Some problems with LoTR: Elf Edition

(”It’s pronounced KEL-eh-born, not SEL-eh-born“. Oh Cats, that is never getting old.)

A couple of nights ago, I was having trouble sleeping. So I did what anyone would do, and popped in some of the DVDs from the Lord of the Rings: Elf Edition.

You may not be familiar with the “Elf Editions”. You may know them by their more formal name “The Special Extended Editions”.

But when my husband put them on his Christmas list back when they were released, he referred to them as the Elf Editions (on account of how almost all the extra footage is elfs walking around Being Tall). So that’s what I thought they were called. And that’s what I asked for. In store after store. Getting confused looks. Over and over. Never in stock. Where could it be. Why didn’t anyone have the Elf Edition? (”No, not the one that comes with the elf action figure. The Elf Edition, THE ELF EDITION!”)

Ahem.

So anyways, I was watching LoTR: Elf Edition. And a couple of things were bugging me. It turns out that yelling them at the screen wasn’t sufficiently cathartic, so here they are again. You’re welcome nerds.

1. Sam: Everything dampens his spirits.

“Nothing ever dampens your spirits, does it Sam?”

What? Seriously Frodo, what epic trip are you on? Because in the one I’m watching everything bothers Sam. Sam is scowling or moping throughout this entire movie. He’s never been so far away from The Shire, Merry and Pippin can’t take a coupla carrots from Farmer Maggot. He’s sick of lembas bread. He wants a potato. He thinks Gollum is trying to kill him. I could go on.

Even if Frodo hadn’t noticed before, how about five seconds after Frodo makes this comment, when Sam is a pussy about it raining. For frack’s sake hobbit. You’re like this -> <- close to Mordor. And you’re sad cuz it’s raining? Just thank your hobbit god for every second you’re not being gutted by an orc. More like Samwise the Mopey.

2. Everyone seems to know about the one ring, except for the ancient and powerful all-knowing wizard.

When Bilbo goes all uncut-cocaine over a ring, Gandalf has to look that shit up. The superduper powerful smart wizard has to get his ass to the library. He has to go all the way to Gondor’s sub-basement level 4, and leaf through moldy papers for daaaaays to find out what it is.

Everyone else? They just know. Boromir. He knows. Faramir. The foot soldiers. That kid who throws a rock at the Uruk-hai? I bet he knows too. They’re all “oh, you mean, he has The One Ring? Yeah. Y’know. The One Ring. The weapon of the enemy. Doy. Do you have any more Mithril? Because I’m about to get smote bitches.”

Even fucking Galadriel is all “and some things that should not have been forgotten were lost”. Were they? Were they Galadriel? Cuz for a secret lost forgotten thing, everyone is talking about it a lot. The One Ring is everybody’s virginity in the locker room of Middle Earth.

Y’know what. Forget that second one. Frodo has a big mouth. He probably just didn’t keep it secret or safe enough. He can’t stop telling people about his burden. It’s mine. I alone have to do it. No giant strapping men, I don’t want you — who know the way and are fucking burly — to defend me from countless baddies. Wah wah. It burns. It’s heavy. That guy’s looking at me. It’s all on me, even though Sam literally carries him to the finish line.

…

Hmmm. Okay. Forget the first one too. I forgive Sam for being Sammopey the Jowly. If you carry someone over hot lava, you get a pass. But fuck you Frodo. Fuck you.

p.s. Frodes, after all that, you didn’t even finish your mission. Did you cast the ring into the fire? Like you were supposed to? This whole time? NO. Gollum had to bite your finger off to finish the job. So really, Gollum got it done. All you did was have fingers. A monkey could have done that. A monkey. What you “did” didn’t even require opposable thumbs. Slow clap buddy, slow chewed off finger clap.

*LoTR Easter Egg: Look for the scene where Pippin is showing way too much chest hair for an innocent little hobbit. I have ruined this movie for more than one friend by pointing this out. You can’t unsee it people, you can’t unsee it.

