... Likes Sands Through an Hourglass

My birthday was Sunday, and the weekend became very Me-centric. Since I turned 25, Mom and Dad felt that a celebration was in order. Friday evening, I met my parents at the Asian market near the university, and we bought salmon, halibut, grouper, and beef tenderloin for Saturday's cookout. In addition to this preparation, I baked a chocolate cake (with homemade milk chocolate frosting) for the festivities on Thursday.

The cookout was suppose to be a pretty small affair but quickly ballooned to a full-fledged party with twenty-two people, games, an impressive buffet (there's still food left), and many birthday cards. Dad and Poppy grilled all of the fish and beef as well as shrimp, chicken, and all the vegetables Mom didn't roast. My brother and his girlfriend drove up, and all the area family came. After we ate and most of the people left, we played a few games of Blokus, two games of Liverpool Rummy (the variation my family plays), and a game of Fluxx. Afterward, I was exhausted and went to bed after watching Rocky which I got as a promotional from Columbia House a few months ago.

The next morning, Dad made waffles, and I left for Jason's after breakfast. For my birthday lunch, we went out for Cane's chicken (one of my favorite places to eat). I opened gifts. Jason introduced Stephanie and me to Spades, a card game the bears a slight resemblance to Hearts. We played three games and all won one apiece. We watched the Ross Kemp episode of Rick Gervais's brilliant Extras.

We used the DruidCraft tarot deck that Stephanie got me for my birthday. She did a reading for me with a spread new to us. It was extremely interesting and fun. Sunday night, I did a Celtic Cross reading for her which wrapped up at around 5:30 in the morning.

Usually, I get very depressed and inconsolable on my birthday, but this year was different; I was in a pretty good (if somewhat unstable) mood. On the way home of Monday, I did have a moment of nervous anxiety and irrationally low self-esteem.

Last night, I was able to get away from most human contact and had some alone time. I watched Olivier's Hamlet and a 1934 Dick Powell film called Dames which was very low on plot and high on humor and spectacle.

Breakdown of birthday presents:

• Ticket to see The Drowsy Chaperon (Mom and Dad)
• White FiestaWare pitcher (Nana and Poppy)
• Autographed and framed photo of Joan Fontaine (Jason)
• Autographed Jason baseball card (Jason)
• DruidCraft tarot deck (Stephanie)
• Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant (Stephanie)
• Metallic necklace (Stephanie)
• Color-it-yourself tarot deck (Stephanie)
• Zen: the Perfect Companion by Seung Sahn (Stephanie)
• DK Eyewitness Film (Trish)
• Merchant-Ivory's The Bostonians (Shari)

I'm Glad I Was Asked: Memorial Weekend Post #1

During the summer session, I've switched to four day work weeks and get Saturday through Monday off. Since I was not working on Memorial Day, I got Tuesday off and had a nice four day weekend.

Friday evening, I went to my parents' house and spent Saturday with them. The official plan was to go through the boxes I have stored there, but I decided to have fun instead. Jenna and I watched several movies, and I did a bit of reading. Dad and Joel attended the Byron Nelson golf tournament in Irving, Texas. Mom worked on a quilt for my cousin. It was such an enjoyable visit.

Sunday morning, I left my parents' and went to stay with the Stephanie's family. (For a detailed breakdown of the weekend's events, read Stephanie's stellar post here.) In addition to Stephanie and her parents, Shari and her family and Jason spent the weekend having fun and hangin' out, yo. We played games, watched movies, ate excellent food, drank mixed drinks, beer, and wine (not all together, mind you).

Stephanie, Jason, and I went to scope out the sale at Hastings which culminated in me buying too much and coasting into line minutes before the store closed. When the store is about to close, there is a soothing woman's voice that asks you to make your final selections and please proceed to the checkout line where you will be served with a smile. The promise of a smile is so prominent that I imagine not making your final selections and proceeding to the checkout line will result in being served with a scowl and/or snarl. Thankfully, our cashier was terribly nice.

I also watched a Redbox being used for the first time. Does anyone rent from Blockbuster anymore? If so, why? It was such an easy process and so cheap! We had a code to get a movie for free, but had we not, it would have only been $1.00! I'm genuinely excited about this. One of the reasons that I acquire so may DVDs is that renting is so expensive. This gives me another option to see a newer film without finding space on my shelves for it.

Over the weekend, I learned that I sporadically suck at games. Over the course of a couple days, I lost Monopoly (new with credit cards and an earnest worldview), Monopoly Deal (a fun card game), The Friends Trivia Game, Television SceneIt!, MarioKart, and croquet. I warned Stephanie that next time I visit, I'm going to bring something that I can win. (This may mean playing chess with her kid nephews.)

Unfortunately, there is always a drawback to so much time off. It was incredibly hard to go back to work, especially ten hour work days.

News on the School Front

Jason graduated this weekend, and the ceremony included bagpipes. Afterward, we all went to eat Mexican food and then over to his condo for cake and conversation. The guests slowly dwindled until only Jason, Stephanie, and I were left.

Over the weekend, we went shopping and I bought too many movies. Hastings is having a sale on their used films, and I was able to get several of the awards season films from last year, including Milk, Rachel Getting Married, The Reader, and Doubt. Unfortunately, Frost/Nixon is too new for them to have used copies. I also picked up The Black Swan and A Letter for Three Wives, two films from the Fox Studio Classics collection.

Stephanie and I watched a couple more episodes of Buffy and an episode of Avatar. We all watched License to Kill which pits Timothy Dalton as James Bond against a suave drug lord who operates under the cover of a research facility, puppet President, international bank, decadent casino, and religious cult. Sufficed to say, everyone is pretty busy. At one point there were ninjas.

