Tiggy decouvre le babyfoot

Is January 28 too late in the year to throw out a Christmas tree?

The residents in my old neighborhood were notorious for discarding their Christmas trees long after the holiday season had past. A few Aprils ago – perhaps in 2003 or 2004 – I started to make my morning rounds in the neighborhood with Arthur, looking out for scatterings of Christmas trees propped up on the sidewalks along the side streets. The goal was to see how late in the year I’d spot a newly-discarded tree and I was having a particularly good year. Some of my findings were artificial. Others were real and dried out from months in a heated apartment and barely had any needles left on them. All the sidewalk trees were puny and well out of season.

Often, the former owners didn’t even take the time to remove the tinsel and garland. At that point in the year, they probably wondered why bother. Arthur once relieved himself on a twiggy tree that still had the bulbs and ornaments on it.

I have always thought it was customary to take Christmas trees, lights and decorations down sometime between the day after Christmas and January 5. But maybe there is no such rule. Perhaps I just convinced myself that after seeing all those Christmas trees littering the sidewalk that spring.

We just threw out our Christmas tree this evening, so I guess we’re now one of those people who wait too long to take down their trees. It’s just that the winter was so dreary that it was hard for us to part with our festive lights and the added greenery in the living room. We were in no rush to take down our tree this year. Now I think I have changed my tune. If stores can start promoting Christmas merchandize as early as August, why shouldn’t I be able to keep my tree up a few weeks after Christmas? What’s the rush to take it down if I’m willing to dispose of it properly?

Flambee

It’s counterintuitive to intentionally set a frying pan on fire in your kitchen, then stand around to watch the contents of the pan go up in flames. But the steak au poivre recipe we tried out this evening called for flambéing with cognac, described in one seemingly easy step, so we decided to give it a try. We only had five or so ingredients to work with, including the steak, and the preparation time was minimal, so why not meet the challenge of trying out something new?

David held a lit match in one hand and the frying pan lid in the other, just in case. He waived the match over the pan, like a wand, and an intimidating flame shot up to the ceiling in a violent eruption. Moments later, we got confirmation that the batteries in our smoke detectors were functioning.

The sauce was good but I’m not sure we’re ready to repeat the experience.

Brazil

We watched Brazil last night. The film is like a comic variation of George Orwell’s 1984 but I don’t recall hearing or reading about it before we watched it.

In Brazil, society is controlled by an invasive paranoid and heavily bureaucratic government that knows where everyone is and what they are doing at every second. Armed soldiers were constantly blowing up walls and destroying property to get to dissenters.

Although watchable, I had a tough time understanding some the characters and how they fit in, and as a result, a lot of the film made little make sense to me. I’m sure that if I saw the film a second time, I’d find it just as seemed confusing and chaotic.

Treehouse in Redmond

Adele showed me this quaint treehouse near Grass Lawn Park.

 

The Happening

Critics were unreasonably tough on M. Night Shyamalan’s "The Happening." Sure there were problems with the cheesy dialogue and some of the boring characters but the film was nowhere as bad I was lead to believe.

Based on the feedback I had received, I expected that while watching the film, I’d be scratching my head and wondering "where are they going with this and why?" Instead, I was content just watching and discovering the events as they unfolded. First we discover that something in the air is making people stop in their tracks and robotically kill themselves. Then we learn that trees and plants are releasing the toxin, no doubt nature’s way of retaliating against human destruction. I can accept that. It wasn’t spooky but intriguing nonetheless. I have bought into far more preposterous movie plots. What was frightening, however, was how dull the characters were and how awkward the dialogue was at times. It was hard to care about the two leads’ troubled marriage or their reconciliation, and their dying "I love yous" exchanged between the pipes towards the end of the film were cheesy, contrived and unbearable to listen to.

The film wasn’t great but it wasn’t that bad either. And it made me think: why not? What if the planet did start retaliating? It’s doing that already, isn’t it? People may not be throwing themselves en masse under lawnmowers or hanging ourselves with garden hoses but we are slowly destroying the planet and that is tantamount to suicide.

I have seen far better reviewed films that didn’t get under my skin in the least. This film, in all its cheesiness, inspired me.