This is my real vacation

[muckefuck]

What a pleasant lazy Saturday.

Last night, we stayed up too late watching, of all things, Silverado. monshu hadn't seen it and I remember it as a pleasant enough neo-Western. My God! Was there a single cinematic Old West cliche they left out of that movie? The bad guys even wear black hats! Which, of course, means that from the very beginning, we know there's no hope of redemption for Brian Dennehy's character, but that didn't dissuade me in the least from salivating every second he was on screen. If the final shootout had been determined by sheer animal magnetism rather than reaction time, he would've crushed Kevin Kline like a garden slug. Fun cast; when exactly did Costner decide he was tired of fun parts and wanted to play strong silent men of action until the end of time? And I melted for Linda Hunt as the Middle European barmaid. There was a woman who could act the pants off everyone else in the room without even looking like she was trying.

In between gazing raptly at the screen, I was puzzling out a couple of scrolls in seal script that monshu is considering buying. More work than I expected, but it's always somewhat satisfying when the frustration subsides and there's some kind of rough but comprehensible translation to show for it. I've been finding ways to exercise my colloquial Chinese lately. This morning, I banged out a grammatically-atrocious but hopefully comprehensible Chinese sentence for monshu to send to one of his sellers, who didn't seem to understand his questions at all. Yesterday at China Buffet, when the waitress seemed not to understand my request for chopsticks, I said "kuaizi" and she was like "OOOH! Kuaizi!" Yeah, it wasn't a discussion of Tang poetic forms or the effect of the Cultural Revolution on Sino-American relations, but what am I learning this crazy language for if not to communicate?

Today, we finally got together with the Big Guy's neighbour and his new boyfriend for lunch at Thai Pastry. Very pleasant. We were so stuffed, that all I wanted to do when we got back was lay about and I did. I know, I've got a whole week of lazing about ahead of me, but it won't be here. There will be multiple agendas to balance, plans to be made every day, conflicts to defuse, and interference to be run. Much fun will doubtless be had, but not with the superior effort/enjoyment ratio I've got going today. sigh

If there's a cybercafe within tripping distance of the timeshare, y'all might hear from me next week. Otherwise, wait for the core dump starting next Saturday.

Comments

[currawong.livejournal.com]

After years of hating anything Costner has been in, I recently saw "Open Range" and really enjoyed it. Well, it did have Robert Duvall, Michael Gambon and Annette Bening to help it along. It also had the best gunfight scene since "The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance". Kevin does, however, play a strong, silent man of action. He's been unsuccessfully chanelling Gary Cooper for aeons.