Super Saturday
What’s Jack up to? It’s Saturday so Jack is taking it light and breezy being spoiled by his best bud the DH. He’s such a lucky dog.Speaking of the DH. The winner of The Diamonds of Welbourne contest was pulled last night at around 12:15 by my very own tired DH.
The winner is….. Patricia of PVE designs! And she was the very first commenter.
Congrats Patricia. I’ll let the ladies know and have a book to you as soon as possible. I’m sure it will get your artist imagination going.
The DH was so tired because the family was just back from seeing Wolverine late last night. It was a fun and exciting way to start off the summer movie season.
Is there anything that Hugh can’t do? Oh, Hugh.
Have a great rest of the weekend.Best,KwanaMay Day
Happy May Day! The whole idea of it being May 1st already has me dumbstruck. This year is going way too fast for my liking. Wayyy. I’d like to spin that record back and add a month please. Maybe by an extra hour or two a day. But that would only give me, like, 2 1/2 days or an extra long weekend. Hardly time to clean my closets. Unless, I spun it for the whole year? Hmm…. but now we’re getting into way too much math for this time of the day and I don’t feel like calculating. Oh well.That said in honor of May Day let’s welcome Spring with this pretty shot takenin front of my DD’s dance school yesterday.
In stark contrast I’m hoping to get a moment with this guy over the weekend. Grrrrr!What are your plans?Best,
Kwana“I’ll be down when I put on my lipstick”
These are the words Little Edie yells to the hoards of police and other authorities about to break in her door and take over her house. “I’ll be down when I put on my lipstick.” What wonderful nerve.
I watched the premiere of HBO’s Grey Gardens propped up comfortably in bed ala Big Edie style. I really enjoyed the HBO version with it’s many flashbacks to give us clues as to how the 2 women could have fallen into such horrible states of despair both inside and outside of their heads.
I thought it was beautifully done, this way too intertwined mother daughter strange love story. I wanted to cry a the first glimpse of how Grey Gardens once looked. It was so sad. But the clutter was more inside the head and heart, I believe and not in the house.
Through it all they had amazing style and flare that could not be denied. Staunch Women. Oh yes. Staunch Indeed.
Please check out Visual Vamp for a wonderful story about her summer encounter with Little and Big Edie. Just lovely and heart warming. Click here.
Best,KwanaDon’t Forget To Look Up
So I’m just leaving Verizon to deal with my Blackberry Storm fail and after being totally aggravated because of having quite a tiff with a very rude manager. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if my WANTED poster is not now posted there. Oh well. He wasn’t nice and I told him so in my nicest possible way. I also explained that there were other very lovely employees there and maybe they should be managers and not him. I was heated. This will not end here. But back to the story… I get a new phone, my pics are lost, I leave mad as all get out and go rushing to pick up my DD and her friend from her important dance audition (fingers crossed for both of them) and I’m about to stomp into the studio when I look up.
Wow! Sometimes all you have to do is look up to change your mood entirely. This is the start of a good season to do so. Lucky me, I happened to have my camera in my bag and look this pic.
Reminder: Tonight is the premiere of Grey Gardens on HBO. I can’t wait to watch. Here’s a clip from the orig to remind you. I think Drew Barrymore will and Jessica Lange will do fine jobs playing Little and Big Edie. I can’t wait to see.
Enjoy your weekend! Maybe plant a little something in your Grey Garden.
Best,
KwanaLittle Dorrit
I hope your holiday weekend is going well. I meant to do this post a while back, so sorry. But if you like your classics dark, moody with too many characters to count, all sorts or intrigue and some nice period costumes (like me) then check out Dickens’ Little Dorrit on PBS.
Sorry again about my lateness, but the series has already started. Check your local listings for times, but you can catch the first 2 showings on line right now here. I’m enjoying poor Little Dorrit’s sad plight and her father, Mr. Dorrit steals every scene. Give it a look see if you have the time.
