While trying to avoid the "State of the Union"

They made a Home Alone 4?!

Bulletproof Monk? Seriously, that's a movie?

Bastards pre-empted "Scrubs."

Ah, "South Park" it is.

[happy sigh].

So wrong, yet so right

Earlier today at work, my cell phone rang. It was a "202" number (DC area code) but I didn't recognize it. Thinking perhaps it would be an annoying question from an interpreter that didn't understand the concept of calling my office phone during office hours, I let it go to voice mail.

A few minutes later, I checked my voice mail box. The message was from a woman who had apparently gotten my number from a mutual friend. She said that I had left her a message about job possibilities a few months ago, but that the message was hard to understand and she wasn't able to get more information about me until now. Also, she said she never received my resume by email.

Okay, now I have sort of applied around to change jobs, but have never called someone. Ever. I don't have any contacts to call, really. So I decided to call this nice woman back and let her know she has the wrong Rachel. The conversation went something like this:

Me: "Hi, this is Rachel. I received your message, but honestly I have no idea what this is about."
Her: "I am SO sorry - I got your number from Jane* but she must have given me the information for the wrong Rachel."
Me: "Oh, it's no problem. It was such a strange thing - but I have been sending out resumes, so I thought maybe it was for me. Out of curiosity, where do you work?"
Her: "At [insert name of really great development organization I totally want to work for here]."
Me: "Um, well...um, I would actually also like to do international development work, so would it be totally out of line for me to send you my resume as well?"
Her: "Sure, why not. It's been a few months anyway, so this new Rachel may already have another job."

FINALLY the Rachel mix-ups have happened in my favor. And I totally submitted my resume for someone else's job possibility. A little sketchy, I think, but if I get the job, it may be the just about the best story ever.

*Not actually her name. Don't really know anyone named Jane, so seemed a safe bet.

Movie love

Voilà, ma petite Amélie, vous vous n'avez pas les os en verre. Vous pouvez vous cogner à la vie. Si vous laissez passer cette chance, alors avec le temps, c'est votre cœur qui va devenir aussi sec et cassant que mon squelette. Alors, allez-y...*

After much of my raving of what a great movie it was, Gina rented Amélie and we watched it last night. I'm not sure that she loved it with all of the crazy enthusiasm that I love it, but I think it's a little hard when you have to read the whole movie. Which is why there are no Japanese films in my top ten list (well, the language thing, and there are other reasons too...).

At the moment, the above line is my favorite, although there are some others that are also genius and may soon win out new favorite status. Just writing it above doesn't do it justice - you need to hear the crouched old man with his slow, gravelly French voice saying it for the full effect.

I was wondering why I like it so much. Maybe because part of me identifies with Amélie - dreaming is often easier than doing. But then the moral of the story is, without doing, you don't get Nino. And I also have a big ol' movie crush on Mathieu Kassovitz, so, you know, lesson learned.

*My attempt at a translation: Look, my little Amelie, you don't have bones of glass. You can take life's knocks. If you let this chance pass by, with time your heart will become as dry and brittle as my skeleton. So then, go...!

Does THIS make me an adult?

So I may have found a new threshold in my search for what makes one a grown-up:

I, ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in my life, owe money to the IRS. That's right, OWE. No refund. Dammit.

Some fashion pointers

Following a night at the Kennedy Center:

-It is never acceptable to wear pantyhose and open-toed shoes. Ever. It's difficult for me to believe that some people still didn't get this memo, but there were a lot of people in sandals and hose. Not okay. At all.

-I still don't really believe that it's okay to wear white after Labor Day or before Easter. However, there are apparently some women (Yankees...) who want to stretch this fashion "don't." I'm okay with that. I am not, however, okay with stark white pumps. I mean, really. So unattractive.

-If your suit is made of some odd fabric, say velour or animal print or suede, it's not really a suit. Just so you know.

Further proof that DC is still the ugly step-sister of the fashion world, I suppose.

