March 30, 2003
It took a while for us to find restaurants in LA that we thought were something special. I think I spent the first year here thinking that there was no decent food in Los Angeles.
But we eventually did develop a repertoire of excellent little places. One of the places we discovered—okay, we found it via Zagat, which isn’t exactly like a secret passed on in a back alley—is Osteria Nonni, a fantastic little Italian restaurant in Silverlake. The neighborhood doesn’t exactly scream “great restaurant”; it kind of screams “slightly seedy part of town we’d never visit otherwise.”
If you decide to go there, do not skip this important step: get the sautéed lemon chicken with spaghetti. The standard way they prepare the spaghetti is with oil and garlic, but we always ask for it with butter and parmesan. The lemon butter sauce on the chicken is…well, how can I put this? I’m not a religious woman, but if I were, this sauce would be proof of Divine Intervention in this universe.
If the lemon chicken isn’t your thing—what are you, a Communist?—then get the penne with eggplant. I’ve never actually had the penne with eggplant, because once I found the chicken I stopped there, but Darin assures me the penne is quite tasty. The porcini mushroom ravioli is fabulous. The arancini appetizer (rice balls with cheese and peas inside) is extremely tasty.
Osteria Nonni is hardly next door to us, but we manage to get there at least once a month. It’s completely worth the effort if you want to try it out. 3219 Glendale Blvd., in case you need the address.
March 28, 2003
Date night, date night…date night, date night…
About 10 years ago, Darin went to Japan on a business trip. At the end of that trip, he flew to Detroit to go to MacHack, and he had a stopover in San Francisco International. We were still in the cute phase of our relationship, because I went to the airport and met him in the passenger lounge, where I found him exhausted and not at all looking forward to the next four hour flight, and I gave him a bag of Gummi Savers, which was then his favorite candy snack.
Man. That is saccharine-level cute.
Anyhow, one of the things he brought back from Japan were the complete works of Hayao Miyazaki on laserdisc, which weren’t yet available here in the US: Laputa, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Totoro. We watched them all, in Japanese, and I really enjoyed all of them.
Since then, Miyazaki’s been imported by Disney. There was a big splash a couple of years ago with Princess Mononoke, a film I didn’t particularly enjoy. And now there’s Spirited Away.
Chihiro, a young girl, is moving with her parents away from everything she’s ever known to a new house and a new school, and she is not looking forward to it. On the way to their new house her father takes a “shortcut” and they end up at a strange abandoned theme park. Turns out to be a spirit playground, and when Chihiro’s parents get transmogrified by strange magic, Chihiro has to stay at the bathhouse of the spirits to rescue them.
I liked Spirited Away a whole lot. There’s lots of great visuals (well, it is a Miyazaki movie), and there are some fun-to-watch setpieces. Plot is not Miyazaki’s strong point—for example, early on Chihiro is given a test and is told, “Do this and don’t let the boilerman scare you away or trick you into leaving,” but the actual scene isn’t that much of a confrontation—but I found Spirited Away to be more coherent and accessible than Princess Mononoke.
There are some very gross (as in, “Ewwww”) scenes, and I think the movie is probably too filled with tension for the younger set. Darin and I both agreed that Sophia would be ready to see this movie when she was, say, 15. She would enjoy the premise of this movie—all about kids and grownups!—but there are lots of scenes that are intense in a way that definitely a 3-year-old can’t handle. (Only recently has she been able to handle the scene where Pooh’s tushy gets stuck in Rabbit’s front door.)
The story doesn’t build in a way I’d like, and there are some revelations that seem to come out of left field (like I said, not Miyazaki’s strong point), but there’s some fun stuff in there for adults.
March 26, 2003
On so many levels I feel like I’m living in Wacky World. Through the looking glass. You know this feeling—suddenly you’re starring in a Hollywood drama/thriller and you don’t remember auditioning for the part.
On the personal, we’ve got the whole house thing. I’m probably making myself insane over this—the selling, the finding a new place, figuring out what we’re going to do and where we’re going to live in the meantime.
On the beyond personal…I found myself driving down the street today, taking Sophia to dance class, and finding myself fervently praying that she and Simon can grow up in a world where the biggest problem on their plate is figuring out the arrangements for a move. But I don’t think they’re going to. I’ve actually begun to believe that it’s all downhill from here.
No one except Paul Krugman in the NY Times appears to be covering the monumental shithole this administration is digging us into. Another couple hundred million of tax cuts when there’s a goddamn war on? A war that’s going to cost untold billions? Our children are going to be paying for this mess for decades, but Jesus, it’s okay, at least the top 1% got theirs.
Why does Bush have any approval rating whatsoever? Jesus, when they’re tossing off things like this verdammt Halliburton contract? We had seven fucking years of investigations into Whitewater and this shit gets a pass?
Fuckers.
Darin wonders why I’ve started reading books on self-hypnosis. Because I’m a little goddamn tense, dammit.
Someone hose Sean Paul down. He’s insane. (Actually, I think it’s great—it’s where I’m getting most of my news these days. But I’m afraid for his health. How long can he keep this up for? Are London betting shops taking wagers?)
March 23, 2003
- I would have lost the Oscar pool this year. Even though I switched to Chris Cooper for Adaptation, I’m still somewhat surprised by Catherine Zeta-Jones’s award.
- Anybody who had Adrien Brody cleaned up big.
- Steve Martin? Pretty damn funny. I’d have him back.
- Not that it’s any of my business or anything, but, uh…was Jack Nicholson’s date Nicolas Cage?
- “Every time they give out an Oscar, an agent gets his wings.”
