After the party it's the hotel lobby

The "Fiesta, Fiesta" keeps on popping off over here. After the Aquarium you know we had to make it over to Zoo Atlanta. It was a blast.


Here's a couple of shots of the fun but really you can look at all the pics of the events I've been telling you about over on my Flickr. Links Links Links!


Anyhoo, Michelle? Jerry? You both can see I covered up the boys just for you in my green dress. I wasn't too happy that I couldn't cover up that stomach bulge but skip that for a minute...doesn't my skin look freaking amazing? Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize. When I was checking out the pictures I couldn't help but sweat myself- j/k but I'm not to on the self hate tip to pay myself a compliment,"Go skin, go skin- it's your birthday..."

Anyway, let's not even get started on how many movies I've seen over the months and haven't told you all about. I have been keep in a list. There's about 90 on the list and I've written about 50 of them on here so far. I have to catch up before the year ends- I must. I've seen some good ones lately but I'm dipping back to tell you about some from a ways back.
"Just gotta git it out- just gotta git it right out of meeeeah"

No Vegetable Juice this week- Rent them all!

51. House of Flying Daggers- Another beautiful martial arts film. I loved the story and the fight scenes were incredible AND visual masterpieces however not more so than Hero or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Actually if we’re talking visually nothing has topped Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Memoirs of a Geisha, or even Hero for me yet. Visually, they were just incredible. They really show Asia in a glorious way; with simplicity but still with great life incredible beauty. The love story actually ended up being beautiful and the choreography of some of the fight scenes…Wow.
52. Life is Beautiful- What an incredibly optimistic view of the Holocaust. I was not expecting this movie. Of course I had heard so much about it and yes, I saw the Oscars that year but it’s one you have to see in order to appreciate it. I recommend this film to everyone. It’s so sad (how could it not be) yet the movie convinces you that everything’s going to be ok, that things are not as bad as they seem; that surely there will be a happy ending somehow. It really does an extraordinary job of keeping you hopeful yet haunting you with painfully truthful reality. Even so, the way the movie ends it’s so…hopeful-light even. This is so not the word I’m looking for. It’s like this; Just like the title reads, “Life is Beautiful” as is the movie and it’s message. Undoubtedly, I came away with an understanding. “This is all terrible, this is all true and horrible BUT life is too beautiful to let the terrible consume all the beauty it contains.” To me and I hope to most that is the moral of the story. To me that was the goal of the Father for his son. It really was much more than looking at the glass half full, it was sacrifice…
53. Easy to Wed- Oh my goodness, what a hoot of a movie. Lucille Ball was in this one as a supporting actress. Dude, she is sooo freaking funny. Effortless. It’s funny the whole plot is something that could happen today (we haven’t changed much at all) A high society woman is rumored to be a “playgirl” and a tabloid paper produces a story about her that’s false so she & her rich Father call up and claim to sue the company for $2M. Well the tabloid hires a notorious “playboy” to rope her into a real version of the fabricated story and it all plays out from there. I tell you there is just something about these old movies. You can hold an expectation to them that today’s movies just never hit you with. Geez, I really am having a sorry time trying to explain what I mean today. Maybe I should try using my words another day! It’s just that the delivery, the humor, the feeling of these movies- it’s all something so 100% different from todays movies. It has to do with the way movies are shot now as oppose to then or something. Maybe it’s a difference in film, in sets, in actors, in wardrobe, humor, delivery. It’s something greater than what happens these days for some reason.
54. Neptunes Daughter- Another good one with Esther Williams (she was in Easy to Wed too) and Ricardo Montalban (who I had no idea was that hot in his younger years). I love how easy it is to fall in love (I mean madly/wildly/truly/desperately in love where the man is all up front and gushy about it) and get married in these movies. Anyway, this movie is mainly a case of mistaken identity. I wonder if this musical is absolutely where the song “Baby, it’s cold outside” came from? Interesting. I always thought it was a blues classic. Anyway, what I actually like best about this movie was all the Latin/South American music scenes. I got a little irritated with the obnoxious Mexican stable hand stereotypes and Esther’s sister had a black handmade (who looked pretty glamorous to be cleaning house in a movie from the 40's-hmm) well, at least her script didn’t include anything like “yes’m I’s gittin to it” or anything like that; I suppose that was a step up from the norm- anyway there was a pretty good amount of good un-stereotypical but celebratory Latin influence in the movie which I enjoyed. Also, the swimsuits in the movie where incredible; I love those old suits.
55. On the Town- Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra (who I had no idea was so incredibly scrawny until you see him next to little brawny Gene Kelly). This movie was very entertaining. Good music numbers and dancing (which you could always expect) but this is not my favorite musical from Gene Kelly. It’s not even in the top 5. Nevertheless, you won’t be sorry if you rent it. The whole premise is that three sailors have a days leave off the boat in NYC. They want to see the sights and see some women all in one day before they have to get back on board. Anyway, Mr. Kelly gets on the subway and sees a poster for Mrs. Turnstiles and he must have her- so he and his buddies spend a good part of the movie in hilarious pursuit of “Ms. High Society”. These freaking movies just make grin. Love it.

After the party there's the after party...

After comedy night of course there was more Atlanta fun to be had. We went to the Aquarium, which was freaking awesome.


I had never been to an aquarium at all and always wanted to go to the one in Baltimore (definitely will make time to do it next time I'm in VA). Anyhoo, here are just a couple of the awesome things we saw there. Note that the shark with the chainsaw nose was a hard picture to capture because of the shear size of the fellow so, lucky. Lucky would be the word I'd used for the final capture for the whacked out shot of Mr. Pristiophoridae.
In other news I guess figuratively speaking today could be the tomorrow I spoke of about a week or so ago. I do tend to use very symbolic language at times....with no further ado here are two of the crummiest sock progress pictures one could possibly shoot.

