Musings on Christmas Trees

I like to put up my Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving because it's a nice long weekend and it's usually the last weekend before Christmas that is not jam packed with various social gatherings. Talking to my father on the phone the other night, he was appalled to discover that I had already put it up. My parent's divorced when I was very young, so I don't really remember what the Christmas season was like with my dad around. My older sister however does remember and when I told her how sickened our dad was about my premature Christmas tree trimming, she laughed, and said that as a kid she would get really upset with dad because he wouldn't go get their tree until about a week before Christmas and by then she would be dying for one! That just isn't my style. I like to have my tree up the entire month of December because, as I told my dad in explanation, it's pretty and it makes me happy. I want to enjoy the tree for as long as I can, not put it up one week before Christmas and then just have to take it right down again. Granted when my dad did that, it was back in the day when people still bought real trees. As a matter of fact my dad still gets a real tree for his house. I, alas, have a fake tree. But it's kind of small and charming and once it has all its lights and jingle bell garland and my eclectic lifetime collection of ornaments on it, you can't tell.

In the evening there is nothing better than relaxing on the couch watching movies or listening to music with only the cheery glow of the Christmas tree to light the room. I am finicky with my decorating of it too. I am never finished. I'll see a hole and move this ornament there, or see too many red colored ornaments in one spot and have to switch them out with other colors, or decide that this ornament is too pretty to be hiding here and move it to a more prominent position. And don't get me started on the trials I've been through in finding the right tree topper this year! Last year I had an old fashioned glass one, but this year I really wanted a star, preferably one that lights up. Well, after going to about a dozen different stores, and after two failed attempts and returns, I finally found the perfect tree topper at Walgreen's for $7.99! Can you beat that? It's a star that looks almost like a snowflake with 11 white lights and it's perfect.

There is this one Disney cartoon short that really captures for me the magic of a Christmas tree. It's called Pluto's Christmas Tree and in it Mickey and Pluto inadvertently cut down the tree Chip & Dale live in for their Christmas tree. Then there is this wonderful sequence of Chip & Dale wandering around inside the brightly lit, decorated tree. I always wished I could be tiny like that and walk around inside a lighted tree among round glass ornaments and candy canes.

So my dad and anyone else who wants to judge me for putting up my tree so early can go right ahead. It makes me happy and that's what counts. Now picture me sticking my tongue out.

Klutzy Kerry

All the women in my family are klutzes. This is something I've lived with my entire life and have grown rather accustomed to. Even my poor niece Hailey, who isn't even two years old yet, is exhibiting this klutzy gene. So, you know, we spill things, we break things, we trip, we bump into walls (especially when rounding corners), we stub toes, and our significant others are often the victims of unintentional injuries from our wonky, uncontrolled elbows or knees or fingernails. Like I said, it's just a given; our lot in life; our curse if you will.

So this morning I was getting ready for work. My routine is to shower, blow dry hair, apply makeup, and get dressed last. I stay in my pajamas throughout this entire process (well except in the shower of course!) and today I was wearing an old pair of pjs that have a very wide leg. Phillip has already given me a warning about these because one of the pant legs will sometimes get caught up on something, like the footstool portion of the recliner, or the curlicue leg of the side table, or sometimes my own foot will get caught in it and trip me up! And that is what happened to me this morning. I was stepping across the bedroom from the bed to my closet to choose my clothes for the day when my foot was caught in my pajama pant leg, tripped me up, and before I knew it I was sailing across the room. I fell to my knees and in trying to catch myself ending up crashing against my ancient five drawer dresser, slamming my right forearm against the very top edge.

Now it's swollen and bruised and ugly. And it hurts. I didn't break anything (arms, fingers, perfume bottles, etc.), thank goodness, but my forearm is now one hell of an ugly sight. I actually had co-workers recoil in horror when they saw it, and of course it's gotten worse as the day has progressed.

Sometimes I wish that there was some sort of pill I could take to control klutziness, like there is to control ADHD or depression.

All you doctors and scientists out there, why don't you get on that for me? Thanks.

Six years and counting.

I'm a bad girlfriend. Yesterday was my and Phillip's sixth anniversary and I completely spaced it! We had even discussed it about a week ago, trying to decide what we were going to do to celebrate since it was coming up so quickly. So what do I do yesterday? Totally blow off my boyfriend!

My mom called in the morning and said she was making my favorite meal (a crock pot dish of creamy chicken and mushrooms over rice) if we wanted to come over for dinner. I call Phillip and when he says he had planned on cooking, I basically say, "Well, can't it wait until tomorrow? My mom's making my favorite!" So he tells me to go and enjoy dinner at my mom's but he will skip it and see me when I get home. He was a little crabby about it but I figured it was because we had just had dinner at my mom's on Halloween and he usually needs more time to pass by between visits to my family's house. So I go to my mom's, enjoy my dinner, play with my niece for a while and then go home.