Scenes from a (good) marriage

-1-

[About 5 minutes into his side of the conversation...]

Husband: “… so I really love my $1000 amp, but the one thing I’d change is to have the split head and cab version. And this would be about $500, but if I could get $700 for the one I have, then it would only be a few hundred to upgrade and…”

[Few more minutes of discussing ups and downs of a few hundred here and there...]

Husband: “So what do you think I should do?”

Me: “I bought gloves for running today. They were $29.99.”

Him: “…”

Me: “I was looking at the $35 ones, but then I was like ‘dude, let’s not go crazy with this’. I mean, $35. So I went with the $29.99 ones, because they also come with a hat, and I had been waiting to buy a hat too, so this way I could get both for $29.99.”

Him: “…”

Me: “I also stopped in to see if I could pick up another pack of those cloth napkins while they’re on sale for $12.99. Because that’s $4 less than usual.”

Him: “…”

Me: “Sorry, what was your question again?”

Him: “Yes, you’re very clever and funny.”

-2-

I’m working in my office, and hear Husband waking up in the other room. Mumbley mumbley waking up noises. Something that sounds like a sentence directed at me. I can only assume it’s about the cow sock I put on his foot while it was sticking out from under the covers…

-3-

Husband came through to ask that when I turn on the heat in the morning (broken furnace shmoken furnace), could I please also take the big duvet off of him, because he gets stuck under it (it’s true, he does).

Me: [shmooshing his face between my hands] “Sure thing baby. Do you get twapped under da big heavy bwankie? Is it hard cuz you get all stucksy wucksy in your bedsie? Poor widdle munchiekins!”

Him: [hands on hips] “Make. Me. Oatmeal.” [turns on heel and leaves my office].

And I did.

The End.

Girly.

This is my foot right now. The other one’s damage doesn’t photograph as well, because he’s mostly just poofy. This one is also pretty poofy, but not as noticeably.

I was working on kicks. Some of this poofing and purpling is because I don’t do it often enough, so my feet are extra soft and peachlike (the tops, not the bottoms. You could sand wood with those bad boys.)

But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the awesomeness of these bruises.

Glory shot:

My nails were already painted, not for the pic. I keep ending up with pink nails on Muay Thai day.

There are actually about 9 layers of colour on there. Because I can’t be assed to take it off properly. So my nail polish is cumulative. As my good – and similar – buddy said:

“I love when sometimes I get my nails done and they’re removing polish and they remove the layer of, say, green and then they find pink
so they blink and remove that
and there’s some gold
and I’m like “what?”

Yup.

Current layers (if memory serves): pink, white, grey, turquoise, other grey, other pink, other other pink.

This is what girly looks like.

Best. Kitty. Ever.

Chelsea
1996(?)-2011

The greatest kitty that ever was. We don’t know how to not have you here. We’ll keep your fuzzy little face in our hearts and will miss you forever.

Y’know what Universe? Fuck. You.

My dad died suddenly at the end of May. A month later, my husband’s granny died. A few months later, today, my cat is at the vet, with lungs full of fluid, and a very bad prognosis. If we hadn’t got her in, we would have lost her inside of 24 hours. We’ve been warned we may very well still lose her today, or within a few days. After 15 years of being our perfect pet.

So I reiterate:

Dear Universe – FUCK. YOU.

That is all.

Dinner at Boehmer

Dear Restaurants:

I am a good cook. I make food that I enjoy eating. So when I go out for dinner, what I’m looking for and paying for is good food and a good experience. Please don’t ask me to be an enforcer to make those things happen. The bar? It’s not that high. Don’t rip me off, don’t upsell me, and don’t act like we’re in your way by dining at your restaurant. I’ll tip well, appreciate all of your effort and expertise, I will tell friends about your place, and I will come back.

