Butterfly House

T and I were out running errands on Sunday, and decided to swing by the Butterfly House, which I hadn't been to in years and years.

 

The Butterfly House is a satellite of the Missouri Botanical Garden (as is Shaw Nature Reserve, which itself I haven't been to since L came to town a couple years ago).  Anyway, the Butterfly House is beautiful (if somewhat warm), and there are butterflies all over the place!  Really, I was afraid I might step on one.

There's also a little outdoor garden, as well as some bugs (including roaches - ick!) in indoor terrariums (terraria?).  A nice outing on a lovely morning!

The garden

 Surrounded by butterflies...

 ...and sometimes they'll even come talk to you.

 The lovely habitat

Caterpillars are "the teenagers of the insect world," due to their voracious appetites.

The Butterflies in the Mist shot

Hurricane Irene? Perhaps not.

For those of you who don't know, sister E lives in North Carolina.  Our recent exchange:

E: Ahoy!
Me: What up yo?  Are you drowned?
E: No.  It was a pretty disappointing showing here.
Me: Ha! "I was disappointed by the noticeable lack of hurricane."
E: It's true.  We even had a party in its honor, to no avail.

Another sign with extra emphasis

Remember when I posted the "No Trucks" sign?

Here's another humorous (although sad) one - which unfortunately I didn't see myself.  It was on the KWMU website:

What I Watched -- Blue Valentine

Blue Valentine is another one of the many movies that got Oscar buzz  last year which I never got around to seeing.  It stars Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling as Cindy and Dean, a working-class couple stuck in their crumbling relationship.  There's an odd disconnect between them; it's as though Dean sees the marriage changing but doesn't want it to, and Cindy thinks it's not changing but needs it to.  You see all that too, as well as flashbacks to the beginning of their clumsy but loving relationship

A first for me here, I'm going to quote another review (from the San Francisco Chronicle), because I think it sums up my feelings so well after having finished the film, which is both crystal clear and totally confusing: "[It] shows a woman who has fallen out of love with her husband, even though he is a loving man, and even though he is worthy of love. At the same time, we see why she would fall out of love with him - and why, if we were her, we wouldn't want to be married to him, either."  You sort of hate her for how she is, but you completely understand it as well.

The movie was originally rated NC-17 by the MPAA, but they changed the rating to R when the filmmakers appealed.  You can read the discussion about the ratings yourself; there are a number of sex scenes and of course some nudity to go along with them, but I'd imagine most of the controversy was about a scene which raises the issue of the complicated emotions men and women - even married ones - have about sex, and how those play out.

Mostly, this movie is just sad.  It's sad to look back on their relationship and see Cindy and Dean as the completely different people they were when they met.  They still have flashes of their old selves, but life, jobs, and a daughter have gotten in the way.  And it's sad now, to see the decay that remains.

Bottom line: this movie is seriously depressing, and especially depressing in its normalcy.  There is nothing spectacular about either of these characters; you can imagine this happening every day, in every small town in the country.  It's a real downer.  Fabulous acting, though.

52 Weeks of Dresses -- Week 14

Otherwise titled: St. Louis Gast Haus

I learned of the existence of St. Louis Gast Haus when I was investigating dinner options to go with K's Austrian/German themed birthday party.  An opportunity to go presented itself when a group that I'm part of arranged a dinner there on Monday night.

T and I went, and we met some strangers.  And it was an experience.  That's all I'm going to say about that.

As far as the food goes, it was good, but nothing particularly stood out as being awesome.  I got meat loaf with mashed potatoes and vegetables (a fairly neutral choice, I know).  Good, but nothing I couldn't make at home.  T got the three sausage plate (drie wurste teller); I don't do sausage, so I couldn't have made that one.  He was kind enough to share, and we independently came to the conclusion that two of the sausages were quite good, while the third was pretty bland.

Next time I want to have some food from the cold and dreary climes of the world, I'll hit up The Scottish Arms.

What I Watched -- Black Swan

As with most of you I'm sure, I'd heard lots about Black Swan before I saw it, most of it laudatory.  There were a few critical reviews, as well, of course, but mostly good.  Although for my part, the last awards season made me loathe Natalie Portman's annoying self in a way I never thought I would after her wonderful turns in Beautiful Girls and Garden State.  Turns out, I can.

