Happy 2009!!!

The new year has started off with a bang around here. There's been a flurry of activity around Chez Karma...

Firstly, I finished my February Lady Sweater yesterday. Pictures will be available tomorrow. I was going to snap a quick one this afternoon, but the battery in the camera was dead, and now it is too dark for a good shot. I have finished a few things lately; so, maybe, it will be a knitterly post.

Secondly, the movie challenge has been moving right along. Yesterday, I watched Valkyrie, despite the bad reviews that the Ebert and Roeper replacements gave it. True, Tom Cruise did not give a very good performance, but the other actors did - including Kenneth Branagh, Eddie Izzard and Tom Wilkinson, as well as the ones lesser known to me. Cruise played Col. Claus Von Stauffenberg - a German officer who was badly injured in a battle, and who was recruited by other like-minded officers to lead an assassination attempt on Hitler. I thought the story was good, and there was enough suspense for a good movie, even though we all know the outcome of the plot.

Today, I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - adapted from a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, of all people. It is about a baby who is born an old man and ages backwards. It is also a story of ill fated love. Brad Pitt plays Button, and Cate Blanchett plays the woman he meets when she was a little girl, whom he grows up loving. It is a long movie, but once you suspend belief that this situation is even possible, you get caught up in the story and are thoroughly entertained. At least I was. Pitt and Blanchett are marvelous, as are all the other actors playing some really colorful characters. An interesting point about this movie - it is set in New Orleans and begins in the early 1900s. This adaptation carries the time-line into the 21st century, with Hurricane Katrina in the background. I thought it was clever. The make-up was great - Blanchett and Pitt really looked young or old - depending on what age they were playing. It is a wonderful movie, and I highly recommend it.

Last night, despite my protestations that we never do anything fun for New Year's and have done the same thing for the last four years, we again went to the STARS game. I gave up. I couldn't come up with a better alternative; so, off to the game we went. It was a really fun game, and they won - for the first time in 5 years; so, all was not lost. They played really well, with 44 shots on goal. I really enjoyed myself.

Finally - I cooked two meals today. For lunch, I made Turkey Tetrazzini with some leftover turkey I had frozen from Christmas. For supper, we had some leftover ham and I made a pot of blackeyed peas and some rice. Like Haley's comet, that may not come around again for about 84 years.


So, another year begins - one full of hopes and dreams and possibilities. I wish all of you the very best in the year to come.

MK out.