You're Doing It Wrong

For all you camera smarties who read the previous post and snickered under your breath, “Amateur!” You are right.

According to the nice customer service guy on the phone, for the grownup camera it’s back to the old fashioned way of taking pictures. I press my greasy face against the giant LCD display and look through the tiny viewfinder with one eye to frame my picture, just like in the olden days. Then the display screen shows me the photo I just took.

Do you think that’s true or is the guy just pulling my leg so I won’t try to send it back?

Geez, it’s hard being a moron sometimes.

I just ran around the house and took photos of dinner and the walls and the world’s most awesome garlic press, just like I promised.

I guess it goes without saying that I have more homework to do but at least I know it works. Now I need to rush my spouse through dinner so I can watch the end of Pride and Prejudice. Finally.

My new camera arrived yesterday. I had it delivered to the office and of course I had to rip everything open so I could start playing with it but then I realized there were a bunch of parts and a battery to be charged and I thought I should wait until I got home so nothing would get lost or broken.

I didn’t have time when I got home because we went to Aunt Betty’s to have dinner with Priscilla, Aunt Margaret and Uncle Marvin. When we got home from dinner it was bedtime so I assembled the camera and put the battery on the charger so I could at least take a picture of the wall or something when I woke up this morning.

Argh. The menu will display but not the viewfinder. I cannot take a photo. Wah! Yes, the lens cover is off. I didn’t have time for extensive troubleshooting but I’m pretty bummed about this development and foresee a series of long and frustrating customer service calls in my future. I hope I’m wrong.

Meanwhile: tiredd1 – I know who you are! Congratulations on your recent marriage. Hope to see you soon.

Clarification for angelawd – I cook the rice by itself and put the chicken in the skillet with the vegetables.

Action cat moves in for the kill.

Last night Bob and I did something we hardly ever do, we went on a date. We didn’t plan it on purpose. He said he was going to see There Will Be Blood and I haven’t seen anything at the theater except for Juno which was way back at my birthday so I said I’d go with him.

We went to the 4:30pm matinee which was almost full and we remembered immediately why we never go to the movies on Saturdays. It’s full and everybody talks. The movie is intense and everyone settled pretty quickly and/or I was so involved that I stopped noticing but there were a few moments when we first sat down when I thought we’d made a mistake.

I think this is a movie more for people who admire film making and less for people who like entertainment if you can get my distinction. I think it belongs in what I call the “brilliant failure” category.

The performances are amazing. Daniel Day-Lewis is completely genius and the actor who plays his kid and Paul Dano, the Little Miss Sunshine guy, all really good. The first half hour or so, has stunning visuals but there’s this moment where the movie turns a corner. Bob and talked about it afterward and agreed on this same moment and at that point you’re invested in people that you cannot like or root for in any capacity. The story and the way people behave are grounded in reality, there’s quite a journey going on, but as a viewer, sometimes you want to see a glimmer of goodness before the credits roll.

Afterward we went to Burgerville so I could use my coupon for a free chocolate-hazelnut milkshake and eat my third fast-food hamburger since October. What’s happening to me? Maybe I’m learning to enjoy delicious food. The shake was great.

After dinner we went to the mall to use Bob’s Macy’s giftcards and coupons. I helped Bob for awhile and then wandered off. One current style that I don’t get are the bags or purses or whatever the kids are calling them these days. The bag department took up about 20% of the real estate on the ground floor and I looked through the displays fascinated by the bright ugly colors, unappealing shapes and big shiny buckles and fasteners. I pretended that the store wanted to give me one and which one would I choose? None. Not even for free. And these aren’t even the thousand dollar bags that you see in the ads.

Bob is looking forward to the Oscars tonight. I used to like awards shows, especially the Oscars, but now it feels like my life draining out of me. I can spend 5 minutes the next day reading the results in the paper and have to sit through all the b.s. Then I found something in the paper that, at least partially, changed my mind. One of my favorite movies last year was Once and I especially loved the soundtrack. The NYT has an article, Life Imitating Film about the stars Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova playing their song at the show tonight. I will tune in for that moment alone. And I hope they win because they are not b.s.

From the morning walk.

Last night I started Sense and Sensibility way too late but I thought I’d just watch the first hour and then go to bed. Once I got into it I couldn’t possibly go to bed without seeing my heroines find true love so I ended up staggering off to bed hours past my bedtime.