The plot: Nina (Portman) is a ballerina who's just scored the lead role Swan Lake at Lincoln Center.  She's perfect as the innocent white swan, but has to discover her inner demon in order to perform the twin role of the black swan.  Helping her along her road to discovery are Lily (Mila Kunis), the easygoing ballerina from San Francisco with a wild side; Nina's mother (Barbara Hershey), a former ballerina who gave up her career to have Nina, and with whom Nina has a very uncomfortable relationship; and Thomas (Vincent Cassel), the director of the company whose adoration of his ballerinas is a little creepy.  And let's not forget Nina's own crazy, mixed-up, paranoid mind.  It's that last one that does most of the work.  Was what she just saw really real?  Did she imagine it?  Did she dream it?

And the funny thing is that starts to work on you eventually, too, or at least it did on me.  There were ballet scenes where I found myself wondering: was that part of the dance?  Is that just Nina going crazy?  Interesting to watch a movie when you don't know what's going on.  What's more, mirrors are everywhere in this movie.  There's always the question of whether what you're seeing is the literal reflection - sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.  But there's also the figurative issue, you know how it goes: reflections of various parts of your self, the dark side looking back at you, yadda, yadda, yadda.

After my back-stage tour of the Peabody Opera House, it was really interesting the sets in this movie.  I always had this idea that dressing and prep rooms for the principals in various shows would be lovely and glamorous.  Actually, they're usually kind of shabby, compared to what I had in mind.  Cement block walls, bare (but bright) light bulbs, cramped.  I guess it was surprising to see that's (more or less) true at Lincoln Center just like everywhere else.

Mila Kunis is both gorgeous and goofily likable as Lily.  Winona Ryder has an appropriately crazy part as the former lead ballerina who has been replaced by Nina. 

Bottom line: good flick.  It's both predictable (the ever-increasing craziness) and unpredictable (the details of how that plays out). Worth watching and being perplexed and transfixed by once, but I probably won't watch it again.

Our new customers

It's possible that I've commented on and/or complained about my work in retail before (here, here, here, and here).  But I have to say this: due to changes in the market, we've been taking on a whole slew of new customers lately, and they are a new caliber of bad.  The store is always a mess, they come in, sit in the cafe, leave huge piles of books and magazines behind them, and rarely buy anything.  (Obviously, there are exceptions to the rule.)

On the plus side, I suppose the fact that they're making a mess of our store means job security for me, as long as at least a few of them buy a book here and there.  But the problem now is that I'm not really sure I want to work there any more!  I love being around books and lots of my co-workers, but I'm a bookseller, not a babysitter.

Roller Derby

I'm now a roller derby pro!

Okay, that's not actually true.  But I've been to two matches.  My first one was in Oakland in February, and I went again a month ago with T and R to see the Arch Rival Roller Girls play the Grand Raggidy All Stars.  R's wife plays for the Roller Girls, which made it even more fun than watching a bunch of random people to whom I had no connection.

 I feel the need...

...the need for speed.

And then I fall down.

 

R, being a good and supportive husband.

I've (clearly) been meaning to write this post for a while, but what spurred me was a round at trivia last night which was all about roller derby!  The losing trivia team each week gets to pick a topic for one round in the next week's trivia game, and (not surprisingly) one of the guys on this team plays for the Gatekeepers, a local team.

What I'm Reading Now -- Mockingjay

This third book in The Hunger Games trilogy is why I'm hoping things will pick up a bit.

The second book, Catching Fire, from what I can tell so far, was the eye of the storm.  In Mockingjay, it appears that the violence and bloodshed (hooray for kids' books, right?) are going to come roaring back as the rebellion in Panem reaches full swing.

Let's not forget the love triangle!  The question all the teenagers want answered (okay, and me too): will Katniss choose Gale (her longtime childhood pal, confidante, and hunting buddy) or Peeta (her fellow Tribute, and the Capitol's choice for her)?  I'll soon find out!

Catching Fire -- Take 2

As with most of my posts for the last month or so, this one is way overdue.  I actually finished this when I was in Seattle - I sat in a chair in Elliott Bay Books and finished the last two chapters!

Catching Fire continues the saga of Katniss Everdeen, our hero from The Hunger Games.  And, while a hero she may be, the mantle doesn't fit well on her shoulders.  She's awkward and angry and frustrated by the whole experience, with good reason.

In this installment, Katniss begins to understand the impact her actions during the Hunger Games have had on the people of Panem; everything is hush-hush, but she pieces together clues to figure out which districts are starting to rebel against the Capitol.  Without realizing what she was doing, Katniss made herself the symbol of the rebellion.

I didn't like Catching Fire quite as much as The Hunger Games.  It seemed a bit slower and more formulaic.  But I'm hoping that things will pick up again!