Apparently Serenity will be playing this weekend at the superscreen in Hastings. Neat! Then it comes out just before xmas so W00t. And according to Mike they’re thinking about doing some straight to DVD stuff. Not sure how that would go. Doesn’t straight to DVD equal crap? Wonder if Whedon will be involved.

I don’t really know what to blog about tonight. I just felt the need to get past my last post. Was a bit of a downer. It was just surprising to me. It’s been over four years since Mom died and you know, time passes, should get easier and it does. But apparently the smallest things can bring it all rushing back and knock you over. All the man said on the show – the thing that hurt him the most about losing his wife – was that she died alone. That sent me over the edge for a bit.

It was also weird today because Jack was over by my desk and he noticed my favourite sketch Mom did of Shannon looking thoroughly pissed off at having to get out of the pool. He asked about it and I got to brag on Mom a little because I think she was a wonderful artist. We got to talking a little and I mentioned she worked for the paper, on the copy desk no less. He joked about wanting to know if she wanted her job back since they’re down a couple people and I had to cringe and tell him that she died – cringing not because he made a faux pas because he didn’t. It was just one of those moments where you know you have to say, “Well she passed away” and the moment becomes awkward etc. I felt bad for putting Jack in that position.

Anyway it was weird that just last night I was really missing Mom and today I talked about her with someone. Maybe it’s not that weird. I dunno.

So now it’s past 10 o’clock and I’m not all that tired. I’m a little bored though. Blogspot seems to be down right now so I can’t peruse my usual stops and nothing else is appealing. I watched “8mm” earlier. Hadn’t seen it in a while. Good movie but Cage was sort of wooden through most of it. Maybe it’s just the way he speaks – there’s something about it that’s annoying. Joaq was great though. Love him with the blue hair working in a porn barn.

Actually – and Gary and Jo you may want to turn away here – but the “adult” store Joaq worked at was eerily similar to one in Monterey. Both had the long black hallway with quarter booths on one side and a small cinema on the other so you walk in and it’s like grunts and moans in stereo. Both have exits that come out in a back alley parking area… You’re asking how I know this 🙂 No I’m not a regular customer of such purveyors of perversions. But when you’re 18, and live in a town like Monterey where it caters to either the rich or the over 21s, there’s not much else to do. And Meechie, my best friend, actually *was* a frequent visitor at the bookstore. Occasionally he’d drag me along.

And believe me I’d go in and try to act like it didn’t phase me but jeez, the things they have in places like that would curl your hair. And I did often feel the need for a shower upon exiting through said dark hallway of porn. But yeah, so the porn shop in the movie reminded me of the bookstore in old Monterey 🙂

All righty I’m feeling sleepy now so off I go.

I stopped watching Extreme Home Makeover earlier this year. Turned it on tonight because I’m sick of my movies atm and there’s nothing else on. And then I remembered why I stopped watching the show: it’s emotionally draining. I’m an emotional wuss to begin with but when the first five minutes of a TV show have you sobbing uncontrollably maybe it’s time to pop in a movie – any movie. Jeesh.

To be fair this one was about a father and his three girls, and the young mother died of a pulmonary embolism and the father found her dead in their bedroom, alone, and the oldest child (6 years old) kept crying and ugh, I was a goner. My mom’s death hit me hard just then. Pulmonary embolism. Dying alone. And I’m a goner again.

So now I’m watching something else.

So I’m now a member of Netflix (much love and thanks to Gary – you couldn’t have chosen a more perfect xmas pressie for me 🙂 ) and I’ve been playing with it all weekend.

Then I discovered they allow you to have RSS feeds of your Netflix queue (you create a queue of movies you want them to send you. They send the first three, then when you return those, you get the next three in your queue. It’s pretty neat) so being the geek that I am, I added my queue to the site. Why? Because I can 🙂 I stuck it on ukmelia.com, the movie page and this one.

Shan wants her queue on her site aswell so that’s my next project on this oh so very dull Sunday.

Stupid snow.

We made it as far as the new I80 exit before I drove right off the curve and into a ditch.

Today’s 4-6 inches came down in gorgeous, fluffy flakes. The kind of snow that’s beautiful to watch and if you go out in it, it muffles any sound and produces an eery quiet. Shan and I wwoke up early and did the morning things to get ready and I decided we’d try to go to Lincoln anyway on the chance that once we got on the interstate it wouldn’t be as hard to see.

Well that was stupid of me. Nothing had been plowed yet and since it’s early morning on a weekend, there weren’t many cars out to create paths and dirty up the snow so that you could at least manage to guess where the road actually was. And when I hit the big curve I thought I was following the road marker poles just fine as I took the corner. But because visibility was crap, I misjudged where they were and just casually drove off the road and got us stuck in a ditch.

Just great.

So I try to rock the car our and pretty much end up sliding further down the hill. It’s too steep to even think about getting my car up the hill without a tow. The thought of calling a tow and paying for that makes my skin crawl. Shannon offers to push the car but I’m reluctant because it’s dangerous and I don’t want her to get hurt. Suddenly out of nowhere this huge, lovely, gorgeous man trudges up and says to try backing up and he’ll push. We give it a go, but it’s useless. It’s just too steep.

Then another man with a truck stops. He’s tattooed and has earrings in both ears, but he’s got a tow cable and fuck me if those two strangers didn’t work together as a cohesive unit to drag my sorry ass out of that ditch. They had to stop 3 times to lift the cable over those damn marker poles but eventually we were free, and as quick as you please they gathered up their cable and headed back to their respective cars before I could get names or thank them properly. If I could write a letter to the editor, I’d thank those two guys who stopped to help a stupid chick who thought she’d make it to Lincoln in her little black car during a heavy snow.

