Movie Monday - Blue Valentine

The point of most movie reviews, I realize, is to give some of the plot, talk about the actors, and then tell the reader whether or not to see the movie. Let me cut to the chase this week:

Go see "Blue Valentine."

Just do it. Don't ask any questions. Leave the kids at home. Spring for the popcorn (so you have an excuse to get a few extra napkins). Settle in to watch the movie. Thank me later.

Okay. I'll give you a few points:

It stars Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling. Williams is probably best known for "Dawson's Creek" on TV, for playing Heath Ledger's long-suffering wife in "Brokeback Mountain" on the big screen, and for being Heath Ledger's wife in real-life. Gosling was "Young Hercules" on TV, played the young lead in "The Notebook," and - honestly - I know nothing about his personal life except that he's not hard to look at.

The movie focuses on the two of them and their lives - both separate and together.

And they hold the screen - both separately and together.

This is a movie about family and about love, but I would not suggest it as a Valentine's Day movie.

What I would suggest, in case I haven't said it, already, is that you go see it. I'd also suggest doing that with as few preconceptions as possible. Kelly and I went to it last week truly only knowing who was in it, and what time it was playing. We both hate going to movies where we don't know what's going to happen. But, by the time it was under way, we were both really happy that we didn't know anything about it.

So... One last time: Go see "Blue Valentine." It's worth it.

Overall grade: A. (I'd give it an A+, but I don't want you to put your expectations too high.)

A Good Day

It's probably not great that I have to label a day as "good" when it was really just an ordinary day. But yesterday was, in fact, a good day.

Remember how we were supposed to be having a visit from the Bombast service tech to fix our in-and-out phone service? Well, I had called in to them - during one of our phone's lucid moments on Friday night - to remind them that if they called us to say they were on their way we probably wouldn't be able to answer. The woman I spoke to was, surprisingly, very helpful and understanding.

Christopher and I got up good and early, yesterday, to be ready for the tech to arrive, and got a phonecall about 8:25 from someone in their service department. It seems that, when looking into our issue, they found that the problem was on their end - not ours - so they had gone ahead and fixed it without the on-site visit. No, we weren't thrilled that we'd gotten the run-around, but at least our phone was back.

Of course, this meant that we were up and moving rather earlier than usual for a Saturday. So Christopher and I ran a bunch of errands and - basically - hung out for the morning and afternoon. We don't really get to do that very often these days, but it was one of the things we did when we first started dating. We'd spend weekend days together running errands, just so we could spend time together. We capped off yesterday's errands with a late lunch at McDonald's (I admit it - I love dining at Mickey-D's), and then came home for a while.

In the evening, we were off to a "Burns Night" gathering at a friend's house. The food was relatively Scottish, and there was some discussion of Scottish things, but mainly it was an evening of spending time with friends and getting caught up. We were there for probably 4 hours, just mingling and chatting and enjoying ourselves. We left at that almost-perfect moment when we were both getting a little tired, but before either of us was tired of being there.

Yeah. Yesterday was a good day.

Phoneless

We are, presently, without our home phone.

I started my day, today, with 45 minutes of online chat with the Bombast customer service folks - during which it was rather obvious that the person I was chatting with was paying no attention to me. I know it's hard to really gauge this kind of thing, but about 30 minutes into the "conversation" the person said "Okay. Let me do some research using that information." Yeah... 30 minutes into the conversation. Because, apparently, I was just there for the fun of it during that first half hour.

In the 10 minutes after that, I actually called in to try to get a better response. It went a little more interestingly, at least. I found out, after saying that our phone had gone out, that apparently our service "has been dropping pretty regularly." In fact, that was one of the first things the guy said to me - that he could see we'd been having problems. He was rather surprised we hadn't called in before.

So we moved on to try to schedule an appointment for service. After an hour of my day going to the nice people at Bombast, I was informed that they could set up an appointment for 4-6pm tonight. Or from 8-10am tomorrow. I said I couldn't do either of those because I have to work. He said we could do the weekend, and I said I'd like to do it earlier than that. At which point he got a little... well... snarky and said "Well, we HAVE to send someone out. What would you suggest?" I suggested after 6pm tonight or before 8am tomorrow. Apparently, when he asked for suggestions, he thought he could out-snark me. He was wrong. His sighing response: "But we don't do that."

And... yeah. We've ended up with the Saturday 8am appointment. Luckily the technicians are usually pretty nice. Perhaps they could give the Customer Service staff some pointers.

Dusk

One of my favorite things about this time of year is the re-appearance of dusk.

I know you all know what it is, and I know that it's around all year, but that strange time between sundown and twilight is amazing in this part of the world this time of year. (I say "this part of the world" because I've been places where the time from sundown to darkness is mere minutes.)

You see, we've been dealing with the sun going down at about 4:30 in the afternoon, and now - finally - it's starting to get later. These days, it's going down around 4:50. Which means that, on my drive home, I'm still seeing light in the sky. In fact, some nights the clouds are still lit with reflected sunshine as I'm driving.

Tonight, though, the sky was cloudless as I was making my way home. But that's not to say that there was nothing to look at.

The sky gradually shifted from light blue, to golden, to shades of ultramarine as I drove. Never really bright, but always still lit.

A month ago, my drive home was in the pitch dark. A month from now, it will be light enough that the sky won't ever get to that vibrant dark blue until I'm home.

But now - just now - I get to drive home at dusk. And that makes at least some of these winter days worthwhile.

Behind on Monday

There is no worse day in the week to feel like you're behind in things than Monday. Being behind on a Monday makes the rest of the week seem like it's simply going to be insurmountable.

It's even worse when you're not behind at work - which you can always brush off when you leave for the evening because, after all, it's work - but you're behind in your personal life.

I am having one of those "behind in your personal life" Mondays.

We have dishes piling in the sink (all, actually, from the past 3 hours). We have snow which simply doesn't want to move from the sidewalks (remember when the snowblower was in the shop? this stuff is packed down from that period - and with the temps we've had it hasn't gone away). I have 2 birthday cards which are going to be late, regardless of when I send them at this point (although I had every intention of sending them this past weekend).

I could try to do things tomorrow night or Wednesday, but I have plans to go to a movie tomorrow (and possibly another on Wednesday). Which means that my next full block of time to work on things will be Thursday.

And, although it's only a quarter past eight, I really want to just go to bed because, if truth be told, I also had one of those Mondays at work, today.

I suspect it's going to be a long week.

Sunday Evening Slowdown

A lot of weekends Sunday evening is the part of the weekend when everything kind of speeds up as you try to get ready for the new workweek. This weekend, though, Christopher and I have been celebrating his birthday, so this evening is kind of the slow-down point, instead.

But it has been a great - food-filled - weekend. Yesterday we spent part of the afternoon at a work-related event at a bar/restaurant I'd never been to. Even though it was an event for Christopher's work, it was actually really fun. We sat and chatted and joked with some of his co-workers and spent a nice hour.

Last evening, we went out to dinner - as part of a group of 10 - to one of our favorite restaurants (Cave Vin in SW Minneapolis). I had talked to them earlier in the week to let them know we were going to bring along a birthday cake (which I offered to cut and serve), and that we'd probably need multiple checks to keep the confusion down. And it worked out great. Everyone seemed to have a great time. People in the restaurant joined in when our table was singing "Happy Birthday" to Christopher. And the restaurant manager actually came around with ice cream to go with the cake. How cool is that?

This morning, since a certain pup got me up around 7am, anyway, I threw on a coat and drove about five minutes away to Patisserie 46 to pick up a few things for a "breakfast with choices." I mulled over my options, and came home with some sweet croissants (chocolate and almond) and some savory "breakfast" croissants (with egg, gruyere, and bechamel sauce). And I was home by around 8am. (Apparently, if you get there at 7:45 on a frigid January morning, there's no line and lots of service. It was great!)

We had planned to go out to dinner tonight at a place that is known for serving huge amounts of meat. But... well... we kind of decided that we weren't hungry enough for it. So we capped off our day going out for pizza at Davanni's (a local chain which - although it has changed names along the way - is one of Christopher's favorite pizza places from back when he was a little kid).

And, thus, we come to tonight. We have a couple of high-end pastries to consider, and we also have leftover cake from last night. (Have I mentioned that it was a Devil's food cake with Chocolate Buttercream frosting and a Bavarian cream filling? We got it at Kowalski's, if you want one...)

I suspect dieting will be on the "to-do" list starting tomorrow. But not tonight.

Friday Food - Pizzeria Lola

Do you ever go to an event that has had tons of hype and find yourself wondering "What was that all about?" It doesn't even have to be a real "event" event. It can happen at a movie. Or while reading a book. Or, unfortunately, while at a restaurant.

Christopher and I met a friend of his for dinner at Pizzeria Lola this week. We saw it go in next to one of our favorite restaurants (a French-bistro-y place called Cave Vin), and we wondered what it would be like. Then we saw a few absolutely rave reviews. And we thought we should really go check it out.

It's not your average neighborhood pizza joint - there's no "extra cheese, double pepperoni" pizzas on the menu. There's no garlic toast with dipping sauce. And, you know, that's not a bad thing.

They've got a huge wood-fired oven in the middle of the place, an intriguing menu with things like an actual dish composed of Brussels sprouts and a pizza with potato on it. And, you know, we really wanted to love them.

But the pizza crust - though thin and obviously wood-fired with the little bits of char on it - were kind of soggy in the middle. And the fact that you can't simply get a basic pepperoni pizza (or even a modified one, really), left me wanting it - even though I hadn't been craving it when I sat down.

The staff were great. The restaurant is very attractive (the pizza oven is in the middle of the dining room, wrapped in gleaming copper). And the price was... well... wasn't bad.

We figure that we might or might not go back. It's great to have a "different" pizza option that's fairly close to home (only about 5 minutes away), but I just kind of wish that it had a little more focus on "crowd-pleasing" and a little less on "different."

Overall score: B-. What they do, they seem to do fairly well. Just not quite well enough for me to understand what all the raves were about.