Phillip seems to be in an okay mood. Then he says casually, "So I'm thinking since we didn't even have dinner together tonight, we should make a whole night of it on Saturday for our anniversary."

OOPS. I felt terrible! I couldn't believe that I had completely forgotten what day it was! He was really cool about it and laughed it off, but I think he was more hurt than he let on.

I know that we are not married. I know that technically it's an "anniversary" not an Anniversary, but every year it is a milestone that we like to acknowledge. We do something a little special and reflect on our progress as a duo and talk about how happy and lucky we are. Because after six years, we are just that: happy and lucky.

So we are going to celebrate on Saturday. We are going to kick it old school by having a great dinner and seeing a movie. And I'll let him pick where we eat and what we see. But he'll check with me first to see if I'm cool with it. And if either the restaurant or the movie doesn't appeal to me, we'll decide together on something else, because that is love. And we are lucky in love.

Interpol and Canadians

I went to see Interpol on Monday night with Phillip and my friend Shanda. I was a little leery because friends of mine who had seen them the Friday before in Portland had reported a lackluster showing by the band and no encore. No encore?!? The thought was mortifying!

Lucky for us (sorry Jill and Frank) they were UH-MAY-ZING!!!! After two mediocre live shows in a row they completely restored my faith in live music.

This is the third time Phillip and I have seen them. The first time was September 19th, 2005. Phillip literally remembers this as one of the most perfect shows he's ever seen and I tend to agree with him. That night they played every song we could wish to hear, had a gorgeous light show that accompanied the music, and were tighter than tight with their musicianship. The second time we saw them was last April and it was a warm up show a few months before the release of their new album "Our Love to Admire" and it felt like that. Almost like the audience was just watching band practice: short and sweet set, no special lighting nor attempt to utterly please the audience. Not really very rocking. Well this past Monday night was thankfully a companion show to that first one. Long set, spectacular and atmospheric stage setup with columns of light and projected images, and perfect playing. You know how the layers of sound that a band can capture on a record sometimes can not be replicated on stage? That just isn't true with Interpol! They are so tight – every bit of that nuanced, cavernous sound from their albums comes through in their live shows. It's incredible!

Here is the set list from memory, so not necessarily in this order or complete:

Pioneer to the Falls
Obstacle 1 (these were definitely songs 1 & 2)
Slow Hands
Rest My Chemistry
Not Even Jail
Lighthouse
Scale
Evil
Heinrich Maneuver
No I in Threesome
Say Hello to the Angels
Narc

And our encore (in order):
Specialist
Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down
PDA

Phillip and I already knew that they would play "Pioneer to the Falls" first because it's just the perfect opening song and from most reports they've been opening with it on this tour, but we took bets on what song would be second. I guessed "Evil" but Phillip triumphed with "Obstacle 1." The encore was incredible. The first song they played we weren't familiar with and my friend Dave informed me later that it was an early b-side. Phillip feels like he summoned Stella because he was shouting it out like freaking Brando throughout the entire show. He had such a great time, Shanda and I were laughing at him because he was so into it! During PDA when that extended pause in the song occurs, the band held it for about 30 seconds too long while the whole audience screamed. Paul and the boys were absolutely playing with us, building our anticipation level up to that nice breaking point, and then they crashed back in with the music. It was AWESOME. If I had money I would follow this band around on tour.

During the show I met a random boy at the bar. He was from Canada, this was the first time he had seen Interpol and he was blown away. Before the show ended I ran into him again and invited him and his friend to come with us to the Double Down Saloon after the show for a drink. Since they were from out of town and it was a Monday night I figured they'd be happy to join us and they were. Their names are Rhys and English and they run a bar in Toronto called The Underground Garage and they are super cool people. They were excited to see a real Vegas bar and not another club on The Strip which is all they had seen of Vegas prior to this. Our buddy Ben (DJ Rex Dart) was spinning and our friends Dameian (DJ Standing 8) and Nicole met us for drinks too. The Canada Boys bought us round after round (although I was driving, so quickly switched to water) and we talked and talked and talked. We then decided to take them to downtown Las Vegas, which they had yet to see. They are truly music lovers and when we played The Stills in the car they were impressed that we would be fans of such an obscure Canadian band. We then exposed them to Neutral Milk Hotel who they had never heard before. We hit The Griffin, one of the coolest bars we have, and they fell instantly in love with it and played about a dozen songs on the jukebox. English is the drummer in a band (My Psycho Ex) and I wish him much luck. I hope we will stay in touch with these guys because I want to visit Toronto and drink in their bar now.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age - A Review

I saw Elizabeth: The Golden Age last night with Ramiro, Jared, Nicole, Vanessa, and Raymond. Raymond and I saw the original Elizabeth together oh so many years ago, so it was quite fitting that we should see this one too!

