Would You Rather: Lovely Edition

Cordy is hosting her Lovely Blog Party all month long at Any Merry Little Thought!  Although I am late to the party, I guess it's better to be late than not to join at all, right?  So here are my answers to her "Would You Rather: Lovely Edition" blog tag for the party :-)

Would you rather wear a ball gown for a formal first date, or would you prefer an active first date?

Well, my actual first date with the man I eventually married was our college's Spring Formal dance!  So I wore... not a ball gown, exactly, but a formal gown.  But, on a whole, I would rather have a laid-back but maybe more active sort of date like going to a movie or taking a walk or going horseback riding, that sort of thing.  If I had to go on a first date again, which, Lord willing, I never will.

Would you rather have to matchmake for someone, or have someone matchmake for you? 

NEITHER.  I do not like matchmaking.  I find it meddlesome.  I actually went on a blind date that a friend set up once, and we did go on a second date, but that was as far as that ever went.  On a whole, I think matchmaking tends to not work very well at all.

Would you rather be serenaded or be the one that has to do the serenading? 

I'd rather be serenaded.  I would probably be much too nervous to actually serenade someone.

Would you rather receive flowers and chocolates or chocolates and a teddy bear as tokens of affection? 

Flowers and chocolates!  Which is what I got this year for Valentine's Day, actually, though my Cowboy got me the flowers a week ahead of time when they're cheaper, and I chose my box of chocolates myself and gave them to him to give to me.  Hee!

Would you rather wear a veil or a flower crown on your wedding day? 

I wore a flower crown (of fake flowers) with an elbow-length veil coming out of it at the back for my wedding.  I did not have a veil in front of my face.  I am really clumsy and was afraid the limited visibility of a veil would make me trip while walking down the aisle.

(Us on our wedding day, getting ready to walk to church.)

Would you rather receive a romantic poem or have to write and gift a romantic poem? 

I've written and given quite a few romantic poems, but I'm not sure I've ever gotten one because my husband is not a poet.  Sometimes he writes down lyrics for a favorite love song and gives me that, though!

Would you rather cook a meal for your date, or have your date cook for you? 

My husband is a WAY better cook than I am, so I would love to have him cook for me!  I mean, he actually does cook every weekend, but a special meal just for us would be a lot of fun :-)

(Actual food made by my actual husband...)

Would you rather watch a chick-flick or an action film as your date-night movie? 

I prefer action films to most chick flicks, so I will definitely go the bang-bang-shoot-em-up route!

Would you rather dance in the rain, or stargaze together?

Hmm.  This is the hardest question here, for me!  I like to do both.  I've done both.  I might pick stargazing, as doing that would mean we had gone out to the countryside far from the city.  Much too much night pollution here to do any real stargazing.

Our Valentine's Day Adventure

We celebrated Valentine's Day yesterday, because today we'd be busy with church and Sunday school and such.  So we drove up into the Shenandoah Valley and visited our favorite little restaurant-and-gift-shop, The Apple House, for lunch.  They serve the most amazing apple butter doughnuts -- made from the same recipe they used in the 1960s when they first opened.  It's a family-owned-and-operated place, with lots of other yummy food besides the doughnuts, including the best barbecue I've had north of North Carolina.  Also, the best bacon I've ever had anywhere.  The kids usually want breakfasty stuff involving pancakes there, so we got them that.  I tried their tomato-basil soup for the first time yesterday, and like everything else we've ever had there, it was delicious.

And they have a gift shop with quirky, wacky (and sometimes a little off-color) stuff for sale, like signs and t-shirts.  They have different stuff every time we go there, and yesterday I took pictures of a bunch of the signs I liked best:

I was really tempted to buy that last one.  But I bought a sign last time we were up there a couple months ago, one that says "I should have been a cowboy."  It's in my living room now, because "cowboy" was my dream job when I was little.

They sell lots of yummy food items in their gift shop too, some of which you can see in the above photos.  We came home with only two things yesterday (besides doughnuts for breakfast):  a bottle of hickory syrup (which we've had before -- so amazing!) and a jar of "traffic jam," which we bought because here in northern VA, we have a lot of traffic, so the name made us laugh.  Here's a shot of all of them beside the flowers Cowboy gave me for Valentine's Day:

Yellow roses are my favorite, and have been ever since I was a teen, thanks to the movie Indiscreet (1958) and the Bobby Darin song "18 Yellow Roses."  Cowboy gave me 18 of them the day he proposed, we had them at our wedding, and he gets them for me on special occasions when he can find them :-)

So anyway, that was our day-early celebration of Valentine's Day.  Not sappy-romantic, just lots of fun, which is how I like it!

The Awesome Food Award

Heidi tagged me with this here back in October, and Miss March tagged me with it here this week, so I guess I ought to go ahead and do this tag at last, huh?  I'm going to answer both sets of their questions in one post here :-)  Thank you, ladies!  I'm sorry it's taken me a while to answer.

The Rules: 

1. Thank the person who nominated you, as well as link back to their blog.
2. Answer the 10 questions provided.
3. Come up with 10 more questions that relate to food.
4. Nominate at least 5 people.
5. Let those people know they've been nominated.


Heidi's Questions:

1. Your thoughts on cheese? 

I am a firm fan of cheese.  I really miss living in Wisconsin, where we were surrounded by delicious, inexpensive cheese.  Here, we have access to lots of cheese at our grocery store, but much of it is pretty spendy.  What really cracks me up is that in the "imported cheeses" section, they sell Carr Valley Cheese from Wisconsin -- we used to live about half an hour from one of their factories, and could buy cheese directly from there, but now we have to pay twice as much because it's "imported."

2. Favorite pizza? 

Pepperoni Lover's from Pizza Hut.  Alas, now that I no longer have a gall bladder, my system has trouble handling that much awesomeness, so I can only eat one slice.  But at least I can still eat it!

3. Have you always had a “traditional” dinner (i.e. turkey and all the fixings) on Thanksgiving?

Usually.  This year and last year, we've been at Colonial Williamsburg, but we had turkey and everything at a restaurant here.  The two years prior, we had Thanksgiving with a bunch of Cowboy's relatives.  When we lived in Connecticut, it was just our family, but we still did turkey and stuffing and cranberries and rolls and pie, and usually Green Bean Casserole.

In Wisconsin, we had all sorts of Cowboy's relatives to gather with, and I often got TWO turkey dinners because I worked 3rd shift at Walmart, so we'd get up early and go eat with Cowboy's relatives, then I'd go to work and they'd have a turkey dinner provided for us in our break room.  Thanksgiving Night was always Blitz Night at Walmart because we'd be rolling out all the stuff for Black Friday and getting the store as perfect-looking as possible so that people could trash it the next morning.  Everyone had to work Blitz Night, except one year I asked off for that week waaaaaaaaaay back in like April when the supervisors didn't notice that was Thanksgiving week and approved it, and then Cowboy and I went to Myrtle Beach, SC, with my parents and my grandma.  That was quite fun!  I think that year we might have had seafood instead of turkey, to be honest.

Before that, I went to friends' houses during college for Thanksgiving break because I went to college in Minnesota, and it wasn't practical to go all the way home to North Carolina for a 4-day weekend.  So I went to several different places over those years, but we always had that big turkey dinner thing going on.

Before college, we often spent Thanksgiving with some dear friends of ours who attend the church where my dad is pastor.  They would just add us into the mix of their family.  I have good memories of playing with some of the younger kids to keep them out of the way while the ladies upstairs finished up the feast, and then the men would all come in from deer hunting and if one of them had bagged a deer already there would be a lot of excitement.

Before North Carolina, we lived in Michigan, and we usually spent Thanksgiving by ourselves, other than going to church.  Mom would make a big spread, though.  I especially looked forward to the cranberry relish and crescent rolls, and especially the pumpkin pie :-9

4. Favorite Thanksgiving dish to prepare? 

Pumpkin pie!  It's so easy, so fun to see it all blend and cream together, and... pumpkin is my favorite kind of pie!

(From our trip to Williamsburg last year)

5. Your favorite breakfast? 

Hot, buttered cranberry English muffins.  I only get those around Christmas-time, though.  Otherwise, hot, buttered toast :-9

6. Favorite kind of bread (i.e. whole wheat, French, sourdough, cinnamon-raisin, etc.)

Our grocery store sells "Marco Polo" bread that is dusted with rice flour -- it's very crusty outside, and then oh-so-soft inside.

(Source)

Aside from that, I'm perilously fond of pumpernickel.

7. Favorite vegetable? 

Spinach.  I especially love to cook up some fresh spinach in just a smidgen of olive oil with a generous sprinkling of garlic salt.

8. Do you like sweet or sour? 

Both!  Sweet more than sour, though.

9. Most unusual/unexpected ethnic dish you’ve ever had? 

When I visited Ukraine many years ago, I had beef tongue in smetana, which is a kind of ultra-yummy sour cream.  It was wonderful!  The tongue was firm, yet easy to chew, and I fell in love with smetana for sure.  From then on out, I tried to get as many dishes with smetana as I could whenever we ate out during that trip.

Also on that trip, I ate Kasha, which is boiled buckwheat, and which I hated.  And I had a hot dog with shredded carrots on it, which was okay.  And many other interesting foods.  Vereniki, which is dumpling-like pockets filled with cheese or fruit or meat or veggies.  Borshch, of course -- and borshch with smetana is delicious!  I think the oddest thing I had was mushroom-flavored potato chips.

10. Hamburgers or hotdogs?

It is hard to beat a really good burger, though I do enjoy hot dogs too, especially grilled.  But a good, juicy burger with cheese, ketchup, mayo, pickles, lettuce, slaw, and tomatoes -- I'd have a hard time finding reasons to resist that.

(Source)

Miss March's questions:

1. Which do you prefer, salad or bread? 

Bread :-9

2. As a child, were you a picky eater or did you like to try new things? 

Kind of both?  I would try new things if they looked like I would like them, I think.

3. What was one meal you abhorred as a kid? 

Porcupine Meatballs.  Blech!  I still don't like them.  They're meatballs with rice in them, and the rice gets weirdly crunchy when they're baked.

4. Do you prefer cooking or baking? 

Baking.  I especially love to bake cookies!

(Source)

5. Are you the sort of person who always has your meals planned out, or do you tend to toss things together at the last minute? (Or if you don't have your own home yet, how do you imagine you would be?) 

Well, usually Cowboy makes the shopping list.  He picks out a week's-worth of recipes based on what's in season and if anyone's had a request, and so on.  He selects tried-and-true recipes for me to make during the week, and new ones for him to try on the weekend.  Then we buy all the ingredients and we're set for the week.  We've been doing things that way since we were first married because our first year, I was working and he was still in college, so he'd be done with classes a couple hours before I was done with work, and he'd get the shopping list ready so I could just pick him up and we'd head to the store.

6. What is one of the worst (or most hilarious) food-making blunders you've ever made? 

Well, I memorably put baking soda instead of baking powder in a batch of cornbread the first time I ever made it, back when I was a teen.  Even our dog wouldn't eat it.

7. Would you rather have steak or ice cream (or both together, like Pollyanna)?

Um, depends on the flavor of ice cream and how the steak was cooked.  If it was my dad grilling the steak, I'd go with steak.  If it was chocolate-chocolate chunk ice cream from Kilwin's, which I haven't had in many years, then I'd go with ice cream.

8. What is your favorite kind of cake? 

Chocolate.  The more chocolatey, the better!

9. Do you eat combinations of food that other people think strange? (For example: my little brother once dipped his cookie in ketchup. Yeah, that was a bit over the top...yours definitely doesn't have to be that crazy. ;)) 

I really like to dip sausages in chocolate syrup.  Don't do it anymore because I don't want my kids to demand chocolate syrup every time we have sausage, but I do love that flavor combo.

10. What is your favorite meal of the day?

Hmm.  Probably supper, because that's when Cowboy is home.

(Source)

My Ten Questions:

1.  Would you like condensed milk or honey on your bread?  (Or both, but never mind the bread, like Pooh?)
2.  What do you like putting on oatmeal?
3.  Are there any foods you used to dislike, but now like?
4.  Are there any foods you used to like, but now dislike?
5.  Do you have certain foods you only eat around Christmastime?
6.  Do you have any food allergies/intolerances?
7.  What is your favorite restaurant?
8.  Who is the best cook in your family?
9.  Do you put anything interesting in hot chocolate?  (I like chili powder in mine, for instance.)
10.  Do you have a favorite cookbook?

I nominate:

DKoren

Joanna

Natalie

Olivia

Patti

Play if you want to!

"Ben-Hur" Soundtrack Guest Post

Today I've got another soundtrack post up here on James the Movie Reviewer's blog, this time about the score for Ben-Hur, one of my absolute favorite soundtracks (not to mention a movie I dearly love).  Cowboy gave me the two-disc full score for our first Christmas together because I had once mentioned that I wished I could find the soundtrack (he was wise in the way of internet shopping long before I was).  One of the best gifts I've ever gotten.  Thank you again, Cowboy!  Also, thanks to you, DKoren, for helping me decide which tracks to feature in my post.

Thirteen Years -- Don't They Go By in a Blink?

Thirteen years ago today, Cowboy and I got married.

(Yes, these are our hands, my bridal bouquet, and my veil.)

At the time we got married, it was kind of a "thing" to have your invitations say, "Today I marry my friend."  I found that ridiculously cliche and sappy, and refused to get invites that said that.  Instead I got invites with a fairy tale castle and a carriage and horses.  It said something about "Dreams do come true."

But the truth is, I did marry my best friend that day.  A God-given best friend, guide, shield, provider.  A person who understands that he will never truly understand me, and I will never truly understand him, but that's okay.  A man who takes care of me, but knows I need to stand on my own two feet sometimes.  Who supports my creative endeavors, even when they make no sense to him.  Who watches movies with me just because I enjoy them.  Who still finds me attractive even though I've gained 5 pounds per kid over what I weighed when we got married.  Who does not feel in the least bit challenged by the fact that I am so fond of so many fictional men, because he knows none of them mean anything true and real to me.  Not like he does.

(We got married at my home church in North Carolina.)

A while ago, I posted a little about how we met, and so many of my lovely blogging friends wanted to know more that I thought I would elaborate a little.

My sophomore year of college I took a full year of German to fulfill my foreign language requirement to get my BA.  I chose German mostly because I wanted to understand the Krauts on Combat! a little better, because all they ever speak is German with no subtitles (except one episode).  And Cowboy, a lowly freshman, also took that class.  He sat at a different table, and he was, in a word, insufferable.  You see, he'd previously learned a foreign language, and once you've figured out how to learn one, you pick the other up pretty quickly. Also, he's very intelligent.  Now, I'm intelligent myself, and a good student, but I'd only learned a smattering of French before.  To learn German, I had to study my vocabulary and grammar assignments for hours every night.  I worked harder for that class than any other I took in all of college.  I regularly took my brain out of my head to let it air out a little, then coated it in melted German and crammed it back in, hoping something would stick.  At least, that's how it felt.

Cowboy?  Cowboy looked over the vocab list as he walked to class in the morning.  And he got 'A's on his quizzes the same as I did.  And he was not reticent about this fact.  In fact, I found him conceited, arrogant, opinionated, and utterly annoying.

If you think that sounds an awful lot like how Anne Shirley felt about Gilbert Blythe, or how Elizabeth Bennet felt about Mr. Darcy, or how Margaret Hale felt about Mr. Thornton, etc. (or, as they write in German, usw.), you're not wrong.  In fact, as a teen, I harbored a secret dread that I would one day fall in love with a man I originally found completely horrible.  I used to look at the guys I knew and think, "I can't stand this one or that one -- what if I end up married to one of them?  How could I ever change my mind about such an irritating person?"

Turns out, minds can change.  Cowboy was friends with some of my friends, so we ended up eating at the same table in the cafeteria sometimes.  The spring semester, we wound up in the same Christian Doctrine class together, in addition to German.  I couldn't help noticing that he had wonderful broad shoulders.  And dimples when he grinned.  I'm perilously fond of broad shoulders and dimples.

I went to the dorm room of some mutual friends one winter evening and asked, as casually as I could, if any of them knew if Cowboy had a girlfriend back home or anything.  One of them said yes, she thought he did.  (I later found out that she was herself angling for his affections.  Cowboy, being even more clueless than most boys, had no idea at all either of us were remotely interested in him.)  I decided that was the end of that, and decided to forget about him.  Plenty of other eligible guys in our... okay, actually, there were only two other guys at our tiny 450-student college that year that I was remotely interested in, and they most definitely had girlfriends right there at college.

Whatever.  He probably had a girlfriend back home.  And after all, he was annoying.  Sure, he kept sitting by me in chapel a day or two a week.  Sure, he teased me endlessly by singing "The Bunny Song" from Veggie Tales because he knew it got stuck in my head and annoyed me.  (WHAT is wrong with boys?!?!?!?!?!)  Whatever.

This is where the divine intervention comes in.  God must have seen that I was about to turn my back on a guy who would make me happy for the rest of my life, if I could just get over my mixture of shyness and annoyance.  Cowboy was on the debate team, and he had to go away to a debate tournament and miss several days of classes.  He asked if he could borrow my lecture notes for our Christian Doctrine class.  He sat near me, he knew I took good notes.

So I let him borrow them when he got back.  And, in an impulsive gesture that is utterly unlike my usual cautious, plan-prone, reticent self, I wrote in the margins, "If you like me, why don't you ask me out already?"

And after I handed the notes to him, I wanted to go throw up in the bathroom.  Or ask for them back quick, saying I'd given him the wrong ones.  Or something.  Dreadful impulse!  Why did I do that?  (Insert other self-recriminations of stupidity here.)

The next day in class, he handed the notes back to me and said, "So, there was something really interesting written in the margins of one of these."

I crawled under a desk and put my back pack over my head and sang, "Zippedy-Doo-Dah" very softly until they came and locked me up in an insane asylum.

Okay, no, that's just what I wanted to do.  Actually, I said something very cool and calm like, "Oh, really?"

And he said, "Yeah.  Are you going to Spring Formal with anyone?" (That's a formal dance our college had at the end of every year because who doesn't like dressing up and dancing?)

I said, "No, I'm not."

He said, "Now you are."  And walked off.

In hindsight, wow, really?  That's how he asked me out?  I think some of my initial impressions were not all that off-base.  However!  At the time, I walked in a sort of daze to my next class.  And went to Spring Formal with him a couple months later, and we exchanged long emails all summer long, and dated all fall and winter, and the next spring, he proposed.  A year after that, we got married.

(We were somewhat infamous at college for our unabashed displays of affection.)

So!  Happy anniversary, dear Cowboy.  I love you!  (Merry Christmas!)  (Nuts!)

MEMM Day 23 - The Hobbit character you understand the least

Thranduil.  Whenever I think of him, there's a line from The Avengers that runs through my mind:  "That guy's mind is a bag full of cats."  He reminds me a lot of Loki, who I also don't understand in the slightest.

Actually, I do kind of understand him.  I mean, I get where he's coming from -- he just wants to protect his people and reclaim what belongs to him, and he does not care a smidgen for anything or anyone else.  He's selfish and isolationist, but I can get inside his head if I want to, unlike Frodo.

I think the biggest problem I have with Thranduil (and Loki) is that he's unpredictable.  I do not deal well with unpredictability.  Not in fiction, not in life.  This is why I hate and fear spiders -- it's impossible to predict where they'll go and what they'll do.  Same thing with Thranduil -- he might come over and help you out by giving you wagons of food and all the warriors you could ever need to wage a war.  Or he might decide he's no longer interested in this battle and just leave.  You.  Don't.  Know.  You can't count on him.  At all.  Ever.  ::Shivers::

I love predictable people and characters, I really do.  I married the most predictable man (with the broadest shoulders and the cutest dimples) I could find.  I want to know I can count on you, I want to know I can make a plan and it will get followed, and I don't want you to randomly surprise me by completely changing all the plans on a whim.

It's rather surprising that I like cats, isn't it?

Ukrainian Independence and Christmas Shopping

Would you like to support Ukraine's fight to remain independent from Russia, but you don't live anywhere near Ukraine and don't know how you could possibly help?  Cowboy has had a brilliant idea:  search Etsy for Ukrainian sellers (here's a handy link), and buy things from them to give people for Christmas.  (All images in this post are also links.)

Cowboy says, "At the very least, you'll be helping someone whose income has likely dropped 20-40% this year.  At best, you'll be helping Ukraine with badly needed foreign exchange AND supporting the Ukrainian troops against the (pro-Russian) separatists, because much of the Ukrainian army's financial support is coming from private fundraisers and donations."

If you're concerned that your money might be going to Russian-supporters instead, Google the city name listed in the Etsy shop.  The farther west, the more likely to be pro-independence.  Some sellers might even have pro-independence blurbs in their shop descriptions or items in their shops.  I even found this awesome shirt that says "Ukraine blooms in my heart."  Not only that, but the shop owner says that "This t-shirt is being sold to support Ukrainian military units fighting to free Eastern Ukraine. The entire amount earned from selling t-shirts will be transferred to the proven volunteer organizations engaged in logistical support of Ukrainian military forces."

So if you're someone I buy Christmas or birthday gifts for, don't be surprised if you get something made in Ukraine this year!  I bought my kids some puzzles from this Ukrainian Etsy store last year, and I'm totally getting some for our little friends this year.  And maybe some more for my kids too :-)

(And yes, I start my Christmas shopping early.  If I'm not starting to buy gifts by May, I feel behind.  I hear this is an ISFJ trait, actually, the desire to find the perfect gift for someone we hold dear.)

This Thorsday

My husband is amazing.  He decided to take Thorsday off this week so that he can be with our kids while I go to the Thor Marathon at our local theater.  So I will be watching Thor (2011), The Avengers (2012), and Thor:  The Dark World (2013) back-to-back-to-back.  In 3D.  Told you he's amazing.  But, of course, you knew that already :-D

Francis, Daffodils, and The Garden

So... I've named my new camera Francis.  After Bruce Willis' character in Red.  Yeah.  Hee.

Anyway, I got it earlier this week, and have been having a blast trying out all the new settings!  I'm so happy that my daffodils bloomed later than everyone else's, because they're still lovely and I got to take all kinds of pictures of them.  They're my first daffodils of my very own, which is so exciting to me because they're my favorite flower.  So here are a few of the photos I've taken of them this week, using some of Francis' settings:

See the nifty effects I get to play with?  That one with the shadows in the corners is called "toy camera," and so far it's my favorite.  This last photo shows where the daffodils are in relation to the front of the house.  This fall, I plan to plant more so they totally encircle that tree instead of just being around the front half.

Here's what else we've been doing outside:  building a garden!

We decided to try a Square Foot Garden this year, since it uses all new dirt.  Last year, our  garden failed abysmally.  Cowboy planted a peach tree in the middle of our old garden, and clover all around it:

There you can see how the tree and garden are up on the hill behind our house.  We planted clover around the peach tree because the two are supposed to grow well together, and because bunnies like clover and we have bunnies.  They and the deer are why we have the fence around our garden.  Cowboy just finished putting up the fence today, and I'll be planting peas later this week.  He built our box a couple weeks ago, and filled it with dirt earlier this month.  Doesn't it look like it'll be fun to plant in?

So anyway, I have lots more photos of flowers on our property, but I'll post them some other time.  For now, I'll just say that so far, there's only one thing Francis isn't very good at taking clear pictures of:  little boys riding big-wheels :-D

Delighted

We moved into our house 19 months ago, and until yesterday, I had not decorated the library at all.  I know exactly what I want to do in there, but the time and means had been lacking for a while.  But encouraged by how well the border in my bathroom turned out, I decided to find an Etsy shop that makes decals and get a custom-made one for the library.  I settled on a shop called A Lasting Expression, and they worked with me to find just the right script and size.  

Last night, I put it up, and once again... don't do this sort of thing with small people around to distract you.  My first attempt was horribly crooked!  And that despite careful measuring and everything.  Just too many distractions.  But because I had only stuck it to the wall a little, not smoothed over the whole thing and pressed it down, I was able to peel it back off, and then Cowboy saved my bacon by being able to hold the whole giant, sticky sheet while I re-measured and re-marked where it should go.  And the second time, it worked perfectly!  

So here it is, the first decoration in the library:

I'm going to be doing this whole Shakespeare theme in there, and when I get more things put up, I'll probably post about that here too.  The wall opposite this one will have two framed Hamlet-related items, and the other bare spots will get other nifty Shakespeare things that I already have.  Just need to get them framed!  But this is a good start.

I paid for this with money I made from my own Etsy shop, Huggermugger.  Woo!

Because Chocolate is Too Pedestrian

Cowboy, aka my husband of 10 years, was in LA for two weeks on business.  He flew back on Valentine's Day, but explained that, while he'd bought me something perfectly splendid, he couldn't figure out a way to get it on the plane.  So he sent it by mail.  He's been giving me tantalizing hints ever since, trying to get me to guess what it was.  And this morning, it arrived.  The doorbell rang, and what to my wondering eyes should appear on my front steps but:

THOR!  Odin's Son, mighty Avenger, heir to the throne of Asgard!  And, as you can see, he's nearly life-size.

I invited him inside, where I just had to give him a hug and reassure him that even though Loki is a brat, Thor has my undying affection, so everything will be okay.  Now he's here in the living room, watching over my shoulder while I type.  Amazingly enough, I've actually managed to teach school, do a few chores, and run an errand, all while the mighty Thor is right here, in my house, looking fierce and fascinating.

All this is to say... I have the best husband in the world, don't I?

"Rebecca" (1979) -- Initial Thoughts

I didn't even know this version of Rebecca existed until a couple of weeks ago, when I read a comment on an old post over at Old-Fashioned Charm that mentioned Jeremy Brett playing Maxim de Winter.  I quick searched YouTube, and lo and behold, you can watch the whole movie right there.  It's a TV version, and has not be released to DVD, so the YouTube version is not very good resolution, but it seems that it and grey-market copies are all that are available right now.  This is why most of my photos here are pretty crummy.

But who cares?  I have loved Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes ever since my junior year in college, when my boyfriend (now husband) introduced me to the Granada Television series.  A dozen years on, we own the whole series, and I'll be blogging about some of the eps for the Period Drama Challenge over the next few months.  Anyway, I couldn't wait to see Brett play Maxim de Winter, as I was quite sure he would be delicious.  And I was right!

Jeremy Brett as Maxim de Winter

Brett's Maxim is worldly, weary, and wonderful.  So Byronic I could bounce and giggle for joy.  Actually, I did just that several times while watching this.  You must understand that this character, in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, and Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre are directly responsible for my abiding love of Byronic Heroes.  Give a guy a dark past, have him brood, then offer him a chance at redemption (and possibly some romance), and I melt.

I keep digressing!  Sorry.  Been a long weekend, and I'm having trouble focusing.  Anyway, Jeremy Brett is about as perfect a Maxim de Winter as I can imagine.  Though I do really like Laurence Olivier in the 1940 version directed by Alfred Hitchcock -- it's my favorite Olivier role so far, and he has a far superior mustache to Brett, I must admit.  And it's been years since I saw that one, so I really shouldn't compare them -- I hope to rewatch that version again soon.

See?  Not focusing!  Argh!  Maybe I just keep getting sidetracked by thinking about Maxim's troubled, lonely gaze, or his anguished look when he tells his young bride the truth... sigh... swoon...

Right, need to focus.  Okay.  Let's talk about Joanna David as Mrs. de Winter, shall we?  She's very sweet -- many of you might know her from the 1995 Pride and Prejudice, where she played Lizzy's aunt, Mrs. Gardiner.  She's also in a Sherlock Holmes episode opposite Jeremy Brett, and I hope to watch that in a week or so, so I can see the two of them reunited.  She's very good as Mrs. de Winter, plain and awkward and uncertain, but so kind and thoughtful that you can see how a troubled soul like Maxim would be attracted to her.

Joanna David and Jeremy Brett

Okay, I'll stop here and explain the plot a bit to anyone who hasn't read the book or seen any version.  The protagonist, who never gets a first name, is a paid companion to a rich, boorish, middle-aged woman.  They're in Monte Carlo, sight-seeing, when she meets Maxim de Winter, who has recently lost his wife, the beautiful Rebecca.  Maxim marries her and whisks her off to his wonderful home in Britain, Manderley.  There, the new Mrs. de Winter meets the housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, who keeps telling her how inferior she is compared to Rebecca.  Eventually, the new Mrs. de Winter learns truth about how Rebecca died, and... no, I can't spoil it.

This is one of my absolute favorite novels.  I think it's the only story where I don't ever daydream that I'm part of the world and friends with the characters -- I daydream that I marry Maxim instead and handle everything perfectly and keep him happy forever.  It's the only story where I want to step in and replace a character, at least as far as I can remember.

(Random aside -- in the book, the girl tells Maxim her name, and he remarks that it's a lovely and unusual name.  In another of my favorite books, S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders, when Ponyboy Curtis tells Cherry Valance that Ponyboy is his real name, she also remarks, "That's an unusual and lovely name."  I love that connection.)

So anyway, where was I?  Unfocused and sleepy.  Right.  Well, the rest of the cast is quite good, particularly  Julian Holloway as Rebecca's loathsome cousin Jack Favell.  I also thought Anna Massey did a good job as Mrs. Danvers, though she seemed way too young -- Massey was 42, but I guess I've always pictured Mrs. Danvers as considerably older.

Anna Massey

(Interesting note -- Anna Massey was Jeremy Brett's ex-wife, and according to this website, they didn't speak to each other unless the cameras were rolling for the entire filming because they were disagreeing about a motorbike Brett had given their son.)

Okay, a quick note on the period costumes and things.  I think this is set in the 1920's or 1930's, based on the cars and clothes, and the fact that the book was published in 1938.  Most of Mrs. de Winter's clothes are simple, plain, and not elegant.  Maxim's clothes are expensive, but simple -- he wears mostly browns, a lot of suits, a couple of horrible turtlenecks (I happen to loathe turtlenecks), and some extremely wonderful hats.

Jeremy Brett in a snappy hat.

Here's a pretty good shot of the sorts of costumes this has.  Complete with a weird little fox-biting-its-tail thing, very period.

Mr. & Mrs. de Winter

One of the pivotal scenes involves a fancy dress ball, where Mrs. de Winter dresses up to match a painting of a long-dead de Winter ancestress.  She looks lovely, with her hair up and an exquisite dress -- and I can't manage to screencap anything that looks better than this image I found online, blast it.  At least it gives you some idea.

Mrs. de Winter and the painting she copied.

Anyway, because this is almost 4 hours long, it is able to follow the book a lot more faithfully than the 1940 version, putting in a lot of character development and detail that had to be glossed over earlier.  I very much recommend it, even though there aren't any good, clear copies available right now.  To whet your appetite, here's the proposal scene, which I find totally delicious:

When he says, "You still haven't answered my question," that's when I dissolve into a rather large puddle all 'round the computer desk.  Jeremy Brett's voice -- like buttered toast, salty and a little scratchy and delicious :-9

EDIT:  I forgot to mention whether or not this movie is family-friendly.  There are a few of the more traditional curse words, and since I'm trying not to spoil the plot, I'll just say that there are discussions of a couple of mortal sins, but not in such a way as to make the viewer blush.  Does that make any sense at all?