This week: God Help the Girl @ Music Box. Used a PTO day and moved 600 lbs. of Rani’s stuff to Patricia’s and then drove Codex to Chicago Exotics for her Revolution treatment. Screening of The One I Love @ Landmark. Double doctor. The second to last ever Dragonlady vegan korean/latin buffet. Lunch with Rachel S. @ Breakfast House. Found a wounded squirrel/arranged for pick-up by Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation. Late bday dinner for Jason @ Jerry’s. Sold Rani’s massage table. Cities of Darkscorch @ Donovan & Dillon’s. Robyn/Röyksopp @ Pritzker Pavilion.

Stressed, but checking off boxes. Busy with Renegade prep. Fun, fun, fun. Rhymes with Twee and di Palermo Body are Booth 280 at Renegade Craft Fair Chicago on September 6th & 7th.

Films watched 34th week of the year:

God Help the Girl
The Apple
The One I Love
Final Destination 5
The Way Way Back
Micmacs

Such a great movie week. Every one but FD5 is worth watching. My twee-ometer readings were off the chart while watching God Help the Girl. Tandem bicycle = check. Adorable puppy = check. Young unrequited love = check. Mod clothing = check. I loved it beyond words. The Apple was similar to The Who’s Tommy in its spectacular productions, far out costumes, and gorgeous sets – definitely worth watching!

Go into it blind. Don’t read anything about The One I Love. Just go see it. Elizabeth Moss & Mark Duplass are EXCELLENT in it. Truly the best acting I have seen this year. I still can’t believe that this is Charlie McDowell’s first feature film, granted he is Malcolm McDowell & Mary Steenburgen’s child. I loved it.

The Way Way Back was not deep, but it was a good coming of age film. Hands down, the best part of the film was when Sam Rockwell’s character asks for help by speaking the lyrics to Bonnie Tyler – I Need a Hero and now that song has been in my head for days.

Z and I hadn’t seen Micmacs since it was in the theatre, but again, this one is a favorite Jean-Pierre Jeunet film alongside Amélie.

Maple Sweet Potato Pecan Burgers

This week: Fat Willy’s/Muppets with Z & the Jarvises. Yuzu with Ashley. Divergent with Eliza/Jerroid. Shokolad with Gretchen & Margie. Rachel & Tanner’s wedding celebration – nice to attend a celebration filled with so much love and joy and malört. Speaking of, at R&T’s celebration, I made Malör-chata and you should try it! Just mix malört into horchata. Also, look at this amazing poster someone made –> here. Saturday was Street clean-up of Thomas from Damen to Western with small but mighty group of neighbors and we celebrated our job with dinner and drinks at Takito! For his March vow dinner, Z cooked maple sweet potato pecan burgers from The Tolerant Vegan which were a pain in the bum, but totally worth it in my opinion. Recipe here.

Films watched 13th week of the year:

Muppets Most Wanted
Divergent
Goodfellas
Pete Smalls is Dead

MMW was really fun and I liked it more than the first reboot Muppets movie. You know what one of my fave cameos ever in a movie was? Pacey & Joey in Muppets in Space!

Divergent was a nice DIVERsion. I also finished reading Allegiant over the weekend. I enjoyed the series, but the last book is my fave, by far, and I think that will make one awesome movie. The first one; not so much. Jerroid said something like: “I had idea what was going on for the first 3/4 of the movie” and he had not read the books. It seems to be doing well at the box office though, for some reason. Casting for Tris was great and Four was stupid.

I thought I had seen Goodfellas, but apparently not, because I only remembered little bits here and there. I had no idea Ray Liotta was even the star. Wah wah. I used to love gangster movies and I guess this one was fine.

Peter Dinklage not used to the best of his dinkability in Pete Smalls is Dead. Not really worth a watch. Mostly, I wanted this movie to just be Peter Dinklage hanging out with his awesome pittie Buddha.

