Ladies Who.....

We went through a lot together while Jacquie was here.

Mostly food and drink.

We are, afterall . . .

. . . Ladies Who Lunch . . .

. . . Ladies Who Drink . . .

. . . Ladies Who Brunch . . .

 . . . Ladies Who Drink . . .

 . . . and Ladies Who Lunch at pink restaurants in Chinatown.

But we are also Ladies who take walks on beaches on beautiful winter days . . .

 . . . in Fairfield . . .

. . . and in Milford.

We are also Gentlemen who do so.

Oh look! A surprise beach visitor!

Ah, the winter beach . . .

The walk to and from the beach is pretty spectacular, too . . .

. . . thanks to our little friend here.

. . . and when Ladies finally arrive home after all that fresh air and exercise?

The Ladies say yes, please.

Chilly Scenes of Uncle Merv's Winter

I'm home from a wonderful whirlwind visit back east, filled right up to my brim with love and laughter. Uncle Merv's gotta get to work, so please enjoy a phone photo montage:

bar, art, sister, nyc

blankie love for my girl

bright flowers, bright snow

nice hair, Jane. nice collar, self.

me and Yobo rocking the 70s

photo by Mistah

beach interlude

blowing the breathalyzer 

adorable brunch host and hostess

Comparative eye blue

soup dumplings

then and now

obligatory goodbye sob photo

Salt water in my veins

While I'm away killing myself dead in Bali, my girls have agreed to fill in for me here at M,Y&E. This first post is from my beautiful, empathetic, graceful, funny oldest daughter.

There are some things that really mean a lot to me, and other things that don't.  Diving into the fresh salt water, the waves coming down on me -- that means a lot. Some people say I could be a mermaid, that I have salt water in my veins. If there was no ocean in my life there would be a part of me missing. If I lost the feeling of standing up on my board and finally catching that wave I wouldn't know that rush I feel inside.

The first thing that I love about the ocean is getting in and feeling the refreshing water touch my skin. It's like putting on lotion --  it makes me feel good. I love when I dunk my head under and my hair gets heavy with water; when the sand under my toes is soft and muddy.

The second thing I love about the ocean are the waves and how they cash down on you. You feel like you will never get up, but you always do. It's like a shower or a massage. You can play games in the waves, like under over, or try to hop over them.

The last thing that I love about the ocean is surfing. My dad first took me out two summers ago and so thanks to him I know how to surf. I go surfing with my best friend a lot; she helps me so much and I'm so thankful for her. To go surf and catch a wave feels like your own roller coaster; you can do any trick you want.

Best friend helper on far left....

I'm not the only one that enjoys the ocean, the animals that live in the ocean, the other surfers and swimmers, sailors, and people who just want to relax [she is talking about Jacquie and I here, I'm pretty sure] all love the refreshing blue water of the ocean.

OB Pier. Of course.

10 Good Things About Winter

It's important to remember that winter is not all bad. There are plenty of good things about a long, cold, endless winter. Lots of things!

1. The New London Winter Film Festival 

. . . to which we will eagerly return, after we have seen the next batch of movies . . .


2. Sunburn Index = 0 

. . . thus temporarily protecting our rapidly aging skin from further immediate harm.

 Emphasis on temorarily.


3. No bugs

Although, frankly, some bugs are really cool.


4. No crowds at the beach

Although, frankly, crowds at the beach can be very festive.


 5. Wool

We've discussed the merits of that magical material before. Wool keeps one warm. Even when one is really really cold.


6. The Winter Olympics



Especially that oh-so-fabulous double twizzle.


7. Dramatic Photography

I know. He's awesome.


8. You never have to feel guilty about spending too much time in bars and restaurants.

Afterall, if you ventured outside, you would get frostbite and die.


9. Um, let's see.......

Oh, I know! If you forget to bring your garbage out to the curb for weekly collection, you don't have to worry!

photo credit: Elite Daily

It won't rot, it won't smell. It is Frozen! Solid!

10. Ummmmmmm.......

Can I get back to you?

acting? pain? terror? end of days?

No time to blog this morning, friends! I'm a-leavin on a jet plane. Never fear, dear hearts. Tales from Uncle Merv await you in the coming days. For now, I will leave you with this gem of a family portrait taken on the *last* day I didn't have time to blog because we were heading out for theme park adventures.

 

Thoughts?

Dear neti pot, you terrify me

Last week I received the list of things that I am to bring to my yoga teacher training, which starts this coming Sunday. Being the rule follower that I am, I have been scurrying around to secure said items.

There were a number of things that I didn't own, so instead of buying everything for a 10-day training, I sent out an email to friends requesting random things I was hoping to borrow.

I was amazed at how many people had a neti pot to lend. Really? A neti pot?