It’s still really good. I think it’s tragic that a whole generation of kids are growing up to think of Alan Rickman as Snape and will never truly appreciate him in this romantic role as the wounded Colonel Brandon who looks out for Miss Marianne. Rickman was in another movie that I haven’t seen in years but liked a great deal, Truly Madly Deeply (1990). Rickman plays a recently-departed ghost hanging out with his grief stricken girlfriend played by Juliet Stevenson who was the Mom in Bend it Like Beckham and said one of the funniest lines in that movie: “Get your lesbian feet out of my shoes.” And if that’s not enough, there’s a photo of her on imbd with Colin Firth who plays Mr. Darcy.

I know. I’m a little dizzy myself.

Back to Alan Rickman, he has played some fine baddies (Die Hard) in his day, but I like to think of him as Miss Marianne’s champion.

I can’t wait to get my new camera next week and hopefully when I take photos of moving targets, they won’t come out looking like this.

On our walk last week the very friendly and high energy cat pictured above flew out of his yard and ran over to meet us. I was squatting down to say hello when the string for the hood on my sweatshirt caught his beady cat eyes and he climbed me in one giant leap and began playing with it with his sharp kitty claws catching me in the face. We stopped that game.

We saw his owner and said, “Hey, you got a cat,” and he leaned against the car and looked skyward and let out a mighty sigh and said, “Yeah. Somehow we got two cats.”

This morning the cat ran out to see us again and since I wasn’t wearing that sweatshirt, I thought I was safe. I squatted down to take a photo and he launched onto me, purring like crazy, and tried to play with the strap on the camera. Crazy cat.

One more item. Last night Bob brought a DVD upstairs at dinner and said he had something he wanted me to watch. He said it was from him for Valentine’s Day. It’s called The Danish Poet and it’s a short animated film that won an Academy Award a couple of years ago. It is so sweet and heart-twisting. As far as I know you can’t find it online so you’ll have to ask at the library or something. Worth trying to find.

Masterpiece Theatre is doing some sort of Complete Jane Austen (hereinafter “CJA”) broadcast. I’m not sure what the scope is and my research journey to the PBS website turned into the usual commerce flog with lots of information on purchasing CJA but no helpful little blurb that tells me what the plan is for the broadcast CJA.

I decided to set my DVR for the 1995 Pride and Prejudice mini-series which I don’t think I’ve ever seen in its entirety. Or maybe not ever. I’m not sure. When I mentioned Jane Austen to my husband he rolled his eyes and said, “Is that the one where they all sit around in nightgowns writing letters?” And he has a point, their outfits do kind-of look like nighties and there is a lot of letter writing and also hair brushing while getting ready for dances, visitors and sleep. To the untrained eye, the stories may seem to blend together.

What I do know is that this is the Pride and Prejudice that features the dreamiest Mr. Darcy ever: Colin Firth. I didn’t hate the Kiera Knightly version but wished for a Mr. Darcy that I really wanted to wrap my arms around. Once I saw the first part of this series sitting there on my DVR I had second thoughts. Did I really want to spend close to 6 hours watching Pride and Prejudice? I’m still catching up on the first season of Jericho and the new episodes have started. And I’ve got some Doctor Whos to get through.

What was I thinking? Of course I want to watch 6 hours of PandP. I’d watch it all in one sitting if that choice was available. It’s in three installments and I have to wait for the third this Sunday. I am biting my nails with concern. Will the adorable Elizabeth Bennet and handsome Mr. Darcy discover true love?

Meanwhile, I dug out my Emma Thompson Sense & Sensibility DVD from the closet. That will have to tide me over until Sunday.

Our firm doesn’t take the January or February holidays. Yesterday I took the bus but I left a half hour later than usual because I knew there would be no traffic. I don’t think the bus driver hit the brake pedal until we got to downtown Portland.

Of course we paid for it on the way home because there was a giant traffic jam from everybody coming home from their surprisingly sunny three-day weekend.

On Sunday I did something that’s been on my list forever and I put a bunch of stuff on my iPod that I never seem to listen to at home but would be perfect to listen to on the bus. A friend sent me some comedy shows and I have a spoken word CD that I got from Liz Woody and I have some fairy tales in German and a writing class.

Yesterday during the traffic jam I listened to the comedy shows and Liz and enjoyed the scenic route the bus took to avoid the freeway until the last minute. Listening is underrated.

