You Want the Moon, Mary?

I’ve been giving up on books very easily lately. First was Garbo Laughs. I read the first ten pages half a dozen times before I realized it didn’t amount to the hype it had received, at least for me. Next was Tom Perrotta’s The Abstinence Teacher. I started to enjoy this one about one hundred pages in, but the library will be calling soon if I don’t return it promptly. Plus, I’ve had Stephanie Nolen’s Shakespeare’s Face and Thomas Pawlick’s The End of Food burning a hole in my metaphorical book bag for a few weeks. I am only a chapter into Shakespeare’s Face and I’m dying to pick it up again. Who knew that the only known portrait done of Shakespeare while he was alive was found in an Ottawa dining room?

I had the most spectacular night on Wednesday — I saw It’s A Wonderful Life on the big screen. It may seem like a simple way to spend a Wednesday evening, but it blew me away beyond words. I didn’t grow up on the movie, rather I discovered it in high school around the time of the American Film Institute’s top 100 list that I reviewed with the fury of a film major. When I met Jordan I found out that he loves the movie just as much as I do. So, It’s A Wonderful Life became our first tradition as a couple. Usually, it would be just the two of us and a few bottles of wine, watching it on a 20" screen. It also made its way into a first-year essay that I wrote on Frank Capra. To see It’s A Wonderful Life at the Bloor Cinema, with 150 other people was nothing short of magical. For the first time we could see different things. Most notably, the snow looked magically fake, making it obvious that the outdoor scenes were shot on a RKO studios soundstage. And at the end, when George Bailey gets his life back, everybody seamed to be a little teary-eyed. Capped off by applause at the end, I can honestly say I have become obsessed with the idea of finding a theatre that plays more old movies. Seeing a Katharine Hepburn movie on the big screen would most possibly be the most exhilarating thing I can imagine.

I was happy to come home on Monday night to a number of packages with my name on them. My etsy purchases had arrived, so now I can get to wrapping! At the risk of sounding like a crazy cat lady, I even ordered some homemade goodies for the cats, only to come home to find that they had already ripped through the packaging to try and get them out.

Last by not least, tonight is CHIPS. A party a year in the making, but way too odd and lengthy to explain in detail. Pictures of drunken chip-eating will follow I’m sure. Also, I have the Rose family Christmas this weekend. I have a feeling I will be consuming copious amounts of beer this weekend.