movies of 2018

Geostorm
Under the Arctic Sky
Roman Israel, Esq.
Black Panther 
Lara Croft
Isle of Dogs 
Downsizing
Love Simon
Jumanji
Cook Off
Murder on the Orient Express
Pitch Perfect 3
Z House of Posen
The Avengers: Infinity War
Solo
Red Sparrow
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Book Club
Oceans 8
Devil Wears Prada
I Tonya
The Spy Who Dumped Me
Dawn Wall

movies of 2017

Passengers
The Boss
Ninth Gate
Moana
Central Intelligence
Sully
Girl on the Train
Mistress America
Rogue One
Wonder Woman
Guardians of the Galaxy 2
American Vandal
Thor: Ragnarok
Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, MO
Lady Bird
Bridget Jones's Diary
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Atomic Blonde
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

I'm back

Here we are: a long holiday weekend wrapped. The four days were full, and we accomplished just about everything we set out to do. Rest. Relax. Spend quality time with the boys and with friends. Conquer the have-to-dos and bask in the want-to-dos.

Some of the highlights included the following:

~ Celebrating: Thanksgiving with our friends Steve and Lisa, their daughter Z, Lisa's sisters V and Karen, and Karen's husband John. It's our St. Paul Extra Family. We've had an open invitation to this gathering for years as it rotates through the sisters' respective homes. John and I often comment that we're overdue for hosting, but I'm partial to bringing my mother-in-law's Southern Cornbread Dressing from the Columbus (GA) Junior League Cookbook (1957) and my Grandma Hattie's pumpkin pie while someone else handles the bird.

~ Cooking:  As mentioned above, we made cornbread dressing and pumpkin pie, but we also spent an afternoon making dumplings. For years I have threatened to dedicate the year to making dumplings--gyoza, potstickers, pierogies, empanadas, gnocchi. You name it, I want to dumplingize it. Handheld food dipped or dragged through a sauce is perfect, efficient, and satisfying food. At long last, we did it! John, Simon, and I assembled the Dollar Dumplings from Lucky Peach's 101 Easy Asian Recipes. We purchased potsticker wrappers at the grocery store and filled them with a mixture of ground pork, ginger, scallions, Chinese cooking wine, sesame oil, and soy sauce. Crimping and pleating turned out to be the easy part. Steaming and browning has a bit of a learning curve. The dumplings stuck to each other and to the pan, but they were delicious. It was fun. We'll do it again. 2018 may well be the Year of the Dumpling.

 


~ Catching up:  My dear friend Caryl and I had brunch at Bon Vie, one of our favorite St. Paul breakfast places. Chit-chat and hash browns were first order. I miss seeing Caryl. Last year, she entered a master's program and took a full-time job simultaneously after staying home with her children for 17 years. Her free time must be precious, and I am thankful that she can make time for me.

Around the house we winterized the patio by raking and bagging leaves. We also worked on our respective hobbies. John charged the battery in the Beetle and took it for a drive, as well as attended to various guitar-building tasks. I knitted and finished reading Artemis, Andy Weir's lousy newest novel. The boys were kitted out for the upcoming swim season.

Couldn't we have another day?

movies of 2016

Locke
Everest
Sicario
Bridge of Spies
Deadpool
Spotlight
St. Elmo's Fire
Sisters
Captain America Civil War
Zoolander 2
How to Be Single
Iris
Hot Fuzz
Independence Day: Resurgence
The Big Short
Star Trek Beyond
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Jason Bourne
Nice Guys
Miss Sharon Jones
Keeping Up with the Joneses
The Accountant
Gimme Danger
Bad Moms
Arrival

I am still here.

Be back soon!

movies of 2015

For posterity and personal reference, here is my movie list from 2015. My favorites are in bold; avoid-at-all-costs are in italics.