Ode to Old Movies I Used to Love*

I'm a little bit tired today. This may or may not be due to the fact that I stayed up past midnight watching "The Parent Trap" on the Hallmark channel. I didn't even have plans to watch any TV last night, but when channel scrolling I hit the Hayley Mills classic, and lo and behold, spent the night eating some chocolate that Gina gave me for Christmas and enjoying the nostalgia.

I used to love Disney movies like that. I really hadn't thought about them in ages, but watching the old school version of "The Parent Trap" got me to thinking about others I must have seen at least twenty times each in my childhood. Some favorites, in no particular order:

Swiss Family Robinson:
What girl wouldn't want to race a zebra or live in the coolest treehouse EVER?

Pete's Dragon:
Not only is there a cool cartoon dragon that doesn't really talk but is quite funny, it also has Helen Reddy singing "I'll Be Your Candle on the Water." Aww.

Babes in Toyland:
It's unclear to me how this movie and the many very different story versions are related to each other, but it's still fun.

Darby O'Gill and the Little People:
First learned what a banshee was from this movie. About scared the pee out of me when I was six. I'm sure it's not scary at all though. Now, anyway. It also apparently starred Sean Connery. Who knew?

Pollyanna:
Maybe I just really wanted to be Hayley Mills. I thought the cake at the fair looked SO tasty. Yum. The whole falling out of the tree was quite tragic, and in un-typical Disney fashion, it's not particularly well resolved at the end.

I think I'm going to hit the video store this weekend, and spend the rainy cold weather on the couch and finish my chocolate. Oh, and don't even get me started on the classic cartoons!

**A la Misty.

Advice: To give or not to give?

Last night I was catching up with a friend who was recently married. I got all of the dish on the wedding, the planning, the parties, etc. In the course of conversation, she mentioned that she had had a bit of a tiff with a friend of hers from college. Apparently this friend had questioned the fact that she was getting married. My friend (let's call her K, to avoid confusion) didn't think that the friend brought it up very nicely and felt a bit attacked. In the friend's defense, the wedding was planned in a rush and the couple have only known each other since June or so, but K (quite obviously) and many other people see the reasoning behind the quick planning (and no, it isn't a baby...). Not to mention he is a really great guy and they are super-cute together.

But this whole conversation got me to thinking: is it possible to offer similar advice or opinions and have them well-received? Eb and I have definitely had this worry: if one of us was pretty serious about a guy that the other saw some fairly red-flag sort of issues with him, would the other one accept those opinions gracefully or would she get and stay mad? I have already had one friend get married to a guy I was less than excited about, but I only hinted at it, because I absolutely knew that she was going to marry him anyway, whether or not my worries were well-founded. I think most of the time we choose to keep our opinions to ourselves because we know our friends will pick the boy over us. And yet if we're right (even just up to point) and we let our friend marry a man that will make her life so much harder than it needs to be, or a man that won't love her like he should, or a man that is clearly not able to take care of himself much less another person (or people!), are we liable to some degree? I know that it will ultimately be the friend's decision, but still...

So here's my question: does anyone know of an actual situation in which someone was deadly serious about a not-so-good guy and then her friends told her their worries and she actually listened? Because I sure don't know of one, but deep down I really want to believe that it could happen. And I also want to believe that, should the circumstance arise, I would listen too.

Give 'Em Hell

My favorite quote from the game:

"Vince Young out to look for some real estate around here, because he OWNS this field."

Damn straight.


The eyes of Texas are upon you...

Yay Longhorns!

Why early flights should be illegal

Scene: Approximately 6:00 am this morning, at a baggage security checkpoint in the DFW Airport.

Random TSA guy: Miss, do you have in firearms in your bag?

Me: [Blink. Blink. Blank stare.]

Random TSA guy: Uh, miss? It's not you, I have to ask everyone that...

Me: Um, what was the question? Oh...right. Yes.

Random TSA guy: Yes?!

Me: Yes. I don't have any guns.

Lucky for me I look about 12 years old with no makeup and the hair in a ponytail, otherwise I probably would've been cuffed and face down on the tile floor. Sigh.