Another thing I did yesterday was re-read A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor which is one of my top three short stories of all time. Another one is De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period by J.D. Salinger and if pressed to choose the third right now, I’d have to pick The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. If nothing else these are all stories that I read over and over and love just as much every time. Maybe love isn’t the right word. They’re all pretty twisted stories.

A long time ago I wrote a story where some side characters had a band called Flannery and they took their names from characters in this story: Bailey, June Star, John Wesley and Pitty Sing. It seemed awfully clever at the time.

Last night after we turned out the light, I told Bob I’d read the story and he said, “That’s the one with the rabbit ears.”

“What?” I said, thinking he couldn’t possibly remember that from the story.

“The woman wore a bandana tied with rabbit ears on the top.”

This is a man who after living in the same home for 10 years still can’t remember where half the kitchen stuff goes, yet he remembers a tiny detail from a story he probably read over 20 years ago.

From the first page of the story:

Bailey didn’t look up from his reading so she wheeled around then and faced the children’s mother, a young woman in slacks, whose face was as broad and innocent as a cabbage and was tied around with a green head-kerchief that had two points on the top like rabbit’s ears.

Salami Rolls
I like to make Bob a nice dinner for Valentine’s Day, or at least a chocolately dessert.

Since V Day was Thursday, and Thursday night is usually my most tired night of the week, I made him his nice dinner last night.

At some point this week I was following some link rabbit hole and found Marcella Hazan’s bolognese recipe. Cook’s Illustrated also had an Italian Meat sauce recipe this month so I already had it on the brain and a hearty meaty dinner sounded good.

When I make something with ground meat I use turkey, but it was Marcella and it was for Bob, so I went for the ground beef. I’m sure the last time I purchased ground beef was the 80’s. I had the time so it cooked on the stove all afternoon and smelled fabulous and Bob was thrilled when he came through the door.

When he got home I was wrangling the pepperoni rolls and struggling a little because the dough was sticky (explanation below) and he saw what was going on and said, “You’re making those pepperoni things! I’ll leave you alone.”

I didn’t take the recipe with me to the store and on my list I wrote “frozen dough” so when faced with a freezer full of frozen dough product, I had no idea what to buy. I knew orange rolls wasn’t right. I also bought salami because I went to Trader Joes first and they had about 9 kinds of salami and the only pepperoni was the thin sliced kind you put on pizza and I didn’t want that. Also, couldn’t find provolone in a lump, only thinly sliced so I bought mozzarella. I’m not sure whether I’m a brilliant problem solver or really lame at following directions.

When I got home I made the Cook’s Illustrated master recipe for pizza dough and after the rise I punched it down, cut it in half and put half in a ziplock bag and threw in the freezer. I cut the other half into 8 pieces and flattened them out. I panicked a little because it was so sticky but at this point, I was in the determined phase of my baking project so I kept at it. I put my hunks of salami and grated cheese on my flattened dough, made a pouch and doused the lump with melted butter and garlic. They took forever to get golden brown so I didn’t take them out of the oven until 2 minutes before we were going to eat. I stuck them outside in the shop to help them cool off a bit.

Meanwhile, we hoovered our bolognese with Trader Joe’s pasta because I wasn’t in the mood to tackle homemade pasta. I also made salad even though I didn’t feel like it. We were having so much meat product, I felt some green was essential.

I brought the rolls back in and I don’t think I can accurately convey how mindbendingly yummy these are. Warm squishy bread, meat and cheese with a buttery-garlic flavor. I was sad I’d already eaten so much of the other stuff because I wanted to eat all of them. Bob reheated some for breakfast and said they were even better today. I know what I’m having for lunch.

I’d also made the flourless chocolate cake on Amy’s site but I had to bail on the raspberry sauce because when I got home I learned I was mistaken and we didn’t have 6 giant bags of raspberries in the freezer, we had 6 giant bags of strawberries. Strawberry sauce didn’t sound right. I’d also forgotten to put whipped cream on the grocery list so we didn’t have that to fall back on. It was really delicious by itself so no worries there.

Spectacular dinner. My husband was a happy man. And for me, I ordered a big girl camera yesterday.

Updated to add: This is what Bob did after dinner last night. The gift is, he went without me. He knew I would hate it. He said, “There were a lot of bored girlfriends sitting around me.” What a prince.

Evening
Nice sunset, too. It was not this lovely all day. The lady on TV said it was going to be up to 60 later this weekend and I hope she’s right.

BTW — I tried the pepperoni rolls tonight and I don’t think our lives will ever be the same. I’ll write more about it tomorrow.