Happy Birthday Catherine!

I love you strudelpants.

The Old Cherry Tree

I came home one evening to a curiously over-saturated dusky light. For some reason the old Cherry out back by the carriage house seemed particularly photogenic.

An Easter Moostàche

There's a certain rhythm in nature. A cycle if you will. That predictable, nay-- comforting pattern of repeating events that guide us by the hand through the passing of our months and years. No I'm not talking about seasons, because let's face it, I live in the Pacific northwest where we have two months of summer and a 10 month winter interrupted by about a lunch-break's worth of autumn.

No the cycle I speak of is my dear Catherine's fascination with the idea of my sporting facial hair.

Because compromise is the hallmark of a loving and devoted domestic partner, and because she just won't stop nagging me until I do, I find that about once a year I have to indulge my Sweet Patootie with some form of facial adornment . . . just to remind her why we don't do this more often.

Channeling the Ghost of Jack Palance

You ever see a movie advertised that you just know would be a good one but for some reason you'd rather have someone let a rabid badger loose in your underpants than sit for two hours to watch it?

Well, try sitting for nearly three. "There Will Be Blood" came recommended by a workmate who's movie-buff credentials really make me look like a cretin by comparison and when I saw it on my trusty cable-guide/social director I recorded it for later consumption. Ordinarily I'd have bothered to read the spartan description of the thing before sitting down to finally watch it, but my Severe Laziness-affective Disorder was working overtime last night and I just cued it up without thinking. Doing things without thinking is a subtext in my life that I believe others including my significant other and co-workers are beginning to notice. But I digress...

Right off I'm pretty sure this is a Paul Thomas Anderson movie. He's big on the whole weird camera pan/zoom thing with disconcerting noise/scores. My affection for "Boogie Nights" and especially "Punch Drunk Love" are great enough that I'm willing to forgive Anderson much his cinematic excreta ("Magnolia"?!) for the sake of these merciful departures.

This isn't a flouncy fan-boy movie review, all of this is prelude to my posing this single question:

If you close your eyes and listen to Daniel Day Lewis speak as Daniel Plainview, does anyone else hear the ghost of Jack Palance? Maybe its the lanky cowpoke image he's rocking but damn. A trivia turdlet in the IMDB mentions that John Huston was the inspiration for his voice and demeanor, PTA going so far as to send Lewis documentaries on Huston. I'm not buying it. If that's not Jack Palance I'll eat my hat, as the kids say these days.

So now I have to go watch "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and "Chinatown" again. Damn your eyes Anderson!

Winter #&%@$^*# Winterland

From Winter Wonderland

You may have heard that there's a storm abrewing up here in the Northwest. We've actually been getting snow for nearly a week now, but apparently a bit of a blow is on its way to dump another 5-18 inches in the next 24 hours.

Just so no one worries, we're snuggled in with plenty of provisions and diversions. Even if we lose power we have our entire back deck as a refrigerator. And since we installed the gas stove last month there's not chance for us to be without heat of some kind.

All this is to say that we're just fine up here and no need to worry.

I've posted some pics from the snow that's fallen over the last few days. I suppose these will be the "before pics". We'll see if we really do get hit with any major snow, if so I'll post some "after pics" as well.