weekend round up

At 4:00 pm on Sunday afternoon, I know the weekend isn't exactly over yet, but well, you know, close enough.

Yesterday, after my multiple Target Temperley Trips (and after I got cheapish gas in Lake County - $3.06!) I went to a lia sophia jewelry show hosted by my friend Beth. I didn't know anything about the company, but it's basically a deal like Partylite or Longaberger Baskets or the Pampered Chef or whatever, and there is a consultant hawking her wares and pressuring you to have a gathering in the comfort of your own home, yada yada yada. Actually, our consultant (also named Kristen) was very nice, and there wasn't a hard sell or a lot of pressure to hostess a party. Which is good, because while I will go to these things*
and usually buy things, I will not host one because a. I have no room, and b. I don't have many friends outside this same circle who would want to come. So we all go to each other's parties, and if one of them has one, why do I need to?

Anyway, I love jewelry. One of my favorite jobs was working at a craft gallery called A Unique Presence - we featured a lot of jewelry, and were allowed to wear the pieces while we were working. AND we got a serious discount, so a lot of my favorite pieces came home with me after we had our big sales. I like shiny things, and colorful things. So, I am the perfect sucker (I mean, guest) to have at one such party. It was a small gathering, just me, Beth, the other Kristen, Kim and Amy but it was fun to catch up, hear the spiel, try on the jewelry, etc.

Today, I decided to do something fun and relaxing because this coming week is going to be crazy. I thought a movie. And what better movie to see than the trippy, mellow Across the Universe, a film by Julie Taymor (you may remember her recent production of The Magic Flute at the Met, and she's also won several awards for her work with The Lion King.). It's set in the Vietnam war era and, oh, every once in a while, the characters burst into song - more specifically, they burst into Beatles songs. How much fun is that?? Throw in guest spots by Bono(singing "I am the walrus" on a psychedelic bus and Eddie Izzard in an extremely bizzare turn as Mr. Kite, some animated scenes, bleeding strawberries, a singing Uncle Sam, some sly references to Beatles song lyrics (main characters are named Jude and Lucy and a dripping wet girl named Prudence wanders into the apartment shared by the gang. When songstress Sadie, the landlady, asks who she is and where she comes from, Jude shrugs and responds "She came in through the bathroom window." I was the youngest person in the theater, and I am the only one who laughed)and you've got a brilliant afternoon of singable fun. I think it would be totally awesome to have a singalong version of it, because they use a lot of songs that are in the popular lexicon. It's lighthearted and fun, but there are also some powerful images used with some of the songs - the bleeding strawberries and the song "Strawberry Fields Forever" juxtaposed with scenes of battle from Vietnam. The song "Revolution" over protests of the war. I liked it. Go see it.






* unless it's a partylite party. I am SO over partylite and anything to do with candles, thank you very much.