But they are so totally and completely and utterly scary?! Like owning your own personal water boarding contraption.

Truth be told, most people who had a neti pot were more than happy to lend it out. Permanently.

I have never used a neti pot, even though I know their usage dates back thousands of years. I didn't ever plan to use a neti pot, either. Even if suffering from a terrible sinus infection.

Okay, well maybe then. But only then.

I am currently not suffering from a terrible sinus infection.

I am not looking forward to this new experience. I mean, it's not just fear of drowning, this shit can kill you. Kill you dead, I tell you. (Oh wait, drowning can do that too.) But seriously, two people in Louisiana died in 2011 after using neti pots with fresh water. They both contracted primary amebic meningoencephalitis, which killed them dead.

We may think of Louisiana as a backwater, and in this case, perhaps for good reason, literally. But I gotta tell you that my mind jumps right to: Well, I know I can't drink the water in Bali, so why the hell are we even considering putting it up our noses??

Yes, I bet we'll do it with bottled water. But still.......

I figure I'll take at least one neti pot with me, along with mass copies of that scary Oxford Journal article on primary amebic meningoencephalitis, and the accompanying CDC and FDA warnings, just to make sure we're all on the same page regarding the possible side effects of kill you dead.

But which death trap do I take?

The petite kit that Jacquie gave to me? With all the petite saline packages inside?

 

Lilli's giving it the nod.

 

The pretty green one?

 

Smells okay...

 

The Ancient Secrets new-and-improved-designed nasal cleansing pot?

 

See it back there?

I'm at a loss. Each of them is terrifying in their own way. Wait, no actually, in the same way. In the kill you dead sort of way.



Film Fest, 2014 Style

Actually, this year the New London Winter Film Festival is called:

Save Movies at the Garde Film Festival.
A preview to showcase and raise funds for the Garde’s new state-of-the-art digital cinema and sound system.

And saved they have been. What a line-up. What awesome new video- and sound-systems. What a Film Fest.

Okay then! Let's get started . . .

Dallas Buyers Club
Way to start off the Film Festival on Thursday evening with a bang. Great first movie. Matthew McConaughey was excellent as Ron Woodroff, working the system -- working around the system -- to get AIDS patients non-USA-approved medications, but this movie belonged to Jared Leto, as Rayon.

She was smart, she was funny, she was passionate, she was flawed, she was perfect. I couldn't take my eyes off her.

Great script, great direction, great acting. And of course: great venue -- oh, what a venue the Garde is -- incredible crowd, friendly bartenders, gorgeous space. We're off to a flying start.

Captain Phillips
I liked the first half, a lot. Lots of tension, lots of desperation, the worst Boston accent this side of the Mississippi (Why? Why is that accent so hard for the peeps?), and the thrilling ship-boarding scene I've been eager to see ever since I heard director Paul Greengrass interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air.

But then? The movie became a U.S. Navy recruiting film. Lots of helicopters, lots of parachuters, lots of stern, fit, white guys barking orders into radios, lots of guns and stern, fit, white guys shooting said guns. The movie is based on a true story (fun fact: the 2009 hijacking of the Maersk Alabama was the first American cargo ship to be hijacked in two hundred years), so I guess all that Military Might actually was, er, deployed, but it was way too over the top for me. As were the accompanying violins.

BUT. The back-and-forth between the two captains, Captain Phillips and Captain Muse, was fabulous. And Barkhad Abdi's mix of bravado and fear, of determination and desperation, was completely compelling.

Nebraska
Now that is how you make a movie.

The writing, the acting, the spectacular cinematography, the music . . . it all added up to brilliance. I loved it. I loved those stark Nebraska landscapes, I loved the script, I loved June Squibb. She was perfection as Kate Grant. And Bruce Dern, of course, was fabulous.

I seem to be stumbling onto a lot of Quest stories lately, from Fan in Chang-rae Lee's On Such A Full Sea to Sonia Sotomayor in her memoir My Beloved World, both just in the last month. And in this movie, Woody Grant joins the crowd. He's got his Eyes on the Prize, he rises up out of his usual life to attain it, he hits lots of bumps and meets lots of bad guys along the way, but he finds the people he needs to help him, and he reaches his goal.

Sort of.

I love the arc of the Grant family in this movie, how they start out as four separate people, at odds with eachother, and become a cohesive unit, the Grants against everybody else. My favorite scenes were the four of them in the car, on their ill-fated trip to and from what turned out to be the Westendorf farm. Sigh. Just perfect.

I don't know if this movie is for everyone. It's slow-paced and thoughtful, but I loved it. And so did my movie-mates Mistah, Jennie and special celebrity guest star The Mumsie Herself. We all loved it. Loved with a capital L.

And later that night . . .

