Movie Monday - 6/30/3014

I didn't really like Take This Waltz - a movie starring Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen and set in present day Toronto.  Williams plays Margot, a woman who is clearly searching.  Her 5-year marriage to Lou (Rogen) has gone flat. She meets another guy and that only exacerbates her dissatisfaction.  More stuff happens, and it was a little bit predictable. Meh.

The Jackie Robinson story is told in 42.  The film chronicles Robinson being signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers organization in 1946 and the struggles he faced moving up to the big show from the Montreal Royals. Chadwick Boseman, Harrison Ford, Lucas Black, Nicole Beharie, T.R. Knight and Hamish Linklater were just a few of the people who starred in this movie.  It was good.

The Lone Ranger, starring Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp, is a retelling to the story from the television series that started as a radio show in the 1930s.  John Reid (Hammer) joins forces with the excentric Tonto (Depp - who else?) to bring justice in circumstances surrounding the Transcontinental Railroad.  Tom Wilkinson, Ruth Wilson and Helena Bonham Carter also star in this film.  Apparently, the movie was a commercial failure and received mixed to negative reviews.  I thought it was pretty good, but I wasn't expecting Oscar caliber quality.

MK out.

FO Friday - 6/27/2014

I'm such a slacker people!  Actually, I have been working hard everyday - washing, ironing, cleaning, cooking, moving, watching movies, knitting, getting together with friends - just living my life...

BUT - the three faithful still reading my blog have no idea what is going on, because I haven't been documenting.

So, if you are one of those three, you are lucky, because there is a finished object and you get to see it:

I finished the Pimpelliese Shawlette last week and I finally blocked it this week. It's my Camp Loopy Project 1.  I used Fable Fibers Story in Ruby.  If you remember, our directive for the first project was to make something that reminded us of our favorite book, movie or tee vee show.  I made this shawlette for Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz to match her ruby slippers.

I liked the yarn okay.  It's an MCN (merino-cashmere-nylon blend). There are other MCNs out there that I like better, but I am glad that I tried it and I like my project....so...win-win!

I have another couple of things that are finished but still need blocking; so, stay tuned.  Just think what all the millions of people who don't read my blog are missing...

MK out.

P.S.  I think if you click on the pics, you can see the whole thing - if your format is like mine and cuts off the right side.

P.S.S. My lawn people DO weed for me. 

Movie Monday - 6/16/2014

Here's a few:

In Cheri, Kathy Bates plays a former madam in turn-of-the-century Paris, who sets up her only son (Rupert Friend) with another retired courtesan (Michelle Pfeiffer) who is much older than he because she feels they both need a little diversion. Little did she expect that the two would fall in love.  That doesn't stop her, however, from arranging a marriage between her son and a younger girl.  It was pretty good.

Daigo and his wife Mika leave Tokyo to live in his mom's house in the country that she left him upon her death two years prior.  Having lost his job as cellist, he answers a help wanted ad thinking that "assisting departures" refers to a task in the travel industry.  He comes to find out that his duties encompass performing the ritual of preparing the body for encoffinment.  Departures is a sweet film.  I really liked it.

Tina Fey and Paul Rudd star in Admissions. Rudd plays John Pressman, the headmaster of an alternative high school.  His former classmate, Portia Nathan, is an admissions officer at Princeton.  Pressman has a prodigy student who he is convinced is the baby Portia gave up for adoption in college.  He arranges for the two to meet and mayhem ensues.  It was cute.

MK out.

WIP Wednesday - 6/4/2014

Camp Loopy is underway!

I got the first six repeats of the shawlette completed on the first day...but less stitches were involved then.  The stitch count just keeps going up...until the midpoint - and then it will come back down.

The yarn is Fable Fibers Story in the Ruby colorway.  The pattern is Pimpelliese by Christine Ebers.

MK out.

EGADS!

I went to the store the other day because I had been noticing that these weeds were hanging around a group of Liriope in a section of the front garden:

Those plants weren't getting as big as the ones in other parts of the garden; so, I figured I needed to take matters into my hands and not wait to see if my yard people would take care of it...sooooo...

I bought gardening tools y'all...

Anyway, I spent yesterday pulling out the weeds.  I don't know what they are.  I noticed that they have very skinny leaves and grow in little groups.  I could pull up the whole group together:

I soon realized that there was a runner root system going on:

I hope my Liriope are happy now, because I also did the installments of the 30-day abs and the 30-day buns, guns and abs challenges...and a power walk.  

I was tired.

MK out.

Movie Monday - 6/2/2014

Movies!

Manhattan is a film from 1979 - written, directed and starring Woody Allen.  Mariel Hemingway plays the 17-year-old lover to Woody's character.  Meryl Streep and Diane Keaton also star. As in most of Woody's movies, especially the older ones, the dialogue spoken by the characters sounds as if Woody is speaking for them. It was pretty good.

20 Feet from Stardom is a documentary about the back up singers for all the groups we know and love.  They are just as talented as the main artists in the groups...the only difference is that we don't know their names.  It won an Oscar for Best Documentary this year.  It was awesome.

In Parental Guidance, Marisa Tomei and Tom Everett Scott play a married couple with three children who live hectic, modern lives.  When they have to go out of town, they enlist her parents - played by Bette Midler and Billy Crystal - to take care of the kids.  It was cute.

MK out.