Adult-beverage time!
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Ten minutes. 15 if I shave too.
Answering:
How long do you take in the shower?
Submitted by Strive2Be.
Saw WALL·E tonight.
GREAT movie. Funny, poignant, amazing animation—the realism at times was utterly striking, in fact the only times I really knew it was an animated film were when the humans of the future were involved.
Digital projection so the image was bright and crisp and the sound bone-shattering at times.
Pixar’s done it again. Definitely not a kids’ movie, which I knew from the trailers—sure they showed many of the funny moments, and yes it’s rated G. Not all G-rated movies are kids’ shows, however, nor are all R-rated movies really only suitable for people 17 and over. I think kids would do fine with this film, but it’s by no means directed at them the way Finding Nemo and Cars and other Pixar shows have been.
And I found it utterly appropriate that the entire movie-going experience involved absolutely no human interaction. Parking-garage entry, movie-ticket purchase and pick-up, parking payment and garage exit: All done by machines.
I’m disregarding the automatons who worked at the theater. They seemed machine-like enough with the ticket-taking (“Second door on the right” ::point::) and concessions (“Four seventy-five, please” ::grab::).
And Presto, the short film before the movie, was AMAZING. Funny as hell and fast-paced, the little rabbit had me in stitches a few times... all for want of a carrot.
Thoroughly enjoyable evening.
Returned Sunday evening from five days in Salt Lake City, where I grew up and still have family and close friends.I flew in Wednesday afternoon on DL1170. We left SEA nearly an hour late, which meant other passengers who were catching connecting flights in SLC would barely make it, if they were lucky. The flight was uneventful otherwise, and for the first time in my life I was the last passenger off an airplane as I waited for everyone else to debark according to the flight attendants’ request that passengers not making connecting flights please STAY THE FUCK SEATED so connecting passengers would have a fighting chance.
Not what they said, actually. But they should’ve, because people are generally assholes, and they were on that flight too. Everyone stood as one and I imagine the people right around me, who had 12 minutes from our gate arrival to catch their flight to Philadelphia, probably didn’t make. By my watch, it was 10 minutes before our row even started moving toward exit door.
But I was off the plane and to baggage claim shortly after that, my rolling carry-on waiting for me on the carousel already. Mom picked me up a few minutes later and we went to Red Rock Brewing Company, which over the last few years has become my traditional first-night-in-town dinner destination. Not sure how that came to be, just seemed like we went there a lot on the way home from the airport and now it’s official.
Hot day, but Red Rock’s patio is on the west side of the building, so we took an outdoor table and caught up on family and friends and work and so on over a few beers and dinner. Talked about some of the known plans we had while I was in town, and then it was time to go to the house and crash for the night.
:: • :: • :: • ::
Woke up a bit headachy Thursday, but that passed quickly with a shower and a guzzle or two of water. Our big plans for the day involved the evening’s showing of Saturday’s Voyeur 2008 and, before that, a lovely day of some errands for Mom’s gift shop and, the big daytime event: Mom Buying a New Car.
This was a big thing, because Mom last bought a new car in 1974. When I was 3, and that’s only if she bought the car in late December. Every new-to-her vehicle since has been used or passed from one relative or another. Some of those cars were classics, either in truth or in their own way to us—who can forget the 1964 Mercury station wagon, the Mercedes, the orange Pinto station wagon (1974’s new-car purchase)?
So it was about time, and the car-buying experience was typical in many ways (oily dealership finance goofball, even though Mom wasn’t financing the car through them) and atypical in some others (fastest car-buying experience I ever saw, only 3 hours total). And Mom drove away in a spiffy 2008 Escape, which the oily finance goofball mispronounced in a thoroughly Utah-centric way as “Eckscape”.
That night we saw Salt Lake Acting Company’s Saturday’s Voyeur, their 30-years-strong parody of life and culture in Utah. I hadn’t seen the play in probably 15 years, maybe more, and I laughed for two hours straight. Face hurt, legs cramped up, just a scream.
:: • :: • :: • ::
We attended the Utah Arts Festival on Friday. Beautiful day, sunny and hot, perfect weather for it. I like its location the last few years too, on Library Square and Washington Square at 200 E 400 S in downtown Salt Lake City. They had the usual mix of artist booths, performance stages for music/dance/spoken word/etc., the kids’ art-yard area, the whole shebang. I actually managed to get away from the festival without spending any money on something new for my apartment walls, the first time in many years I’ve done that.
