Tag Archives: movies

Dinner Before Movie

Posted on September 4, 2016 by mohawkvalleygirl

How about a quick cooking post.  Never mind why; I’ve had kind of a stupid day, but I will not burden my readers with that right now (no promises for the future).

Steven suggested sending out for food, but I REALLY wanted to cook something.  But something not too long and involved, because I was hungry and it was already late.  We had some bacon (somebody gave Steven a coupon).  I suggested bacon and eggs.  We did not have much bread for toast.  Oh dear.  I was not up for a run to the store.  I looked in the refrigerator for inspiration.  I saw some hot dog buns.   And grape tomatoes. Well!

“I’ll cook some bacon, toast a couple of hot dog buns, cook eggs with broken yokes and make sammiches,” I said.  “With tomatoes.”

Steven readily agreed.  He even helped me keep an eye on the bacon while it cooked.  Why does bacon take so damn long to cook, anyways?  I put mayonnaise on the buns when they were toasted.  I love mayonnaise.

Our BET (Bacon, Egg, Tomato) Sammiches were delicious. And I was SO pleased with myself that we did not send out for food.  Of course I love to support the local economy and we have some delightful restaurants that deliver. However, sometimes one must save money and consume fewer calories (bacon and mayonnaise notwithstanding).

Now we are on the movie-viewing portion of our evening.  We are going to watch Young Frankenstein.  We would have watched it soon anyways, as a favorite Halloween movie.  Sadly, we watch it tonight in tribute to the recently departed Gene Wilder.  What a comic genius. Really, not a bad end to my Saturday.  Hope to see you all on Wrist to Forehead Sunday.

 

Leave a comment

Posted in cooking, humor, personal and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Scattered Saturday Blog Postte

Posted on August 21, 2016 by mohawkvalleygirl

Earlier today I had thought to write a post beginning, “We interrupt these Mohawk Valley adventures to make a Scattered Saturday post…”  But I was continuing my adventures so was afraid the post would be incomplete.  So I continued my scattered gyrations and now interrupt the wine drinking portion of the evening to make my post.

Just kidding.  I’m not interrupting my wine drinking; Steven just brought me another glass.  To anybody who objects to such alcohol-related activities, sorry.  This is the way I roll.

Steven has a rare weekend off, and we slept in this morning to nearly 6:30.  I wasn’t even going to run (which I have not been doing in any case; more about that in the next Running Commentary post) but reconsidered after two cups of coffee.  I took a short run, then a good shower, put on a cute outfit and called my mother.  Then I wrote some postcards.  I have been dreadfully remiss about my postcard writing in recent weeks.  I finally wrote some last Sunday so was happy to be doing so again today.

Eventually, Steven and I made it out the door to get some breakfast.  I was quite hungry.  We first stopped by the post office (to mail the post cards) and the ATM to get some cash, then it was on to Ilion.  I wanted to eat at Farm House Restuarant, right across from The Medicine Shoppe (I always have to dash over to Facebook to check if it’s “Shop” or “Shoppe”), where I had a couple of prescriptions to pick up.  Can you believe Farm House was closed today only?  So it was.  We drove on to Frankfort for a great meal at The Knight Spot (here’s a point to ponder next Lame Post Friday: why is it always “Spot” and not “Spotte”?).

From there we went to Hummel’s Office Plus (“Plusse”?) to purchase a birthday present and card for a friend.  Their Halloween stuff was out already. Yay!  We love Halloween!  There are several things I may stop back and purchase.  What’s a few more Halloween decorations among friends?  They nicely wrapped the present for us, so we had something really nice looking to give our friend.

We put in an appearance at the party, enjoying a little coffee and short visit with our friend, then went on to New Hartford, where we wanted to catch Florence Foster Jenkins, starring one of my favorites, Meryl Streep.  We got there early so stopped in at Uno Pizzeria and Grill (Steven thought it was “Grille” not “Grill”, but I checked on Facebook and it’s “Grill”) for a drink.  We were so pleased by the service and ambience that we came back for snacks after the movie.

The movie, by the way, is WONDERFUL.  Meryl Streep is such a goddess. Hugh Grant and Simon Helberg are quite delightful as well.  I don’t usually do good movie reviews (preferring to stick with the cheesy variety), but I may reconsider the policy.

I believe that bring us up to the present moment.  We are back home, enjoying a little more wine and deciding between sitting on the deck and popping a movie into the DVD.  Or looking for a true crime show on cable television.  After all, anything can happen on Scattered Saturday (“Saturdayye”?).

 

2 Comments

Posted in humor, personal, Scattered Saturday and tagged , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

How About Edward G. Robinson?

Posted on March 16, 2016 by mohawkvalleygirl

I don’t want to say I’m feeling old (at least, no older than I actually am) (in dog years) (just kidding!), but recently I have felt somewhat… dated.

It started at the read-through for Leading Ladies.  I told one of the actors who will portray a man dressed as a woman that when he was a woman, I wanted Rosalind Russell.

“He doesn’t know who Rosalind Russell is,” Steven told me.

What’s this?  A drama person who hasn’t seen Auntie Mame?  Say it ain’t so!  Of course it is so.  Luckily the actor understood what I wanted from the gesture I made when I said it.  However, I felt a point had been made about generations and different frames of reference.

I don’t want to telegraph any jokes, in case this is read by people who might come see the play (Come see the play!), but there is a reference to a Marlon Brando imitation.  I thought to myself,  “I’ll have to tell the actor involved that it is not Marlon Brando in The Godfather but Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire or On The Waterfront.”  Then I remembered that The Godfather was in the ’70s, not a recent movie this young person was likely to have seen.  (Full disclosure:  I haven’t seen The Godfather either; I just know Marlon Brando was in it and he was a lot older than he was in the other two movies.)

Anyways, I don’t know why it’s a Marlon Brando imitation anyways.  I think James Cagney or Humphrey Bogart would be better.  And I don’t mean James Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy or Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca (yes, I’ve seen both those movies).

Yes, I can direct a play without resorting to references to old movies.  And, no, I did not see these movies first run at the theatre.  Any other questions?

 

Leave a comment

Posted in humor, personal, theater and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Murder Movie Monday?

Posted on February 23, 2016 by mohawkvalleygirl

Spoiler Alert!  I’m going to completely give away the plot, solution, big reveal and dramatic conclusion of 10 Little Indians also known as And Then There Were None.

I was in the play version of this Agatha Christie classic, having formerly read the book and the play. Steven and I own a DVD of And Then There Were None (1945).  When they did Agatha Christie Day on TCM, I DVR’d 10 Little Indians  (1966) and finally got around to watching it sometime later (full disclosure:  it was not the first time I’ve seen it).  I wrote about it even later than than, then discovered it in my notebook, and we watched our DVD yesterday with the idea that I could write about both movies today.

The original story is set on an island, the classic isolated place to murder people.  The 1966 version changes things up by bringing the characters up a treacherous snow-covered mountain in  a cable car.  The characters are different, too.  The judgmental spinster is replaced by a glamorous actress.  Fabian plays the spoiled, arrogant young man.  In the original, this character is a rich ne’er-do-well.  In the movies he is a singer hired to entertain the guests.

Both movies make use of this handy character, who sits down at the piano and sings the ditty about the 10 Little Indians.  Both movies also have one character murmur to another to hang in there (or words to that effect), he’s almost out of Indians.

Incidentally, I had never heard of this macabre poem before reading the book.  The 10 Little Indians I know goes, “One little, two little, three little Indians…”  Nobody gets killed; we just count.  That is the kind of sheltered childhood I led.

A little epergne (I’ve never used that word before; I hope it’s right) in the middle of the table depicts the ten unfortunate Indians.  A mysterious hand breaks one off every time a character is picked off.

Of course the characters behave in the time-honored fashion of movie characters confronted with a mad killer.  They lose their cool, they go off alone, they trust or mistrust each other for the flimsiest of reasons.  This is not a 70s slasher flick, so nobody has sex just before meeting a gruesome end.