1.  Pitch Perfect: the Brooklyn Shepards brought this pee-your-pants funny movie to Christmas. I had to buy it for St. Paul.
2.  The Interview: bought as soon as it was available on On Demand. As stupid as I thought it would be.
3.  From Russia with Love: classic Bond never disappoints
4.  The Fault in Our Stars: ugh. Sad for my children whose generation has John Green instead of John Hughes
5.  Maze Runner: another YA book adaptation; predictable with good action
6.  Captain America: The Winter Soldier: I have no idea
7.  Lucy: I enjoyed this when I watched it, but now I feel nothing. Scarlett Johansson, tho.
8.  Hateship, Loveship: a movie adaptation of an Alice Munro story. Kirsten Wiig was solid in this unfunny role.
9.  Girls, season 3: the Girls are awesome.
10. Obvious Child: This is the type of indie movie I love to love. This one mostly made me uncomfortable, but I still really liked Jenny Slate.
11. Gross Pointe Blank: classic. Watched with Simon and put John Cusack on his radar.
12. The Kingsman: LOVED. Took a mess of 15-year-olds to see this R-rated undercover agent comedy
13. St. Vincent: This movie was all that: Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy. Funny, poignant. Loved.
14. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou: Still my favorite Wes Anderson. Simon couldn't convince his friends to dress as Team Zissou for Halloween. But he did buy the Seu Jorge soundtrack.
15. Horrible Bosses 2: Stellar cast but as dumb as anticipated.
16. Breaking Upwards: Quirky but sad. Zoe Lister-Jones.
17. Life After Beth: Fun and funny teen zombie movie.
18. Revenge of the Mekons: John and I are in the movie!!! Audience scene filmed at the Fitz. We saw this at the Trylon, a charming jewelbox of a theater.
19. Blade Runner (final cut): Took the boys to see this at the Trylon. Their first viewing yielded a great postmortem.
20. Annie: At Christmas, Ben insisted on calling this the "black Annie". Argh. It's hard to ruin Annie.
21. Paddington: What can I say? Cute. W and I watched it on a sick day so it was perfect in all respects.
22. Wedding Ringer: Another dumb-funny movie. I see too many of these.
23. Pitch Perfect 2: the pitches are back. surprisingly, this sequel was as funny and whip-smart as the original
24. Spy: Melissa McCarthy. Funny.
25. Grand Budapest Hotel: New appreciation on second viewing. Color. Staging. Wes Anderson
26. Bottle Rocket: Attempting to become a Wes Anderson completist soon. Couldn't finish watching.
27. Imitation Game: Gut-wrenchingly sad. I loved this movie so much. Deserved all accolades.
28. The DUFF: love Mae Whitman
29. A Million Ways to Die in the West: I had higher hopes for this Seth MacFarlane vehicle
30. Barely Lethal: I got nothing. I feel like it should have been more memorable.
31. 100 Foot Journey: so charming and heartbreaking. Watched on our flight to Barcelona
32. While We're Young: Painful and funny and so Noah Baumbach. Barcelona flight.
33. Fantastic Four: Entertaining
34. Trainwreck: Date night. Funny.
35. 7 Days in hell (twice): Perfect mockumentary. Loved Andy Samberg, Kit Harrington (indubitably), Chris Evert and Serena Williams. Made my HBO subscription totally worth the extra expense.
36. This Is Spinal Tap: Shared with son #1. Still funny after all these years.
37. Meru: Glad to have seen this mountaineering documentary on a big screen. Need to see again.
38. A Walk in the Woods: Disappointing. Read the book, skip the movie.
39. Barcelona: Still funny. Whatever happened to Whit Stillman?
40. Real Genius: Shared with son #1. He loved it. I fell asleep.
41. The Martian: Glad I read the book first. I enjoyed the movie with youngest son.
42. The American, season one: Spies. 1970s. Slightly campy. Sign me up for Season Two.
43. Creed: I didn't want to see this but my boys persuaded me to go with them. No regrets. Cried like a baby. I hope this is the beginning of a new franchise.
44. Mad Max, Fury Road: wha? I don't get the fuss and strong reviews.
45. National Lampoon's Vacation (2015): Not a bad reboot. I laughed.
46. Jessica Jones: We binge-watched this Netflix series. LOVED. Can't wait for Luke's story.
47. American Ultra: Oh, I loved this funny, strange movie with Jesse Eisenberg and Kirsten Stewart.
48. Ricky and the Flash: Meh.
49. Pitch Perfect: Watched with nieces in Princeton while coloring. Perfect.
50. Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Holding Episodes 4-6 sacred, I wanted to hate this but couldn't. Despite being a retread of Episode 4, JJ Abrams nailed it. I  love the new characters.

Portugal: Overview

Sintra region with Atlantic ocean beyond

Once upon a time, about twenty years ago, I put Portugal on a long list of places to visit. I'm not sure why. Many places land on The List because I want to experience the culture, food, or landscape firsthand. I just didn't know much about Portugal beyond the role it played in exploration, that the country is the world's largest cork producer, that it also produces wine, and that it is a member of the EU. One might be able to assume that Lisbon was a grand capital, but who knows? Perhaps the unknown was what piqued my interest the most. The idea of traveling with eyes and mind wide open to learn what one can was very appealing.

