My Thoughts On The Silence Of The Lambs

Last night I decided that it had been a while since I got good and disturbed while watching a movie, so I plunked down eighty-seven cents at the rental store for The Silence of the Lambs. I don't know what got into me, except maybe an inflated sense of bravado from killing a bug earlier in the day.

Silence of the Lambs was a movie I swore I'd only watch if it was shown on TV.

Preferably on Nickelodeon.

Besides the ultra creepy story, Anthony Hopkins gets to me. He's too good in this role. Superb, actually. I'm sure he's a perfectly lovely guy in real life, but the man scares the bejeezus out of me. He disturbs me on a primal level. Seriously. Mr. Hopkins could be reading off the menu at Taco Bell and it would cause severe disruptions in my REM cycle. It's the only reason he and I can't be besties.

I knew going in that this movie would scare me, disturb me, and overall wreck havoc on my personal well being. That's why I decided to watch it the same way I watch Jersey Shore: in installments. I can handle a solid fifteen minutes of Jersey Shore before I get weirded out and change the channel. A few days later, I can handle another fifteen minutes. This was my plan for watching Lambs.

My beautiful plan of watching in fifteen (perhaps twenty) minute increments over the course of a couple of weeks was immediately poo pooed by my husband.

Phooey. He said it was all or nothing.

I should have went with nothing. But I did promise to complete my list and I keep my promises. Still, I wanted a little reassurance that I would be okay after seeing Lambs.

I did not receive any such reassurances.

For those of you lucky folks that have never seen this movie, let me give you a brief rundown: Jodie Foster is an FBI trainee who is sent to interview Dr. Hannibal 'The Cannibal' Lecter (currently locked in an asylum because he is completely bat shit crazy and has killed people) about a serial killer that skins his victims.

Get the kids and pop the corn, it's the 'feel good' movie of 1991!

Not.

Admittedly, I spent most of the movie with my zebra print Snuggie thrown over my head, alternating between humming 'Kumbaya' and thinking I have never in my life wanted to be watching an Adam Sandler movie as much as I did right then.

To say that I've actually seen Silence of the Lambs in a misnomer. Mostly I saw the inside of my Snuggie. This is me:

And that is as close as I'm going to get to truly viewing this movie. I'm still checking it off my list though. I listened to most of it and that totally counts.

To recap: Watched the inside of my Snuggie while listening to most of Silence of the Lambs, got seriously and utterly disturbed, and will be completely incapable of functioning for at least two weeks. I will admit that it is a good movie (for those of you who like to be disturbed on a molecular level).

And no. I will not be watching any of the sequels. Pin It Now!

Super Bowl Village

I don't know if you are aware of this or not, but on Sunday there is a football game.

A big football game.

Some call it a super game.

And it's being played in Indianapolis, which is about an hour's drive from my house.

Saturday night, my husband and I headed to Indy to check out Super Bowl Village.  It was pretty spiffy.

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I Was Not Meant To Ski

Last week, the Kodak company announced that it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This fact depresses the heck out of me. The company is over 130 years old and is such an icon. Hopefully some restructuring will be done and Kodak will come out okay.

My intention for today's post was to pay homage to Kodak and share some old photos taken on a Kodak camera loaded with Kodak film. Actual film, hons. Not digital. But I got distracted looking at old photos and remembered a story about the time I almost died skiing and my husband took photos of the experience.

On Kodak film, of course.

Picture it: January 1996. I was a thin, perky boobed, 23 year old gal with considerably less jiggle than I have now. I was bitching and moaning about snow and winter and my intense desire to see both vanish from my existence when I decided that I might enjoy winter more if there were some activity I liked that required snow.

Something like skiing. An idea was born.

Enter the ski trip of 1996.

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The Frost

Remember summer? Ahh … summer.

Warm weather. Shorts. The ever present smell of sunscreen.

And my obsession with taking photos of sunflowers.

Winter has arrived and I miss summer. Warm weather became cold. Shorts became my turd colored coat. I have no idea what winter smells like because it's too dang cold to stand around outside sniffing the air.

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My Thoughts On It's A Wonderful Life

A small, verbal skirmish broke out at my house this past Christmas when I dropped the whammy of a fact that I've never seen the movie 'It's A Wonderful Life'. Clearly, my Aunt's flabber was gasted.

Aunt (with an incredulous tone): You've never seen it?

Me: Nope. Never.

Aunt: Never?

Me: Nope.

Aunt (with a bit of outrage): It's A Wonderful Life? You've never seen it?

Me: Not one time.

Aunt: Why not?

Me: Because it doesn't look very funny and I like funny movies.

Aunt (fully outraged now): You have to have seen it! Everyone has seen it! It's part of the social fabric of our society!

Me: Eh. Big woo.

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Winter Coats. Ugh.

After years of hating winter with a passion, I have finally decided what it is about winter that I don't like.

Yep. I finally put my finger on the problem. Here is my conclusion: I don't like winter because it is cold.

There. I said it.

Okay. That's not a big surprise. Winter is cold. Big woo. Upon further introspection, I've decided that it's not so much the cold per se that bothers me. I kinda like to cooler weather so I can throw on my very sexy zebra print Snuggie and not start to sweat, so it's not really the colder air temperatures.

It's the fact that I don't like to wear a coat. I really, really detest wearing a coat. The decision making that has to go into wearing a coat. Ugh.

Take the time to snap, zip, or buckle it or just wrap my arms tightly around my midsection to preserve the warmth?

Wear the short ski jacket and expose my heinie to the elements or wear the longer coat with the hole in the pocket?

Decisions, decisions.

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Goodwill. Masters Of Product Display.