The pink Lorna's laces is going to be all stockinette with just an inch or so of ribbing at the top and the purple/blue Tofutsie's has a 2x2 rib pattern along the front and soon to be the leg of the sock- I'm really pleased with how that one is turning out :-). I start to turn the heel on the pink one tomorrow. Ya'll say a prayer- haha- no seriously ya'll get in the prayer circle and plead the blood over these ones because I feel like it's Groundhogs Day over here. I'm just continuously knitting the same sock over and over again day after day. This time I am referring to a heel pattern that is not short rows (Interweave Knits, Summer 'O7)so we'll see how it goes.

U gotta live

So the thing about stepping up the blog can only happen if you get out and live and the thing with getting out and living is that you're usually not getting out with your desktop computer. It's just a good thing that I'm off for the next few days without getting out there and living plans :-) I can give the blog a good old update. :-)
After the final Braves home game Matty and I went to comedy night at the Loft here in Columbus. The opener was pretty lame but the header, Mutzie, was hilarious. I've actually seen him on Comic View on BET before. Wouldn't you know that I got picked out of the crowd to help end his act. Ask my sister, ask Matty, ask my McCaffrey's I always get picked out of the crowd. Nevertheless, I had a blast and was pretty much a celebrity for the rest of the night. Here's a picture of me and Mutzie at the end of the night.
As far as knitting goes, I mentioned ripping and restarting both "pair" of socks that I've been knitting since the concept of knitting a sock entered my mind. I still haven't taken a picture but I will say that if I could have just focused on one sock I probably would have a whole one done but of course I got tired with what I was doing and decided to start the other sock from some variety. I promise I will get on it and update on the socks with pictures tomorrow.

DOIN' WORK

I've got so much to tell you guys. I'm behind- what's new? I think I've mentioned before that since Matty has been home we've been DOing WORK (anybody watch Rob & Big) right? The weekend after my Yarn Harlot trip we went back to Atlanta to see the Brave's last home game. They spanked the Brewers at the end and gave the crowd what they came to see...now mind you there's no post season for Atlanta right now but they DID WORK when we were there.

Matty got all the good pictures and he hasn't uploaded them yet so you can't see the close up of my Atlanta Braves eye guards or me chopping it up with my classic tomahawk. He got one of Andruw Jones sliding onto first and yes we were so close we could see the sweat dripping:-) It's funny whenever players slide I always think "Dirt in the skirt, Mae. Dirt in the skirt." ...I love that movie. Actually if we're talking about doing work, Andruw DID WORK that day in the outfield a couple times.
We've been doing work watching more and going to the movies. Here's a little of what we've seen lately:

45. The Brave One- It was good because Terrence Howard and Jodie Foster are just good in my opinion. The storyline was a good one that I hadn't seen and wasn't expecting ( I mean not wholely- I did see the previews and knew what it was about but...u know). I wasn't expecting how it ended and I definitely came in thinking that Jodie was just taking back the streets "a little". Old Jodie was DOIN' WORK for sure. I will say that in parts it was very slow and while I did get over the slow parts I wasn't on the Bill's Movie Review overlook it tip.
46. Old School- I hadn't ever seen this before and thought it was pretty funny. Of course Matty got it in from Netflix b/c it was WAAAAAYYY down on my roster. We've both been have sporadic "blackouts" of brilliance.
47. Yellow- This was an independent little project by Rosalyn Sanchez and I have to admit I liked it but there were some points were I cringed at the script or the acting. Nevertheless, I found the story interesting...provocative as the professional reviewers like to say. I loved how Hispanic culture and poetry and dance were all infused into a relatively deep storyline. DO WORK Rosalyn b/c I saw your name all over the credits.
48. Breach-This movie was intriguing and don't laugh but I had no idea it was based on the true story. Chris Cooper was crazy in an ingenius way. He played the role flawlessly; I kept turning to Matty saying OMG this guy is crazy. I was on the edge knowing everyone's cover was blown in every scene. I've got a love/hate with these type of movies.
49.Knocked up-This movie was very entertaining. The language was over the top a lot yet still I was cracking up through so much of this movie. Also, I now understand what everyone warns about as the TMI scene at the end when Katherine Heigl is in labor. lol
50.Disturbia-I really enjoyed this movie too. I'm telling you little LaBeouf is a really convincing little actor. It is so surprising. I will say that I did chuckle to myself how the whole family and friends just get back to happy go lucky living after what would be tragic events to real people.
I've got some good ones in the line up. If you want something more serious I say go with Breach but I'm picking Disturbia...yes even over the Brave One; simply b/c it was slow in many parts. Pick of the week:

In other news. I ripped out both socks I've been working on for forever and started fresh for the one zillionth time. I'm feeling really positive about these. Could it be b/c of the Harlots mojo? It's probably due to me finding what looks like a easy pattern in an issue of Interweave Knits. I'll post some pictures soon.

For Anna and others...

So here are the couple of things I didn't mention or show last time. One was the log cabin blanket I'm working on and it's progress. Of course here it looks like crayola crayons but I promise in real life all the colors are a lot richer and just plain nicer. Also there goes my new birthday watch for scale:-), the blanket is all garter stitch so it's great mindless knitting.
Also, when I was at Knitch for the YH I got a ball of Rowan calmer because everyone always seems to be going ape nuts over it and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. There should dang near be platinum chards spun into it between how much it cost and how much people rave...I like the color I picked. Anyway, I don't really know what I'm going to make out of this one ball but I'll think of something. I'm leaning toward a hat because they are quick
Coming up lots of traveling and activities, lots of movies, and more knitting. Yesterday was my birthday and we/I had a blast. I'm almost thirty now....