Assume I will want tap water, and have sparkling as the option. Toronto’s tap water is very good. Collectively, we’re very lucky to have it. I enjoy drinking it. Don’t hairy eyeball us over our choice to support it.

When you bring us the menu, please say something about it. Don’t dump a pile of papers on the table and then run away.

Don’t upsell me on bread. Especially without making it clear that you are selling me bread ($3). And if I say yes to bread, and then discover that the dish already comes with bread, I will be very unhappy.

Don’t assume I am stupid. I have probably seen prosciutto before. That is probably why I ordered it. So if you serve me thickly cut prosciutto, like, rashes of streaky bacon thick, and it’s intentional, it’s probably best to say something about it. Otherwise, I will probably assume that someone, somewhere doesn’t know what they’re doing.

I know. If I am served food which is not prepared properly, like freakishly thick prosciutto or grey boar chops, I should point it out, and I should send it back. But please understand that I hate doing this. Many people hate doing this. Many people (like me) will just never come back.

Though. Even those of us who are loathe to send our plates of ill-prepared food back to the kitchen, even we will tip you off. If you come to collect a plate, and there is a sizeable amount of meat left on it — you really should ask why. Ditto a sizeable amount of cheesecake. And we don’t mistake avoidance for efficiency. Whisking away a plate on the sly without asking how it was denies the diner the chance to either ask you to make it right, or to give you feedback on how you might make it right for someone else.

And, finally, failing everything else, please, please do not drop off our desserts and then abandon our table. There is nothing that sours an evening more quickly than being abandoned. I literally cannot leave until you return. No one likes not being able to leave. By the time the table is at the point of joking that they’re being forced into a dine-and-dash, the server’s tip percentage has been severely compromised.

And speaking of being unable to leave. It’s Toronto. In October. I’d like my coat back. If you took it, please be ready to return it. If I’m standing at the front and standing at the front and standing at the front for long enough that I give up and go rummaging through the coatrack myself, it’s a cold itchy scarf of bitterness on a jacket of disappointment.

I’ve been wanting to try this restaurant for a while. And, yes, it was a group buy coupon that finally motivated me to get around to going.

But it was the letdowns from every station that left me tipping only on the post-coupon bill. And that, for me, is terrible. I am a good tipper. I am an overtipper. It’s a perverse expression of some remnant of Catholic guilt, and I can’t shake it. So it has to be a truly bad experience to show up in my tip. The kind of experience that ensured I won’t be back, and that I’ll tell others why.

How do you take your granola?

Y’know, we know you get to know how your spouse likes their coffee. But most people have preferences for how they prefer most of their foods, most of the time. Valuable memory space in my head is currently allocated to lyrics of shit 80s music, and how my husband likes his tortillas folded (tucked in at the bottom and holdable in one hand).

11 years in, and the only thing I know is that I don’t know all of his food quirks. I mean, I’m good but I’m not perfect.

A few of the ones I do know:
* Granola (and most other cereals): Milk just barely cresting the lowest point on the cereal. NOT TOO MUCH MILK. Where how much milk I like == too much milk. Err on too little.
* Coffee: Americanos black. Drip coffee sometimes with a bit of milk. Err on too little milk.
* All baked goods: With raisins. Err on too many raisins. There are never too many raisins. Fact: All boys everywhere fucking love raisins.
* Scones: Buttered. Freshly out of the oven? Made with 2 lbs of butter? Fuckit. It still needs moar butter.
* Pancakes: Special ingredients facing down. If there are bananas/blueberries/chocolate chips present in the pancakes, they should be kissing the plate. Or They Are Wrong.
* Broccoli: Absent. (Unless in dish of General Tso Chicken.)
* Eggs: Yolk firm but not hard, soft but not runny. Will both make relentless fun of me for ordering eggs scrambled (”kiddie eggs!”) and occasionally have them that way himself.
* SC Festive Special: Substitute white meat, fries, whole wheat roll (to be healthy). Lindor priority ranking changes year to year. Hazards: Will steal my dipping sauce.
* “I want something dry”: This translates into either instant oatmeal (IN WHAT WAY IS THAT DRY) or a blueberry waffle or … or… I don’t know, chili. Cravings for “something dry” usually appear approximately 3-4 hours after dinner and 4-5 minutes before videogames.

