"Pretend I'm her. Amanda Jones."

I wonder if I'll ever grow out of my love for romantic comedies? Specifically the romantic comedies I watched over and over again during my formative years. (We had the movie channel back when there was only one movie channel to have.) Recently, while buying a birthday present for the Fiancé, I bought myself a little present - a copy of "Some Kind of Wonderful" on DVD. I needed to replace my VHS version, which was taped from television oh so many years ago. Especially because the tape ended about 5 minutes before the end, which is one of the best parts, so I had hastily rewound a few minutes and then hit record again, so it was really an awful mishmash.

Since the Fiancé headed north last night, I settled in with laundry to fold and put the movie on. It had been a long time since I'd watched the whole thing from start to finish. Man, I love it! It's a little hard to watch Eric Stoltz and not think of his creepy, death row character from "Grey's Anatomy" now, but I managed. And Mary Stuart Masterson is so great as Watts! The first kiss scene between Eric and Mary is probably one of my favourites. She's totally in control! Calling all the shots!



And a great last line: "You look good wearing my future."

Here's a bit of trivia regarding this film that I've just learned from the almighty IMDB - Lea Thompson and the film's director, Howard Deutch, fell in love while making this movie and have been married for 20 years! That not only explains why Lea and Eric's kiss in the movie is a little devoid of chemistry, but also why Lea is the actor that's part of the commentary on the DVD. Put that in your Trivial Pursuit pipe and smoke it!

A tasty new perspective

This book is completely changing the way I think about food. I don't want to overstate it, but it's blowing my mind! Seriously, I have been reading it on the subway and have to fight the urge to turn to the stranger sitting next to me and say things like, "Excuse me, but were you aware that until 1973 all the processed food full of questionable chemicals actually had to have the word 'imitation' on the label?" or "I don't want to bother you, but isn't it crazy that we'd have to eat three apples today to get the nutritional equivalent of one apple from 1963, because the soil that the apple trees are grown in today is fertilized with industrial fertilizer?" The stuff I'm learning is shocking, but the crazy part is that it all made sense to me right away. Obviously I was well aware that the long list of unpronounceable ingredients in processed foods was a bad thing, but until I started reading this book, I still thought of it all as food. But it isn't. Not really.

And while I haven't frantically gone through my pantry and tossed out all the crap, I'm definitely not adding any more crap to my grocery cart either. Because I've seen the light!

And now I really need to see this:

Turn around bright eyes

I have been thinking about stuff I want to blog about all week, but finding nary an extra moment to actually blog. I did, however, just devote almost 6 minutes of my life to watching this at the Fiancé's insistence. And now I have to share it with all of you.

Blechy blech

I'm home with a funny tummy tonight. I had to cancel my plans, which included seeing my incredibly accomplished friend accomplish one more thing - perform in a staged reading a new Daniel MacIvor play. Sucks. I was looking so forward to seeing it! And to spending some time with both her and her incredibly accomplished husband before they move to Boston so he can finish his PhD at Harvard. Really and truly.

To console myself I found this online. I've been waiting for this movie for ages!

I think most of today was gorgeous, sunny and warm, but we missed it. We were inside a mall, taking our first stab at putting together our gift registry. This was remarkably harder than I thought it would be and the Fiancé is astounded that I didn't excel at choosing stuff for people to buy us. But as much as I enjoy receiving presents, I got thoroughly overwhelmed with trying to choose so much stuff at once. Which is why we'll have to go back try again sometime this week.

I'm saving the last of my energy to make dinner, so here and here and here are a couple of my recent freelance pieces to entertain you.

Saturdays are swell

I just had a fantastic Saturday. One of those days that turn out to be the perfect blend of accomplishments and leisure time, you know? It started with a BIG run, which I did with a good friend. It was the first time we'd run together and the first time in way too long that I'd run with someone. I forgot how much I enjoy it! Hopefully we will find time to run together again.

Then I came home and flopped on the couch to work on some freelancing stuff. Have I mentioned how much I enjoy having a laptop? I wish I could do all of my full-time job work while reclining on my couch.

The afternoon involved some episodes of Lost, which the Fiancé and I have just started watching, and some kitchen cleaning. (He did the laundry. How I love him!)

Around 5 P.M. we headed out for a walk. We saw tons of peonies in bloom!





Then we stopped and sat in the open window of Quince for some dinner. We shared this poutine-type appetizer:



And then a truly fantastic pork chop with raisin chutney:


And then we headed to the movies and saw Up.

Have you seen this movie? If not, you should.

It was charming and funny and poignant. It totally got to me. There were tears and I still feel like I could sit down and cry a bit right now. In fact, even going out after the movie to have inappropriately large desserts brought tears to my eyes. Pixar does such a good job of entertaining kids and still giving the adults a meaningful experience.

Speaking of meaningful experiences:

Sweet treats and sweeter people

I just returned home from a date with five wonderful women in my life and I am left with a warm glow. There's just nothing like girlfriends! I feel bad for men that they will most likely never know the feeling that I am feeling. I'm sure that they have version of this feeling, but I also feel fairly confident that it can't compete. Although they would probably say the same thing about their brotherly love.

Anyway, one of my beautiful friends is trying to work through something in her life and she reached out to us by laying her own heart on the table and then asked us each to do the same, so that she might benefit from our experiences. It was an interesting and illuminating experiment. There were so many things that overlapped in all of our stories, but also those amazing gems that were unique to each of us. And it was remarkably humbling to be asked in such a direct manner, which surprised me, because I present my opinion so often without any sort of invitation! I hope we gave her food for thought and that she'll digest it and then follow her own path. Because that's what life is all about in the end.

Along with all the soul-filling girl talk, I consumed a big piece of chocolate pecan pie on an empty stomach post-workout. And I think that explains my headache and tummy pain. Perhaps a bit of solid food is in order and then to bed I go.