stalin dinners
My evening yesterday was pretty much sucked up almost entirely by the movie The Death of Stalin, which I went to the Egyptian to see at 7:00, and then came home to write the review, not getting to bed until shortly after 11:00 pm. Granted, part of that was the amount of time before the review that I spent processing and uploading more photos from Greece that Ivan had sent me -- I was a little behind on that. Only one of the photos used in this post is from that batch of photos, but, hey -- it gave me a third DLU photo of a cat to use. Ironically, all the photos in Wednesday's post were of cats (those all having been from Morocco); all of today's photos are of cats (though I slipped one of Shanti in here -- I just love that shot of her by the umbrella); and there were no photos of cats in yesterday's DLU, even though that was the post in which much was written about cats.
Anyway! I really thought Shobhit would likely have an active interest in The Death of Stalin, given its comic take on historical and political figures. I also thought I might likely tell Ivan about it, given his inexplicable obsession with Russia. After having seen the movie, my enthusiasm for telling either of them about it waned considerably. I do feel like there's something about it that I was somehow unable to appreciate but probably still makes sense that it's getting such high praise from critics, but it just left me feeling uneasy. I stand by the solid B I gave it; as I have explained many times, that's a grade that falls within the category of "I don't feel I wasted my time, but I feel no compulsion to recommend it to others." That applies to everything I give a B or a B-minus. Anything C-plus or lower is a waste of mine or anyone else's time and money; anything B-plus or higher I would absolutely recommend. The Death of Stalin occupies that middle ground, for me.
I did walk home beforehand, and had enough time to eat some dinner and watch two episodes of season three of Roseanne -- both of which were just all right: far from the worst, also not the best. Shobhit stayed home from work yesterday because his cold was so bad, and for the second evening in a row he made dinner but very simply: just lentils and rice, no chopped vegetables added. Worked for me! And for the second morning in a row my weight is finally -- albeit slowly, which is as it should be -- headed back down again, and as of today I'm below 150 lbs again. As always, controlling my grazing habits at work is key.
Luckily the Egyptian is only six blocks away so it was hardly a challenge to get there and back in a timely manner. Shobhit went back to work today but still went to bed earlier than I did and was snoring quite steadily for some time once I did, which is a rather rare reversal.
So . . . what else? Barring endless commentary on President Fuckwit, the most overly talked about fuckwit in the history of the world, what more can I comment on? Anything? I've run so low that I'm offering commentary on having no comments, which technically is commentary.
It's Friday! No huge plans for the weekend, although one plan that is definitely new: after promising Claudia literally months ago that Shobhit and I would have her and Dylan over for dinner, we're doing that Sunday night. Hopefully Shobhit won't still be sick. I'm betting he'll be at least a fair amount better within a couple of days. I think his condition was worst yesterday, which means it was best that he did not work.
I am looking forward to having friends over for dinner, though, which I really want to do more often -- like, twice a month, if at all possible. Shobhit got sort of weird about it when I first brought up this idea, saying he didn't want it to be focused only on my friends -- well, it's not my fault I have way more friends than he does. Still, I am eager to be as egalitarian as possible about it, and we have agreed that after Claudia and Dylan, we'll invite Steve and Manish, who we know from Trikone-NW and Shobhit has wanted to invite over for dinner for ages. After that we'll invite Lynn and Zephyr, hopefully sooner than April when I would already see them by default for my Birth Week -- and we keep talking about trying to get together more often than just twice a year, once for my Birth Week in April and once for Lynn's birthday in January. After that, though, I was already going to suggest it when Shobhit himself beat me to the punch with his cousin Abhishek, and his wife Vinaya, who I would agree we also do not see near often enough, considering they live as close as Bothell. The thing is, both Shobhit and Abhishek rely on their spouses to get any social gatherings together. But, whatever.
In any case, this regular invitation of friends and family for dinner is the first in hopefully more ways I'd like to come up with to spend time doing fulfilling things that do not involve just sitting and looking at a TV or computer screen. Maybe this is how I can help make the year 2018 distinguish itself in my life.
[posted 12:30 pm]