Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

Sunday afternoon

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I know the kids are playing well, because it’s been fifteen minutes without a blood-curdling scream. The only thing yelled has been:

Batman, come quick! Your wife is having a baby!

I foresee trouble melding their play styles very, very soon.

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I actually got up this morning and went running by myself for about an hour. I say “about” because my exercise watch has disappeared and it probably won’t be until the Great Unpacking that I find it again. I haven’t gone running by myself for…let’s just say, easily 6 weeks, if not more.

I have been running, though. Rob comes down to my house on Thursday mornings, and I have standing invitations to join him for the Wildcat Trail at Rancho San Antonio on Tuesdays and Fridays. Last week I did both days. On Tuesday I managed to run all the way to the top; on Friday I could hardly breathe. I guess I was going too fast (which is sad, because my top speed is “slo-mo”). Gotta do hill training. Especially if we’re going to keep doing those trail runs.

The trick to getting up and getting out for me is not pep talks or self-beratement. It’s putting the exercise clothes out the night before. If I do that, I’m practically on the road already. If the clothes aren’t out, in the morning I wake up, think, It’s too hard to find the clothes in the dark and I couldn’t possibly turn on the light ’cause that would wake up Darin so I’d better just go back to sleep, and go back to sleep.

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I know the running’s having a teensy effect on me, because I went to Coffee Society at the Pruneyard today to write and got a 20-ounce green tea instead of my usual 20-ounce French vanilla latte. (Mind you, it’s a latte that lasts me three hours. But still.)

It’s funny to think that I go to write at Coffee Society, because I did that when the original opened in Cupertino millenia ago. For some reason, sitting in a cafe, drinking coffee (or green tea) and writing for hours is just my idea of a good time. If I’m home I need it quiet (except for music) to write. If I’m out, I need the hum and constant motion of a cafe. Go figure.

I was about to say that I’ve never gotten any writing done in a Starbucks, but this is not true: that was my writing joint in Sherman Oaks! That Starbucks (at Ventura Canyon) really went out of their way to make the place comfortable for writers, which was good because we were thick on the ground there. Seriously, best place for writers to network in LA: Starbucks. Just go over to the next laptop and ask what they’re working on.

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I made chicken pot pie for dinner. World’s best dinner for using leftovers. The kids immediately said, “Noooooooo.” I said, “It’s got chicken and peas and corn and pastry topping! You like all those things.” Sophia looked at me and said, “But I don’t like them mixed all together.”

Does this phase ever end?

I used to be the world’s pickiest eater, which is partially why I’m such a hardcase with the kids. You can eat this, or you can go without dinner, but I’m not making you something special. Darin reminds me that one night without dinner will not make them starve. And just maybe, after a few nights of not having dinner, they’ll actually try the food in front of them.

Or not. Apparently Batman is back to having marriage troubles. Better go see what’s going on.

Wedding Crashers: the review

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We were looking for something, anything, to see. Nothing appealed to one or the other of us for some reason. Finally I said, “Okay, we can see Wedding Crashers.” A movie Darin had wanted to see for some time, but I had been less than thrilled about.

“It’s at the Pruneyard. Where should we go for dinner?”

“The brewery?” The light dawned on me. “And I can drink beer, which will help me find the movie funny!”

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Wedding Crashers is the story of John and Jeremy (Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn), two divorce mediators (a great opening scene…and then their job is practically never mentioned again) who like to crash weddings so that they can meet chicks. We see a montage of them hitting every type of wedding (Jewish, Irish, Japanese) with appropriately stupid pseudonyms.

Finally they hit the motherlode: the wedding of the daughter of the Secretary of the Treasury, for some unknown reason played by Christopher Walken because it could have been played by any actor of the right age. Seriously, they did not need Walken for this role, but at least he’s working. John and Jeremy end up involved with the two other daughters of the Secretary. John’s belle (can’t remember her name or the actress’s name) is affianced to a total asshole, which makes us wonder after a while if she’s a complete moron for staying with him, and Jeremy’s belle turns out to be a psychotic stalker. Oh yes, and the Secretary’s son is a “homo” artist who develops a thing for Jeremy.

There is some funny stuff in the movie, particularly in the first half. But the gratuitous gay-bashing (as Darin put it, it felt like it came out of a movie out of the Fifties or something) was annoying, as was (as usual) the script that left the best ideas undeveloped and spent way, way too much time on stupid stuff. One element that is just left lying there is that John and Jeremy clearly like going to weddings, and not just ’cause they get laid. In the opening montage, we see that they have a blast at every single wedding they go to…but that element is never explored, never a factor. Instead, we get the foul-mouthed granny (I’m telling you: this movie is jam-packed with kneebusters from 1960). And I found John, our ostensible hero, rather annoying, because he never listens to what his friend is telling him, too busy focusing on his own romantic problems. One should never find Vince Vaughn preferable to Owen Wilson, but that’s what happened here.

Definitely wait for cable.

I cannot believe I’m actually waiting until this weekend, when we get The 40-year-old Virgin in theaters and at last we have something to go see.

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I keep forgetting about the side effect of alcohol on me, which is, namely: that I sleep poorly, if at all. And I got up at 6 to go running with Rob.

“You spent five bucks on beer so you could spend twelve bucks on a stupid movie?” he asked.

It’s only ten per person these days, Rob. Clearly a bargain.

Ow. My poor dehydrated head.

Public service announcement

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