Black Swan and fondue

This weekend, some girlfriends and I went and saw Black Swan.  I don't know what to make of the movie.  I didn't like it, but I didn't dislike it.  At first, I thought Nina was schizophrenic, but then one of my girlfriends thought maybe she had continued doing drugs, which makes sense after the costume manager comments that she'd lost weight (how that is possible, I don't know).  We also weren't sure if every time Nina saw Lily and it morphed into herself, if she was really seeing Lily and imagining she was that person, or if she was hallucinating herself.  (Wow, and after re-reading that paragraph, I'm sure I just confused all of you.)

Also, there was a lot of crotch-touching in the movie.  To me, that's a really non-subtle way of expressing sexuality, which is what the black swan is supposed to embody.  However, I don't really think of ballerinas as "sexy."  For one, they have no curves.  Secondly, they move with a precision I just don't equate with sexuality. 

Okay, and one more thing about the movie: is anyone else floored by how little ballerinas eat and still have energy to do anything?  Half a grapefruit and one poached egg does not equal a meal in my world, let alone enough to sustain someone for a day of dancing!  Good Lord!  Maybe ballerinas wouldn't be so catty if they had a little more food in them.  I know I'm less pleasant to be around when I'm hungry.

Which brings me to the next part of the evening!  The Melting Pot!  After the movie, we figured the best way to recover from the horrors of watching Natalie Portman turn into a swan would be to consume an excessive amount of cheese and chocolate!

We had a reservation for 7:30, but we arrived early, so we headed to the bar, where I had a Yin & Yang martini, which comes with chocolate shavings and is fabulous, one girlfriend had a glass of the "red" wine, which was some sort of Spanish table wine, and another girlfriend had the espresso martini with a double shot.  It tasted like an iced coffee.

We started our meal with the spinach and artichoke cheese blend, which comes with three types of cubed bread, green apples, and some mixed veggies.  The cheese usually comes in an amount to serve two, and then you can add on people, which is what we did.  I think the bread/veggies/apples are pre-portioned amounts, but the staff will gladly bring you more if you run out.

My girlfriends both ordered salads.  I do not like salads.  I just can't get into them.  There's always so much lettuce and I don't know, so little of what I'd actually like to be eating.  One girlfriend had the California salad, which she seemed to enjoy, and the other had the salad nicoise.  The only complaint she made was that her olives were mushy.

And then, of course, we moved on to dessert.  We had "the original," which is milk chocolate with a spoonful of peanut butter.  But we were feeling bold and daring, and had half milk, half dark chocolate, which was great, because it was less sweet than the milk chocolate, but not as bitter as dark chocolate would have been.

The evening proved to be a bit of an emotional roller coaster, between the intensity of the movie, followed by the deliciousness of cheese and the decadence of chocolate.  Not a bad way to spend a Saturday night!

The first weekend of 2011: #3, 12, 13, 24, 28

I was planning on making this weekend mellow, but mellow for me is apparently pretty busy. On the one hand, I thought it might be kind of lame if I said I was going to sit around reading, but the reality was, this was the first weekend where I didn't have to bake something, or be somewhere, or entertain a guest, or attend a party, or get dressed for that matter, in a while. So I was looking forward to sitting around.

But then Running Buddy texted and wanted to know if I wanted to do something, and I sort of have a policy of saying YES! to things unless I already have something else going on. (As much as I love reading, I'm certain if I were diagnosed with a terminal disease and told I had six months to live, I would not spend it reading every good book out there. I would spend it traveling and visiting friends and family. And if that's what I'd do if I KNEW I was going to die, that's what I should do now, since, guess what? I'm going to die. Sometime. Hopefully not for another 40-50 years or so.)

Anyway, Running Buddy and I met up at the Target in Mission Valley, and headed over to Cabrillo. Cabrillo is a national monument at the very southern tip of Point Loma. It has bathrooms with the best view ever. Of course, you can get the same view when you're not in the bathrooms, too. The monument has some very nice tidal pools, which we didn't actually get to play in because apparently Cabrillo is the place to go on New Year's day, and EVERYONE was there, so it was crowded. Not crowded by Sea World standards, just crowded for an out-of-the-way national monument.

We did get to go up in the lighthouse, which I love. It's this tiny little old light house and it's completely cramped inside, and I LOVE IT. And, it has a basement! You can't go in the basement, but you can see that it's there. Not a lot of houses in California have basements, which means everything that is basement-y is in your garage. I would say there are no basements because the ground shakes, but that's pretty dumb considering that parking garages and the like are located underground.

One thing I should inform you about going to Cabrillo is that you'll be driving along the road to get there, and it looks like you've come to a gate, and you might worry that they won't let you in. BUT IT'S ALL A LIE! There is no one at the gate, and you are totally allowed in. I promise. Then, you will drive through the naval base located on Point Loma, and really, you're still allowed to do this. And then you'll drive through the military cemetery, and this is okay, too. And then you'll come to the entrance to the national monument. It's bizarre, yes, but Point Loma is exactly that--a long, skinny point, so there's no civilian road and military road. There's just one road. Relax. You'll be fine, and the views are totally worth it.

On our drive out of Point Loma, we were treated to a lovely sunset. Unfortunately, the park closed before the sun actually set, but it's still lovely from the drive.

We decided to head over to Old Town for dinner. Old Town is a historic section of San Diego with a lot of Mexican restaurants and funky shops, as well as a state historic park. It's great for wandering around during the day, and is located on the trolley line, so it's easy to get to from down town.

We opted for dinner at Miguel's, which just recently changed its name from Zocalo. In fact, I think the web address still has Zocalo in it. They served us these fabulous warm, salty chips, and I ordered some guacamole to go with it. Because we were there during happy hour, I took advantage of those savings and also ordered two fish tacos and a strawberry margarita. My total came to just about as much as Running Buddy's, who only ordered the fajitas. She got a TON of food, though. Unlike many other establishments in Old Town, Miguel's has its own parking lot. Old Town does have many free parking lots, but they usually fill up quickly.

It was a fabulous Saturday afternoon, and next time, the only things we'd do differently is we'd start earlier and we'd bring a camera!

Captain America and I finally had a day off together on Sunday, so after puttering around the house and watching football (I'm pretty sure you can figure out which one of us did which of those things) we decided to go on what Captain America calls a spontaneous date.

We went over to Pickup Stix, which may sound like a ghetto date, but I LOVE their noodles, and they are located close to the movie theater that's closest to our house (and yes, the movie theater is a little ghetto, too). We went and saw True Grit. I am not a Jeff Bridges fan, but the movie was quite good. He plays a drunk, like always, but Matt Damon is very good (when isn't he good?), and Haylee Steinfeld was fantastic. There were some funny bits, and I actually cried at the end. (Spoiler alert: the horse dies. I'm a sucker for that sort of thing).

All in all, it was a wonderful, relaxing, but not dull weekend.