Sunday night I stayed up after Fred went to bed, and I watched the Footloose remake.
Oh. Just. No. No no no. I’m sure it’s because I’m ancient and set in my old-lady ways, but ugh. Just no. I’m going to have to watch the original (which I saw like 15 times in the theater) to wash the remake off my eyeballs.
I’ve never been a fan of Lori Singer, but I think she was the better Ariel (though Julianne Hough is adorable). And why did they have that tall skinny boy as Willard? For the love of god, Willard’s supposed to be a big burly bullish lunkhead, not some skinny boy who couldn’t hold his own in a fight.
I wanted to like Dennis Quaid as Reverend Moore, but I find Dennis Quaid extra annoying lately (“Hi, I’m all charming and DEVILISH! Let me unleash my devilish smile at you!”) so I wasn’t able to get past that, even though he was perfectly fine. Andie MacDowell was fine, I was pleased to see Ray McKinnon (who played the delightfully odd Lincoln Potter in the most recent season of Sons of Anarchy) as Uncle whatshisface, I liked seeing Kim Dickens (born and raised in Huntsville, AL!) as Aunt whozits.
I guess I’d say that if I hadn’t seen the original, I would have rated this one “Meh, okay”, but there were too many things I missed from the original. For one, Ariel’s poem, which I can mostly recite from memory (I sing to you of Silver Swans/ Of Kingdoms and Carillons/ I sing to you of bodies intertwined/ Underneath an innocent sky)(I am not proud that’s taking up space in my brain, by the way), Uncle whatshisface picking up the rock and yelling “Burn in Hell? This says ‘Burn in Hell!'” and Ren and Chuck playing chicken with the tractors. What’s this race track horseshit?
I love a good dance movie, and so I would have watched the remake regardless. I don’t recommend it, though – the original’s available on Blu-Ray, go get it. I’m going to!
On second thought, I think I’m going to get the Blu-Ray from Netflix. I’ll probably buy the movie eventually, but no hurry right?
Along with assorted other dumbassery that makes up being me is the inability to tell where, on a processed chicken, the breast is located. I can hold up the chicken, I can tell where the damn legs are (I’m not an IDIOT)(yes I am), I know where the wings are, but when it comes to figuring out which side is the breast and which is the back, I don’t fucking know. I can hold the chicken up in a rough approximation of the position it would be in if it were alive and marching across the back forty, but it just doesn’t translate in my brain. I can’t figure it out. It’s like MATH, except that MATH is less complicated. What the FUCK? Every time I want to cook a chicken (I made a chicken in the crock pot yesterday), I have to call Fred and say “Drumsticks on the top or the bottom if I want to cook this chicken breast-side down?” Then he gets all EXPLAIN-Y and I have to say “For fuck’s sake, I don’t need a monologue about the evolution of chickens and debate which came first, DRUMSTICKS ON THE TOP OR BOTTOM? IF THEY’RE ON THE BOTTOM, IS THE CHICKEN BREAST SIDE DOWN?”
And because I made a chicken yesterday, I currently possess the knowledge that it needs to be drumsticks on the bottom, but I can feel the knowledge leaking out of my ears as I type. By this time tomorrow, I won’t be able to remember and the whole vicious cycle will begin anew.
“Mmmm?”
“Yeah, they’re sleeping again.”
“Shhh. If you wake them up, I will cut you.”
I don’t know that I’ve taken a picture of the whole box before now, it’s usually close-ups of Emmy and the kittens. Fred made this a few years ago with the idea that perhaps cats would like to hang out in it as well as on top of it. Until now, the only cat who has shown any interest has been Miz Poo, who likes to hang out in the foster room when there aren’t kittens confined in there.
We actually put that box in the room as an option for Maggie to use last year. It was really too small for Maggie, and though she did start laboring in the box, she actually gave birth in the kennel across the room and that’s where her babies stayed. The box is 18 inches wide, two feet, deep, and 18 inches high, if that gives you any idea of Emmy’s size. We had to tape that piece of cardboard across the front because the day the babies were born, I went upstairs to find one of them out of the box looking lost and Emmy wasn’t paying attention. Perhaps before we have our next pregnant cat, we need to rethink the birthing box options.
Eyes are open on all the babies now – some more than others.
That baby in the middle, laying on her back, kills me dead with the toes and the stripes.
Bath time.
More bath time.
“MOMMA, I HAZ A COMPLAINT AND MY COMPLAINT IS THAT I AM CLEAN SO STOP LICKING ME!”
Over the past year or so, Maxi has stopped wanting to come into the house. Well, she acts like she wants to come into the house, she sits there at the door and looks longingly at us. When we open the door to invite her inside, she looks past us and says “Ugh. Are there kittens in that house?” and stomps away.
Instead, she wants to spend time in the garage. And it’s not like there’s anything in the garage she can hurt or that can hurt her, so we’ve taken to letting her go inside when she wants to. We set up a litter box (which she uses) and bowls of food and water. She spends her time upstairs on a pile of old bedding or stretched out on the floor, and we check on her every now and then and ask if she wants to go outside. Sometimes she does (on those occasions you can hear her hitting the floor, and she’ll usually call out so you know she’s on her way to the stairs) and otherwise she just ignores us. So basically, we’re crammed into this house with two humans and 12 permanent residents and a rotating cast of fosters, and Maxi gets that entire garage to herself.
Spoiled rotten.
Previously
2011: No entry.
2010: No entry.
2009: Oh, we never allow our cats on the counters or the table. Never!
2008: What you don’t know is that there are moments of pure glamour interspersed with all the drudgery.
2007: No entry.
