Brianne Blogs?

Last night was our annual trip to the New York Philharmonic in the Park concert.

It was Maren and Zak’s first one ever.

We started the evening with a yummy Italian food picnic on our blankets and then enjoyed the lovely music.

At least we enjoyed the lovely music until it started to rain and lightning and we had to flee the park.

And then walk home in our flip flops in the rain.

Good times.

Actually, we did have a really great time. Even when Zak dumped all the rain from his umbrella on his leg and Maren hit me in the face with hers.

We may need to practice umbrella etiquette before the next rainfall.

First, today is Amber’s 27th birthday. Welcome to your 27th year. It’s  not so bad.

Recent random information from our calendar:

1. When CBS broadcast the first television show in color, no one other than CBS owned a color television set.

2. Louis XIV bathed once a year. He had forty personal wigmakers and almost one thousand wigs.

3. Sea sponges are used in drugs for treating asthma and cancer.

4. According to the Texas Department of Transportation, one person is killed annually while painting stripes on the state’s highways and roads.

5. “Happy as a clam” is from the expression “happy as a clam at high tide.” Clams are only harvested when the tide is out.

6. Ernest Vincent Wright wrote the fifty-thousand-word novel Gatsby without any word containing the letter “e”. (Let’s ponder the fact that this includes the word “the”)

7. There are more doughnut shops per capita in Canada than in any other country.

After a few weeks of trying to get Zak to see the movie Up, we finally won him over. We had an impromptu everyone day on Saturday and saw this movie as part of it. We all (I do mean all) loved it. It’s a bit heavy in the beginning and all three of us teared up for it. Then it got less dramatic and no more tears were felled.

As a bonus, I wore my 3D glasses most of the rest of the day and they were awesome! The rest of the night was long, unexpected and hardly remembered and I’ll update you all on it later.

Thursday, I left the house about 10 minutes late for work due to a burning need to watch as much Sportscenter as possible before I went to work. They were doing one of those Make a Wish things with David Wright of the Mets, who is, let’s be honest, super hot and I just had to see it. Yes, I made the conscious decision to be late to work to see this bit of ESPN.

And, I think kharma liked it, because when I left the house to book it over to work, who was driving by right in front of my front steps? You guessed it, Maren Stefanie Genow. So, she waved me over and gave me a ride to work. It was like taking a taxi, except that I got to sit in the front, didn’t have to pay and there were no funny smells. And, as if to further smile upon us, when we arrived on the street where I work, what was awaiting us? Well, a perfect parking spot for Maren where she can leave her car all weekend long. We thought long and hard about who to credit for this and decided upon David Wright. So, from the Genows to you, David, we say thanks for the parking spot and for getting me to work on time!

Unrelated-I’ve been reading a lot of fluff  books lately but I haven’t been telling you because there’s really nothing to say about them and nothing of interest to quote. I think at the end of this long, hard summer I’ll just do a post or two listing what I read and what they were about and how little I learned from them. I know you now await this post with breath that is bated.

Wednesday night was Everyone day for this week. I slaved over a hot stove/oven to create pumpkin enchiladas and mexican rice (for serious, I did that and since our oven doesn’t seal all the way, I assure you, it was toasty in the kitchen) and Zak came over with some Mexican beer. Have you noticed who is missing? That’s right, Maren Stefanie Genow. Not a lot of New Yorkers have cars. And the reason for this is that you don’t really need one but also because finding free parking is a holy pain in the ass. They clean the streets all the time so you can’t just park your car for a few weeks at a time and call it a day. Nope, you have to move your car at least every three days if not every two or every one if you don’t want to pay for a parking garage. (Trust me, you don’t).

So, poor Maren, who normally gets home from work at 6:30, didn’t get home on Wednesday until 8:00 because that’s how long it took her to find parking. Zak and I were pondering taking the food to her car and just having her drive us around while we ate together.

Finally, Maren got to the house and we had a lovely family dinner and discussed life. Then we played some games and Wii and Zak and I showed off our pro status and Wii bowlers (you get a super fancy shiny ball!) and I’m sure Maren was jealous, although she pretended not to be.

We also spent the evening listening to the 6 hour playlist I created for Maren to listen to on her drives to and from Canada. Her drive is 6 hours, so her 5 disc playlist is 6 hours. That’s love. The photo below is not posed, they were both just rockin’ hard to my awesome music selection. Note that Maren has her standard fake microphone and Zak is sporting the singing fist of triumph. I also love that both of them were so into it that they both closed their eyes. I just wish you had all been there to see it.

After Maren went to bed, as she is apt to do before Zak and I are tired, we played one of our favorite games. It’s called Wykersham. That is not a spelling error. It’s like connect four but you move the rows and the board is solid wood with leather accents. That’s right. It’s fancy. We got this game from the Briggs when they were having a garage sale and Pam said we could take what we wanted. And man alive, have we loved this game ever since. The version we have was made in 1981 (before Zak or I were made) and they don’t produce the game anymore. We looked it up last night and people are selling their used ones for $40-$50 dollars. Perhaps we’ll keep ours for many more decades and then it will be worth millions. A girl can dream, right?

Yes, back to the Europe trip. I figure it was time since it’s been almost a month since I told you about our drive through Northern Italy. The two nights we spent in Verona, Italy were the best accomodations that we had of the trip. Note that this does not mean that we paid the most per night to stay here.

We stayed in a Bed and Breakfast run by this wonderful Italian woman named Paola. She was spectacular and helpful and funny and so wonderfully sweet. We got lost on the way there and when we finally were able to call her, she didn’t give us directions, she came and got us. That’s right, came to where we were to get us and lead us to her very hard to find home. This place was fantastic.

The bathroom in this place was the size of my kitchen and diningroom put together. Below is the outside of the house we were in. Zak and I were in the room on the bottom floor closest to the left with the shutters. It was a beautiful place.

Staying in Verona with us at the B&B were two German girls on vacation. Since we were there just the four of us, we spent both nighs hanging out at the kitchen table, eating cheese and drinking wine. How internation do we sound? We had a great time getting to know the girls and talking about New York and Germany and theatre and our jobs and money differences and cultural differences. It was very interesting to get to ask so many questions of people who had so many questions for us. We were also so lucky to get to know them since we had to park our standard car on a hill and they very nicely moved it for us in the morning when we had to leave. I can’t tell you how many people might have been killed had we been forced to do this ourselves.

We spent one morning wandering around fair Verona, where Romeo and Juliet is set and it was a beautiful place.

Note in the photo above that the streets are made of travertine marble. That’s right, marble! And with an area for rain drainage in the middle. How great is that? The photo below is of “Juliet’s balcony”. I quote this because it’s all based on speculation that Juliet was based on a woman who may have lived here. But as with all things Shakespeare, no one really knows. I found this to be a cheap tourist ploy. Oh, we’ll pretend that Juliet lived here and we’ll charge money to see it. What a brilliant way to bring money to the city of Verona. And it was brilliant. I thought it was crap and Zak loved it. What can you do?

The awesome thing about Verona is that is was built on top of the ruins of a Roman city. So, every once in a while, you are walking along and you see an open part of the street below which is the old city. On top of the fact that this is cool, I think it would make a great secret hideout if you ever needed one. Note to selves.

Also cool about Verona is that it is a walled city. So, to get in and out of it, you have to go through these centuries old walls and gates.

Verona, like most Italian cities is very maze-like with tall builings and streets that seem like alleys between the buildings with people drying their clothes on the lines inbetween. It was a wonderful city with nice people and great italian food (obviously). We loved our morning here and were reluctant to leave. Below is the river running between where we were staying and the main part of the city.

However, when we left Verona that afternoon, we went to Venice and that may just be our favorite city we saw. Okay, that’s too hard to decide, but it was glorious-stay tuned!

After three failed attempts to see the movie, The Hangover, Zak and I finally made it. We thought it was really funny and really liked it, but that just might have been mediated by the two (yes, two seperate locations) happy hours we hit before seeing the film.

This is not a movie I originally wanted to see, but did for two reasons:

1. Bradley Cooper, formerly of Alias, is super-hot and I have missed seeing him regularly.

2. Before this movie had been released in theatres, they were already working on the sequel. They just knew that it would make enough money to warrant a second go round. I had to see what kind of film would warrant that.

So, obvioiusly, Bradley Cooper was certainly worth my movie dollar, but I must say I’m a little confused on how you do a sequel. Do they go back to Vegas for another bachelor party and have another ridiculously outrageous time? Interestingly enough, in order to get the answer to this question, I’ll probably have to see the 2nd one, so maybe they were right to start work on it already.

After that movie, we decided to see another since we were out. The only thing starting then was Year One. Let’s take a minute to talk about how horrible this movie was. It was so very very bad that Zak and I left after a half hour. And it’s not like Zak and I weren’t in the mood to laugh at silly things. I mean, by this time we’d been drinking for 5 hours and we had just seen another silly movie, but this one was too much. And not in a good way. There were at least 5 of the first 30 minutes dedicated to fart jokes. I do not like this sort of humor in movies and thus, shortly after this part, we left. It was just all bad all the time. The things that were supposed to be funny were not. It’s on of those things where a lot of good people come together to make a bad movie. I mean, Paul Rudd, Michael Cera, Tobias from Arrested Development and a GhostBuster were all in it and it was just so bad. Note to selves-stay away.

Befoe I start my Ode to Erica, I wish you all a Happy 4th of July, especially those of you who finally decided to move back to your homeland and away from crappy Canada!

Ode to Erica-

My friend, Erica, has been on a roadtrip since March.

I have been missing her more and more with each passing day.

I don’t think I realized just how used to talking to her about my life I had gotten until she was suddenly far away and in a van.

It is so nice to talk to someone who thinks the same way I do. (And Erica fits this bill more so than Zak or Maren-if you can believe it)

Also, it’s fantastic to have someone to talk to who loves books the way I do and would list books as something she would need to take with her on a deserted island-side note: in my psychology text book this week, they were talking about how you can tell a lot about a persons priorities by what they would answer to this question:

What would you take with you to a deserted island if you could only take three things? (and you’re not allowed to answer things like a cell phone-pretend you are stuck there with no way off and you have to take things you know you can’t live without).

Here are my answers:

1. Books (I hope I could take more than one in some sort of book backpack-if I had to choose just one I would take my favorite and nicely long book, Atlas Shrugged)

2. chapstick-i cannot stand it when my lips are dry. cannot stand it. would rather lose a finger than go without chapstic. For Serious.

3. _______________. Yep, this one is blank because I came up with the first two without problem and cannot for the life of me think up a third one. maybe i could use this third one to bring a second book which would be Pride and Prejudice. Yeah, I’ll do that.

Back to Erica:

She and I have managed to grow up with nearly identical parents and family dynamics which makes it so much easier when needing to discuss family drama because I don’t have to explain anything first.

Erica likes to see independent movies with me on Sundays-how I miss our sundays. And seeing independent movies with someone who understands and appreciates them.

Erica doesn’t make me feel mean, angry, bitter, rude, cruel, insensitive or any other negative adjectives when I’m talking to her.

Yep, she’s the best. And I can’t believe that I still have two more months before I get to see her!

So, readers, how jealous are you that Erica is my friend and not yours? You don’t have to answer, I can guess.

Erica, in case you are unsure of the theme of todays post-you are missed.

Bonjour friends-

I don’t know if any of you ever click on the links to other blogs on the right side of the screen, but if you do you will have noted that the three blogs I link you to have been non-existent lately. Amber hasn’t blogged since February and Meghan and Lisa (with the exception of one blog each in the last few days) haven’t blogged since early May. Now, this is not a commentary on blog ettiquette, it’s the introduction to an article I read last week in the New York Times called, “When a Blog Falls in the Forest and No One is Around…”. Great title, no?

This article was about how people get all excited at the start of their blogs and then tend to fizzle within the first year. How we start out so ambitiously with making frequent postings and then fail to live up to our own expectations and fall under the pressure of it all (usually self-imposed). The article wasn’t just about us small-time bloggers who go missing but about big-time bloggers who have hundreds of thousands of followers and one day fall off the face of the earth never to be heard from again. It was pretty interesting and made me think of my remiss blogging friends. I think for us small-timers if you haven’t blogged in a while, you start to feel like there is so much to tell that you don’t know where to start. However, I approach it like this-the readers don’t need to know everything. And the ones who need to know exactly what happened are people you probably talk to in person or on the phone and so they already know. I don’t get to bogged down by this need to back blog or tell people everything, as evidenced by the fact that it’s been 6 weeks since my return from Europe and I still haven’t blogged about the last 5 days. So, fellow bloggers (Meghan, Lisa, Amber) write on about whatever you want, not what you think we want to hear about. It’s your blog.

One last blog comment for all bloggers, not just the three above mentioned: if you aren’t going to blog anymore, then tell people. Just post a little “hey, I’m not going to do this anymore” so the rest of us don’t waste our time linking to your blog only to be disappointed by your absence. For serious. I find it rude and it leads people on.

In unrelated book news, my need to read actual books is starting to eat away at my soul-that’s right, I said soul! After hanging out with KP (9th grade teacher) this week and talking to her about books that she has read recently and loved (For Erica this includes City of Thieves, Julie and Julia and the biography of John D Rockefeller which she said rocked) I am yearning to read good, intellectually stimulating books. YEARNING! If not for my school work and it’s hundreds of pages a week of required reading, I fear that I’d be unable to spell my own name at this point and it’s only been a month. And it’s not that I don’t like what I’ve been reading. I mean, I love children’s literatur and there’s never a bad time for it. Unless you know it’s all you can read and then suddenly, it is a bad time….Oh no! What if I go so crazy from want of good book that I attack someone coming out of Barnes and Noble.

Speaking of Barnes and Noble and me being crazy. The other day I went to the post office and on my way home (okay, so I had to walk in the other direction) I decided to just perused some of the new books at B&N. This was a giant mistake. At least I was smart enough to realize it the minute I walked into the store. I walked inthe back door, saw the travel books and then the new to paperback section and headed straight out the front door without stopping and while trying to keep my eyes on the ground, which was problematic because I nearly clobbered this kid. Ah, the misery of it all…

Well, I’d apologize for the pointless blather, but I did put it right in the title of the blog, so it’s 100% your fault if you read on and were disappointed.

Weekend preview:

Zak and I are going to try for the 4th time to see the Hangover in the theatre. Don’t think this will be our 4th viewing, rather our 4th attempt to see it, the first three of which have failed.

Saturday the Williams sisters go head to head for the Wimbledon Championship. I don’t know what you’re 4th of July plans are (other than watching Independence Day) but I suggest you make room for this!

As the fluff contines:

I read the Da Vinci Code this week. Having seen the movie for the first time about a month ago I was pleased to find that the book was much better. It’s nice to find that even in less than intellectual fiction, the book is still better. I’m glad to know that this is a universal truth.

The thing I enjoyed about reading this book was that it took place in the parts of Paris where Zak and I spent a lot of time and so I could vividly picutre where they were and what things looked like. The only things that was negative about this was that I felt a little guilty about spending about 10 minutes in the Louvre instead of the many days it deserves.

This book also reminded me how interesting the history of religions is. If you haven’t read Under the Banner of Heaven which is a history of the Mormon church, you should. After the summer of fluff, I think I’ll do some non-fiction reading and look into the history of more religions. It’s all so very very interesting and sneaky and sometimes very bloody. I mean, more blood has been shed in the name of religion than in the World Wars combined and then some. Those crusades were pretty brutal and in the name of religion. I think I could read about this stuff for a long time and not tire of it. I’ll be sure to let you know how that goes.

I can’t wait for my summer of fluff to be over. There are so many books that I want to read. My amazon.com wish list is growing by the day and it’s starting to wear away at me. What if I’m getting dumber by the second. What if that part of my brain that is used to read better books atrophies during this summer and I have to do some sort of physical therapy to get it back in working order. I mean, what if I have to start with really good children’s books like the Very Hungry Caterpillar and Where the Wild Things Are and then work my way up to the Pulitzers and Mann Booker winners of my past. Oh dear, this summer could cost me a lot more than I originally anticipated. Maybe to make up for summer of fluff, I’ll read all the books on Time Magazines top 100 novels of the 20th century. I’ll have to look up that list and see what’s on it before I commit to it.

Oh, that reminds me. In 1998 AFI (American Film Institute) came out with a list of the top 100 movies of all time. Zak, Maren and I decided to watch all of the movies on the list starting with the last one and working our way up. We made a little progress in high school but haven’t worked on it since then as we were separated for a long time. But, now that we are back together, we are starting the list up again and we are pretty excited. Up next #85 Duck Soup and then #84 Fargo. I’ll keep you updated on our work through the list and I can almost guarantee that after we are done with all 100 we will make our own list and pass that along as well. I know, you can’t wait. In order to give you a hint of this, I can guaratnee that while Willow does not appear on the AFI list, it will definately appear on ours. In case you weren’t sure, this list is less about great and moving films and more about our favorites of the past.