Sunday, August 20, 2006

Howdy From WI

We're on a whirlwind trip to WI. I realised last Wednesday that my sister's birthday was going to be on Saturday. And it was the big four-oh. So rapid arrangements were made, and Friday afternoon we drove out here to WI to surprise her. My mom was going to pick my sis up and take her to lunch, so we told my mom that we'd pick her up instead. Was she ever surprised, LOL! That was fun. :-) We went to an Indian buffet. Mmmmmm! Currygasm.

So here we are, doing the WI thing for a week or so. Last night, my sis's boyfriend threw a big barbecue for her at his house. He grilled yummy kabobs with Ellie's delicious marinade (squeeze 6 limes, add a can of coconut milk, keep adding garlic paste and ginger paste until the marinade itself is a paste, and spread it on the meat.) There was a lovely fire (I know, Egan, I know) in the fire - um - holder thinggy for roasting marshies, etc. Both
Navan and a portion of The Getaway Drivers were there, so we sat around the fire singing and listening to all the musicians make great music. Excellent private concert. :-) Ellie is a luthier, so the fuel was partly fueled by guitar and mandolin bits - mostly leftovers, outside cutout pieces, etc.

GuTTer MuNKi started things off with a lovely political discussion, so I pretty much hid in the corner of the yard until that was over with. It took a long time. A long, long time. Obviously I need to enforce some kind of "no politics" rule with him. I can't take him anywhere. Although truth be told, he and Ellie had a lot of fun with the debate. I, on the other hand, am a very non-confrontational person. You may have whatever beliefs you like, I will have mine, and we'll all be happy. Or at least I will. If you are a miserable sort of person, that's your problem, not mine. Arguing about the rightness and wrongness of our conflicting beliefs makes absolutely no difference to the spinning of the world, so who cares? OTOH, I do find it interesting to have a political discussion now and then when everyone has had at least 2 glasses of wine and is feeling mellow, and is capable of discussing things without caring whether or not everyone's beliefs are perfectly in synch.

Today SIL and I took our Mongol Horde to a petting farm where I was thoroughly sampled by baby goats (bangles, hair, necklace, sandals, ankle bracelet, shirt) but mostly hung out with the kittens. They were excuciatingly cute, and
GuTTer MuNKi actually believed me for a couple of very horrified moments when I told him that I'd brought back a new kitten. I was seriously tempted to bring one back for the in-laws, whose "cat" is one of the most evil creatures I've ever had the misfortune to meet. I don't know what it really is. It has the shoulders of an ox, the body of a pig, the legs and tail of a stick drawing, and the temperament of an extremely pissed off electric eel.

We hit one of our favourite used bookstores yesterday and scored a bunch of good stuff, including one of the Outlander books. We'll be hitting the very best one - Frugal Muse -sometime before we go home. I brought a big bin of books to trade in with the dual intention of offsetting the cost a bit and making some shelf space for new books. But I'm really eyeballing some of IKEA's bookshelves.

Speaking of IKEA, I finally saw Fight Club thanks to SIL. What a very strange film. Interesting, if a bit slow paced in places, but strange. The lack of continuity at the end with the whole massive head wound thing kind of yanked me out of the story. We started watching Boondock Saints again with SIL last night, but SIL and I were both losing the battle with the Sandman, due to our late night antics of the preceeding twenty-some hours. Every time I see that film, I appreciate it even more. It's on my Top 5 List. Maybe Top 3. Check it out. :-)

14 comments:

muthacomputer said...

The last shot in Fight Club is the same shot of Leia and Luke from the end of The Empire Strikes Back. Apparently David Fincher is a huge fan of Star Wars and even worked on the effects on Jedi (according to IMDB)!

C said...

Oh, that's funny! I thought the posing was a little odd, but that never occurred to me. I'll have to check it out again. I saw that there were some spliced-in shots early on (before the whole thing about how whatsisface splices porn shots into family movies) so I want to go back and see what they are, too. Oh yeah, and there's a porn one at the end I think.

Trundling Grunt said...

Currygasm is a wonderful term. I had that today.

Toby said...

Welcome to my wonderful state. Are you in the Madison area? I love curry anything!!!

You need to watch Fight Club at least one more time to fully appericaite it.

ldbug said...

The first part of your post made me hungry! Now I shall blame you till lunch for my growling belly;P

I like to debate too, but I don't like to fight. It's only fun to debate with someone who has almost completely the oposite view of the world, and thinks debating is fun. I talk politics with my best friend all the time, (complete opposites) but it's fun b/c we know we'll never change each other's minds, it's just about educating yourself on other views.

yeah, Fight club needs a couple go-arounds to get it..kinda like Eternal Sunshine

C said...

TG - I love having currygasms. I hope to have more soon. :-)

Toby - thanks. :-) Yep, Madison area. We're hitting the zoo today. We'll be the group with at least 7 little girls, possibly 12 if our friend can make it with his 5. Poor Fishy is the lone boy in this herd. He does extremely well with it though.

Ldbug - yes, it's very fun to debate with someone like that. :-) That's about the only way I enjoy it. And yes, I think both sides take away new info, which is good. But you're right in that no minds are going to be changed.

jlmack said...

You've never seen Fight Club? I liked it, but I figured it out way, way too early and thus missed out on the thrill of the movie.
But boy... do I love me some Edward Norton. He's a whole lot of alright. He used to pose for pictures in English language textbooks in Japan. We sold them at the school I worked at and would laugh ourselves foolish at them.

C said...

LOL, Jai! I love me some Edward Norton, too. He's so cute in that geeky sort of way. I really enjoyed Keeping the Faith. :-) OMG, I wonder if one can view those textbook pics online. . .

egan said...

Cool, thanks for the travel update. I won't bug you about fire since I trust your pyro tendancies. Be safe Candace.

C said...

Safe. OK. I''m sitting here with my SIL getting wasted on REALLy good wines. Mmmm. But yes, safe. Thanks. :-)

Kay Richardson said...

I love fight club. it makes me feel mental.

C said...

Surely it doesn't take Fight Club to make you feel mental, dear Kay. ;-)

Welcome back to the Internet! Does this mean you've posted again? Woo hoo!!

tshsmom said...

Go ahead, start a fire. There's nothing better than wine by the fire!

C said...

Woo hoo! We may be doing it again tonight. We're going to go hang out there at any rate. I guess my sis and Bob ended up sitting around the fire en deshabille after everyone left, LOL!