Quick holiday recap: the in-laws braved the ice rink that is I-35 in December to make the trek from Minnesota. The thought behind this was to avoid the general nastiness that is MN weather over the holidays.
Yeah. (Though to be fair, it was worse up there.)
My sister- and brother-in-law are considering moving down here soon, in part to avoid the 6 months of winter pain they experience every year in Duluth. We alternated laughing and rolling our eyes that they had to experience the biggest snowfall KC has seen in a decade.
Such is life, I guess.
We got to make Christmas dinner, and we took the opportunity to veer from tradition a bit. We did roasted butternut squash with thyme and a little blue cheese, a wonderful turkey-sausage-based dressing, and this brined pork loin with molasses-mustard glaze, sour mash sauce and apple butter. We happened upon some holiday special on Food Network at a time when we were trying to figure out what we wanted on the menu, and seeing this pork loin being prepared was a happy coincidence. It was phenomenal. There was also a delicious from-scratch apple pie consumed.
For the second year in a row, weather managed to delay delivery of an item we ordered. This time, it was living room furniture. It’s ridiculously cozy, and can be arranged as 4 separate pieces or all together as shown (stock photo; chick, dude, and popcorn not included):
This came in handy; thanks to all the fun weather and some accumulated time off, we watched an inordinate number of movies. We never get to watch movies, so this was a treat. Bonus? We liked all of them.
We went out to see:
Up In the Air (extremely well-done, and hits home as someone who’s spent more time than most in airports)
Duck Soup (part of Tivoli’s Meal and a Movie plan from last post; absurd, pointless, yet strangely funny Marx Brothers action)
We stayed in to see:
Up (part funny, part sad; surprisingly deep and moving. Fabulous.)
Inglourious Basterds (Tarantino is the best at making you feel THAT tense throughout a 20-minute scene in which nothing but dialogue happens. Great film.)
District 9 (inventive story/allegory; vaporizing humans never looked like so much fun.)
The Hangover (good, but didn’t live up to all the hype I’ve heard since it was released)
*sigh*
Time to get back to the gym…and the corresponding resolution crowd for the next 4-6 weeks.
2 comments:
I saw The Hangover in the theater on my birthday and was unimpressed - it was okay, but definitely didn't live up to all the hype I'd heard. The lesson learned? I will no longer be taking movie recommendations from my brother Nick after such ignominious flicks as Napoleon Dynamite and The Hangover.
The Hangover had some funny situations, but the dialogue struck me as just a bunch of incredulous "WHAT WAS THAT?" lines. Mike Tyson's cameo was the funniest part of the movie.
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