Mr. Pricklepants may be the greatest character name ever
Yesterday, Fred and I saw Toy Story 3. Rather than write a lengthy, well-thought-out review, I’ll just blurt out some stuff.
Great movie. Ken was awesome. Mr. Pricklepants, Buttercup and Trixie were awesome. Lotso was awesome, and smelled like strawberries. Spanish Buzz was unbelievably funny. Slinky Dog still sounds like Slinky Dog, which made me feel very good inside. It’s odd to realize how much I’m in love with these fictional, virtual characters. Don Rickles is a national treasure, despite looking more and more like his character. The ending is amazingly bittersweet, and made my eyes go all teary. Did I mention that Ken was awesome? He has issues. He also has a fantastic wardrobe to go with his issues. You will see that Barbie has a dark side. You will see Mr. Potato Head do something that is freakish and weird beyond all measure. I’m not kidding. You will also find the cymbal-playing monkey to be even creepier than you thought. It’s those eyes. If you’re like me, you’ll be delighted to see the Fisher-Price Popcorn Popper. You’ll not recognize the majority of the new voices, despite many of them being well-known actors. That’s a great thing. You will also never look at baby dolls the same way again.
Loved this movie. Loved it. Pixar hit another one out of the park.
Fred is healing up like a madman. A sane one. You know what I mean.
He’s out of his arm immobilizer/sling, and his shoulder is healing nicely. He’s still got a long way to go, but he’ll get there. Diligently doing his exercises twice a day. He’s regained a lot of flexibility, though he’s still not allowed to put any weight on that arm. The physician’s assistant has instructed him that he’s to lift nothing heavier than a cup of coffee with that arm.
This is of course driving him crazy. I occasionally have to remind him to NOT use that arm.
He’s got a checkup coming in July, and we’re hopeful that he’ll be able to lift weight then, which will mean that he can go back to driving his Ranger. (Can’t work a stick right now.) He’s been driving my Ram for two months, and it’s just not his favorite thing to drive. He misses his pickup terribly. We ran out to Buffalo in it yesterday, and he was so happy to ride in it.
And of course, he’s wearing out my pickup. Had to have a new water pump installed yesterday. Dammit.
The past three days have been spent mostly outdoors. No Playstation, no Warcraft. Precious little television. (Okay, maybe a movie or two.) There’s nothing in the house as compelling as what’s outside the house.
Tonight I realized a few things.
1. This year I became a Process Gardener. All my previous gardening efforts have been dedicated to Product, not Process. I wanted flowers, so I planted flowers. I wanted strawberries for Fred, so I planted strawberries. And so on. This evening I realized that I was taking a perverse pleasure in weeding. This is a first. Totally confused me when I realized it. I have never ever enjoyed weeding before. The sudden recognition that I was weeding and enjoying it was like finding that I really enjoy reading up on tax codes.
2. Point 1 happened partially because of a confluence of factors. I’m now a homebody. I bought a pickup last year. I got a new garden cart, which is far superior to the previous cart. I finally found a comfortable hat that keeps the sun off my head and neck. The weather is spectacular this year. The combination of all those small factors added up to a big shift in perception. I’m way more comfortable this year than I’ve been in previous years. That comfort tracks into enjoyable gardening. You wouldn’t think it, but it all comes together and creates an environmental change that’s massively conducive to me doing dumb-ass things like weeding for fun.
3. Fred and I really do live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. As I was sitting in front of the house, the evening light was filtering through the trees. Everything was green and gold. The stately Oaks and beautiful Ash trees were full of leaves and absolutely magnificent. The sky was a rich blue, with little skiffs of cloud laced through it, like pond ripples. Doves and sparrows were zooming by, as were bees. The street in front of our house was being used for walking, biking, skating, running, dog-walking, socializing, and fun. I could smell a neighbor’s charcoal grill, and I’d also catch little whiffs of our Lilac tree, which is just starting to bloom. The Catalpa was covered in big chartreuse leaves and hundreds of flower buds getting ready to bust open. Impact sprinklers were tick-tick-ticking. Boats were going up and down the river.
It’s been two days since Fred’s Rotator Cuff surgery. So far, everything is going swimmingly.
We took the bandages off today. He’s got three small incisions, with a total of eight stitches all round. So the external healing is minimal, and frankly is nearly done. It’s the innards that will take time.
I also pulled his IV. He had an anesthetic pump pushing drugs directly into the surgery site. It was pretty weepy/dribbly, with lots of plasma and blood oozing out. (The doctor said this was normal.) The pump was completely deflated, so it had done its work. So I pulled a good eight to ten inches of plastic tubing out of his shoulder. Gross.
So all of the surgery bandages and tubes have been replaced with four bandaids. He had his first careful shower this morning, followed by bacon and eggs. We also got his arm immobilizer put on over a shirt, which has made him far more comfortable. The past two days he’s been wearing my t-shirts like a muu-muu. Not the most comfortable way to dress.
Also, we got a recliner yesterday. The sleeping is a lot easier in that. So the bed is pushed over, and the recliner is in our bedroom. (We sleep better together than apart.)
We’re both exhausted. Fred from heavy meds and healing, and me from moving furniture and taking over all his chores and worrying over him. But everything is going good.
1. Fred needs rotator cuff surgery.
2. Nephew’s Father has died.
3. Brother had skin cancer. (Cured)
4. Fred’s business moved.
5. I spent much of last week resurrecting my firm’s internet firewall.
6. I spent much of last week resurrecting Fred’s pc.
7. I spent much of last week resurrecting Brother’s lost mac files.
8. I spent much of last week with the blankets over my head.
Snark by the barrel, delivered in easy installments
Fred and I went to Rifftrax Live tonight. The Rifftrax guys (Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett from Mystery Science Theater 3000,) did a live performance in San Diego which was simulcast to movie theaters all over the country. (The simulcast was carried by Fathom Events, who do this sort of thing.)
The evening was (mostly) dedicated to bizarre little Christmas films, most of them with an air of surreal incompetence. One of the few that didn’t hew to the Christmas theme was a strange promotional film about pork, full of three-part harmony about the wonders of meals prepared with said pork. I cannot adequately describe how strange it was; it can only be experienced.
I thought I was going to laugh myself to the point of rupture. This stuff is exactly my kind of humor and had me gasping for breath.
Fred was mostly horrified by the films. Oh, there were some dark, twisted visions of Santa, and some genuinely weird bits of animation. The term “nightmare fuel” definitely applies. Freakish and strange.
They will be rebroadcasting the event tomorrow night as well. If you’re near a theater that does Fathom Events, consider going. Super fun.
I love Queen, especially Seventies Queen. They had an awesome sound, and lots of presence on stage, mostly thanks to Freddie Mercury. Fantastic shows, and crazy-ass sounds.
This is from their first album, recorded during studio time that Paul McCartney had reserved, and then never shown up for. (He apparently did that a lot; they got a lot of free studio time because of that.)
An animated movie, featuring a very small mouse with big ears and no good sense of how to cower like a normal mouse. There’s also a sorrowful princess, a temperamental chef, a lost rat, soup, a captive cat in a repurposed stove, a piggy servant with the unfortunate name of Miggery Sow, a man made of vegetables, and a despondent king.
The trailers for this movie emphasized Despereaux himself, which I think was a huge mistake. There’s so much more to the story, and so many offbeat characters that could have been promoted. I remember seeing the trailer and thinking, “well that looks boring.” Surprisingly, it wasn’t. Lots of action, lots of unusual plot twists, and lots of soup.
I’ve been reading a website called How To Cook Like Your Grandmother, by a guy named Drew Kime. It’s about cooking with real stuff, rather than processed foods. The recipes are all built around purchasing fresh, natural ingredients instead of things like canned soup or powdered mixes. It’s not an organic foods thing so much as a “lard, not Crisco” kind of ethic.
I can get behind that, though I still like Crisco a lot for baking.
Drew is also an opponent to secret recipes. I salute him for that. I am more than happy to share recipes, and believe that secret recipes do nobody any good. So when Grandma dies, her Orange Cake recipe dies with her? Screw that. Spread the recipe like a bee spreads pollen, so that the Grandkids can make that Orange Cake themselves and think of Grandma with love whenever they have a slice.
So tonight I was getting caught up with the website, and saw that Drew had posted a recipe for Chicken Divan. The recipe called for some of his Creamy Asparagus Soup, so I looked at that recipe. And decided that it was time to try something new. Drove to the store and picked up onion, asparagus, and a big russet potato. (Forgot the garlic, so I used dried for that.) Came home, and tinkered in the kitchen for a pleasant hour or so.
Here’s the result. I also made Drew’s Egg Salad, which is incredibly simple and delicious, especially on sourdough bread.
Seriously good. Fred made all sorts of yummy noises while eating it. The soup was excellent, and the egg salad was a great complement to it. This was a rich meal, but not overbearingly rich. I’m done eating for the day.
Tired of being fat, tired of clothes not fitting, tired of blood glucose out of whack, tired of not being able to ride roller coasters.
And then a guy sends out a tweet pointing me to Spark People. It’s a free website designed to help you lose weight and get healthy. It’s similar to Weight Watchers, but without any cost. And it’s got some nifty features that take it into the social networking field, similar to Facebook and Ravelry.
Yet again, Japan proves itself to be the country with the highest Insanity per capita of the entire world. For some reason, the Japanese nerds have latched onto a former gay porn star and have turned him into a strange internet meme.
This is weirder than that muscle game I posted about a few months ago.
