new one, because as long as I can keep my feet warm, I can keep the thermostat down in my house.

Finally, in the category of entertainment, I’ve made this confession to my family and a few close friends, but now I think you all should know. There was a time I mocked Tori Spelling with the best of them. But having recently finished this book:

I’m totally in like with her. So I’m really excited that Tim just found this for us to indulge in:

Me, Tori, and popcorn. Sounds like a great way to spend an evening. If my cooking improv doesn’t kill us.

Button Sunday

On this day in 1790, George Washington delivered the first State of the Union address. Contrary to what some believe, I wasn’t there.

Transposing a couple of numbers: Washington could never have predicted a second British invasion less than two centuries later which would come to its official end during a last recording session in the wee hours of the morning on this date in 1970.

Seriously….

How are we supposed to know it’s Christmas? One week it snows, the next week it’s warm, then it gets really cold, and now it’s sweltering. Nobody wants to see Santa in biker shorts and a tank top, unless Santa used Prancer’s gift of a gym membership this past year.

However, there’s ONE sure way to know it’s Christmas. Even though after the time he’s had with them, I’m surprised Tom didn’t just hurl this entire set-up out the door, his holiday garland is up. The ornaments can’t be plugged into the current string of lights because they don’t fit. So there are no flashing lights, no noises, no voices telling us….

Telling you what? WHAT?

Another Movie Meme

From whytraven and asterapallas:

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

2. Name a movie that you’ve seen multiple times in a theatre. The Rose.

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

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

5. Name a movie that you can quote from. Caddyshack.

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

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

8. Name a movie that you would recommend everyone see. To Kill a Mockingbird.

9. Name a movie that you own. Gone With The Wind.

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

11. Have you ever seen a movie in a drive-in? Yes.

12. Ever made out in a movie? Yes.

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

14. Ever walked out of a movie? No. But I really, REALLY wanted to walk out of A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon.

15. Name a movie that made you cry in the theatre. Life is Beautiful.

16. Popcorn? Always.

17. How often do you go to the movies? Almost never anymore.

18. What’s the last movie you saw in the theater? Homeward Bound.

19. What is your favorite/preferred genre of movie? Romantic comedy.

20. What was the first movie you remember seeing in the theater? Sometimes I say Bambi, sometimes Mary Poppins, so I’m really not sure.

Mark said I had to give this post a title

A huge thank you to asterapallas for embedding the following youtube link in her LJ. Sometime back, I think a few of us talked about favorite commercials from the past. This was, bar none, my favorite commercial during the 1980s. I had videotaped a TV movie, and this commercial played during the movie, so I had a copy. But of course, that videotape is long gone, and whenever I checked youtube, the commercial wasn’t there.

Now it is, and I know about it thanks to AP. =) Mock me if you must, but this is the one commercial that could make me cry every time I saw it, even more than the phone company commercials: “Little Sister.”

Randomusing

There are some nights that I like to go exploring the Internet wilderness, and by exploring I mean venturing into new blog territory. Some weeks back, I became aware of a blogger connected to someone in my family, and I have to say that reading her blog and those of other people she knows has probably made me happier than I thought could happen this year.

On another blog I read (not the blog of a gay person, which I tell you only because of what follows), I left a lengthy comment about politics for someone with whom I disagree. (Fear not: I was my usual civil self.) As a result, someone else responded to me positively, and when I went to check out his blog, he’s a gay Canadian living in the U.S. Figures. I always get along with gay men Canadians. 😉

Something on his blog led me to look for something else, which landed me right in the middle of the blog of someone I know in Houston (who I didn’t know blogged). And THAT took up lots of time, because he’s quite entertaining, and I like him a lot. In one of his blog entries, he was remembering the first cassette tape he ever bought for himself with his own money (the Bangles). That reminded me of a recent conversation I had with Rhonda when I was recalling My First Albums. Which sent me to the photo archives for this:

Now normally I wouldn’t show you a blurry, scratched picture of me being all surly and turning my head away when my mother is trying to take my photo first thing on what is apparently Easter Sunday morning (a guess because I appear to be holding a rabbit). It’s not ME you’re supposed to be looking at, but that olive drab green box (note the arrow) on a faux wooden cabinet against the wall. It’s not a box. It’s the record player my mother bought me when I complained because LYNNE had a record player and whatever LYNNE had I had to have. That poor woman. But I digress.

My father was overseas on the birthday when she bought me the record player. (I say that because it meant he made a little extra pay, which is probably why I got a record player at all. Seriously, there weren’t many luxuries in those days.) It folded up into that little box thing like you see there, but the front pulled down to access the turntable, and the speakers were hooked on the sides but you can’t see them here because they were detachable and connected by SIX FEET of speaker wire so they could actually be in different parts of the room–stereo, woohoo! I would stack way too many albums or forty-fives on that thing, and you just know what kind of damage was done to my records from falling down on each other.

I had a few records I’d inherited from my older siblings, and my cousin Bruce (the one who threw a penny into my mother’s grave on behalf of his late father) had given me some records, too. But when I got the stereo, I also got three albums–brand new albums owned by no one before me. I was the one who got to tear off the cellophane and pull out the pristine vinyl that bore not a single scratch or smudge. And even though I was only like, um, minus two years old or something, I still remember what all three albums were:



Apparently, I was very loyal to Columbia Records.

I wore those things out and can still sing every word of every song on all three of them, I’m sure. Though they are stored with a few hundred others in a window seat in my house, I’m betting they’re unplayable.

And just to bring this full circle, the other arrow is pointing to a bassinet with my Betsy Wetsy doll sitting in it, but it was actually the bassinet of the family member I was talking about in the first paragraph of this post.

Good memories.