Today was my first day back to work after the ritual sacrifice day. (this is a buffy reference - in a thanksgiving episode called "Pangs," Anya says about thanksgiving: I love a ritual sacrifice. Buffy: It's not really a one of those. Anya: To commemorate an event, you kill and eat an animal. It's a ritual sacrifice. With pie.)

It was difficult getting back to work after the hot and cold flowing DELICIOUSNESS from the leftover extravaganza. I had an okay breakfast this morning, but lunch was a fantastically tasty turkey burger with two slices of cheese - TWO - cheddar and swiss, with pickles and tomatoes, mayo and mustard. It. Was. Awe. SOME. (This is also a good sign that I'm nearing my full moon - esp. the two-cheese cheeseburger.)

The Friday after the feast, I woke up with a headache. My daughter looked at me when she woke up and said, "You look like a cat's been tap dancing on your head. With its claws out."

I finished seasons two and three of How I Met Your Mother, and I'm waiting for season four to find its way into my DVD player. Until then, here's a wee tidbit of two of my favorite fellas singing from one of my favorite musicals (I used to watch the dream cast perform it, years ago, years ago).

If anyone can tell me of anything more magical than eating holiday leftovers, I will give them a whole pecan pie. For the first time in years I made a roast beef and it was SPLENDTASTIC. The SSLP found a turkey gravy recipe (for the midday feast that I was graciously invited to and gratefully indulged in) that I modified to suit beef gravy, and it was FOOLPROOF. Plus the usual suspects - dressing, green bean casserole, and mashed taters. The little voice in my head made her homemade cranberry sauce which is her traditional dish. Only a couple of items went awry, and being stuffed with stuffing, I was okay with it (my butterscotch pie didn't set, and the homemade whipped cream needed re-whipping at every serving).

Now it's time for the onslaught of my favorite Christmas movies. Aside from the classics - A Christmas Story, White Christmas, and It's A Wonderful Life (hawt love story there), I like the following:

The Ref
Die Hard
Love Actually
Just Friends
Gremlins
Elf

Etc. Etc.

I have had my Thanksgiving holiday fixation marathons, though, as well as my leftover marathons. First it was Gone With the Wind, which I always watch if I'm cooking alone on a holiday before the guests arrive. Then it was "How I Met Your Mother." Should be called How I Fell In Love With Neil Patrick Harris Again and Again and Again. We already courted in Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle (licking the upholstery!), and then I accepted his advances in "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog," but now...he's ready to pop the question, and I've got my left hand ring finger all greased up for the diamond. Not only is he tremendously hilarious and talented (the voice on that one!), but he's got a hawt hawt fit-ass body which shocked the hell out of me (slender men always fool me - you never know what you're gonna find underneath those clothes). Helloooo, Nurse.

Yes, I know he's gay. I also know that even gay men want to be parents sometimes. I am here for him. Our gene pools could diverge quite nicely, and I have all these eggs just wasting away.

Oh my god, please watch this.

I've been geeking out on How I Met Your Mother because I love Jason Segel, and Alyson Hannigan, and Neil Patrick Harris, and this is just another cherry on the top of the whipped white icing on the top of the homemade hot water chocolate cake (mom's secret recipe) served with an ice cold glass of milk WHILE watching the next season of HIMYM.

I know this is very belated, but I'm so pissed that Crash won Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain. The most ridiculous Oscar robbery since Julia Roberts beat out Ellen Burstyn (Erin Brockovich over REQUIEM FOR A DREAM??? REALLY?? Ellen Burstyn made the cameraman CRY.).

The fact is, Crash was completely overrated and gave me a headache. Brokeback Mountain, on the other hand, even if you don't like the story or the content, is a sublime moment in filmmaking. SUBLIME.

I must own this movie.

I had a, um, RAMBUNCTIOUS dream last night. Penetration and everything. After I woke up and went to work, I did alright for the first part of the day. Then toward my already natural down time, I couldn't think about anything else BUT penetration. I was so jacked up about it, the heat of my, um, RAMBUNCTIOUSNESS made the other person in the room complain about the sudden warmth of the very air-conditioned room. Who could blame me? Especially since I don't get to have sex in my dreams - I always get interrupted.

I went looking around for that new movie Brothers that's coming out with Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman (because I like them both as actors and objects to look upon). I watched the trailer. As usually happens after a good trailer, now I don't feel like I need to watch the movie, but if you asked me to choose between Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire - JAKE. Hands down and without hesitation. Maguire's a big wuss. He got turned down to play FRODO - I'm sure of it. Jake's got manliness in him even when he's a gay cowboy. Mmm-hm.

I've been revisiting some past loves lately. Here is a list (I heart lists, as you can tell):

Tennis (The first sport I ever liked playing. Me and a ball and a brick wall for hours - I fixated, even at 6 years old.)

Good running shoes (I have been told I run like a gazelle. After a long absence, I am back to my natural state.)

Franz Ferdinand (Scottish Alternative Disco. So many things about this that are right for me.)