Vegan Waffles, With Earth Balance, bananas, and maple syrup

Finally filed all my paperwork Wednesday for my passport. Fingers crossed that the paperwork doesn’t come back because I am smiling in the photo – the lady at CVS didn’t tell me not to, so think good thoughts, people! Took Z to Publican for his bday dinner. Vegetarians, take note – they can accommodate us – there is a secret delicious vegetable plate for $18, but it is truly only vegetables, so it’s kind of like getting a big plate of sides. Tiny Z bday celebration at Cleo’s. Went to our beloved Chiditarod. Brunch with LCB @ Bite. Music Frozen Dancing – yes, I saw Pie-a-see-a Planet @ Empty Bottle. 🙂 Movie with Eliza! Her @ Landmark and Yummy Yummy with the boo. Oscars @ Kimmi’s. Somehow this week I still made time to make those vegan waffles above and whipped up cadbury creme egg vanilla buttercream frosting to go on z’s bday cupcakes. Pat = back.

Films watched 9th week of the year:

Miss Minoes [ Netherlands ]
Cutie and the Boxer
Captain Phillips
Wolf of Wall Street
Her
Dallas Buyers Club

** foreign language

Cute award goes to Miss Minoes. If you even remotely like cats, you will love this movie. It’s something like the Dutch Amelie, filled with fun capers and twee whispering and a bad dude getting his due. OF COURSE I loved it. Cutie & the Boxer was also cute, but thanks to Noriko Shinohara and not sourpuss Ushio Shinohara. Come on you curmudgeon, let Noriko get her due!

Honestly, out of all the Oscar Best Picture Nominees, I had no interest in watching Captain Phillips, but on Friday night, I decided I would take a stab at watching the other 7 films I hadn’t seen. I watched this on Amazon on Saturday night, starting it and believing I would only watch the first half and then go to bed. WELL, that’s how I stayed up until 2am Saturday night. This film was incredibly riveting even though I knew that he lived. It was so tense. Highly recommend.

Wolf of Wall Street. Is it a result of watching so many films that this film barely had any shock value for me? Gruesome like American Psycho and with a story like American Hustle. Actually, the storyline is so much like AH that I keep confusing the two. Slime of the earth dudes swindling people out of their money and some terrible (and some great) outfits; both getting their comeuppance, but still winding out just fine in the end. Ahh, true stories.

I loved Her and Z thought it was OK because he doesn’t get that this is absolutely going to be a thing that happens. Like Lars and the Real Girl, there are some, I’d even go so far as to say many, people who are incapable of being in a relationship with another human, but there is still that longing for a connection that they will do whatever it takes to have one. It was beautiful and heartbreaking, but in a hopeful kind of way. Why is it strange that a computer would help a person become more human?

Great acting by Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club and a story that is unbelievable. You don’t hear many stories of homophobic dudes in this day and age, all of a sudden changing their stripes to help the LGBTQ cause, let alone the 80’s. However, I’m in the “cast a Trans Woman to play a Trans Woman” camp and I do not think Jared Leto deserves all the praise he is getting. Also, with the other nominees for hair & makeup, I am SHOCKED that this won.

It’s funny because I am pretty sure Z would have called me a weirdo if I did this exact same pose while waiting for the Shanleys, but nope, he thought this was perfectly normal.

Found the perfect present for a parent gift for both of our parents. Started searching for the perfect readings. Evened out placecard holders on one lunch break with a band saw! Placed flower order. Dentist appointment. Dinner with Shanleys @ Handlebar. Bought cellophane bags to use as welcome bags and part of what we’ll put in them – we’ll give out at rehearsal dinner since nearly everyone is staying all over the city and not at our host hotels. Dinner @ Fat Willy’s Rib Shack – their veggie burger is unexpectedly outstanding! Made labels for cookie table. Made table numbers. Made menu. Bought frames for memorial table and finalized photos with Z. Started making banner for card box. Had a migraine that started Saturday afternoon and I only feel 100% 3 days later. I celebrated my actual 10-year anniversary in Chicago by ordering my standard artichoke/garlic pizza from Pizza Metro 2 and watching The Walking Dead, Season 3. Probably contributing to my stress. Derp. 🙂