In fact, none of the ends are particularly gruesome, which to me is another advantage of old movies.  I find a couple of deaths horrifying by reason of empathy.  For example, how would I feel if I was scaling down a mountain and looked up to see a hand chopping away at the rope holding me.  Yikes!

It’s not all chills and thrills, unfortunately.  Things move too slowly for my tastes.   But perhaps I ask too much.

I guess I did not need the spoiler alert after all, because I feel distinctly disinclined to actually give away the ending.  I will say that I like the movie ending better than the play ending.  And I like the very end of the 1966 flick better than the 1945 version.  Anybody who has seen both versions (or either version), feel free to offer your opinion in the comments.  Don’t worry if you give away the big reveal; we’re still covered by the Spoiler Alert.

 

4 Comments

Posted in commentary, humor, movies, personal and tagged , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Was it the Wine?

Posted on February 22, 2016 by mohawkvalleygirl

So there I was, having a completely Wrist to Forehead Sunday, when Steven came home, poured me a glass of wine, and suddenly everything looked a little bit better.  Was it the wine or the husband?  I try not to look too closely into these things (it was the husband).

I am typing rapidly (TRYING to think rapidly, but let’s not ask for miracles) so that we can move on to the movie watching portion of the afternoon.  We plan to watch Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.  We watched a different version of that one some time ago, and I wrote part of a blog post about it. I thought I could complete the blog post with a compare/contrast kind of thing (preview of coming attractions) for Movie Matinee Monday.

Steven just ordered some food from Carney’s Corners in Herkimer, NY (just to throw in a shout-out to a local business). I suddenly realize how hungry I am, now that I have to wait 20-25 minutes (according to the woman on the phone).  Well, one can’t always have instant gratification.

Additionally, I am working on yet another afghan.  I ran out of pink for the one I was working on so started a new one.  This one will be red, white and blue; and I expect to run out of white.  I really must learn how to make smaller things, so I can use up the odds and ends of yarn one inevitably saves.  I suppose I could do that at any time, since I have purchased numerous books about knitting and crochet. But I don’t think I should do it on Wrist to Forehead Sunday, do you?

 

Leave a comment

Posted in humor, personal, Wrist to Forehead Sunday and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Tuna Noodle Casserole

Posted on February 13, 2016 by mohawkvalleygirl

It is the first Friday of Lent.  Catholics eat fish on Fridays during Lent.  So do a lot of other people, actually, because some places serve awesome fish fry.  In fact, our original plan was to seek one out, which perhaps would have made a better blog post.

OK, I’m kind of babbling on, because it is Lame Post Friday.  Full disclosure:  before I ate my tuna noodle casserole, I had a glass of wine.  I nibbled some bread and guacamole first, so as not to have an empty stomach, but I’m afraid it kind of sort of went a little to my head.  What the hell, it’s Friday.

Steven and I are about to pop in a classic comedy, His Girl Friday, starring Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant.  There are also a few supporting players we know from other flicks.  Steven purchased our original copy from Woolworth in Massena, NY for, I think, $3, in 1990.  This was the early days of VHS.  It was before the $5 bin at Wal-Mart.  We later learned the cheap price was because the film was in public domain, and ours was a truly dreadful copy.  Still, we had it for years and watched it many times.  Now we have it on DVD, complete with special subtitles and special features, neither of which we ever take advantage of.

So this is my Friday Lame Post.  A mere slice of my life.  Dinner and a movie in the Quackenbush household.  I hope you are all having a lovely Friday yourselves.

 

Leave a comment

Posted in humor, Lame Post Friday, personal and tagged , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Wrist to Chores to Walk to Galavant

Posted on February 1, 2016 by mohawkvalleygirl

I have been so not into making a blog post today.  Then I thought, “Oh, what the hell, it’s Wrist to Forehead Sunday, just type something in and hit publish.

I dithered through most of the day first, enjoying intermittent bursts of relative ambition.  I intend to start the South Beach diet tomorrow (not for the first time), so I went to the grocery store to buy some stuff.  As the young man was checking me out — uh, I mean cashing me out (I was old enough to be his mother), I said, “I’m buying all this healthy stuff, because I’m going on the South Beach Diet tomorrow.”

“I was wondering what that was all about,” he responded with the utmost gravity.  That is the kind of cashier I enjoy.

At home again I made a tossed salad, did a load of laundry and a couple of other useful things.  Then I took a nap till my husband got home (did I mention I’m still suffering from a cold?).  We went for a nice walk.  I thought briefly of doing my blog post about the walk, but it was strictly non-memorable (but fun).

Then I said, “Let’s watch Galavant!”

Galavant is this awesome series on ABC.  It’s Monty Python and Mel Brooks meet Glee.  That is, a musical set in the middle ages with plenty of contemporary references. The lyrics are clever, the characters are compelling, the plot MAKES YOU KEEP WATCHING.  I am in love with it.  We DVR it to watch at our leisure, because of my abnormally early bedtime.

Now we are looking at one of our favorite movies, Being Julia, starring Annette Bening, for  whom I would change my religion (oh, well, perhaps I would not go that far, but I adore her), Jeremy Irons and Michael Gambon.  It is based on Theatre by Somerset Maugham, one of my favorite books. It is a marvelous adaptation. I highly recommend it.

So this is my Wrist to Forehead Sunday.  A few chores, a nice walk, and now I’m watching television.  I must get back to it, because I just started a baby afghan for a co-worker.  I think he will be surprised.

Happy Sunday, everyone.

 

5 Comments

Posted in humor, personal, Wrist to Forehead Sunday and tagged , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Wrist to Forehead Sunset Boulevard

Posted on January 25, 2016 by mohawkvalleygirl

“All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.”

And earlier she just says, “I’m ready.”  At no time does she say,  “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille,” as I have heard many people quote.

We just watched Sunset Boulevard for perhaps the 8,467th time (I just made that number up, it’s probably a lot fewer than that).  Usually I like to spend my Wrist to Forehead Sunday watching crime shows, most notably Snapped. Sometimes we mix it up a little by watching movies.

It was not always that way, if I may be forgiven a short detour down Memory Lane.  There was a time when I was quite burnt out from my Monday through Friday job and Sunday was a very sad day for me.  The saddest sound on that sad day was the ticking clock on 60 Minutes.  My solution in those days was to watch movies all day, so I would not be constantly reminded what day it was.

These days I do not find Sunday to be so terrible (see? Detour over).  For one reason, Steven only works till 1 p.m. if at all, so we get to spend the afternoon together.

Why then, one might reasonably ask, is it so often Wrist to Forehead Sunday?  My first impulse is to answer, “It just is, leave me alone.”  However, since I am trying to get a blog post out of this, perhaps I could attempt a better explanation.

I think my problem is that I get very little done during the week.  On the weekend, I have two whole days to make myself useful.  Write, clean, organize, cook, and, oh yes, have Mohawk Valley adventures to write about in the blog.  Why in the world would I think I can get all that stuff done in two days? It is especially silly of me to think it when I have the experience of many previous weekends when I did not get stuff done.

And yet, I keep hoping.  I tell myself that I KNOW I won’t get EVERYTHING done. I find it not unreasonable to suppose that I might possibly get SOMETHING done.   It becomes a little wrist-to-forehead-inducing when I do not.

Then again, is not the purpose of one’s days off to relax and renew?  I spent some time relaxing.  And is it not of great importance to me to spend time with my most beloved husband?  I certainly enjoyed watching Sunset Boulevard, especially watching for the famous quote.

I did, in fact, get a few things done.  Some laundry, the dishes, cooked one dinner, typed up character sheets for that murder mystery I’ve been talking about. And two blog posts.  This is the second one.  Happy Sunday, everyone.

We’re going to watch Network next.

 

Leave a comment

Posted in humor, personal, Wrist to Forehead Sunday and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Wrist to Christmas?

Posted on December 7, 2015 by mohawkvalleygirl

As I sit here in my living room, Acer on my lap, Angela Lansbury is singing that she Needs a Little Christmas NOW!