Stephanie gave me another tarot reading which went really differently than the first. I still didn't feel comfortable asking a question so it was open. Though I did get the Death card again (this time in the Hopes and Fears position), I didn't freak out and stayed generally calm and collected. The cards that she used were very pretty, and I'm contemplating borrowing some of her books and learning more about tarot. It's fascinating.

After the days of merriment, I returned home and opened my mail. Happily, I received my letter of acceptance from the English department so I'm officially going to graduate school in the Fall. In an unforeseen twist, they offered me a graduate teaching assistantship which I didn't expect at all since I missed the deadline posted on their website. This would require me to teach to first-year composition courses per semester in exchange for a 6 credit hour tuition waiver and a stipend of approximately $12,000 per school year. I'm extremely excited about this opportunity and can't wait to get enrolled and started.

Scones Are Really Easy to Make

I spent an extended weekend in Texas with Stephanie which was a lot of fun and more than made up for the day of swine flu jokes I endured. The trip down was relatively uneventful. On the way to her house, I stopped by Jason's condo to pick up things to deliver. The only other excitement stemmed from a particularly bad accident involving two semi-trucks which held up traffic for half an hour. Once I arrived, we had four days of merriment. We watched movies, talked about feelings, fell into Lifetime original movie territory, quickly retreated, and baked scones.

Stephanie also read my tarot with her new set of cards. I had asked her to do this since it's a subject that I've been mildly interested in for a long time. (Tarot is one of those things regularly featured on mystery shows such as Murder, She Wrote which I watched religiously for years.) Before we started, she explained that the process was not meant to be mystical or seen as an exercise in predicting the future. I expected to enjoy the reading but was surprised at how active I got in the process. The reading ended up taking roughly four hours, and several times I had strong reactions to the cards. Had I not actually shuffled and cut the deck I would have sworn that Stephanie had stacked it. The cards had very interesting things to say, and Stephanie and I also found quite a few things to say. It was nice to have such a structured forum in which to examine my life. (I didn't ask a question at the beginning since I felt too inexperienced.) Though the question of "how" could be troubling, it does not seem inconceivable to me that the cards and people are connected through the universe and thus ordered on some level. Perhaps my excessive Romanticism and pseudo-Existentialism is showing.

During all this scone-baking and card-reading, we watched quite a few movies including The Band's Visit, an Israeli film about the travails of a police band traveling to a gig from Egypt, The Taste of Others, a charming French film about the events and people surrounding one man's personal journey from being a boring office drone to a person interested in art and love, The Nines, a series of interlocking vignettes about a man who doesn't understand who or what he is and two women who are trying to help him, and Look Both Ways, an Australian film about death and the ways it effects us. We also watched filmed stage productions of Company and Sunday at the Park with George which I checked out from the library.

On the way home, I stopped by Mom and Dad's house. They showed me the new quilts including a beautiful one for me. Dad showed off his new golf club which is one of the most interesting clubs I've ever seen. I'm so glad that he enjoys it.

Weekend Splurges and Television Watchage

I'm not feeling well today. I woke up with a slight sore throat and a mild earache; other symptoms of a building cold have manifested themselves. Throughout the day, I've had cold and hot spells, nausea, dizziness, and a small headache. I'm hoping that a hot shower and a light, healthy dinner will be enough to counter it. I may call in sick tomorrow if I don't feel better.

I spent the weekend with Jason and Stephanie. Friday evening, we spent driving to various Blockbuster stores to take advantage of the 1.99-3.99 sale they were having. They were clearing out a lot of there foreign film inventory so we all got some good deals on interesting stuff. I bought my first Kino film: Alila which is an Israeli film described as "Altmanesque" on the back. How could I resist?

Stephanie and I watched The Curse of the Golden Flower and The Seagull's Laughter. The latter is an Icelandic film that Stephanie bought at one of the Blockbusters. We observed Jason's cat, Bullet. We played Blokus and MarioKart. I cooked a cottage pie Saturday. Stephanie spent a long time attempting to open a bottle of wine without a corkscrew and may have sustained ligament damage. We had a generally good time. I bought far too many movies. However, the purchases weren't simply a way to cope with depression or not deal with things so my movie mania has become less a crutch.

The reason I say I bought too many is primarily because I have so many that I haven't watched. I would say how many, but frankly, it's a little embarrassing. Stores keep having sales, and people keep making interesting looking film. My best recent purchase was Warner Bros. Classic Comedies Collection which assembles six great comedies from the 30s and 40s. So far I've only watched Bringing Up Baby which was fantastic.

Yesterday evening, I watched one of the films I'd purchased after returning home. It was The Spiderwick Chronicles and probably the most mainstream thing I purchased. Though it definitely stripped away a lot of the darker material from the book, it still maintained a surprising darkness. Freddie Highmore played twins which isn't something that I've seen done recently. The most recent film I can think of is the Parent Trap remake. The film also starred Mary-Louise Parker and Joan Plowright, two actresses that I admire. (One of the most amazing performances I've seen is Joan as a gentile guardian in Tea with Mussolini; she manages not to be buried by the much more flamboyant performances of Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, and Cher.) I was happy to find out that Holly Black, author of The Spiderwick Chronicles, is writing a second string of children's novellas.

I also watched the second episode of Castle and the pilot of Better Off Ted which was really funny in a droll way and probably won't make it. (Of course, I say this while acknowledging that I know nothing about television programming. I liked Kitchen Confidential for heaven's sake.) Castle is really engaging despite the cop show setup. I don't really like cop shows, but this one feels like an updating of Murder, She Wrote with it's quirky premise. Nana and I are watching the third episode this evening after I bring her up to speed. I can't imagine her not liking it so I hope it will distract from the absence of season two of Ugly Betty.