1. That I never have to watch Patton again- Boooo. BOOOO. Why are so many of the movies everyone is supposed to see Dude Movies about War? How has no one noticed how boring this stuff is? It's a bad sign when your big iconic moment is the first five minutes (and then there are HOURS of movie left).
2. Starting to bring in the finishing touches on the nursery- We have reached the fun part, hanging pictures and the mobile. I don't think the perfect magazine-ready nursery is ever going to happen (don't tell the Boy), but I am pretty proud of what we came up with using things we already have or that we can definitely use later when BBG decides he wants a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle room. There are a few things I wish we could add, but at some point, you have to make practical choices, right?
3. Handiness- The Boy killed it with the handiness this week, switching out our doorknobs, fixing a piece of furniture that came broken, and fastening things to the wall. I think even though the house is still kicking our ass, you can see that we have learned some stuff in the process, and that is worth getting excited about (also, never watch Property Brothers, because they will curse you).
4. Synthetic, horrible for you, Sugar Cookies- Oh yes, we have reached rock bottom here, and it tastes delicious. My current theory is that we are having a last breathe of immaturity, so I am not fighting our horrible decisions.
5. Tilthe- We had our last fancypants dinner just the two of us for a while (my Mom is here on Tuesday and then we have some number of parents in the house for a straight month! It will be awesome, but I am guessing the rest of 2014 will not scream romance). Tilthe is a restaurant built inside a little house in Wallingford (and not unlike our craftsman, has lots of character-I may have pulled the WC doorknob off accidentally), and they pride themselves on local and organic food. It was fun to be brave trying new things (I am not sure I actually had risotto before) and to just have a little adventure.
6. The Butcher and the Baker- We have been trying to go to this restaurant for months, but it was always closed when we tried! It is now one of my favorite places in Seattle and my absolute favorite place in our neighborhood. It just makes me so happy to find places that we want to be "our" place, and it is across the street from The Boy's bus stop, so now I have dreams of him bringing those sandwiches home with him sometimes. Plus, it is so small and cute that you can see the whole kitchen and everybody there while you are eating. Best sandwiches I have had in a long time.
7. Sunny Fall Days in Seattle- I have already solved the mystery of why people get seasonal depression in Seattle. It is not the rain. In fact, the rain is pretty nice. It is not the seasons, because the whole area looks beautiful when the trees start changing. It's that the sun sets so early you barely see it (the beautiful sunset on the right? I took that photo around 4 o'clock yesterday)- so when it is nice, you have to get outside!
8. San Frantokyo- All in all, I did not love Big Hero 6. In fact I am pretty over this very particular brand of character design (why do all the characters look like lazy versions of The Incredibles? Why is the lead kid a slightly more Japanese version of the kid from How to Train Your Dragon? Why are the female characters' torsos smaller than the male characters' necks?). It feels like a bad sign when the design of a film is so unabashedly lazy (not to mention the line writing- if you have a great story, you need things to also work on the dialogue level. Show don't tell people! You are professional filmmakers, for goodness sake! Especially if you are dealing with a bunch of engineers, where the personality types are so easily demonstrated). Anyway, clearly not a huge fan, but kudos to whoever did the design work for San Frantokyo, because it was gorgeous. Not only was it beautiful, but it was loyal to the shape of both cities and it took something familiar and changed it just enough to make it really interesting to look at. I really loved the play with the city spaces.
This artist won the Betty Bowen Award and was on display at SAM (we went to see Pop Departures, which I haven't settled my opinion on yet, because I need to read the essays in the catalog). He painted this picture of Rothkos in Space (like Pigs in Space, come on!) which I now know I have been waiting to see my whole life. It's not often you laugh out loud in an art museum, so you have to love an artist whose paintings make you laugh and critique the institution in such biting ways. And he is based out of Oregon, so not too far away.