My initial reaction. The first one was better. The Golden Age looked absolutely gorgeous, from costumes to set designs to location shots to the destruction of the Spanish Armada – absolutely visually stunning! But the story was kind of a snoozer. Who knew that palace intrigue could be boring? The entire Mary Stuart plotline needed to be better paced. We all knew where it was heading; couldn't they have resolved it more speedily and focused more on the actual war? That would have made the film ten times more exciting.

Clive Owen. Ah well I love Clive, he's super yummy, but his Sir Walter Raleigh was super cheesy. Was he trying to emulate Errol Flynn? Maybe, but he reminded me more of Kevin Kline as Errol Flynn in the movie "Chaplin." (Does anyone get what I mean by that? Yeah, I don't know if I do either but I just keep picturing Kevin Kline!) It was all I could do not to laugh out loud during his whole "this is what crossing the ocean and discovering the new world is like" speech. Gag me. The writers tried too hard to make him a strong, romantic, daring character but he came off as arrogant and a little snide. It also led them to bring on the historical inaccuracies by placing him on a lead ship during the Armada battle. Um, Sir Walter Raleigh wasn't involved in that capacity. But didn't it look cool to see Clive set his boat on fire, swing on a rope, dive into the water and swim to safety? I know we are watching the film for entertainment and not a history lesson, so this is the only historical inaccuracy I will point out.

The Guy who played King Phillip II of Spain. What the hell was up with this guy? Yes, I understand that Phillip suffered from gout and was a devout Catholic, but this (over) actor sporting those spindly little legs, shuffling around like he had shackles around his ankles, talking like a crazy person and clutching his bible was simply ridiculous! Watching him was like watching a member of Monty Python play the part.

The music. There was an overuse of score in this film. It felt like the music was on a constant swell. There was no subtlety and no quiet, which believe it or not is sometimes welcome in a film! A good script, a good director, and good actors should be able to evoke the right emotions out of an audience at the right time without using the music to dictate every little thing! A score should blend in and enhance a film, not overwhelm and beat it down.

Cate Blanchett. She may well be my favorite actress right now and owned the screen as Elizabeth. What that woman can do with just a twinkle of her eye is amazing! She saved this movie for me making it worth staying awake through my boredom and sailing the seas of cheese to watch her chew up her co-stars, the dialogue, and the scenery and spit it all back out! I just wish the writers had given her more to work with.

Ultimately I am going to blame the writers for the failure of this film. I understand that they wanted to show Queen Elizabeth as a real woman with vulnerability, fear and doubts but they went about it the wrong way. They focused too much on this silly love triangle and turned the film into a soap opera instead of showing what Elizabeth was really up against politically and emotionally as the ruler and defender of an Empire. It was called Elizabeth: The Golden Age but the film was so focused on her internal life that it didn't reveal what exactly was so golden about England during that Age. I feel like there was a missed opportunity here.

To sum up: Cate and all the visuals from costumes to cinematography - fantastic. The rest of the movie? Meh.

Rilo Kiley

Phillip, Jen and I went to see Rilo Kiley on Saturday night at The Joint. The place was only half full which was nice for us because you could get a beer without waiting in line for 20 minutes and you could actually move freely and not spill said $6 beer. Those of you that know me well know about my massive girl crush on Jenny Lewis. There is just something about her! I don't know if it's a natural affinity for redheads and natives of Vegas or what but I know that if we ever met we would totally be friends. I picture the two of us drinking beers and listening to records. It would be awesome. I explained to Phillip that if it ever came up I would absolutely leave him for her. When I explained that to a friend I bumped into at the show he said, "We would all leave him for Jenny Lewis." So I guess I'm not the only one. Anyway, she was adorable as always and gave her birthplace a nod by saying, "It's good to be home!"

The set list was ok. I would have preferred more songs off "The Execution of All Things" which I think is a nearly perfect record and Rilo Kiley's best, but understand that of course they are going to play music mainly off their newest album. They did play my all time favorite song, "With Arms Outstretched," and that was where the lack of a full house really affected the performance. This is a classic sing along song, but it was obvious that the crowd was filled with mostly Johnny Come Latelies that didn't know the words to a song three albums old. When Jenny moved the mic towards the crowd and let us sing Phillip, Jen, and I belted the words out at the top of our lungs, but it was a pretty mediocre crowd performance overall. I wanted to slap the crowd around for that.

