Things that have made my weekend yummy:
1. Shiro Restaurant. I took The Frenchman here for his birthday and it was amazing. Easily the best fish in Los Angeles. While The Frenchman enjoyed a grilled snapper with a light tomato basil sauce, my dish was by far the tastier: black cod on pureed Japanese eggplant soaked in a sake sauce and dusted with parsley. Our appetizers were mini masterpieces, as well: quail salad for me with sesame and a buttery lemon sauce, while The Frenchman had a plate of smoked scallops each crowned with caviar or salmon roe. And the service? I’ve always thought Maison Akira had the best, but for some reason I simply liked everyone better here. Maybe it was because it seemed to be run by elegant, hip matriarchs. I can’t say exactly what it was but I loved the friendly, convivial people.
2. Iron Man. This film was mega fun if otherwise stuffed with stereotypes, product placements and a weirdly young-looking Gwyneth Paltrow (I swear she looks 22 years old in this thing). I also hated the “I’m a rich genius and the perfect woman for me is my 24/7 secretary/mother/butler.” Somehow I don’t think this would fly if it were a female superhero. Yet I let it slide in the name of comic book fun, of which there was scads and scads.
3. Rosemary’s Baby. Your jaws are going to drop on this one, but I’d never seen this film until yesterday. Swear! It’s yet another movie I somehow missed because of my many uber-Christian years. I howled with laughter at parts (particularly the black crib with the upside-down cross), shook my fist at Polanski for complicating the lives of Wiccans for the foreseeable future, and got caught up in Rosemary’s paranoia. The movie sucked me in big time. His portrayal of Rosemary’s personal life was highly problematic, though. She had a huge Catholic family and scads of female friends who would have been all in her shit FAR before all the mayhem began. He should have made her more isolated with a scattered family. I also had a problem with the sudden flip her husband makes from doting husband to evil, ambitious jackass. Maybe it was something in the cigarettes he was smoking with the old evil dude. Still, I loved it. Hail Satan!
Okay, what’s making my weekend NOT yummy are these weird foot cramps like what I used to get when I was dancing the cancan at Middlebury. I’m getting these sudden, unexpected spasms on the toppish outer edge part of my foot (not near the toes but rather somewhere on the flat part just under and north of the knobby part of my ankle). This is making me quite cranky as I hadn’t even been walking much before they started. Damn this mortal coil!