- You know, it dawns on me only now I should have done a real-time blogging commentary on the Oscars à la The Agonist’s Iraq summary, but a)Sean Paul rocks and b)we TiVo’d the Oscars so we wouldn’t have to watch the whole damn thing.
- Did they skip Eminem’s song? Or did we fast-forward over that?
- Whatever induces actors to participate in the roundup of former Oscar winners? Do they get special goodie bags or something?
- “I handed in a script last year and the studio didn’t change one word. The one word they didn’t change was on page 87.”
- Trust me, no screenwriters are sitting around debating which is more difficult, an original screenplay or an adaptation. They’re much more concerned about free rewrites and the possessory credit.
- Well, I missed that one. But I’ve been saying that all night, so who cares. I didn’t have money on this.
- Wow! Pedro Almodovar! No sop to My Big Fat Greek Wedding! Well, good for him. And good that the Academy is branching out a little.
- How stoned was Harrison Ford?
- ROMAN POLANSKI? Oh, that wacky, wacky Academy. And two major awards for The Pianist. Very surprising.
- You realize this means Michael Douglas can’t scream, “But I’m the one with the Oscar!” in fights any more?
Neida the babysitter has a nephew, Joseph, who really likes playing with Sophia. So much so that when Neida comes home after an afternoon with Fia Joseph points at the front door and says, “Back. Get Fia.” So much so that for Joseph’s birthday the family decided to take him and one friend to Sea World, and the friend he chose was Sophia.
So since 7:30am Darin and I have had a Fia-less day, and it’s been…weird. Like, we went out to breakfast and not having to worry about a place Sophia would like. Watching TV uninterrupted. (Well, mostly. We still do have Simon about.)
We’ve been talking about houses and moving and whether we should rent a place or what we should do. We don’t know. I sent my brother-in-law on a rather fruitless quest to look at some more houses. Pointless. We’ll just wait until we get up there. It’ll be easier that way. And certainly nothing has just sprung up in front of us.
We are not watching the news. Amazing, isn’t it—now that the war has started, I can’t stand to even read about it in blogs (despite the vast quantity of readers the heroic Sean Paul has sent my way during his insane posting spree). Of course, I can’t seem to get away from it, as you can tell from the previous entry. I just turn on some old damn movie and there it is, WWI. The War to End All Wars.
Well, there’s the Oscars tonight. I think the only tension there will be: will stars try to sneak political commentary in? I haven’t even seen any of the damn movies. Why am I watching again?
So I decided to TiVo the variety of Oscar shows (should any of them actually be on tonight, of course). In the background as I was hitting the various buttons was a 1933 movie of Noel Coward’s Cavalcade. A British family has just returned from some sort of holiday and is getting their house in order. I have no idea of the relationships between these characters, but the dialogue floored me:
INT. DRAWING ROOM - DAY
JOE, a young man, offers MARGARET, an older woman,
a cigarette.
JOE
Pretty thrilling, isn't it?
MARGARET
Just a bit too thrilling, my dear.
JOE
Oh, right on, Margaret. It's absolutely
marvelous. Passing all those supply trains
and guns. Being pushed aside to make way
for the troops. The crowds waiting for
something to happen. Ah, it was wonderful.
FATHER enters, carrying a tray with a bottle of wine
and glasses.
FATHER
Jane's hollering for you in the kitchen,
Margaret.
MARGARET
Oh, all right.
Margaret EXITS.
FATHER
(holding up bottle)
Well, I can't find anything but (unintelligible).
We have to drink to Germany's downfall with
their own damn wine.
JOE
I rather like Germans. Don't you, father?
FATHER
Enormously. Give me a hand, Joey.
JOE
If there is a war, how long do you think
it will last?
FATHER
Ooo, three months at the outside.
JOE
We shall win?
FATHER
We shall win.
JOE
(excited, gleeful)
Perhaps it'll last six months.
FATHER
Economically impossible. Do you have
any idea what a war costs?
JOE
Hell of a lot, I suppose.
FATHER
A hell of a lot. The Germans can afford it
even less than we can. Then there's Russia--
JOE
Good old Russia!
FATHER
--France, Italy...and America.
JOE
Japan, China, Nicaragua, Guatemala...
We've got them licked before we start.
FATHER
Don't be silly, Joey.
We’ve always thoughts wars were pretty cool and would be pretty short. Until they started, of course.
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March 21, 2003
Well. We definitely seem to have gotten our fucking war on already.
Like everybody else, I don’t really have much to say about this.
March 19, 2003
Darin sez, “Thank God the programmers at KTLA read your blog!”
They’ve (finally) quit their damn war coverage and Angel is on!
I’ve been somewhat disappointed by Buffy, both this season and last. Too many filler episodes, too many incidents of just going through the motions (albeit, not in the musical episode).
But Angel? The Buffy spinoff that took quite a while to find its feet? Angel turning bad (without turning into Angelus)? The return of Angelus? Wesley doing just about anything, including Lilah? The interesting character development we’ve had in the past week or so (you know the one I’m talking about)?
Angel has rocked.
I thought I was the only one who was eagerly anticipating each week’s episode, wondering how they were going to top themselves for unbelievable plot twists this week. But it turns out I’m not the only one who feels that way:
Add your voice! Angel totally rocks!
(Goddammit. The WB is showing the—gag, ptui—FOX feed. So Angel is pre-empted tonight. I know—there are more important things to worry about. But I’ve reached crisis fatigue, okay?)
Darin says, “It’s a good thing we stocked up before the war began.”
He was talking about how many programs we have recorded on our TiVo, which allows us to skip the wall-to-wall war coverage. Six hours of Children of Dune should see us through the entire war.
Not sure what this is but just stumbled upon it and assumed that it was some kind of forum for...