Interestingly enough the band played only one song that wasn't a Rilo Kiley song. Blake Sennet introduced it as being a cover and called it "Snowball's favorite song EVER!" (I found out later that "Snowball" is an affectionate nickname for Blake's brother who works as a roadie for the band) before they broke into "Rise Up With Fists" which is from Jenny Lewis' solo album last year. With all the press coverage of the rivalry between Jenny and Blake over her solo project being more successful than his side project (The Elected), I imagine it must be a thorn in his side that hers is the only non-Rilo Kiley song they play! I guess we ultimately know who holds the power, right?

I was enjoying the show to an extent but then the encore blew. I was hoping they would come back out and do at least two songs and was praying for "My Slumbering Heart" which has beautiful imagery while still rocking and is Phillip's favorite song. Instead they played only one song, "Does He Love You?" which although has a raucous ending music wise, is a cheating/broken hearted downer when it comes to the lyrics: "Let's not forget ourselves good friend, I am flawed if I'm not free and your husband will never leave you, he will never leave you for me." Not exactly the lines to instill that elated feeling every show should end with! And Jenny made a quick exit with no bow, no thank you, and no moment for the audience to applaud her. Bummer.

New digs

I'm back. We've moved. It went fairly smoothly, most of our snags have come post rental truck and helping hands. Got the rental early Saturday morning, my brother-in-law, little sister's boyfriend, and our friends Tim & Meg all came and helped us load the truck at the old place and unload it at the new. The only problem we had there was getting our enormous and enormously heavy couch out of the apartment. It took some major brain power and a lot of me repeating, "If we got it in here, we have to be able to get it out." I kept thinking of that "Friends" episode where Ross and Chandler are trying to get the couch up the stairs and Ross yells, "PIVOT!" over and over. Phillip finally solved the puzzle without us having to remove the legs on the couch or the door from it's hinges. I love my family and friends and am so thankful that they volunteered to get up early on a Saturday morning and help us move.

So we are very nearly unpacked and finding little quirks about the place. There are no stoppers in any of the bathroom sinks. Our water softener had no salt in it AT ALL. At first this meant nothing to me, but after some investigation I found that it should be completely filled with salt. So I went to Home Depot and bought four bags of salt that weigh 40 lbs each! And those four bags still didn't fill it to the top! Argh. I'm not going to like dealing with that regularly. Oh and we didn't have cable all weekend because even though it was never scheduled to be cut off by the previous renters, somehow it was cut off. Not too big of deal except Phillip missed all the football on Sunday which annoyed him. Thankfully I have friends in the right places and was able to get it taken care of in time for "Heroes" on Monday night.

Anyone have any suggestions for a good place to buy light switch plates? Currently there are hideous ones in here with lighthouses on them. Oh and one in the kitchen with a rooster on it. Ew! I checked Target but their selection was rather boring.

Anyway, there is still work to be done: closets to organize, a few more boxes to unpack, DVDs and CDs to alphabetize, pictures to hang on walls, etc. but we are getting there.

I think we are going to be happy here.

Moonlight - the best new comedy on television?

So Phillip and I couldn't resist and DVR'd "Moonlight" the new vampire show on CBS. It was everything we expected it to be and more: cheesy while trying to be serious, filled with terrible puns, and horribly acted. Right from the opening shot we knew what we were in for. In a dream sequence, Mick St. John (yep that's our hero's name!) is being interviewed by someone off camera. "So how is it being an actual vampire?" she asks. Mick: "It sucks." AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Nice one. No pun intended, right? Oooh, the dialogue was so bad in this show that it actually made my stomach ache. Who writes this stuff? Who greenlights it?? I just don't get it. This show was ripe for a little MST3K treatment and that's the only way Phillip and I even made it through to the end. We've decided that Sophia Myles (that blonde vampire from the Underworld movies and Isolde in Tristan & Isolde) is a low, low, low rent version of Kate Winslet and thinks that her acting is enhanced when she uses her hands close to her face. There was one entire scene where her hands truly never left her face area. It was hysterical. The lead guy is handsome enough, but the director tried too hard by dressing him in a really thin shirt so his muscles rippled through and keeping a fan on him so that his hair blows seductively whenever possible. Oh and even the music in this show was pun-tastic. The song used for the music montage at the end that tied everything up in a neat little episodic bow was "My Immortal" by Evanescence. I'm not kidding. Although I really enjoyed watching the pilot episode because I got to make fun of it so thoroughly and laugh more than I have laughed in a long while, I don't think I'll be able to make it through a second viewing. It won't last beyond a handful of episodes anyway. Oh, wait, this is CBS and "Ghost Whisperer" is still on, so maybe it will last. Maybe I'll catch it again some Friday night when I have nothing better to do and I need a good laugh.

