Bunco à la mode

Late yesterday morning, my inspiration finally hit.  I had pie dough in the freezer and canned apple pie filling in the pantry... and I wanted to make pie. 

Only after the dough was defrosted did I look in my cupboard for the tins.  I discovered that I left my pie tins were left at my mom's house after Thanksgiving. Thankfully, I still had one smallish tin left here, so the pie making commenced.  Because the pie was so small, I had plenty of ingredients left to make some little tarts.  I guess that's what to call them.  I used my Easter flower cookie cutter to make some springy treats.  I saw something similar around blogland for Valentines Day and I thought I'd give it a try. 

I think they turned out great.  They are mostly crust due to all those petals, which I love.  That's honestly my favorite part of pie.  My kids were very disappointed that I would be taking them with me to share with a bunch of other ladies.  Won't they be happy to see that there are a few left for them?

I thought I was all prepared for the evening.  Treats and pie prize were ready, dinner was in the works, the baby was getting sleepy... and then, my husband's boss called and needed his assistance.  So much for my baby sitter.  I hate scrambling for a sitter at the last minute.  In fact, I hate calling a sitter in the first place.  Phone calls make me panicky.  If I hadn't already promised to be there, and known that there needs to be that certain number of people for the game to work, I would have just stayed home to avoid that phone call. 

I made my husband call.  It's sort of his fault, right?
 
Bunco was interesting.  Nobody there could really remember exactly how to play.  Most of the women had played before, many years before, so there were a lot of ideas of how it should go.  I know that there were lots of ideas because part of the game is to switch tables after each round, and each table was playing a little different.  The rules kind of morphed as we played.  I think we may have finally figured it out about the time that the game ended.  The next time we get together, maybe it will go more smoothly.  Maybe I'll have a back up baby sitter on speed dial.  Maybe not.

"Good" movies are depressing

This is kind of a different post than usual for me.  I don't usually watch many movies.  There's just so many other things I'd rather be doing.   Maybe it's the drab, bored with the same old, same old feeling I've been having,  but lately, I've been on a movie kick.  Being seriously disappointed a few weeks ago, I was careful in our selection this time.  I wanted to get a family movie to watch with the kids on Valentines Day, but the redbox was seriously OUT of kids shows.  Guess everyone had that idea.  So, we rented Inception and set the kids up with a movie in the office. 

Our movie was interesting.  I still felt a bit mislead from what I read in the description, but it wasn't bad.  It's the kind of movie that makes you question your reality, in a Matrix sort of way.    I know that this right here is reality, because in my dreams, the dishes magically do themselves and I can see that they are still in there waiting for me.  It was not the sort of movie that I would suggest to watch for a romantic evening.  Kind of depressing in that way.  The boy does not get the girl, because she's already dead.  Yup, life sucks.


My husband brought a movie for me to watch.  A truly amazingly done movie, called, The Northface.  It's about mountain climbers in Switzerland trying to be the first to climb the Eiger mountain.   It's actually in German, but with English subtitles.  And he was right.  It is an amazing movie.  I couldn't stop watching it.  The story line is great, the filming was amazing.  Very well done, but, it's based on a true story and therefore must be depressing.  No happy ending there either.  I still recommend it though.



 Then, I watched The Duchess by myself one day during nap time.  It's not new and I barely remember hearing about it when it did come out.  I got sucked in because I like "period" movies.  I blame the princess stories I grew up with.  I think I'm trained to fall for the movies with fancy dresses and poofy hair...marrying a prince and living happily ever after in a beautiful castle. 

This movie had all those aspects, except my idea of happily ever after is quite different than the one in the movie.  They just kind of live ever after.   I do the same thing with other period movies.  I know how things will end, but I keep hoping that somehow, everything will work out wonderfully and they will ride off into the sunset.  Nope.  I come away from these movies feeling so sad at the plight of women in those days.  They truly had no rights.  At all.  Even while my mind is reminding me that it was a movie and not real, and certainly Hollywooded up, I find myself moping around feeling sorry for the women that lived before me.


 My mind does this to me.  It's why I can't watch horror films.  I am not able to just say, wow, that was a well made movie.  Or, they really drove that point home.  Or, the actors were so believable.  No, the story sucks me in and sticks with me for a long time.  I have to watch a few completely silly, happy movies to snap out of it.

I realized that a non-depressing movie is one that ends with the wedding.  They leave you off with the hope of a wonderful life thereafter.  The depressing ones start with a wedding and then show you all the ways that life stinks.  Yep, prince charming isn't so charming once you get to know him.  In fact, he's a jerk.  Too bad you're stuck with him.  ...Okay, they don't all start with a wedding...  but movies that actually follow real life events usually don't end well.  Although there are a few sports - underdog shows that end well, and I like those.

I find that I prefer the old standby romance when I watch a movie.  No matter how truthful or real a movie is, I still want that happy ending.  I don't need to know about real life.  I have a real life.  I already know it's not all sparkles and prancing ponies.  I watch movies to be entertained and taken away for a little while. 

Yep, give me the old, boring, predictable romances.  I'm old, boring and predictable.

Tidbits: hunger strike, cold sore and graduation

My baby is on a hunger strike.  Unfortunately, she can't or won't tell me her terms.  I have tried to not stress about it, thinking that surely she'll get hungry and eat the next time I fly a spoon toward her mouth.  Nope.  Just the scrunchy face, turn the head thing that she's been doing for the last three days.  She does eat some plain dry cherrios and her bottle, but I would like her to get a few more things in as well.  I've tried every variation of baby food, and when that didn't work, I gave her some of my food.  Scrunch, turn.

Okay, this is a pickle face, but you get the idea.

 On the flip side, she slept completely through the night three nights in a row.  The two things must be related.  I just can't figure out how.

For the record, the cheap cold sore chapstick doesn't work.  I have applied every hour, as instructed and the cold sore has just kept on doing what it wanted to do, which is to take over my entire lower lip.  It's even bigger now (the lip) than before and I'm discovering that the lip does more than just hold the slobber in.  I sound silly when I try to talk and eating has been particularly challenging.

We found out today that my husband will likely graduate in the spring of 2014.  I knew it would be a few years, but putting a date on it made it feel oh so far away.  I refused to put a time limit on when we moved here because I knew it would take longer than I wanted, but deep down, I was hoping to be out of here about two years sooner.  Oh well, patience now.... and as my mom would say, "In three years, you'll still be three years older."