This & That: TV, Movies, etc

Some stuff:

• I went to see Duplicity, the new movie with Julia Roberts and Clive Owen. I was ambivalent. I enjoyed it - but not as much as I expected. And it seemed a little long. Roberts and Owen play spies (CIA and MI5 respectively) who leave their agencies and team up to make money doing corporate security - by stealing from their employers. They have chemistry - when they are together the sparks fly. But when they aren't together things kind of drag. And maybe I was distracted or bored at the end, but I can't figure out how Owen's character ended up where he did with what he did. And I consider that a flaw, not a benefit. The director, Tony Gilroy, also directed Michael Clayton which I also enjoyed but found totally unbelievable.
• After three episodes, I'm still good with Castle. It's not the greatest TV show ever made, but it keeps my interest on Monday nights and Nathan Fillion is never anything but great. And things have changed since the days of Murder She Wrote: now they solve crimes using blue tooth technology.
• Right before Castle comes on, Dancing with the Stars is on. I've never watched the show before although I've caught glimpses. And I've never bothered to sit through the whole thing this season, but the 15 minutes or so that I've seen has been pretty enjoyable. It makes me wonder if there has been an upsurge in ballroom dancing since it went on the air. I'm a total klutz so the idea of dancing backwards in high heels in front of an audience makes my stomach hurt. On the other hand, the idea of being able to dance like that at a wedding reception or anniversary party sounds like fun.
• Have I mentioned that I love hulu? Right now you can watch all episodes of Cosmos with Carl Sagan. And funnily enough, I've been thinking of Cosmos lately. Every time someone on TV talks about the billions and billions of dollars we are spending on the financial bailout I hear Carl Sagan's voice. Billions and billions ...
• A very practical website I found via Justin Fox (Time's economics blogger) is Still Tasty where you can find how long your favorite food or beverage will last and how to store it. According to Fox the "creator is a retired food safety expert with the Canadian government." It answers questions like "Is it better to store my bread on the counter or in the fridge?" (on the counter). I also found that I can keep my opened jar of Strawberry Jelly in the refrigerator for up to a year.

Cookie Baking

When I was four years old my family moved to a new house.  It was a nicer house - more bedrooms and a bigger back yard.  My mom liked the attached garage.  But the best thing about the house was the people who lived next door.  A husband and wife, Harold and Helen, and two daughters, Barb and Deb, and Grandpa.  They became our second family. 

They had a tradition.  Each year Helen and her daughters would bake Christmas cookies with Helen's sister Clara and her daughters (there actually may have been other family members involved but I don't remember - it was a crowd though.)  Everyone would make up batches of cookie dough in advance and they would spend the day in Helen's kitchen baking and decorating.  And they invited us to help.  Then on Christmas Eve, after we finished with our family festivities, we'd come home and head next door where Helen would be serving the cookies with a cocktail for the adults and kiddie cocktails for the rest of us.

It was a lot of fun.  Baking cookies is about the only kitchen activity that I actually enjoy.  And to this day I much prefer to do it with other people rather than just by myself. So today my mom and dad and my sister and I got together to bake cookies.  Actually my sister and I baked, my dad cleaned up after us and my mom kept the dog out of our way. 

Here's pictures (we didn't do any decorated cookies this year, although we left the gingerbread men dough in the refrigerator so that my other sister can help bake them when she gets here):

My sister's teaspoons.

mixing things up 

Russian Wedding Cookies (or, as we call them, snowballs) being rolled in powder sugar:

Some of the oatmeal raisin cookies, cooling:

Brown Sugar cookies

I have to confess, I think the last two pictures were taken by my sister on my camera, she's much more picture-oriented than I am.

And here is Truman - licking every crumb out of the empty bag of dog food before it gets thrown away: