Angela Law

animal lover, gardener, knitter, and gourmet cook
 

carlito’s way

We caught this on HBO this evening. It was a good movie, albeit a little long. Pacino, Penn, what more could you ask for? I didn’t really know anything about this movie, so that’s always a plus–I was surprised to see Sean Penn playing the part of a dorky lawyer (I thought he was going to be a thug). But, as always, he was great. Of course, Pacino is a great actor as well, but I’m not sure why they are always casting him as a Hispanic. He looks Italian. He is Italian. They did have a funny scene in this movie where some guy from the mafia told him that he looked like an Italian. I guess that’s how you get around it.

If you like good movies, you will enjoy this one.

the last day of christmas

Today, Judy came over for our annual Christmas visit. She was away over the holiday, so this was the first chance we had to get together. As a bonus, she got to join us for our New Year’s Day dinner–pork, kielbasa, sauerkraut, dumplings, salad, and champagne. Since Brian and I don’t like to go anywhere on New Year’s Eve, I’m thinking about adding pierogies to next year’s menu–I figure we can make them on New Year’s Eve since we’re home and not doing anything anyway. Might as well do something constructive, eh?

After eating, exchanging presents, and bs’ing for a while, we went downstairs and played some air hockey. I’m sad to say Judy was undefeated this afternoon. My only consolation is that I’m still champion of the house. It might not be much, but it’s all I have.

Later this evening, we plan to take down the tree and put away the rest of the decorations (Brian already took down the outside lights on Saturday). I can’t believe I have to go to work tomorrow. Having all of last week off really spoiled me. At least it will be a short work week this week.

happy new year

We intended on going to Johnstown’s New Year’s Eve celebration last night, but the cold, rainy weather encouraged us to stay home, instead. We did head out to see the 10pm fireworks, though (as viewed from the confines of our toasty car). They were really nice. The show lasted 20 minutes. That’s a lot of fireworks.

After we got home, Jake went to bed and Brian and I finished watching the Sunday night NFL game. Then we watched about two minutes of one of the New Year’s Eve countdown shows before deciding that our time would be better spent going to bed and reading for a bit.

an incidental redecoration

Sometime last month, Jake and Lizzy managed to bend the handles on my wine opener (I’m guessing Lizzy knocked the wine opener stand over and Jake tramped on it). This wasn’t any old wine opener, either–it was a silver-plated limited edition one given to me for Christmas a couple of years ago by Brian’s dad. I wasn’t too happy about this. Our jeweler recommended someone who might be able to fix it, but they were not able to due to the type of metal it was.

I searched the internet for parts and finally came upon the manufacturer’s website. I was able to order exactly what I needed and the price wasn’t too bad, either. I was pretty excited to find this site because all parts for my opener are available. However, when I received my part, there was a note on my receipt saying that this was the last one they had.

Given that, I decided to find a safer haven for my wine opener. It had been knocked over a few other times in the past and I didn’t want it to happen again since the last time was nearly fatal. I ended up putting it in the nook by my sideboard, which used to house our Grandmother clock. It should be pretty safe there. Upon doing that, we took a good look at the room and ended up moving everything that was on the walls to a different spot, too. We also moved a piece of art from the living room into the dining room. Brian has to make two picture frames, but other than that, the walls are done in there.

While I was at it, we removed an ugly phone jack that was no longer in use. Doing this left an outlet-sized hole in the plaster that I had to fix. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t done before, but moving the location of my wine opener sure turned into a bigger job than anticipated.

kalifornia

We watched this movie last night. It starred Brad Pitt and Juliette Lewis. The movie was rather reminiscent of Natural Born Killers (which also starred Juliette Lewis), but not quite as good. We did enjoy it, though. This movie actually came out a year before NBK, so it wasn’t quite the rip-off I thought it was.

It was interesting to see Pitt playing a total bumpkin, who also happens to be a serial killer. Much like Tom Cruise, the guy can’t grow a beard to save his life (but it still didn’t hurt to look at him). To be honest, if the movie starred anyone else, I wouldn’t have bothered to watch it, but when Brad Pitt is on the screen, nothing else matters.