We arrived in Lisbon after a chaotic airport experience in Barcelona and an uneventful two-hour flight. Quite by accident and before we had to search the airport for them, we met Dorothy and Dion, who had arrived from Newark at roughly the same time as our arrival. We rented a Renault Grand Scenic--a 7-seat MPV (multi-purpose vehicle, Europe's sexier term for minivan), arranged all our luggage very, very artfully, and drove 20 minutes to Cascais. Driving in Portugal was fairly easy, or so my driver made it seem. For one, traffic flows on the right side of the road, just like in the U.S. With this in mind, I thought I would take day trips as often as possible, and I would be able to give John a break from all of the driving. Unfortunately, there wasn't a single automatic transmission to rent in Lisbon, and someone here never learned how to drive a manual (hangs head in shame). The motorways we traveled were well maintained and well marked so navigation was easy. Although I bought Michelin road maps, we almost exclusively used the map app that came installed on my iphone. Being able to see our position on the screen helped so much, especially when we were unable to read the ornate tile street signs set into walls at knee height.

Guincho Guest House and tiny side yard

Our rental was located in a suburb of Cascais, once a playground of royalty and now a suburb of Lisbon as urban sprawl here, too, has reeled in this former coastal respite. This former fishing village now supports over 200,000 residents. We went into Cascais almost every day to shop for groceries at the Jumbo hypermarket, then would quickly leave town to escape traffic and crowds. Perhaps this retreat was shortsighted on our part, since we missed out on seeing the charming harbor and the more historic area of town. Even though it was so, so close to where we were staying, I never got to see what made Cascais tick, and I'm okay with that.

Fig Alley

The Guincho Guest House was the newest rental we've ever booked, all fresh surfaces and clean appliances and IKEA everything. In fact, the subdivision in which it was located was still under development, or possibly abandoned as would be truer to the current economic reality in Portugal. The walled, tiny yard was planted over with some sort of ground cover that appeared as if it would never need mowing. The swimming pool, which had been a selling point, was not much bigger than a bathtub.

Bathtub pool

Daily I had to point out to the cousins that the pool wasn't deep even for dives, let alone cannonballs, which had the tendency to displace epic amounts of water. Still, the yard was pleasant and cool with several places with recliners and daybeds in which to seek shelter from the relentless Portuguese sun and listen to the adjacent barnyard sounds: Braying donkey, crowing rooster. Or so we imagined because we couldn't see over the wall.

Plein air bed

Olive tree

There were 16 of us on this trip. Besides our little family of four, there were John's brothers--Ben, wife Caroline, daughters Dodie and Scarlett; and Will, wife Helena, sons Bjorn and Bruce and daughter Sophia--mother Dorothy, and family friend Dion.

Cousins: Simon, Bjorn, Sophia (holding tooth she'd just lost)

Hearts lessons

darling Brucie, 2-1/2 years old

Then, toward the end of the trip, family friend James joined us. That made for a full house. In fact, we were a little short on bedrooms. We could have used 5 or 6 but had 4, including one that was full of cots and bunk beds and was mostly inhabited by the boy children, but also by James. Bless him. Trooper.

the Brothers Shepard (John, Ben, Will) and extra brother James

family dinner table

A typical day started with breakfast and coffee and lots of conversation, reading, and planning for the day. Then we might manage to get out the door for an activity or we might have more conversation, reading, and planning for dinner, at best.

best way to vacation: books and beer

Whenever we went out, our excursion culminated with a trip to the grocery store. The grocery store could, in and of itself, be a cultural event. I will write more on this subject later. Suffice to say, a group this large required a lot of food for proper meals and all the little meals in between. Meals have, over time, become an important place for us to come together for sustenance and connection.

The topography in this corner of Portugal was rugged. Guincho Beach, one of the best beaches in Portugal, was a 15 minute walk from our rental.

boardwalk to Guincho Beach--beware vipers

Most of the Portugal we saw was golden and hot looking, agricultural but not necessarily lush. Still it had a fair amount of healthy vegetation and some unusual trees.

Here are a few more random general observations about Portugal:

coloring books are popular here too

VW Up! Unavailable stateside

technicolor sunsets

We saw a nice cross-section of Portugal, but at the end of the day, I still don't know what makes the country tick. It seems to be a corner of Europe that remains overlooked. To whit, most of the tourists we encountered were speaking Portuguese, which we initially thought was Russian. Our cultural exchanges were almost exclusively conducted with restaurant servers who were scrambling to meet other diners' needs. I would like to return since there is still so much left to learn and see, but, for now we've had a good introduction.