Needless to say, I made it onto the interstate and took the next exit back home. I’m disappointed we couldn’t go see Jo and Hannah and Tom but they invited us for next weekend so that’s cool. It better not fecking snow. Not even mid-December yet and I’m tired of it already.

Sorry if I got the B-52s song stuck in your head with the title there 🙂

We’re off to Lincoln tomorrow to make candy with Aunt Jo 🙂 Should be fun. I’ve never made chocolate covered cherry mice before.

And the reason we get to go hang out with Jo and family is because the repairs for my car were freeeeeeeeeeee. Ahhhh it was such a lovely moment when the service dude said that the coughcough spluttering was because of some part that had been recalled by the company. So they pick up the cost. W00t! And now my baby purrs like a kitten.

Now I just need to clean her out. I can’t figure out how she accumulates so much crap. Let’s see… Shannon left a pair of pumps on the floor of the passenger side that don’t fit her. I keep telling her to chuck them but she hasn’t gotten around to it. I’ve got my Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy floating around the backseat along with a crushed box of kleenex, some IndyKnow concert flyers I couldn’t hand out because one of the bands on it dropped out last minute, my London Underground map brolly, a scarf, a couple of empty water bottles I keep meaning to throw out, Shannon’s bike repair kit… ugh too much crap.

Later that evening…

My cat is bouncy. I just spent the past ten minutes on a laughing jag – you know, the kind of laughing where tears stream down your face and in my case, my voice rises about 8 octaves. My sides hurt but man it’s worth it.

Shannon got up from the computer chair which normally is Spooky’s roost and so when she saw it was vacant she headed straight for it. Well Shan was only going to be up for a few minutes, so she decided to chuck the cat onto the couch. I was leaning over the back of it at the time. Well Spooky didn’t ant anything to do with that couch and in a trampoline move worthy of a gymnast, she bounced once and fell perfectly between the couch and the coffeetable. Doesn’t sound as funny when I write it out, but there’s only about 4 inches of space between the couch and the coffeetable and for her to bounce off the couch and fall in that space without flailing and whapping her head on either stationary object is quite a feat 🙂

Anyway, laughing jag over. Nearly time for Sex and the City then bed.

Nighty.

We’re having the first blizzard of the season today. GI schools actually closed which is a rarity so Shan’s home. I would dearly have loved to stay home aswell but duty called. I don’t quite live far enough away to make a case for staying home. 🙂

So I get in the shower and get ready. Unfortunately, it was a good hair day. I say unfortunately because it’s windy as hell outside and any shiny, soft ‘do I have will blow into a frightful tangle the second I step outside. So I bundle up and begin the trek out to the car through blinding, drifting snow and the first problem of the day is my door is frozen shut. I literally can’t open the damn thing.

I give it a few hip-checks and using both hands I finally wrench it open. I pile my laptop and purse in the back and climb in to start the car. I shut the door – rather I pulled the door shut only to have it bounce back. The latch is frozen in place and won’t catch. So now the fecking door won’t close.

Sighing I get out and decide to worry about that later and I start scraping windows. Soon I notice my car is making funny noises. It’s spluttering oddly. It’s not idling quietly like it usually does. It sounds like it has a cold actually. After I get the snow and ice scraped I get back in, holding the door shut and the car gasps and dies.

Frowning, I turn the car back on where it begins to idle funny again. After a few seconds it makes a loud pop and dies. Almost immediately my car fills with a weird smell, like something burning that shouldn’t be.

That can’t be good. Now it’s time to make a decision. Even though I live only a couple miles from work, the thought of the car spluttering and dying on the way during this windy blizzard is not appealing. I don’t know what’s wrong with the car and it’s not something I can go get fixed because just about everything is shut down today. So I call poor Tonya, whom I know is intrepid and made it to work just fine, as I try once again to start my car. Her voicemail is treated to the sounds of the car coughing and conking out as well as a few choice curses from me.

After I hang up, I get out and realize that my damn door still won’t shut. So I dig around and find a metal.. thing shaped like a hand – I don’t really know what it’s for, but it’s been in my car for eons and the fingers of it are small enough to jimmy the door latch. So I spend about 10 minutes fighting with the latch until I get it to loosen up and the door close.

I gather my things and slowly head back upstairs, utterly defeated, disheveled and worried about missing work when I know others made it in. I just wasn’t sure my car would make it up there because I’m not exactly sure what the hell is wrong with it.

Yesterday I took Shan and her friend to the mall so they could see Corpse Bride and on the way home afterwards there were a number of huge puddles I had to drive through because of all the rain we got. When we dropped off her friend the car did some spluttering and actually died then as well. I’m wondering if a bunch of water got into it, and then with the temp drop, froze. I’m hoping it will just clear up when this weather ends and the temps rise. Otherwise I think I’m fucked.

God I love finding good movies cheap. I was poking around Hastings today while the kidlet and a friend were off seeing Corpse Bride and found ‘El Crimen del Padre Amaro’ for a buck fifty. Can’t beat that. I’d just rented that this weekend actually. It’s a good film. Also found the director’s cut of Donnie Darko on sale for a tenner. Been meaning to pick that up for ages now.

So after finding those I wandered around the store for a bit. Found Proulx’s ‘Brokeback Mountain’ and ended up curling up in a corner with it sipping an orange creme dream. Picked through the CDs a little… then I had to scurry over to Shopko and buy socks. Exciting 🙂

Anyway, my toes are frozen, my head is aching and my bed is looking warm and toasty.