It started out productively but moved from motivated toward comfort and lethargy. This is not entirely bad.
I. The Beginning
The cats awoke me around 4am, but I managed to ignore them until close to 5, at which point I got up and fed them early. I really need to find a technique to deal with them in the morning.
Not ‘them’ … just A. E sleeps soundly, and even if awake and hungry doesn’t go out of her way to cause a ruckus.
Anyway.
I fed them early and returned to bed, managed to sleep a while longer, and got up at a reasonable hour. I figured Ms. S. would sleep in even later, so after my shower I hopped in the car and went grocery shopping (to replace our non-dairy-milk supply, get some eggs for me, and so on … 2-3 things became 20+, but anyway), returning about 40 minutes later.
My return home coincided precisely with Ms. S. awaking. Perhaps it was the loud shutting of my door. In any case, she looked out the bedroom window and saw my car, but not me. She also didn’t find me in the apartment. When I did come inside she was relieved, as she’d wondered where I’d gone, and so on.
Breakfast it was, easily prepared for us both, though different in content. It was Saturday with the whole day ahead of us. There would be some work, some working out, and plenty of time together.
II. The Middle
After breakfast I turned to my computer and began some work, along with a conversation with a friend. We bemoaned our current states to some extent and contemplated the use of such second-guessing, and so on. I pledged productivity.
Ms. S. was off for a morning run and walk.
But when she returned home she as a less than chipper mood and soon declared — suggested? — that we should head down to the road to our default Mexican restaurant. We hadn’t been out to eat for a while, and a treat was worth it, a way to get out during the day. But there was also the risk of eating our feelings, or at least hoping to do so.
Service was good, and we arrived early enough that the lunch menu was still available.
A topic we discussed while awaiting our food was the so-called ‘authenticity’ of Mexican / Mexican-American / Tex-Mex restaurants. And even when one is promoting, say, Oaxacan cuisine, it’s not dissimilar to singling out Cajun as a generalization for ‘American.’ And along the way and on a similar topic Ms. S. recommended a book to me, Jennifer 8. Lee’s The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food. Once we returned home she found her copy, which I hope to read or at least peruse and skim.
Before that, though, we finished our food, and didn’t feel too bad about it. I like going for a small-ish combo-plate; I no longer want ‘the most bang for my buck,’ but rather a couple tasty and relatively healthful options. But then I decided to do something I hadn’t done in quite a while: order dessert. It was just a treat, I said, so I glanced over the menu and went for the fried ice cream … not because it’s a super-high-quality option, but because it’s very, very tasty.
And — alas? — at this particular place rather large. A couple cups of ice cream, I think, covered in a honey and corn flakes mixture and dripping with chocolate sauce. I shared with Ms. S., who took a few bites, but I also — wisely, I think — held off from finishing it and left a good deal behind.
Still, the damage was done. I felt better than Ms. S.; I felt as if I’d only over-eaten a bit. However, nothing interesting would be cooked the rest of the day.
III. The End
We turned to our digital audio-visual entertainment … some television and a movie.
The TV began with a season 2 episode of ‘The X-Files,’ “The Host,” the second episode … the one with what Ms. S. now refers to as the ‘poop monster’ (or, rather the radioactive mutant poop monster from Chernobyl), though in the show it is a humanoid fluke worm … or the flukeman, a human mutated by radiation, yada yada yada. It’s both a great and creepy episode but also one that, nearly two decades removed form its original airing, is a bit dated and campy now.
Today was a good day for “they thought that was a good idea?” moments, for we followed up ‘The X-Files’ with another season 1 episode of ‘Relic Hunter.’ No expectations here … it’s a show that doesn’t quite realize how ridiculous it is and makes little effort to exploit its camp potential. This episode, “Transformation,” we get the search for a special scroll that belonged to Paracelsus. We get to trek through Peruvian — Canadian! — ‘jungle’ and finish with an absurd mud fight … pigs watch on! As in the first episode, “Buddha’s Bowl,” which we watched on a lark many months ago, this one makes its relic explicitly supernatural … thus we get this ‘dark space’ or such … it’s silliness beyond belief.
Then I threw in an actual ‘good idea’ of sorts, “Triangle” (2009), a relatively low-budget Melissa George vehicle that now almost seems like one for Liam Hemsworth. I watched it a few months ago and I have other comments on it written down elsewhere. It’s a really smart script but it’s also over-determined (‘too smart’) … the symbols are too clear, etc., and so an attentive and relatively smart viewer is 10 pages ahead of the cast; it becomes predictable. It all fits together nicely, though, and on second viewing I noticed a few things in the script that I’d missed the first time (when, I admit, I barely paid attention during the early-middle part), such as Jess’ ‘broken promise’ to the taxi driver to return … which fits in with the Greek mythology the script attempts to incorporate.
After a short break Ms. S. wanted to knit some more and still had plenty of time before she had to get ready for work, and she wanted something light, either a comedy or something insanely bad that we would mock. I provided several options, including a couple Uwe Boll movies, which were rejected, and instead we watched “Keeping Mum,” which I first (and last) watched with a couple friends in Madison at least five years ago. What does it have going for it, besides Rowan Atkinson as a parish priest in a village of 57? 56 … 55 …
It has a psychotic Maggie Smith (that’s ‘Dame’ to you …) and Patrick Swayze playing with and against type as a lecherous golf instructor. It’s cute, it’s pleasant, it’s romantic … it might even be good to knit to.
