Roses and Thorns March 21 - 27

Before I forget 'em all, here they are...

Rose
Jim n' I finally put the last of our Ikea furniture together. We rearranged some of the other furniture in our bedroom to accommodate the new shelving unit, and have managed to unpack/put away the rest of our boxes. I cannot even begin to express how good it feels to have that clutter dealt with!

Thorn
Our friggin' furry floors!! That is until...

Rose
We went ahead and bought ourselves a new vacuum cleaner. It felt sooo good to de-fur our carpets without using a lint roller! I am by no means a neat freak, but when you have two long-haired cats n' no vacuum, it becomes a huge sore point. There were a number of days where I found myself almost sinking into a depression about living in this fur-filled shite hole. But now that we have a vacuum and our place has been given a good cleaning, all is bright n' shiny with the world once again. It's amazing how clutter n' filth (or in our case, fur) can seriously affect one's state of mind.

Thorn
If only we knew about "How Do You Know". What a piece o' crap! With an A-list cast of Jack Nicholson, Owen Wilson, Paul Rudd and Reese Witherspoon, and written n' directed by the very talented James L. Brooks, we both expected more. A lot more.

I know ratings n' reviews aren't the be all end all, but in this case, I'd have to agree with the 5.3 on IMDB. You know a movie is bad when you care more about a random dude who is on-screen for only five minutes than you care for the main protagonists. I said to Jim that I would've cared more about Paul n' Reese's characters if the film had started with an extra scene about each of them, filling out their backgrounds a bit more. Instead the movie immediately jumps into their problems, expecting the audience to feel sorry for them, when we don't even know anything about them yet. Jim n' I suspect that there probably were character-building scenes, but were likely cut in order to get the first act rolling faster (which still felt pretty slow...) But because we rented this movie via Telus, we didn't have the option to watch the deleted scenes to see if we were right.

On that note, while I would totally recommend you skip this dull movie, if you do happen to rent a tangible copy in a store, please watch the special features n' let me know, alright? ;) (BTW, despite my less-than-enthusiastic review, Jim thinks his folks would still probably enjoy it. So there you go, Cliffes! ;)

Rose
I finally got some rubber boots! I've quickly learned over the last while that not owning rubber boots in Vancouver is almost as dumb as not owning an umbrella. They are a groovy Walmart special of stylin' black n' white snake (I think?) print. As long as they keep my feet dry, I wouldn't care if they had horses running on them -- like our producer's $15 Canadian Tire special. Snazzy! (Actually, even though I've never been a horse girl, I do think hers are kinda fun...)

Thorn
Umm... no other thorns immediately coming to mind, except that I had a few grumpy days this past week. But I sort of covered that in my rose about the vacuum cleaner. I guess when you spend weeks upon weeks at home alone with your thoughts, sitting on a broken couch in a cluttered, furry apartment, and you can't even go outside because it's pouring rain and you don't own any rubber boots... it kinda gets to ya after a while.

Rose
On the opposite end of that spectrum, there was one absolutely gorgeous day last week, when Jim got off work early, so he joined me for a long walk. We had lunch on the patio of a restaurant that had a bazillion vegetarian options. I was so happy about being outside in the sunshine, the veggie menu, the funky neighbourhood, and just spending some time with my long-lost Jim, that throughout the meal I kept saying I thought I might burst. Doesn't take much, does it? ;P

Another Rose
Saturday night, we met up with our friend Nick who was in town visiting one of his old swim team buddies. Nick's friend suggested we hook up at Me & Julio's (I feel like we're going to become regulars there...), so we enjoyed a couple strawberry margaritas, some nachos n' fixin's, and some good ol' catching up. It was very nice. :)

And I guess that's all for another week!