Best,
KwanaGrey Gardens
One night, a long while back, pretty late if I remember correctly, I was up flipping channels and came across the documentary Grey Gardens on the Sundance Channel. I was immediately mesmerized. I tried and tried to nudge the DH awake to no avail. These woman could not be real but they were so real, so true and so scarily off the edge that they were maybe too close to it. Right at that point where I felt I could reach out and pull them back in or they could reach out and let me tumble off the cliff with them and dance in the air on the way down.
I’m looking forward to the HBO premier on April 18th.
But I think nothing will compare to the real woman. How can it? So much said in every word. Every look.
Best,
KwanaMy Obsession- Hello Lover again.
What’s Jack up to? Jack’s raring to go today. Ready to start the week full of his usual energy and optimism. I hope I can keep up?I think I have problem. As a matter of fact I know I have a problem. How can a woman be in a theater watching a film with the swoon worthy Clive Owen and be distracted by a handbag? And yet, I was.The DH and I went to see Duplicity on Friday night. It was a fun night out. I was excited to see Julia and Clive together on the screen. I had my doubts about seeing Clive in such a well lit role. Something I had shared earlier with the PIC. You see I like Clive in nice and dark roles but he worked it out for me.The movie had it points that had me saying huh? But happily that was worked out nicely too. But back to the main point of today’s post, my problem. This night should have been all about the film and Clive, but there I was very early on in the story totally smitten when confronted with an old love. The Marc Jacobs Blake Shoulder Bag. Julia’s character carries it in the film. I turn to my DH and whispered to him. “I love that bag. Marc Jacobs. 995.” He growls and I can almost feel his eyes roll. I swear if there was AA for bag obsessives he would have me there weekly. It’s a good thing I can’t afford these loves.
Watch the trailer and see it in motion.Check out the movie and see Clive in action!Best,KwanaSail Away
Happy Saturday!
Today sailing away is on my mind. It must be the longing for spring, warm weather and a much needed vacation. The temperature has decided to take a sudden nosedive these past few days going back to Brrr here in New York.So last night I’m flipping channels and came across one of my not secret favorite movies: Joe Verses The Volcano. Loved Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in this. Yep, even more than Sleepless In Seattle. My DH so doesn’t get my admiration of this sweet movie. I so get Joe and his “brain cloud” excuse to check out on his everyday life to sail away into his own crazy adventure.So, what are some of your not so secret favorite movies?Best,KwanaSophomoric Reading
Thankfully Mr. Electric came by with his silent partner and saved the day. Fixing the faulty plug and quickly pointing out that we had a potential fire hazard in the ancient wiring. Whew. Just call me grateful.
To celebrate I took the kids to the not so free movie night to see Coraline. Yep, they were the oldest kids in the movie and the DS made a good show of protesting, saying he wanted to see Friday the 13th, but admitted to enjoying it all the same. The DD liked it plenty since Coraline was one of her favorite books a few years back and she was actually looking forward to seeing the movie. Especially since she has a creepy painted over crawl space in the back of her closet that we have never been able to open. It’s all very Coraline. Before the movie the Dear Twins and I went to Barnes and Nobel they both had to pick up books for literary circles they are in for their English classes.Check out what counts for 10 grade reading these days:
This is what the DS is reading. The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar
Synopsis
Each morning, Bhima, a domestic servant in contemporary Bombay, leaves her own small shanty in the slums to tend to another woman’s house. In Sera Dubash’s home, Bhima scrubs the floors of a house in which she remains an outsider. She cleans furniture she is not permitted to sit on. She washes glasses from which she is not allowed to drink. Yet despite being separated from each other by blood and class, she and Sera find themselves bound by gender and shared life experiences.
Sera is an upper-middle-class Parsi housewife whose opulent surroundings hide the shame and disappointment of her abusive marriage. A widow, she devotes herself to her family, spending much of her time caring for her pregnant daughter, Dinaz, a kindhearted, educated professional, and her charming and successful son-in-law, Viraf.
