“stick it”

There’s a movie about gymnastics starring Jeff Bridges and I haven’t seen it? What?? Gymnastics AND Jeff Bridges? I do not care how flat-out cheesy this film may be, I’m gonna have to see it.

Here’s a snippet of an interview I found with Jeff Bridges and a couple of teenage actresses from the film. I love this; so sweet:

NIKKI SOOHOO (Wei Wei Yong):
“Jeff is such an amazing person. One day I was having a bad day and he came into my trailer and serenaded me on the guitar until I stopped crying. I thought that was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done and it really showed me a different side of him.”

BRIDGES:
“It’s almost like a reflex action. You get a girl that is that age and they start to cry, and you just go, ‘Come on, let’s play. Let me show you how to play the guitar.’ So we played some guitar. I thought that she was wonderful in the movie too.”

MADDY CURLEY (Mina Hoyt):
“[Because I was a gymnast] Jeff would ask for advice on being a coach. ‘Maddy, Missy’s character is about to do this vault, now what would I say to her?’ And he’d take everything I said to heart. It was pretty cool to have this amazing actor, I’m like, ‘The Dude is asking me how to coach gymnastics!’”

the “unknown actress in an unknown musical”

Yes. Sheila guessed it! It’s (meant to be) Nicole Kidman from “Moulin Rouge” done from my DVD of it last night.

Please note my totally extreme gonads in showing you what the actual DVD looks like:

sc000eeb5f.jpg

Her face is wider than I made it and I had trouble “finishing the hat” — (name THAT musical) — and her earring is a scribble and, well, a veritable bouillabaisse of other such issues. But I’m okay with it for a 15-minute challenge.

unknown actress in unknown movie musical

“Come what maaaaaay …..”

sc00075479.jpg
(It’s pixellated again. Drat. I don’t know how to smooth it out. Looks better in person, I think. Ah, well. Cheap pencil, bad scan, operator error? I dunno. Last night, I gave myself 15 minutes and the corner of a paper to draw from image on movie DVD. Just little games I play with myself. Yo dee doh.)

Any guesses who it is? (I did give you a huge hint. I honestly can’t objectively say if it looks like her.)

tracey’s caramel almond popcorn

UPDATE: Just to let you all know — Jayne has just made her own ricotta cheese. Naturally, I proposed to her on the spot. I’m sure I will be very happy, is all I can say. Oh, and if you go over there and see her ricotta cheese and think you’re going to propose to her now? Know this, Peaches: I got there first. I’m pretty sure these types of wedded-bliss things are first come/first served.

Carry on.

***************

Check me out! I do recipes now! I have no credibility whatsoever in this area, but still, I am undeterred!

Okay. Look. Let’s be honest. I’m an okay cook. I have certain things I make really really well. This nourishing protein-rich recipe is one. But I don’t have the passion or the God-given gift that makes people weep with joy whenever they eat my food. On the other hand, MB has not died from starvation. Which, well, has nothing to do with me, now that I think about it. Hm. He does seem to eat copious slobbering amounts whenever we visit his mom. Hm. Maybe he stores it in his cheeks or his hump or his gun safe. Something to think about.

Basically, I am not Jayne. Jayne’s the one you need to see for ALL your gourmet cooking/baking needs. The girl has mad skillz. Have I ever tasted her food? Well, no, no, I haven’t. I don’t need to because I drool just looking at her blog. Good Lord. I’m drooling now just thinking about her blog. Good LORD.

Jayne! JAYNE!!! I am Mr. Rochester, calling to you across the space-time continuum!! JAYYNNE!!

Uhm, I need to calm down. Maybe I shouldn’t blog hungry. Or make random references to 19th-century Gothic romance novels.

Seriously, though. If I were on Death Row for killing that person I killed in my dream the other night — you know, the one I didn’t tell Sawyer about — and they came to me and asked what I wanted for my last meal, I would say, “Give me anything made by Jayne — and step on it, Slappy!! And while you’re at it, since I’m gonna die anyway, gimme one of her kids for dessert. They are smushably, edibly adorable. Oh, and gimme a coupla Wet Naps; I plan to make a big ol’ green mile mess, okay? So get on it, Crackie.”