2006: That is an amazing and scintillating fact, right there.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: Y’know, sometimes I wonder how I make it through the world, clueless as I am.
2002: Her portly butt probably cut off the circulation to something important.
2001: I should have her arrested.
2000: Work was just heavenly today.
The breast and the leg are my favorite parts of the chicken (cannot stand the thighs), so it’s easy for me to remember that all the “good stuff: is on the same side.” That might help if you’re a breast-and-leg-preferrer, but otherwise it’ll probably just confuse things more. (c:
It would help… if I could manage to keep it in my brain. I should write myself a cheat note and stick it to the freezer!
Um, thanks? I’ve had the chicken problem before, but never again. I’m fairly certain I’ll never be able to wash the image of Fred with a chicken leg sticking out of his bottom out of my head. Of course, I may never eat chicken again, either!
I have to nearly be strapped to my seat to watch the original Footloose (hubby’s a big fan, so I endure once in a blue moon), but I can’t believe Hollywood is so desperate for ideas that it was remade. And I loathe Dennis Quaid with a burning passion. Thanks for the scoop about it, though!
I love how relaxed and contented Emmy looks now.
I’ll admit, I’m a little afraid that I’ll watch the original and think “Really? Was I serious???”, but I do love me some Kevin Bacon and Chris Penn!
Maxi’s no fool!
EXPLAIN-Y!! That’s an excellent word for the men in our lives. I have one of those explain-y men in my house also. I don’t get the 10 minute explanation when all I wanted was a 2-word answer. Makes you want to smack them upside the head with the processed chicken just so they’ll stop talking (and it won’t matter which side is up).
P.S. Those babies are some kind of sweet.
P.P.S. I lurve Dennis Quaid’s devilish, toothy grin.
We took Miz Poo to the vet last week, and I don’t know what on earth was going on, but Fred would NOT stop explaining things to the vet. The poor vet, I’m sure he was like “I really did not need to know all that DETAIL about this cat!”
After my “Fred” goes on for awhile, I just go to my happy place and sing “La la la la la” to myself in my head, until he’s done. That’s probably what the vet did too. Heh. “Explain-y” is now my favorite word.
You need a cat door in the garage so she can get out if you’re not there. Of course you could get a possum. eek.
We’ve talked about a cat door, but yeah – I’m really afraid a possum or raccoon or (eek!) a skunk would wander in there!
Maxi’s been plotting that garage take-over for YEARS!!!
She has patience, that’s for sure. 🙂 She probably considers it her first home, actually, when we were cleaning out the garage after we bought the house, we found a pile of squirrel tails under the steps!
(“Hi, I’m all charming and DEVILISH! Let me unleash my devilish smile at you!”)
You’re such an asshole. Heh. But I can’t deny its truth.
Oh, shit. Check that apostrophe usage (it’s) before Jane sees it!
Fixed, shhh. What punctuation mistake? Heheh.
🙂
Thanks for fixing its spelling….it’s actually one of my pet peeves!
😀
I am SO DAMN HAPPY to hear that I’m not the only (supposedly) competent adult that can’t tell which side the chicken’s breasts are on. You can imagine the look on my husband’s face when he saw me holding the chicken upright, trying to picture it running, little cartoon question marks dancing over my head. I usually end up poking and deciding which side feels more…breasty. And as much trouble as I have with a chicken, it’s pretty much impossible with a duck. I roasted one last week, and actually ended up flipping the damn bird over every thirty minute, just to be on the safe side.
The breast is the fatter, meatier part. The back is bony and has much less meat. The only time a chicken back finds its way into our house is when I buy a whole bird. Like thirty-one years ago when I was a very new bride my mom was out somewhere and a whole bunch of us were at my parent’s house. I was sent to the supermarket to get chicken by my father. I had only bought small packs or specific cuts at the butcher in the city. I bought a couple of packages of mixed parts. It included backs. Holy Shit you would think I killed the dogs and set the house on fire. My father and his buddy, an old friend of the family, humiliated me so much over those damn chicken backs I could never forget it! Chicken backs were not something you ever let darken your door unless you were starving to death apparently. I agree they don’t have enough meat but Damn! (I fear I like Fred am explainy :0)
Nah, you’re not nearly as explain-y as Fred. And I don’t MIND his explain-y ways, really, except when I need a simple this-or-that answer to a question and he has to give me background and background to the background, and so forth. 🙂
In his heyday I thought Dennis Quaid and his cocksure grin was the sexist thing on two feet. Now meh, not so much. Hasn’t aged that well and my taste has changed. Pure animal magnetism doesn’t do it for me anymore.
I have been SEARCHING for these stories and have been unable to locate them. Is there somewhere I can go to find them again? I need to show my husband….
the farted walnut, and laughed and laughed. My husband sure is a funny motherfucker, isn’t he?
Also, someone was looking for the entry about, ahem, someone passing gas in Lowe’s and Fred getting blamed for it. That’s over at Fred’s site, he wrote about it, not me. He is also a great big lying liar. In case you were wondering.
Unfortunately, they were posted on Fred’s now-defunct site and aren’t available anymore. I’ve suggested a couple of times that he allow me to publish them here, and he can’t decide whether he’s willing or not. I’ll poke him again about it. 🙂
You can get Maxi a kitty door for the garage that has a special attachment for a collar that will trigger letting only that animal in.
I also have the same issues with which side the breasts are on. There! I’ve admitted it.
You’re a braver woman than I, Robyn. Footloose is a classic. Cheesy, yes, but a classic nonetheless. I cant watch the remake. I can’t! I won’t! For God’s sake, what next? Flashdance? Dirty Dancing? Is nothing sacred? GOD!