Bhima, a stoic illiterate hardened by a life of despair and loss, has worked in the Dubash household for more than twenty years. Cursed by fate, she sacrifices all for her beautiful, headstrong granddaughter, Maya, a university student whose education — paid for by Sera — will enable them to escape the slums. But when an unwed Maya becomes pregnant by a man whose identity she refuses to reveal, Bhima’s dreams of a better life for her granddaughter, as well as for herself, may be shattered forever.
Poignant and compelling, evocative and unforgettable, The Space Between Us is an intimate portrait of a distant yet familiar world. Set in modern-day India and witnessed through two compelling and achingly real women, the novel shows how the lives of the rich and the poor are intrinsically connected yet vastly removed from each other, and vividly captures how the bonds of womanhood are pitted against the divisions of class and culture.And here is t
he DD’s is Prisoner of Tehran by Marina NematSynopsis
What would you give up to protect your loved ones? Your life?
In her heartbreaking, triumphant, and elegantly written memoir, Prisoner of Tehran, Marina Nemat tells the heart-pounding story of her life as a young girl in Iran during the early days of Ayatollah Khomeini’s brutal Islamic Revolution.
In January 1982, Marina Nemat, then just sixteen years old, was arrested, tortured, and sentenced to death for political crimes. Until then, her life in Tehran had centered around school, summer parties at the lake, and her crush on Andre, the young man she had met at church. But when math and history were subordinated to the study of the Koran and political propaganda, Marina protested. Her teacher replied, “If you don’t like it, leave.” She did, and, to her surprise, other students followed.
Soon she was arrested with hundreds of other youths who had dared to speak out, and they were taken to the notorious Evin prison in Tehran. Two guards interrogated her. One beat her into unconsciousness; the other, Ali, fell in love with her.
Sentenced to death for refusing to give up the names of her friends, she was minutes from being executed when Ali, using his family connections to Ayatollah Khomeini, plucked her from the firing squad and had her sentence reduced to life in prison. But he exacted a shocking price for saving her life — with a dizzying combination of terror and tenderness, he asked her to marry him and abandon her Christian faith for Islam. If she didn’t, he would see to it that her family was harmed. She spent the next two years as a prisoner of the state, and of the man who held her life, and her family’s lives, in his hands.
Lyrical, passionate, and suffused throughout with grace and sensitivity, Marina Nemat’s memoir is like no other. Her search for emotional redemption envelops her jailers, her husband and his family, and the country of her birth — each of whom she grants the greatest gift of all: forgiveness.
Both look delicious and I want dive into them too. I think I will.Best,
KwanaWhat Road Are You On?
What’s Jack up to? He’s so funny, playing a crazy game of monkey in the middle that he’s made up where I’m the monkey! See he takes his toy and acts like he wants to bring it to me to play with but then turns at the last moment and runs to my hubby and takes it to him. Then back to me for a reaction. Too cute, Jack.Other than books, dare I say maybe even sometimes more than books, I am often inspired by movies. I’m such a cheap and easy date. Give me a simple dinner and a movie (please don’t ask me to dress up) and I’m happy. Now, I’m not one to over analyze and pick a movie apart, no, I go to lose myself in another world for a while.
That said, I’ve seen a move that I can’t get out of my mind: Revolutionary Road. The whole couple confirming to suburban life thing hit me like a ton of bricks. I don’t know why, maybe it’s my age or the fact that I’ve been living in suburbia for a while now or the fact that I hate to think of myself as a conformist, although probably a good part of me is, if I’m honest enough. Whatever. I don’t know, but, I was hit hard.The fact that it was set in the 1950’s didn’t effect it’s relevance to today’s life to me one bit. It questioned confirming to what’s expected, the traditional roles of a marriage, labeling, fidelity, opposites attracting, living your dreams, so many things.Revolutionary Road had me stepping out on my own porch taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. It will have lots of people thinking hard about the road they are living on? Check it out if you haven’t yet and let me know your thoughts.Best,Kwana