(It was good that I prefaced all that with “seriously, though” don’t you think? Yes, if I were seriously on Death Row for killing someone in my dreams. Please still love me.)

Let’s see. What’s this post about? Oh, yeah. My caramel almond popcorn recipe. I make this for my Dad every Father’s Day. He gorges on it like a frothing child and never gains an ounce. Grrrr. Thanks for giving those genes to your son, Dad. I also make buckets — literally, buckets — of this for everyone in the family at Christmas. Caramel almond popcorn may very well be solely responsible for turning The Banshee into The Banshee. She has serious issues with this stuff. Has a flappy-armed FREAKOUT at the mere sight of it. (Notice I said “it” not “me.”) Do not get in her way while she’s eating it. She’s a wild animal. She will kill you.

So here’s the recipe, already. Sheesh.

CARAMEL ALMOND FREAKOUT POPCORN

1 C. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, plus more for pans

3/4 C. corn kernels

2 1/2 TBSP. canola oil

2 C. almonds, lightly toasted

2 C. packed light-brown sugar

1/2 C. light corn syrup

2 tsps. pure vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. almond extract

3/4 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1. Preheat oven to 250. Butter two baking sheets, set aside.

2. Place corn kernels and oil in large pot, partially covered. (Okay. Pop the corn, pippa. I’m not writing this out. Pop the durned corn.)

3. Transfer the popped corn to a large bowl; add almonds. Set aside.

4. In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, butter, and corn syrup over medium-high heat; stir to dissolve sugar and melt butter. Cook, stirring constantly, until it reaches 255 on a candy thermometer. (A what?)

5. Remove pan from heat; stir in extracts, salt, and baking soda. Working quick like a bunny, pour over popcorn and almonds; toss with wooden spoons — or whatever spoons and/or sticks you have around, frankly — while rotating bowl. (Wow. I haven’t read these directions in a long time. I’m supposed to ROTATE the bowl?) When completely coated, divide evenly between prepared baking sheets. Bake, stirring occasionally, for 1 HR. 20 MIN. Popcorn will crisp when cooled.

I like to mix it up on the nuts. The batch I just made for my dad had almonds and cashews. Yum. I’ve used peanuts, macadamias, all kinds. I like to pulverize them — is that the word I want? — in the blender so there’s just a little coating of nuts on the corn, rather than big nut chunks which are harder than the popcorn and therefore exhausting to chew. They give me the vapors. Basically, I’m lazy, so I have my blender pre-chew the nuts for me. Sounds appropriate and tasty, too, don’t you think? Also: I wasn’t going to bring this up, but this whole thing now sounds vaguely pornographic. Please forgive me. I think it’s the vapors talking. The vapors and the goiter. The vapors and the goiter and the MSG. I mean, I turned a perfectly delicious recipe for caramel corn into a tawdry bit of porn corn. I have a gift for ruination.

I got 3 hours of sleep last night.

So just go visit Jayne, make some tawdry porn corn with pre-chewed nuts, and call it a day, okay?

play

Uhm, I’m kinda hooked on this game. I play it every day. Luckily, once you finish the puzzle, you’re done for the day. It’s not like you can obsessively play it for hours and hours. So I’m rationalizing. Whatevs.

snippets

Waiter, loudly to my dad: So. How ’bout an amber lager?

Dad: I’ll have a lemonade, please.

(Although maybe it’s only funny to me.)

*******

ME (taking a sip of MB’s drink): Ew. What is that?
HE: It’s Diet Coke and horchata.
ME: Oh! I hate horchata!
HE: You’re very passionate about this.
ME: Yes!

*******

~ He seems more like a Nudist Monthly kind of guy.

*******

Piper found out one of her friends has a hole in her heart and needs surgery. She was distressed about it and asked my sister, “How can Jesus live in a heart with a hole in it?” Sister did her best to explain about Jesus living in a person’s heart. When she was done, there was a pause, then Piper said, “Do you think he has a pool and a jacuzzi?”

speaking of ….