Buffy The Vampire Slayer (I've been watching in reverse. Seasons Seven and Six I've watched the least so I thought I'd start there. Good stuff. I'll get back to this.)

Singing (Saturday during a long hot shower I sang "I'm Going Bananas" from Dick Tracy. I'm not gonna lie. There was a dance too.)

So the tennis that I played because I bought some new sneakers led me to watch Wimbledon, which was a spontaneous addition to my list of movies to watch. Not only a great underdog story, but also a celebration of Auntie Sister's 30th!!! (She loves the movie, looks like Kiki Dunst, and used to have a shirt with big tennis balls that said, "Love Means Nothing.")

Plus there was a great detail that I'd never noticed. When the two lovebirds are walking through Wimbledon hand in hand in the dark, he's carrying her shoes for her. Her SHOES. Suh-weeeet.

Buffy Seasons Seven and Six are kind of fraught and overwrought upon first viewing. Season Seven seems bogged down with Buffy speeches and whiny teenagers afraid of death. But there is a lot of funny in this season - old-school Buffy funny. Madcap hijinks in "Him," "Storyteller," and any eppie with Anya and Andrew having any shared screen time. Plus some seriously good acting from Anya ("Selfless") and Spike ("Beneath You") in this season. Two of my favorite characters because they come in later in the series as superficial characters who become, at the end, even more fleshed out than the "heroes" we've been trained to love from the beginning.

Season Six is fraught with every possible difficulty or challenge that adult life can possibly bitch-slap you in the face with, but there's some really really fantastic acting. I did not care for weeping, addicted, melodramatic Willow, but grieving, murderous, quiet Willow was unbelievably scary and heart-wrenching. Self-loathing Buffy begging Tara not to forgive her, not to tell her she's a good person brought me to tears. Anya, though usually a comic foil, shows her chops again here as a heartbreaker (the first time was in "The Body" when she has to learn about death of someone she loves) left at the altar and having to deal with her own broken heart. Another shout out here, too - I think Tara was a very underrated character. I enjoy watching the gentler souls because I think that gentleness is underrated in our society. But gentle doesn't mean dumb or doormat. She loves everyone around her and sees everyone's side without judgment, while still shelling out the discipline to those in need of it.

Ahhhh, San Diego. Drink it in - it always goes down smooth...

Last night during a craft involving an errant egg carton that kept wandering off, the little voice in my head said the following (asterisked material indicates tone):

*funny little girl voice* Come here you egg carton
*dark sinister whisper* and meet your DESTINY....

She's watched a fair bit of Star Wars in her time. I like to raise them on the classics.

The other thing I noticed the other day that I love about my child is that sometimes I'll walk into a room I haven't seen for a while, and find a little origami frog standing sentinel. Nothing equals that in the universe.

I watched Stranger than Fiction (for my list purposes) - although watched is kind of a strong, committed verb. I more listened while I focused on other important tasks. I still stopped for some of my favorite parts. The moment when he stutters during an apology on the bus (and correctly pronounces the word "ogled" in an everyday convo) and the moment when he chases his baker-lady-love down the street and presents her with flours. Thus winning her. Glorious.

For my own personal reasons, I was looking up Finland, which led me to look up the Nordic region, which led me to understand that, despite my nicknames and unless my ancestral understanding of myself is incorrect, I am not at all Nordic.

Hunh. Interesting.

Today, this was the word of the day (according to Merriam-Webster-dot-com):

The Word of the Day for November 05, 2009 is:maugre • \MAW-gur\ • preposition
archaic : in spite of

Example Sentence: "I love thee so that, maugre all thy pride, / Nor wit nor reason can my passion hide." (Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act III, Scene i)

All of which reminded me that when I was taking my Shakespeare class so many semesters ago, the little voice in my head loved LOVED watching Twelfth Night. Maybe I have a little cross-dresser in my future.

This happened, which made me slap myself for not putting Say Anything... on my list of movies to watch. I would also put Fever Pitch on the list but it has mysteriously disappeared.

Maybe it was pirates.

Tonight I used ziploc baggies instead of tupperware to pack tomorrow's meals. To this, the voice in my head said, "You're leaving a huge footprint on the earth right now."

The next few weeks I'm going to watch the following list:

Dan in Real Life
Amelie
Garden State
Stranger than Fiction
Love Actually
Once

I've kicked it off with Garden State, because I revisited the soundtrack this week. Ad nauseum. Great soundtrack. The movie also kicked off my love/skeeve relationship with Peter Sarsgaard who is in An Education - again in a role grubby with duality. (I do believe he also played the assistant in Kinsey who played the "assistant" to both Mr. AND Mrs. Kinsey.) I really enjoy his acting, but he always leaves me feeling uneasy and a little bit dirty no matter what movie he's in. Like the uncle you NEVER leave the children alone with. I also love the first kiss in this movie. Awesome. And the little voice in my head loves "The Only Living Boy in New York" - she sings it at the top of her lungs. Plus, I like that, at the end, the guy realizes how stupid he's being to walk away from love and runs back to accept it.