…

What I still don’t quiiiiite have down? When it is time for the forks he thinks are “stabby” versus the forks he thinks are “scoopy”. I cannot for the life of me get this “right”. So 1 in 3 meals start with him quietly standing up and swapping out a utensil. The echoing clank of metal on metal as a fork is returned to the drawer is the sound of a marriage failing and he will eventually leave me to marry another and she will always know the right fork and will bear him many fat children that they’ll cram into a “mini” SUV and drive to Kindermusik while I ride off on my motorcycle and console myself in a vagrant wandering forkless life filled with endless nights of meaningless sex with attractive strangers and… wait.

The Stabby Scoopy Problem is not helped by that I consider the “scoopy” fork better for stabbing, and vice versa. And I think it’s that … fish is… scoopy if there’s rice and sauce… and…. pasta is stabby if it doesn’t have … a meat with it… unless it is… a… “chunky” pasta? Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaah…

“Juuungle life, I’m faar away from nowhere, on my ooooown like Taaarzan Booy…”

p.s. Post title answer: Orally, you perverts.

The five things Desert Island Discs taught me about British actors.

1. Most British actresses are very, very fond of Elvis.
2. Everyone, everyone, loves Sir Laurence Olivier.
3. Many British men are desperate to dance, but think they can only do so alone on a desert island.
4. The diversity of Lady Gaga, Kanye West, & Missy Elliott’s fanbases are astonishing.
5. The MOST important event in the year for ALL British people is some Christmas do called a “pantomime” (”panto”). They are obsessed with it. Whoever can crack the success of the “panto” will have all British people in the palm of their hand. Forever.*

* Sometimes hyperboles are just damn accurate.

Source: (Desert Island Discs)

Little hands

Today I went through what there was of my dad’s stuff. There was not much to take, and I did not take very much.

But I do have this:

On the back it reads:
“FATHER’S DAY
This little gift to you I give,
To keep as long as you may live.”

Holding the print of your little 5-year old hand, when the reason you’re holding it is because the mass-produced kindergarten gift sentiment on the back has been fulfilled. He no longer lives, so it has come back to me.

I don’t know what you do with that. I don’t know where you put it.

So for now, I’m just listening to “Here Comes The Sun” and setting it on my desk.

Battleship.

No. Just… no.

I can’t say it better than good ol’ PhotographyFace:

PF: “I CANNOT TAKE YOU TO THE AURORA BOREALIS”
Me: “SHUTTUP WITH YOUR EXCUSES”

Oh wait. Okay, that was earlier. Here we go:

PF: “You know they’re doing a movie version of Battleship right? The board game?”
Me: “I have heard that.”
PF: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDMXkPfxjOc
Me: “I also heard it was terrrrrrible.”
Me: “Gah! YouTube ad! Fuck you unskippable YouTube ad!”
Me: “I can’t get past the daughter thing. I’m trying to get to the ships but I keep throwing up over and over in my mouth.”
PF: “I don’t recall many aliens when playing Battleship.”
Me: “GET THE FUCK OUT
THAT IS FUCKING HORRIBLE
ALIENS
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH”
PF: “Fuck yeah.”
PF: “Now I want to buy Battleship and make someone play it, just so I can stand up, and nuke their shit from space and say ‘I’m playing as the aliens‘.”
Me: “We have it.”
PF: “Go make TheBoy play with you. Then get some large thing you can stand up and throw at his ships and go ‘Aliens mother fucker!‘, then walk away.”

My Thursday evening is clear…