We had dinner at my single all-time favorite steakhouse that night, Fleming’s at The Gateway, before the late show of Jerry Seinfeld’s 2008 stop in Salt Lake City at Abravanel Hall. Took me right back to the first time I saw him perform live in that same venue in the late 1990s, or perhaps in 2000, I forget exactly when. A second night of nearly endless laughter for two hours and my face felt numb.
:: • :: • :: • ::
Saturday was Errand Day. PetSmart, Lowe’s, back to the house to unload four bags of dog and cat food and six bags of bark. Then I met my old friend John and his friend Aubrey for lunch at Cafe Trio in Cottonwood. John had to work Saturday night so our time was limited, but we had a great afternoon catching up since I saw him in February and talking about possible travel plans for later this summer.
We spent Saturday night in Park City at Mom’s friends Caroline and Howard’s house. They have a 2-year-old black Lab, Phoebe, whom Charlie adores, so Charlie got his first ride in the Escape and then had a few hours of running around and barking and humping—if you thought the hormones diminished within 6 weeks of a dog’s neutering, I can tell you firsthand, they absolutely do not—and general mayhem as Charlie and Phoebe romped about the yard, to be joined later by Caroline and Howard’s tenants’ dogs in this huge roiling ball of legs and snouts and flying fur and growling and the occasional dog toy popping out the middle only to be chased across the yard again.
Howard was grilling, so we took the beer and the ice cream and stood around sucking on bottles of Squatters’ Hefeweizen or organic amber while the grill grilled and the dogs romped and Henry, their almost-7-year-old son, scootered about and bounced a super ball at light speed all over creation. Henry also has this water rocket-launcher thing that goes on your garden hose, and you control the water pressure with a launch handle so you can get the rocket to hover if you do it just right. I was ENTHRALLED, I wanted this toy BAD, but of course there were problems. First among them: I don’t have a garden hose at my 4th-floor apartment in Seattle. And it turns out they don’t make this particular toy anymore.
I was born 30 years too early, dammit.
:: • :: • :: • ::
Back to Salt Lake for Sunday’s leisurely brunch at Squatters, another tradition for the last day in town. Sat on the patio and had beer and breakfast food, which has to be the best combination of tastes in the history of the world.
I flew back to Seattle Sunday night on one of the most turbulent flights I can recall taking. Arrived a bit headachy and annoyed but was rescued from SEA by Katharine and Julie Anne on their own way home from the Indigo Girls concert at Woodland Park Zoo, because of course SEA is on their way home from Woodland Park Zoo in Phinney Ridge to Queen Anne (Julie Anne) and Bothell (Katharine).
Yeah, it was a bit odd. But it worked out well.
And it turned out the turbulence was largely due to the summer thunderstorms brewing over the area south and southeast of Seattle. I was treated to quite a light show from my 4th-floor balcony as I dreamt about water rocket-launcher toys and having a dog of my own and remembered fondly the amazingly good filet mignon and the microbrews I first tasted in a state known for its bass-ackward liquor laws.
:: • :: • :: • ::
It was a damned good trip.
Been a cool summer so far in Seattle, but I’ll be stepping directly into the lovely dry heat in Salt Lake City this weekend.
Reasonably sure these are actually there, because I’m not drinking today
Classic cars (and several hydroplanes, out of view on the right) on display on Seattle’s Pier 66.
Directional challenge at the Washington Brewers Festival.
Kat: How are you today?
Don: I’m good, though I just ate half a sammich before I noticed the bread was penicillin-laden :\
Kat: ewwww
Don: But hey, it’ll make me sick and get me well at the same time!
Kat: that’s nasty
Don (13:04:18): I’ve realized what it is here that I find so curious and irritating.
Don (13:04:45): You’ve heard the stories, I’m sure, about how groups of women, like say students in a dorm, will end up with their menstrual cycles syncing up over a period of months?
B (13:04:53): Yep?
Don (13:05:16): Here at Don’s Work World HQ, that same thing happens, but it’s the stupid cycle. And it’s not gender-specific.
B (13:05:24): ROFL!
Don (13:05:48): I think this month marked the first fully synced cycle. ;x
B (13:05:52): Oy. ;x
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