Yeah. Speaking of timeout, have I ever told you about the time I worked at a preschool in Seattle and all the kids called me Miss Tracey and one day I put a rotten little punk named Rennnn in timeout in the dollhouse and dress-up area then promptly forgot he was there until 45 minutes later?

Yep. Good times. Good times.

tony awards

Watch ’em every year. Last night’s broadcast was just kinda eh. Strange-ish. Forced, strained. Maybe it was me.

Whoopi Goldberg hosted and kept popping up in these Billy Crystal-like clips, inserting herself into various scenes from various musicals. These were obviously pre-filmed and played whenever the show was going to commercial. Weird, they were weird. Didn’t work for me. Here’s Whoopi as Christine in Phantom of the Opera. The Phantom is saying, “Sing! Sing for me, my angel of music!” and Christine’s supposed to start her big, “Ahhhhh-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-AHHHHHHH!” etc., but Whoopi merely sings “Toe-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-NNNNNY!” til she collapses.

Uhm, okay.

Later, here she is as Whoopi Poppins floating in with her umbrella and having problems flying.

Later, she’s The Lady of the Lake from Spamalot. She enters in full suit of armor, takes the helmet off and says, “Tony.”

Right.

That was the running “gag.” She’d insert herself into a famous show and say or sing “Tony.”

Even later, in a rendition of “One” from A Chorus Line, all the dancers are Whoopi.

Funny.

I love Whoopi Goldberg, generally, but she rarely even appeared LIVE onstage last night. The whole evening had a strange, disjointed vibe to me. Just weird.

The high point for me was a completely nonsensical acceptance speech by Mark Rylance, winner of Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play for Boeing Boeing. I have not the slightest inkling what it meant. Judging from the bemused and smiling faces in the audience, no one else did either. He was completely dead pan, straight-faced, with a kind of younger Charles Grodin air about him. Here’s his acceptance speech in its entirety:

When you’re in town wearing some kind of a uniform is helpful. Policeman, priest, etc. Driving a tank is very impressive or a car with official lettering on the side. If that isn’t to your taste, you could join the revolution, wear an armband, carry a home-made flag tied to a broom handle or placard bearing an incendiary slogan. At the very least, you should wear a suit and carry a briefcase and a cellphone. Or a team jacket, a baseball cap, and a cell phone. If you’re in the woods, the back country, some place far from any human habitation, it is a good idea to wear orange…and carry a gun and, or depending on the season, a fishing pole or a camera with a big lens. Otherwise…I will wrap it up now very quickly…otherwise it might appear that you don’t know what you’re doing and you’re just wandering the earth, no particular reason for being here, no particular place to go. Thanks very much for this.

Everybody laughed like crazy and nobody had a clue why. Hahahaha.

Oh, and Alec Baldwin? You’re not supposed to say the name “M-a-c-B-e-t-h”! Has nobody told you, man? You’re in timeout.

7 favorite movie cries — men

Today, I made of list of 7 of my Favorite Movie Cries — Men. Meaning, scenes where actors cry, really make me believe it, completely break my heart, and are still gorgeous manly men. Scenes that blaze on in my heart because they are real and impactful, not maudlin or forced. Scenes that make me believe I’m watching a man in a moment that is totally private and totally real. Even though some of these moments involve the man being with other people, they are moments where I feel I’m watching something personal and uncontrollable spill OUT, something they might rather keep inside, have no one see, but the moment is bigger than they are; the moment is just beyond them. I don’t feel any of these is a false or contrived moment in the least. Each of them is so beautiful to me. And perhaps I’m old-fashioned, but I’m someone who believes that crying is different for men than women. I think it comes less easily and is less welcome to a man. That’s why it’s so moving to me; it’s more of a rarity. Women can do all kinds of things with their tears. Use them in ways that men just don’t. When I see tears from a man — in real life or done believably on film — I am frozen dead in my tracks. My heart just breaks. Because, yes, I think they are rare, generally, and more meaningful because of it.

I made this list quickly and off the top, so in no particular order because I simply cannot rank them:

1. Jimmy Stewart, It’s A Wonderful Life — The I want to live again scene. Please. I just want to hold him.

2. Liam Neeson, Schindler’s List — The I didn’t do enough scene. Please. I can barely breathe thinking about this one. His face. His face.