Tuesdays are piano lesson day. Since piano lessons are located quite near both Target and Goodwill, Tuesdays have become a vicious cycle of drop off unwanted stuff at Goodwill and go fill up a cart with treasures at Target.

Yesterday I broke the cycle by popping into Goodwill instead of Target. Saved myself fifty bucks in the process, too. I'm sure of it. I never leave Target with less than fifty bucks worth of goodies in my cart.

The items one can find at Goodwill has become a source of fascination for me. I've blogged about it before. Finding the fake boobs is still my most exceptional discovery.

But I liked the progression of items that I found yesterday.

First off, I saw these shorts. I simply must have them for the comedic value alone:

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Instagram, Pinterest, and Snuggies Make Me Happy

Last week, I was messing around with the Instagram app again. What can I say? It makes me happy.

Just look at this photo and tell me it doesn't make you happy:

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My New Year's Resolution? Sit On The Couch Under My Zebra Snuggie And Eat Ice Cream

It is January 12 and I need to finalize my New Year's resolutions. Yep, I'm making a resolution. I decided that last year's resolution to gain a little culture was a good experience (minus the back splashing potty and being groped by a stranger), so I've been figuring out what I want to do in 2012 to make me a better/healthier/more knowledgeable person.

So far the only resolution that has any appeal has been the one in which I sit on my couch under my zebra Snuggie, eat Breyer's ice cream, and watch the new Celebrity Wife Swap show on ABC. According to popular opinion (my husband and all but one friend), Celebrity Wife Swap doesn't satisfy the criteria of making me a better/healthier/more knowledgeable person. In fact, it does the opposite of making me a better/healthier/more knowledgeable person. So I've decided to do the opposite.

What is the opposite of Celebrity Wife Swap?

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Mr. and Mrs. Muscle Beach In Gingerbread Form

I've had several inquiries about whether or not I made gingerbread people at Christmastime this year. Okay. Several inquiries might be a stretch. To be truthful, I've had one person ask, but she was very persistent and made me feel as though millions hundreds tens of people wanted to know.

Remember my gingies from Christmas 2010? They were quite scandalous.

I decided not to make an entire army of gingerbread men clad only in their undies, kind of a 'been there, done that'. This year I decided to do something different. Something more fun. Something that didn't involve underwear …

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Took A Photo Without Siri's Help

We've been having some pretty spectacular sunsets around my house lately. I've been missing most of them because the sun is setting around 6:00 and I'm not thinking about grabbing my camera and dashing outside to capture one. I'm thinking about making dinner and (more importantly) figuring out how to get my evening quota of butter in it.

What sometimes works in my favor is my oldest daughter's swim practices. The timing is such that we either eat very early or very late. We've chosen very early because I want my kids in bed before 11:00 on school nights.

Wait … where was I going with this?

Oh yes. The sunsets and my lack of camera.

After dropping the cherub off at practice, I hit McDonald's for a large Diet Coke. It was a matter of life and death.

Really.

I was parched.

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Ninja Kitty's New Roomie

The other night, I was sitting on the couch, under my zebra Snuggie (don't judge, Snuggies are amazing), eating a bowl of Breyer's ice cream, when I heard Ninja Kitty in the garage. He was making unhappy, growly cat noises … the kind he only makes when another animal has invaded his territory.

A brief argument broke out between my husband and myself over who had to go out to the garage to investigate what upset Ninja Kitty. We settled the argument the way we settle a lot of things in our house: rock, paper, scissors.

My rock smashed his scissors, so I remained happily under my Snuggie eating my ice cream while the husband peeked in the garage. An irritated Ninja Kitty met him at the door. Apparently another cat had invaded Ninja Kitty's garage. More importantly, the cat had helped him/herself to Ninja Kitty's food.

This did not bode well for Ninja Kitty or my husband.

As soon as he announced that the source of the unhappy, growly cat noises in the garage were because of the presence of another cat, my girls and I started thinking of names for our new pet.

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Under My Zebra Snuggie

I missed a pretty spectacular ring around the moon a few nights ago. Friends alerted me via text that I should grab my camera and go outside to snap a few photos.

I thought about it. I spent quite a few minutes deciding with I wanted to leave my warm spot and go out into the bitter January cold. By the time I unwound myself from the couch, found my camera, and put on my heavy coat the moon had lost its halo.

I missed it.

Because I was happily ensconced in my new zebra print Snuggie.

That's right. I said Snuggie. A zebra print Snuggie.

And she's lovely.

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My Grandmother. She's Small, But Mighty.

Yesterday I packed up the family and we headed over to central Illinois to visit my Grandmother. Visits to my Grandmother's house always involve two things: shopping at the mall and eating lunch in a fancy restaurant.

It took Grandmother a while to answer the door. I know she's ninety-six and a half years old. But it took her longer to answer the door than usual. The ensuing conversation:

Me: It took you a while to answer the door.

Grandmother: Well I was watching TV. TV is just awful now, isn't it?

Me: Some of it. What were you watching?

Grandmother: Jerry Springer.

True story. Lord help us all.

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Why Is There A Mellancamp Album At The Antiques Store?

A couple of days ago, my girls and I flitted about a local antique store with my aunt and cousin. I like the antique store we visited because it's different than most antique stores. Meaning (of course) it's big, has above average restrooms, and they stock cool stuff.

Like old John Cougar albums.

Not John Mellancamp or John Cougar Mellancamp. Just Johnny Cougar, lookin' like a hood.

I liked these vintage Walt Disney World mugs, too. I would have purchased them if the names were Jack and Diane instead of Jim and Diane. What can I say? Mellancamp (in all of his incarnations) and his songs are everywhere.
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