2 Days in Paris

I've been a Julie Delpy fan since "Before Sunrise." I thought the screenplay she co-wrote with Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater for "Before Sunset" was a little piece of Heaven. But still, I didn't quite know what to expect from her writing/directing debut (well I think she has done some shorts before but this is her first full length). I was pleasantly surprised. Well written, touching, and laugh out loud funny (which I didn't expect), this film was a joy to watch. Delpy really captured a relationship with all its foibles; the tender moments and the moments when a pair are just plain mean to one another for no real reason. This was also the most endearing Adam Goldberg has ever been on screen. I just wanted to give him a big hug. And am I the only one who thinks Delpy is probably a complete nut in real life? How else can she write and play these neurotic characters so perfectly?

Oh and my favorite line in the movie? Well slightly paraphrased cause it's from memory:


Marion: Why do you even want to see his grave? You don't even like Jim Morrison. You don't like The Doors.

Jack: I know, but it's a famous grave. And I'm a huge Val Kilmer fan.


LOVE IT!

Two surprisingly enjoyable films!

The past two days I’ve watched two films that I enjoyed more than I expected to.

The first was Douglas McGrath’s "Infamous." I’ve read Capote’s "In Cold Blood" which is an amazing true crime novel (oxymoronic as that is) and enjoyed Phillip Seymour Hoffman in his Oscar winning role as Truman in 2005’s "Capote" so I didn’t really expect to like "Infamous" that much cause hell, didn’t we just see this movie??? But Toby Jones’ performance as Truman Capote was a revelation! For me he reduced Hoffman’s performance to mediocrity at best. Toby was all flamboyancy, cattiness, and wit. This time around we got to see much more of Capote’s needling influence within his high society friends which enriched the character greatly. His Capote was so ridiculous that at first you didn’t think he’d ever be able win over the town folk of Holcomb let alone the killers, but little by little he does it and wins over the audience in the process. Plus, Toby is a tiny little man, like the real Capote was which helped the believability. I know they had tried to downplay Hoffman’s size and make him seem small, but it never really worked – which I didn’t fully realize until watching "Infamous." I will give the 2005 film one advantage over this new film and that’s Catharine Keener as Nelle Harper Lee. Keener is, of course, brilliant in everything she does. "Infamous" unfortunately had Sandra Bullock in the role and gawd she was awful. Even if she had been able to keep her Southern accent consistent, it still wouldn’t have been enough to make her performance believable. Toby swallowed her up. This, now that I think of it, is rather fitting, since Capote kind of swallowed up Lee in real life too. Daniel Craig was quite good too as the killer Perry Smith. "Infamous" played the Perry/Truman relationship up to sensational glory, taking it much further than "Capote" did, but it worked. Craig really pulled the tragedy and menace of the character off. Overall I felt that "Infamous" far outshone "Capote" in revealing what kind of man, lover, friend, liar, writer, bitchy little queen he really was – and with heart! HA!

Phillip and I finally watched David Fincher’s "Zodiac." We’d had it out from Netflix for a few weeks now, but neither one of us had been in the mood to watch a two hour, forty minute long movie about a serial killer whose case to this day is unresolved. We finally popped it in last night and wowza – we were pleasantly surprised! First off the cinematography and art direction were incredible. I really hope Oscar voters remember it when the time comes. The little period details from hairstyles to music to being free to smoke at work and on airplanes to the cars people drove – it was really well done. And some of the shots were fantastic, like the overhead shot that turned the corner sharply along with the cab, and the time lapse of the construction of San Francisco’s famous Transamerica Pyramid! The cast was also impeccable from the ever brilliant Brian Cox and Robert Downey Jr., the sorely underused Elias Koteas, the perfect Boy Scout Jake Gyllenhaal, and the continual impressiveness of Mark Ruffalo there would pop up in scene after scene someone else I was thrilled to see: Anthony Edwards! Dermot Mulroney! Chloe Sevigny! Donal Logue! James LeGros! Clea Duvall! For a movie about an unsolved crime the plotting still felt like we were continually trying to get somewhere and that we eventually would. There was still drama and tension and mystery and surprise. It was a great puzzle of a movie, slowly pieces would fit in one place and then you’d realize, wait, that doesn’t actually fit there, and you’d have to move it. For a movie with a really dark storyline it was actually a lot of fun!