Saturday, February 21, 2015

50 Shades of Gimme a Break: Movie Edition

If you want to see a really excellent, well-reasoned review of this movie, check out Billy Merritt's Living the Romantic Comedy blog.

Since you're here instead, I'm just going to share my favorite moment from the movie and let you judge for yourself.

The Setting: The Red Room of Pain--Christian Grey's "playroom."

The Setup: Christian has just buckled a mostly naked Ana into leather cuffs and notched the attached carabiner into a hook set into a metal frame. No, she's not, like, hanging by her wrists or anything. Her feet are solidly on the ground.

The Scene: He slides off her last remaining article of clothing, her panties, holds them to his face and breathes deeply.

I think it was supposed to be erotic, but instead it just came across really pervy, like he handcuffed her so he could steal her underpants and sniff them. I mean, I know a woman who divorced her second husband when she caught him doing that with her teenaged daughter's undies.

There's been a lot of furor around Social Media World about how Christian and Ana have an Abusive Relationship and how this Sets a Bad Example for Young Girls and Completely Misses the Point About What a Loving Relationship Really Is.

And I'll give you all that, although I think if we're going to stop young women from watching movies that romanticize dysfunctional relationships we should also ban young men from watching movies that glorify war.

Anyway, my two cents is, if you're looking for a movie with a laugh-until-you-pee-your-pants funny scene, you could do a lot worse than 50 Shades.

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Dysfunctional Relationships, Automotive Version

As a couple of people suggested on FB yesterday, the one of the springs on the garage door is broken. The Overhead Door guy won't be out till Monday. In the meantime, my Subaru is being held captive.

This is clearly not my fault, but all Old Dog says is, "You broke the garage." He holds up two fingers in what is NOT a peace sign. "Twice."

I have an alternate theory of the crime.

I think the garage is getting even.

Friday, February 13, 2015

Non-Fiction Friday: The Garage Saga Continues

This morning when I went to leave for work, the overhead garage door refused to open. It rose maybe six inches, then gave up and dropped back to the floor.

I called Old Dog, who said to pull on the orange rope to disengage the garage door opener and lift it manually. I did but it didn't.

He came home from work and looked at it, but he couldn't figure out the problem either.

So now my Subaru is trapped in the garage.

I hope it doesn't try to bust its way out again.







Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Garage Update: Silver Linings Department

Buckeye Home Services, the same company that put the metal roof on our house, came out on Sunday (that's right--Sunday) to fix the garage.

I can't even tell you how nice it is to have a garage that doesn't have a cancerous-looking bulge on the back. That open spot along the bottom is gone, too.


It's been pretty cold here over the past month and, as Old Dog put it, that hole made the garage "a might airish."

When they finished up, Jason (who did the roof, too, and is absolutely terrific) came to the back door to let us know they were done.


"You were really lucky the people who built your garage did such shoddy work," he told me earnestly. "If they'd done it right, it wouldn't have given way so easy and you would have had a lot more damage to your car."

(The car is back from the body shop and looks as good as new, as in, as good as it did in September, when I bought it.)

While he was fixing the bulge, Jason also put in some extra-long screws and reinforced the frame the way he felt it should have been done in the first place.

"So don't do that again," he warned me, "because your car won't come out so well next time."

Thanks for the heads up, Jason. I'll keep that in mind.

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Wistful Wednesday: My Mom's Kitchen



                                                           Mildred Oates, Easter, 1974

The other night as I emptied out the dishwasher, I was putting away, not just dishes, but a bunch of kitchen gadgets I own,  That got me to thinking about my mother's kitchen.

My mom cooked supper, from scratch, for nine people plus anyone else who happened to be hanging around at dinnertime, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, with far fewer utensils than I have to nuke dinner for two.

Mom never owned:
  • kitchen shears (because paring knives worked fine)

  • a wire whisk (she just used a fork--really fast)

  • a spaghetti strainer (that's what the lid of the pot was for)

  • a meat mallet (she used the edge of a dinner plate)
  • a rubber spatula (wooden spoons left just the right amount of batter for kids to lick)

Not only do I have all those items, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't put together a meal without them. The speed and grace with which Mom wielded her little collection of honed knives, metal forks and wooden spoons are far beyond my capabilities. And if I tried to open a package with a paring knife, it's anyone's guess which would release first: the package or one of my veins.

That said, Mom was, to put it kindly, an unpredictable cook. I remember one time she tried putting coffee in her drippings-and-flour gravy to see if that would make brown gravy. (It did, but only if you're judging stricly on color palette.)

And every sibling I have remembers the Great Chicken Paprikash Endeavor. Mom and Dad first tasted the Hungarian dish at a friend's house and Mom decided she was going to reproduce it. My oldest sister, who was married by then, came into town once a week to spend the day, so Mom scheduled her experiments for that day. Week after week. She never did get it exactly right, but she was eventually forced to abandon clinical trials when my brother-in-law threatened to go on a hunger strike if he had to eat weirdly orange chicken one more Monday in a row.

Just think what she could have accomplished with the Pampered Chef collection.




LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails