Ugh. It's been obscenely warm these last few days. Actually, since Christmas, we've only had actual snow on the ground once. Several times it's been in the upper 40's or low 50's, including yesterday. So of course, with no snow to keep me happy with Winter, I am now eager for Spring. Especially because if it was Spring, I could be playing in the dirt. My flower bed below the front window is all bare and empty, except for a bunch of dead leaves. I want to dig around in it and finish getting rid of all that nasty sand now that I have an actual trowel and don't have to do all my scooping with my fingers (thank you, Daddy!). And then I want to put flowers in it and water them and weed them...I can smell my earthy fingers already!

If I was in North Carolina, I could conceivably start planting things in February. But I'm not, dash it all. I'm in Wisconsin, and I don't dare put one plant in the ground before mid-May. Grr.

Cowboy gave me an early Valentine's Day present yesterday: a new rack for my oven! I know what you're thinking: what a sentimental fool he is, eh? But I really wanted one, because our oven only has one rack and with as many cookies as I bake, two racks is essential, really. I've been making do with only one for the last two-and-a-half years, and Cowboy finally decided enough was enough. Just think: my cookie baking will be twice as fast now! I love him!

I just finished reading Zorro by Isabel Allende on my lunch break tonight. It is fantastic! Even better than I'd hoped! Full of swashbuckling adventure, gallantry, swordplay, a little doomed romance, pirates...what's not to love? It tells the backstory for Zorro, about how his parents met, why Bernardo is mute, and how Zorro learned to do all that cool stuff he does. I mean, you don't just naturally know how to extinguish candles with a whip, fend off fiends with your sword, do horseback tricks, scale walls, disappear...you've gotta learn that, right? This is all about how Diego de la Vega got so very very cool, and why he put on Zorro's mask in the first place. And it uses stuff from the original movies, the Disney tv show, and even alludes to stuff that'll happen in the movie The Mask of Zorro.

I've loved Zorro since I was a small girl, when I caught a couple eps of The New Zorro on the Fam Channel in the early 1990's. Those 2 or 3 eps were enough to fire my imagination, plus the guy playing Diego/Zorro there (Duncan Regehr) was definitely enough to hold pretty much any girl's attention.

Around that time, I acquired a well-loved (read: tattered) copy of a big (but thin) paperback book based on Disney's 50's tv show. I read it over and over and over (adding to its well-loved-ness), and even dressed as Zorro for Halloween when I was probably 11. To my utter shame, I had to wear brown boots, because I didn't own any black cowboy boots, but other than that I loved my costume :-)

Although I did manage to see 1940's The Mark of Zorro (with Tyrone Power as Zorro and Basil Rathbone as his archenemy) in 1992 or '93, Zorro faded from prominence in my imagination for a few years, supplanted by Indiana Jones and Captain Kirk, I suppose. Then, sometime in the mid-90's, Disney put its Zorro tv show out on video, and my darling Daddy bought all the eps! Zorro grinned his way back into my heart, this time played by the ever-dashing Guy Williams, who will really always be the quintessential Zorro to me.

Of course, then The Mask of Zorro was released in 1998, just before I went to college. And while I adore Antonio Banderas, and he does make a lovely Zorro, and the soundtrack rocks, I'll still always like Guy Williams best in the role, I think.

Anyway, this book is one-hundred-percent shiny, and everyone in the 'verse should read it. I wish I'd written it myself, it's that good.

(I yoinked these pics off the site The Legend of Zorro, which is a fun site with cool soundbytes that will play every time you load a page.)

Huzzah! I'm Rohirrim! I just knew it! I always knew I'd be a Daughter of Rohan if I lived in Middle Earth! And it seems I was right!




To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
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"Ball of Fire" (1941), "The Hustler" (1961), and "The Color of Money" (1986)

Wooo, what a night for great movies! I watched three movies tonight, two of them fantastic and one of them pretty cool. And I'd never seen two of them before, so that added to the happiness.

First I watched Ball of Fire (1941), which starred an amazingly young Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck, and a delightful Dana Andrews. Dana got to be the bad guy! Cooper had dimples and was charming! Barbara Stanwyck danced! Dana Andrews and Gary Cooper engaged in fisticuffs! Not to mention there was this whole pack of "squirrelly cherubs", aka Funny Old Men. I loved it!

Next up was The Hustler (1961), which I've seen once before. And man, does it still carry a whallop the second time around! I mean, honestly, it's hard to handle that much brash pool playing, glittering chemistry, and careworn desperation in two hours.

Finally, I watched The Color of Money (1986). It doesn't even come close to The Hustler! Yeah, Paul Newman is cool in it, but not nearly so. I totally agree that he got the Oscar for it just because they were dumb and didn't give it to him in 1961. As for Tom Cruise, well, two years later he'd steal every scene from Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, but he is way outta his league here.

Never eat a pomegranate while wearing a white shirt. It can only end in tears.

Guess what I'm eating right now? Pirates of the Caribbean fruit snacks! Very yummy. And I just found out they make PotC cereal too! Gotta get me some of that. So I can eat breakfast across the table from Jack, of course. Except we usually just put the cereal boxes back in the cupboard after we pour our cereal, not carry them to the table with us. For Johnny Depp, we will have to make an exception, obviously.

Lalalalala, I can hardly wait until July 7th for the new Pirates movie. Got to see the preview, and it just looks riproariously fun!

Actually, this entire post is just an excuse to eat fruit snacks and post a pic of Cap'n Jack Sparrow...