What I Watched -- Begin Again

Begin Again is bait for me.  I love Mark Ruffalo, and his lovable loser characters.  I like Kiera Knightly.  I like movies about music, mostly because I know nothing about music, but I enjoy listening to it.  And I love New York.

Objectively, the movie was okay.  Not stellar, but it was cute.  Kiera plays Gretta, a girlfriend who comes to New York with her musician boyfriend.  All is well and good for five minutes, until the boyfriend decides that he's found someone new and poor Gretta is left to express her regrets through her music - which it turns out she writes!  She's discovered by Dan, an out-of-favor music executive who needs to discover some hot new talent in order to save his career.

Their relationship drives the plot of the movie, but the music is its soul.  That's what I like about it.  Even if it's not music written for the movie, it still drives the movie -- like the scene where Gretta and Dan walk through the city, each listening to one earbud.  They're not talking, there's no action.  It's just music and the city and Kiera and Mark.

Bottom line: cute and musical and a bit goofy.

Happy Memorial Day!

The Red Notebook -- Take 2

The Red Notebook is a quick, easy read, but it is as charming and quaint as one could hope for a French novella.  It is the book version of sitting on the sidewalk outside a Parisian cafe and enjoying a great cup of coffee on a warm spring day.

The story is just as I suspected: the finder of a lost purse uses its limited contents to try to track down its owner.  He is bewitched by her and all her private thoughts recorded in the titular red notebook.

Though somewhat formulaic, I found this book was simply a pleasure to read.  I don't know if credit for that goes to the author or translator -- probably both -- but someone nailed it.

What I Watched -- Rising from Ashes

Rising from Ashes was a Netflix find, inspired by a blurb in Bicycle magazine about biking movies.  Rising from Ashes profiles the coach and riders who form the Rwandan cycling team after the genocide. 

It's an interesting story, and a sad one.  Also inspiring, but not goose-bump-inspiring.  It's just about some guys who get on bikes, have talent, and have a lot of terrible stuff in their past.

Bottom line: if you're super into biking, it's probably worth the time.  If not, skip it in favor of Penguins.

Happy Mother's Day!

Goals -- Progress Update

The lack of updates is for the obvious reason: I haven't made much progress lately.  Nevertheless, here's the status:

Garden: I have a few little things growing, but nothing planted in the garden yet.  I decided to wait until after I get back from my trip before I plant things.  So in the meantime, I have a couple of little flower pots on the front porch, I'm tending to some mint I found in the yard, which is trying to establish roots in a coffee mug right now, and I'm just getting some new herbs started.

Gym: Since the weather has warmed, I've shifted (pun intended) to biking outside, which puts working on the gym on the back burner a bit.  There are some good ideas being thrown around, but nothing concrete yet.  I think we've decided on the flooring material, the lighting, and have at least an idea of placement.  But it's all fluid until the basement design is finalized.

Craft Table: Similar to the gym, I have some ideas, but nothing concrete.  I'm developing the list of what I need space and storage for, but I have the most amazing notions cabinet ever, so I'm in pretty good space as far as storage goes.  The notions cabinet is also a work in progress, though, and I'll report on that as I start developing it a bit more.  It's an old dresser, with drawers on one side and a tall open space on the other which used to have shelves in it.  I can either put the shelves back in, or leave it open for whole bolts of cloth or the like.  But the drawers will provide plenty of storage for buttons, thread, tools, etc.

Recipes: I got my typewriter back from the shop and started typing up a few recipes, but the carriage still wasn't moving quite right, especially when I pressed the space bar.  So it went back to the shop for a day -- apparently it needed a different size rubber bumper.  It's back, but I haven't started using it yet.

Pictures: Still nothing.

What I'm Reading Now -- The Red Notebook

E's latest contribution to the postal book club is The Red Notebook, a compact little novel translated from French.  As with so many books that are translated from French, it has an elegant feel to it.  The cover is nice, the styling is nice.  (Why is that always the case?)

So far as I can tell, being only a few pages in, it's the story of a woman who gets mugged on her way home one night and has her handbag stolen.  A passer-by finds it the next morning, but it is devoid of her wallet and phone, so he is left to try to puzzle out who she is by the remaining contents, which include the titular red notebook.

So far, so good!

Best Snack Ever

S and I stopped at the Smoke House yesterday for some sandwiches, chocolate milk, and other assorted goodies.  Today, I have discovered the best snack ever: Smoke House Market pub chips dipped in Nutella.  The pub chips are super crunchy, super salty, and super delicious.  (I got some of their garlic dip to go with them, which is pretty good in its own right.)  But you dip that salty crunchy goodness into a little dish of Nutella, and you're in snack heaven!