Gravity
A double feature! Mistah thinks it was the first time in his life that he saw two movies in one day. And we hit not one but two restaurants in between. We are single-handedly improving the economy of New London during the Film Fest.

So, Gravity. Let's see. It wasn't as good as some people have said. And it wasn't as bad as some people have said.  It was short, but I still drifted off (get it? drifted off?) halfway through. I'm not sure any of it made any sense, or was actually supposed to make sense, because it was all about the effects -- and the stars were really pretty, and I did like trying to figure out which land mass we were looking at, down there on Earth. And I was moved by the whole soliloquy/re-determination scene. But mostly, it felt like Sandra Bullock gasping and grunting around in space. And I just kept imagining her in the studio, gasping and grunting into a mic. Which is kinda funny.

Twenty Feet From Stardom
Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, Claudia Lennear, Judith Hill, Táta Vega, The Waters Family, Luther Vandross..... the crucial, wildly talented, hard-working, anonymous-until-now, Backup Singers.

I was so eager and excited to see this documentary, not least because when I listen to music, I listen to the backup singers. As one of those brilliant women so eloquently put it (I'm paraphrasing here): "Everybody sings along to the hook of the song. We're the ones singing the hook."

It was absolutely brilliant. Chills. Tears. Laughter. More chills. This is a movie that gets you right in your soul. I was never so aware of my fellow movie-goers than I was druing this one, because someone like Lisa Fischer sang a riff, belted out a tune, skat-sang some notes, and everyone sitting around us in the theater collectively sighed with awe and wonder.

These women can sing. Sing. And for whatever reasons -- and there are many -- they have remained in the background -- twenty feet from stars like Stevie and Mick and Sting and Bowie and Ray Charles and Bruce and Tina and Bette Midler and David Byrne.

It was heart-warming, surprisingly sad, and ultimately, absolutely inspiring. Brilliant movie. Fabulous women. Spectacular voices.

Love.

So!

Four days, five movies. We are off to a pretty rockin' start, I'd say.

And we resume Thursday night at the gorgeous, venerable Garde Theatre for Enough Said.

See you at the movies!

flashback Monday - chef boy

We are off on a family theme park adventure today in celebration of my boy-no-more's big fifteenth. Seems only right to feature him today! Love this one, love this kid:

kitchen science

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

My boy fancies himself a chef. Remember this delight? Last week, he started his favorite department at school, Kitchen Science. Departments are mixed grade groups who work together throughout the year on special applied learning projects. For the next six weeks, my boy will spend about six hours each week working in a home-style kitchen to focus on the science behind food, how substances interact with each other, and the importance of water, nutrition, and digestion.

On their first cooking day, guacamole was made, and my boy was impressed. He wanted to recreate the experience for our dining pleasure, and volunteered to demonstrate the recipe for your viewing pleasure.

To make guacamole, start by halving a ripe avocado.

Just slice into it with the knife until it hits the pit,



then roll the knife around the pit, preferably without slicing any of your fingers off



Then gently twist the two halves away from each other and pull apart



There is no photo of the fun pit pop, because the photographer would not let the chef do it himself. What you do is whack a big knife right into the seed so it will stick, and then rotate to release it from the lovely green flesh. Some people save the pit to throw back in with their completed guac, it is said to help retain its fresh green color. But my Mexican friends tell me that is an old wives’ tale, and I believe them. Even though they are old wives. My aunt Uffie used to let us pierce the pit with toothpics and hover it over a glass of water to encourage sprouts. That was cool, why did we never have an avocado tree? Oh yeah, Connecticut.
 

Scoop out the avocado guts with a spoon… you might want to save those empty, bereft shells. Keep plugging away, even when your photographer becomes distracted by her empty glass. 

Mash the avocado, preferably with a giant fork (or a potato masher if you can find yours)

There, that’s better. Now, dice a tomato

Dump the tomato into the bowl, being sure to cross your arms into a very awkward and unlikely configuration, and use a really big sharp knife to entice the tomatoes off of the board



Don’t worry about letting young children use such big knives, they are usually more capable and competent than people assume.



Usually

Next, chop some red onion. I like to imagine that he is talking in a Julia Child voice, like Mike Meyer on SNL right before he lopped off his finger

Be brave if the onion fumes irritate your eyes

Don’t forget fresh garlic! Smash a clove with the side of your knife to free it from the peel, then dice that bad boy right up

If you don’t have fresh cilantro, thank your mom and Trader Joe for always having this in the freezer

Mix wildly! Then cover and refrigerate, a few hours goes a long way toward marrying the flavors.

My boy served his guac inside the little boats he had saved from the empty avocado shells!

I really need to find the dishtowel action on photoshop so I can wipe away the mess at each end of this lovely turkey enchilada. It looks like a severed limb.

Any questions?