Don’t we all?

Oh, I know, not everybody celebrates Christmas and not everybody loves it blah, blah, blah.  I’m just going to be perfectly up front about it: I LOVE Christmas (the whole Christmas season. Oh, please don’t ask why, no one quite knows the reason)  (How many of you can quote large passages of How the Grinch Stole Christmas if not the whole thing?  Oh, I know some of you can and do; it’s not just me).

Where was I?  Ah yes, Wrist to Forehead Sunday.  After my Santa breakfasting, slow driving and furniture moving adventures yesterday, I had a little too much white wine and stayed up a little too late watching television.  In my defense… why am I defending myself to you?  Are you judging me? Well, I would never judge someone for judging me, BUT…

I started my entertainment oriented evening with a movie I had DVR’d from TCM on Boris Karloff day. I adore Boris Karloff.  This movie also had Edmund Gwenn, who of course played Santa Clause on Miracle on 34th Street.  I saw the name in the opening credits but it did not register till I heard the actor talk and said, “Hey, that’s Santa Claus!”  So with Santa and the Grinch in the cast, it was almost like watching a Christmas movie.

Later on, Steven and I watched our DVD of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, so I could really bask in Karloff’s mellifluous tones.    We followed it up with Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol and Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  These Christmas specials bring back so many memories.  Of course we also discuss the song lyrics (after singing along), the dated gender-based messages, and other sorts of observations that theatre-oriented persons such as Steven and I are bound to make.

Right now we are listening to Christmas CDs, of which we have an extensive collection, and debating out moves for the rest of the day.  I personally could get into watching a couple of Christmas movies and going for a walk once the sun sets to enjoy our neighbors’ Christmas lights.  As always, I’ll try to work on a better blog post for tomorrow.  Happy Sunday, everyone.

 

3 Comments

Posted in humor, personal, Wrist to Forehead Sunday and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Walk to Wrist to Michael Gambon

Posted on August 24, 2015 by mohawkvalleygirl

With a little bit of Severed Head Sunday thrown in.

It is another beautiful day in the Mohawk Valley.  Steven and I took a walk earlier.  It was sunny and warm but not humid. Actually, I got a little overheated in the sunshine, but I had on sunscreen and my crazy old lady hat.  It felt so good to walk!  We went to Smoker’s Choice so Steven could buy some butts.  Yes, yes, we did something healthy so Steven could indulge in an unhealthy habit.  Don’t judge.

We went on to walk up Main Street.  As we passed the wooden fence in front of where they tore down Glory Days, we talked about the local artist who is going to paint a mural there.  Of course I’d rather they cleaned it up and built something new there, but if they can’t at least it will be nice to have something better than an old grey fence to look at.

As we walked on we discussed our movie-watching for the rest of the day.  Lately we usually watch Snapped on Sundays, but we used to watch movies all day long.  We like movies.  Steven wanted to watch Being Julia, a marvelous adaptation of Somerset Maughm’s Theatre, one of my favorite books.  Gambon has the part of Jimmy Langtree, who appears as a ghost or memory from Julia’s past.  The character appeared in flashbacks in the novel, but in the movie his presence adds a lot to the present, if you see what I mean.

I said we should make it a Michael Gambon film festival, moving from Being Julia to Gosford Park then on to Sleepy Hollow, or as I like to call it, The Headless Everybody.

And that brings us nicely to today’s headline.  Only, really, it is not Wrist to Forehead Sunday.  We had a lovely evening yesterday, hanging out on our deck with a small group of family and friends.  Small gatherings are wonderful, because you can have real conversations.  It was a perfect evening for deck sitting.  I’m so delighted our brief period of extreme humidity has passed (oh, anybody who has passed or is passing through a longer and worser period can just quietly feel bad ass and not brag to me about it, please).

I am enjoying my Sunday is my point.  I hope you are enjoying yours too.

 

Leave a comment

Posted in humor, personal, Wrist to Forehead Sunday and tagged , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.
← Older Posts
Newer Posts →