Pictureless Sunday

Well, loyal readers, I seem to have done it again.

Here it is Sunday, and I have nary a single, solitary picture for you.

I took my camera with me to B'burg. I had some ideas. I was going to take pictures around the town, to the normal weekend haunts, the video store, Kroger, the place where I fill up with gas, maybe a few from town. Well, that was just boring.

Then I got the idea to take pictures of people's feet. My feet, Mr M's feet, the other two quartetters' feet, the video store clerk's feet. Well, that was just dumb.

And so, on the way home, pictureless, I got the idea to just go through some of my snapshots from the days of yore and post a Pictures Archive kind of a thing. But I got started watching what turned out to be a dog of a movie, and that didn't get done either. And so here I am, still pictureless.

Movies, movies, movies. I'm five movies into 2005 and haven't seen a memorable one yet. Sure, "Kitchen Stories" was cute enough to get 3 1/2 stars, but didn't knock my socks off, or even get them down past my ankles. Since then, it's been one stinkrag after another.

I had no intentions of renting "The Life of David Gale." I picked up the box that was behind the Late Night with Conan O'Brien's "Triumph the Insult Comic Dog" dvd, thinking, of course, I'd be watching something good. For me to poop on. When I got to B'burg last week, Mr M asked me, "What's this 'Life of David Gale' movie?" Huh? Well, we watched it, and it stunk.

But then there's stunk, and there's reeked. This weekend we got a French movie called "Le Fils" (the son), and, well, it was so breathtakingly bad - remember in the old, old days of "Saturday Night Live" when Dan Aykroyd was Leonard Pinth-Garnell doing "Bad Cinema?" Well, this movie was just made for Leonard Pinth-Garnell. Before that we watched "McCabe and Mrs Miller," which I had no idea was directed by Robert Altman, and if I were Robert Altman I'd do my best to make sure it was expunged from my resume. I pretty much hate Warren Beatty (its star), and the songs by Leonard Cohen didn't help. Songs by Leonard Cohen seldom do. (Although I can remember as a kid in the 60s loving the song "Suzanne," and thinking the Noel Harrison version was just, well, fab.)

So, good movies, where are you?

Had quartet practice for the first time since our concert, and it was sightreading all around. Found some good music and some burners (as in, "Keep it?" "No, burn it!"). My lips were shot about an hour into things and we played about four hours. I drove back home to B'field totally numb, like a slack-jawed idiot.

Quote of the weekend? Me: "You know, if you eat a handful of pecans then drink a coffee, the coffee tastes all pecany."

And I guess it's appropriate that we only have one picture tonight, because - this picture has a story attached to it!

Back around the first of November or so, I got a random email, at my regular email address, from someone in Canada. He said he knew that I'd won an auction recently for some recipe cards, and his girlfriend was desperate for one of the recipes in that set. He offered to pay me if I'd email him the address for it.

I largely ignored this email for some time, thinking it was a hoax and if I answered goons would come to my door and beat me up. Or something. Especially since I looked through my prize cards and the recipe was not one of them. Finally, I thought I'd be nice and email the guy back and just tell him I didn't have the recipe. So I did.

Imagine my surprise when I noticed about 3 more cards of my current set under a stack of cds on my computer desk. Well, that's not a surprise, because my desk is such a shambles I wouldn't be surprised to find Jimmy Hoffa hidden under something there. But the surprise was, there, looking me in the face was the recipe the guy had asked for. I felt so bad about the whole thing I emailed him with the recipe, and not only was he grateful, I got a nice email from the girlfriend too.

It was the least I could do. I mean, if someone actually wanted the recipe to this, then they have more problems than a nice gesture from me could help them with.

And so, without further ado, here we go, with the recipe that sent goodwill to Our Friends North of Us, Maria's Meatball Soup!




OK, so I don't see Maria, but I do see two meatballs, and it is a soup. And there's some pasta in there too, but I personally can't get past that ring of onion in there that looks vaguely like a plastic ring. Nice plates though. I'd be proud to serve you another kind of soup in those plates.

But here's the best part, and Mr Guy's Girlfriend and I even shared a joke over this one. Here's the serving suggestion for the soup: meatball soup, a fresh fruit platter, and - burritos! Burritos! That Maria, she's a card.

Happy week.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* You know TV has gotten boring when even I quit watching. I've been listening to music lately here at the computer instead of having the TV on. My current Music Match playlist? "Moses," by Coldplay, "Take Me Out," Franz Ferdinand, "The Scarlet Tide," Elvis Costello, "I'm a One-Woman Man," George Jones, "Come to Jesus," Mindy Smith, "All At Sea," Jamie Cullum, "Won't Be Home No More," Old 97s, "Heroin," Dandy Warhols, "Jumpin in the Morning," Ray Charles, "Maybe the Last Time," the Reeltime Travelers, "California Stars," Wilco, "The Only Living Boy in New York," Simon and Garfunkel.