Thanksgiving morning, Zak and I went to see a movie since we didn’t have to cook this year. We decided to see Fantastic Mr. Fox, which is a sort of puppet/animationish movie with the voices of Meryl Streep and George Clooney that is based on the book of the same name by Roald Dahl. It’s about a fox that steals stuff from three farmers and the drama that ensues. It doesn’t sound great, but was really good. Zak and I loved it. A lot. Amber, Erica, John, you would all love this movie. As for the rest of you, I’m not so sure. It looks like it was made in the 1970’s and Mr. Fox wears an orange curdoroy suit which is always awesome.

It was a really great way to start our Thanksgiving. Then we headed over to a bar called Gossip for a pumpkin ravioli appetizer and some drinks. After that we met Zak’s friend Roberta for an Indian food feast. Roberta had never had Indian food before, can you believe it? Life without curry is no life at all! After lunch we went to another restaurant (that makes three on the day) and had some cranberry sangria and some pumpkin pie because Roberta had also never had that. Needless to say, she loved both the Indian food and the pumpkin pie, how could she not? (In case you’re wondering, Roberta is from Brazil.)

After a break for a nap, Zak and I had our traditional viewing of Home Alone which was, as always, perfection.

Happy last day of November to you all.

Friday night, Maren, Lisa and I went to see Aida, the Opera at the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center. This was the Genow sister’s first opera at the Met and I must say, there is a reason the Met is The Met. The staging, sets and props were a spectacle to behold. There were horses on the stage! Horses! And not just one horse, several horses on a live opera stage! And there were thirty thousand million cast members. This is only a slight exaggeration. There were enough members of the cast for there to be a parade with at least 100 people in addition to the 50 people already on the stage for the scene.

The stage at the Met is the largest stage I have ever seen! It was gigantic. The sets were lavish. That’s truly the only word. The set was an egyptian temple and it felt like an egyptian temple. And there were moving platforms and entire statues and parts of buildings that dropped down from the ceiling. The space above and below the stage must take up a large portion of the island of Manhattan.

We were in the cheap seats in the highest ring you can get in. We were in the front row of this section in this little box next to two old women who were talking about how they are unemployed and that all they can do is walk on the treadmill and apply for jobs. They also left after the 2nd intermission, which we found odd. But then we had the whole box to ourselves and that was awesome. We felt much fancier than our $38 tickets.

I also liked that we were in the minority at the Met. I would say that the percentage of people over 30 was 90%, leaving Maren and Brianne part of the small minority of young people at the opera. Even old lady Lisa (who’s 30) is too old to fit into this group.

Summary: The Met rocked! Next up, La Boheme in February.

Friday night, Maren and I met Zak for dinner. And where did we meet Zak for dinner? At the Times Square Red Lobster. That’s right, we decided to be tourists and eat at a tourist restaurant, hang out in Times Square and then go see a Broadway show.

Friday was Bye Bye Birdie night. It was in a brand-new theatre that was just built. This made it an odd experience as most Broadway theatres are extremely old. The curtain was so new that it was almost blindingly red. Another odd thing was that as we were walking down the stairs to our seats before the show, there was an old lady who had fallen down on the stairs and was bleeding from her shin. She was bleeding pretty badly but just kept saying, “it’s no big deal, it’ll stop”.

Anyway, the show was great. It was cute and funny and John Stamos rocked. Zak had a friend who also saw the musical on the same night who told Zak it was “the death of American theatre”. Let’s take a moment to calm ourselves down. Was it the greatest show ever to hit the Broadway stage? No. Was it life changing? No. Will it win more Tony’s than any other show ever? No. But will it be the death of American theatre? No. Who says that? What was she expecting? It’s Bye Bye Birdie. It’s a revival of a 60’s musical that Dick Van Dyke starred in. What did you think you were getting into? I tell you what, some of these New York City actors and theatre goers are such theatre snobs and can’t seem to enjoy a show that is light and funny and cute and doesn’t pretend to be anything else. Enough of that rant.

Tuesday night, the Genow sisters went to see the movie 500 Days of Summer. We had several choices as 4 different movies started around the same time, but Zak said we had to see this and I must say, he was right.

This movie was great. Cute, funny, smart. All the things I like in a movie. Plus, there was a kick ass soundtrack.

Amber, you would love love this movie and if it’s playing in Oklahoma, you need to see it. If not, add it to your Netflix stat.

Erica, you would also really love this.

(P.S. Amber and Erica, are you loving the personalized movie recommendations?)

Speaking of unrelated things: I have already gotten to the point in week 2 of my statistics class that I knew would come but hoped would arrive later in the semester: the point where I read the lesson, paid attention to the sample problems then got to my problem set and had no idea how to do some of the problems. Literally, no idea where to start. I am pretty confident (nearly to a fault) in most things I do. Very few things make me have low self-esteem of feel like a loser. Math, however, kicks my ass, throws me in a hole, fills it with snakes and burys me. That’s how bad math is for me. I just feel like the answer I come up with is always wrong. It just never feels right and I’m always positive that when I turn it in, I will be laughed out of the class. It’s a shameful secret. It’s why I tested out of college algebra and have tried my best to avoid math in all other areas of my life. It’s probably why I don’t balance my checkbook. Alas, I still have 12 weeks of this class left and I’m stubborn enough not to want to get a B and have it be the only black mark on my otherwise spotless grade record so far in my Masters degree endeavor. So, I’m going to try to man up and figure this math thing out. I hope…

I recently discovered the Showtime series called “Dexter”. It’s about a serial killer who only kills bad guys and works to hide it from his cop sister and his girlfriend. It’s a really great show. The best part is that I love Dexter. It’s the same way that Amber and I love all the General Hospital villians even though I’m pretty sure we’re not supposed to. However, with Dexter, we’re supposed to like the bad guy which might be part of the reason I love it so much. So, if you’re in the mood for something different, extremely well written and morbid, this is the show for you.

Hope you are all rocking your labor day weekend and that you stopped to enjoy the first football Saturday. If you did, I am jealous as I had to sacrifice this most wonderful of traditions to see Sean and Erica get married. I’m not saying that they owe me, but I do think they should at least name their first kid after me. I mean, I took a big one for the team this weekend.

M Go Blue!

The other day, Meghan and I woke up to the not so sweet sound of strangers in the apartment. Yes, they finally came to fix the ceiling. But they didn’t tell us when they were coming, so we got to wake up to it like a not so fun treat. So, we got dressed in a hurry and left the apartment as fast as possible. We then walked to the movie theatre and got there in time to eat some lunch and watch Julie & Julia.

This is the new movie about a woman in Queens who decided to cook all of Julia Childs recipes and blog about it in a year. She did this and wrote a book about it and the movie is based on this book as well as a book written by Julia Child about her life. It was really really good. One of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. Far better than The Final Destination in 3-D.

I recommend this movie to all the girls who read this blog, but I’m not so sure about the men. Zak says his guy friends liked it, but they are theatre actors, so do with that opinion what you will. But the girl readers should definately go see it quickly.

Yes, the word in the title box is a made up word, not an unfortunate misspelling of the prehistoric bird, pterydactyl. On Sunday, when I got home from the Hamptons and we met for brunch and I hadn’t slept in a long time and then had several mimosas, I decided that Zak and Brianne should have a bird name the same way Maren and Jeff do, The Perretts. So, Zak and I decided that the two of us together will be called Pterodactyl, in tribute to Zak’s all-consuming love for dinosaurs. Then, Maren in her genius, decided that when the Perretts and Pterodactyl get together it should be called Perredactyl. Clever, no?

Thursday night was Jeff’s last night here before returning to Canada. Perredactyl got together for a game night. Maren made some yummy lasagna, Jeff made a yummy caesar salad, Zak brought liquor and I contributed absolutely nothing. Oops. We had a great meal and then started drinking and playing frustrated rummy. This is a new game that Maren and Jeff taught us that I found fun but made Zak really mad-or frustrated if you will.

After Maren and Jeff went to bed, Pterodactyl (Zak and I) went to Chelsea Grill where we had another drink and some waffle fries in preparation for our midnight showing of (get ready for it) The Final Destination in 3-D. That’s right, not only did we see it, we saw it the first possible showing. You see, Zak and I like to see bad horror films, especially if they are in 3-D and this was not exception. Sadly, I have to report that this wasn’t so bad it was good, it was just bad. The only positive thing we can say about it is that it was in 3-D and even that wasn’t done well. But, we still had a really great time, especially when our audience all screamed at one point.

In my continuing summer of fluff reading that has been killing me softly, I have had to find other ways to try to enrich the brain with literature and thus I have discovered the BBC mini-series based on classic british novels.

And thanks to Netflix and their watch instantly program, when I am yearning for actual literature I can watch some. It’s not the same, but it’s been helping a lot. So far this summer I have watched a Jane Austen, an Emily Bronte and a Charles Dickens novel. They have all been great. And since I love all things victorian and any movie/book where people visit one another for months at a time and women die of colds and people say “tis and twelvemonth and michealmas” I have been happy in my viewing.

Let me tell you about my favorite one so far called “He Knew He Was Right”. It’s based on a novel and is about this man who is jealous of his wife’s godfather who visits her everyday. He gets so jealous that he demands that she never see the man again and she yells at him for not trusting her. Things deteroriate so much that he sends her away and tries to take their child from her and then runs away with the child to Italy. Then when she finally tracks him down, he’s dying and still won’t believe her. But she finally convinces him to come back home with her and on his deathbed he tells her he believes her that she did not cheat and then she kisses him and he dies! How great is that? I mean, can you imagine reading that and how mad you’d be when you got to the end?! I so wish I had discovered it in that fashion, but seeing it was pretty awesome, too!

I can’t wait to get back to reading great books like this one. September 1st cannot get here soon enough for this reader! I think soon I will make a list of the book I am going to read when I can read good ones again. I’m thinking of doing an award month like on AMC when they only show Oscar winning movies in the month of August. I think that September might need to be Pulitzer, Mann Booker and National Book Award month for me. Or perhaps it should be classics month and I should read Crime and Punishment and For Whom the Bell Tolls and Madame Bovary and  A Tale of Two Cities. Oh dear, I’m getting excited about both of these options and I still have four weeks of reading hell to go through.

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.

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.