3. Anthony Hopkins, Shadowlands — The I sure would like to see her again scene. You know, where he’s with his stepson, Douglas, and they both burst into sobs after Joy has died? It sticks with you forever.

4. Denzel Washington, Glory — The whipping scene. With the single tear streaking down his proud defiant face.

5. Jeff Bridges, Fearless — The I’m alive scene at the end. After Isabella Rossellini has done what he’s asked and saved him.

6. Ewan MacGregor, Moulin Rouge — After Satine has died. My Lord. So unbearably sad.

7. Clark Gable, Gone With The Wind — After Scarlett’s miscarriage. The cry that Gable didn’t want to do, almost quit the picture over. Well, it’s brilliant. It’s brilliant forever. Man. It simply kills me.

I dare anyone to watch any of these scenes and not be moved or even changed somehow.

Short and sweet. Feel free to weigh in with your own, peeps.

i dreamed a dream

As I think I’ve said before, I don’t very often remember my dreams when I awake. My Beloved, however, remembers all of his in minute detail and they all seem to be soaring epic tales of only-God-knows-what. I say this because I’m a bad wife and because, *sometimes, when he starts to tell me a dream he had — *sometimes — I cover my ears and say, “OH LORD!! IT BURRRNS!!” and other such supportive stuff to encourage him to please continue which he always does. He just talks louder; doesn’t seem to get the hint. He’s a very vexing person, you know.

But back to me. So, yeah, I don’t remember my dreams often. When I do, it’s usually because it’s one of my recurring theme dreams. And, frankly, there is only one recurring theme — which I will tell you but not before I warn you that this is likely to be the most embarrassing admission in the history of this blog. Beet-red embarrassing for me and, very possibly, the same for you. You may be irreparably embarrassed for me. You may think less of me forever. (How is that possible, Trace, you say? Oh, it be possible. It be. Brace yourselves.)

So … I will tell you the recurring theme by sharing how my dream discussions with MB always go down:

ME: So I had a dream last night.
HE (sighing): Okay. Who wanted you?
ME: (Uhm, insert name of famous person here.)

Yep. That’s my recurring theme dream. Sally from When Harry Met Sally varied her outfits in her recurring dream; I vary the celebrity who breathlessly declares he wants me. And that is the entire dream. That is the entire discussion of the dream. Nothing really happens in the dream except this: a random celebrity ardently declares his love and desire for me.

For instance, here’s a recent one:

ME: So I had a dream last night.
HE: (sighing): Okay. Who wanted you?
ME: Simon Cowell.

Simon Cowell? Simon Cowell?? He of the freakishly small hands?? Lord. I have issues. Deep, unfathomable issues. I am in a full-body cringe right now. You may feel similarly. And I do apologize.

Oh, and the randomness of it all cannot be overstated. These are not men I spend time mooning over, no matter how attractive they may be. They are not men I just saw in a movie or TV show that day who might be hovering in my subconscious. They just ….. appear. Out of nowhere. It’s like there’s some cosmic celebrity lineup for Tracey’s Recurring Theme Dream and every male celebrity is eventually gonna have to make an appearance, like it or not. They have to show up and hit their marks and make me believe it, dammit!

And MB always takes it in stride. He only berates me when he thinks the celebrity is sub-par. THAT will be his issue. Usually, he just sighs and laughs because he’s good-natured and secure and, amazingly, still loves me in spite of all of this. Bless you, man!

But this morning — this morning — was slightly different. I remembered two dreams. The discussion went like this:

ME: I had two dreams.
HE: Really?
ME: Uh-huh. In the first dream, I killed someone.
HE: Really? How?
ME: I stabbed him. I feel bad.
HE: Hm.
ME: And then the second dream …
HE: Yeah — who wanted you?
ME: Sawyer from Lost.
HE: Good one.
ME: Yeah. (pause) But I don’t deserve to have Sawyer want me — I killed someone!

I just …. don’t know what to say.

josh_holloway.jpg

* all the time