Random Pensées

A night at the movies

Ok, it was really a night on the couch with a DVD I bought over a year ago but never watched. But, before I get to that, may I tell you that there is a wonderful thing that happens when you keep the children up all day at the beach, playing with the sand and running in and out of the surf, so that they all miss their naps. They go straight to bed at 7:30 with not a peep of complaint and no singing in bed of, "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen" (the tradtional lament of political prisoners all over this great land).

The beach was huge fun. We went with our old college roomie and his family. They have kids approximately the same age as ours and the two oldest kids, mine and his, get along like two peas in a pod. It was quite something to see our kids playing together. We stayed the whole day, said good bye to the roomie, threw the kids in the bath, and packed them off to bed after reading Mr. Jeremy Fisher and Tom Kitten to the Girl Child.

Then, it was adult only time. We opened a bottle of white Port which had been sitting in the fridge forever. Ever have white Port? I assume you are all familiar with the regular red Port, that yummy stuff you drink with walnuts and stinky cheese. A moment while we all applaud the coming of winter with the need to light fires in the fireplace and drink Port and eat copious amounts of stinky cheese. The white stuff is lighter and served chilled as an aperitif, mostly. It's heavier than the nice fino Sherry's, but still quite yummy and this one was no exception.

The film we watched was a Danish film, in Danish, called Italiensk for begyndere. You may have come across it in English where it was called:

It was billed on the back as a romatic comedy and appeared, according to its description, to mostly be set in Venice. It seemed a perfect choice to end the day. I don't mean to be picky about this, but I prefer my romantic comedies with less death, alcohol abuse, morphine killings, and angst. Perhaps that is what passes for comedy in Denmark. The romance part was not terribly believable, either, for that matter. But, it was of no matter. We actually still enjoyed the damn thing. It moved briskly enough and it was shot in such an odd style, perhaps a varient on that Scandinavian school that mandated just one camera and natural light only. I don't recall the name of that but I'm sure one of you clever people will (I have boundless confidence in the smarts of my readers, you see).

Now that I think about it, the only other Danish language film I can recall seeing was kind of dark, too. Anyone else recall Babette's Feast (Babettes gæstebud)? That was dark but an excellent film.

Today is not beach weather here in Southern New York, but it is a perfectly good day to make homemade peanut butter with the Girl Child and that is what we did. For anyone who wants to do it to, take 2 cups of salted, roasted peanuts, one tablespoon of peanut oil, put them all in the blender and blend until you get butter. You may have to stop and scrape it down from time to time. It's yummy. You can put it in the fridge and when you want it, stir the oil back in to the butter. It will keep, I'm told, for about two weeks or so.

Peace, y'all.

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Posted by Random Penseur at September 5, 2004 01:58 PM