When I went to spin on Saturday morning, the sign-in sheet had a name other than Julie on it. I didn’t panic, because occasionally a sub will fill in for an instructor. Then when the instructor Kayla said she’d be our Saturday instructor from now on, I held my breath trying to process this information. Julie turned me from someone who ABHORRED exercising to someone who LOVED getting exercise in the SPIN room. For 9 whole months, I saw her almost weekly and she was a huge inspiration to me becoming a more active person; a happier person. Hell, I could have given birth to a SPIN baby in that time. So, having a different Saturday instructor who had a VERY different style that I was not a fan of; pushing the resistance to the max, no heart rate monitoring, 9 minute climbs and NO SCHEDULED RECOVERY; felt like the rug was pulled from underneath me. My plan of dragging my bridal party to a Julie class the day of the wedding is kaput. To add insult to injury, the only class Julie is now teaching at WPAC is at 5:30 A.M. Yes, A – M. Gross. After the wedding comedown, I need to try out the Sunday class instructor. I’ve heard she is good, but Julie is my exercise spirit animal.

Films watched 40th week of the year:

Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters *
Scream 4
The World ** [ China ]
A Dog Year

* documentary
** foreign language

If you are an animal lover and film lover, you should bookmark that page: Does the dog die?. Sometimes I am not good at maintaining my Netflix queue and things wind up at the top that I am not ready for. We received How to Die in Oregon right after Jeff killed himself and it sat around for 3 months until I just mailed it back. I still haven’t watced it. Similarly, I received A Dog Year not too long after Shadow passed away. I looked up on that handy website and saw that a dog died in the film and I was still too fragile to watch it, so it sat on the dvd pile for a couple of weeks. It ended up being pretty great for a dog movie. Yep, I still teared up, but at least I was ready. Thanks, DTDD?

I wish I had seen Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters on the big screen. His photographic process is inspiring and the end result is simply stunning. I also love that he brings commerce to what seem like sleepy little towns. Reminded me a lot of Marwencol. Even though Gregory Crewdson and Mark Hogancamp’s photography styles are polar opposites, they seemed to have obsessive processes when it comes to getting the perfect shot. Kind of like me and not being happy with the guestbook I made for the wedding and waiting until it was perfect to me. I know that practically no one would notice, but *I* would notice. I’m only getting married once, so it’s going to be up to the high Rhymes with Twee standard, okay!?

Me, Steff, & Heidi outside Margie’s Candies

This week: Continuation of ACA tradeshow. Wednesday & Thursday were visits to customers of my dayjob. Z picked me up Thursday night and we went straight from Midway Airport to Dimo’s – whoa my gosh mac & cheese pizza. Friday dinner with Z, Dave & Megan @ Greek Islands. Spin Saturday & The Canyons @ Facets / Trader Joe’s. Sunday I biked to an estate sale and yard sale. Brunch @ Takito with Kimmi. Dinner with Heidi & Steff @ Quesadilla and ice cream @ Margie’s Candies.

Hopefully I’ll be back to blogging regularly on Sunday. Traveling for work threw my schedule out of whack for a bit there. This weekend on Saturday and Sunday from 11am – 7pm, find Rhymes with Twee at Booth 25 at Bucktown Arts Fest! I am excited to be doing this show again!

Films watched 33rd week of the year:

Beauty is Embarrassing *
The Canyons
Touki Bouki [ Senegal ] **

* documentary
** foreign language

Beauty is Embarrassing is one of the best documentaries I’ve watched this year. Wayne White is an AMAZING artist/puppeteer/musician/storyteller and I cannot believe I had not heard of him before. Sure, I LOVED Pee-Wee’s Playhouse when I was a kid, but I never knew anything about the artists behind it. This documentary sat on Z and my Netflix instant queue for months and months and I kept skipping past it because I had watched a lot of “art” documentaries at the time. This eclipses all of them. Wacky, inspirational and worth many watches!

Speechless at how incredibly terrible The Canyons was. Picture The Room without any funny parts and even worse acting and you’ve got it! Mostly, I was offended that the “film” wasted 99 minutes of my life. Z feels even worse than me about it because he kickstarted the gosh darn POS.

I am starting to dig deep looking for countries I’m missing from my different country each week new year’s resolution. Touki Bouki was this week’s pick from Senegal. Young person angst set against a Senegalese background. Good watch, but it lost me a bit at the end when it started getting dream-sequency. You can actually watch the entire film here!