Kanlaon

(Gone: Watch Kularts Spring 2008 )

It’s been a fine, fine weekend, dear blog readers. Self can’t possibly describe all the things that she did and felt in the last two days (emotions, in particular, ran the whole gamut — from anxiety to boredom, from contentment to fatigue, etc etc etc. There’s a reason, after all, that she is a writer). But, here is a list of some of the things she did (told in the second person, pace Lorrie Moore!):

Saturday morning: You got hubby up bright and early and you drove with him to the Foothill College annual plant sale, and after searching carefully among all the plant tables you came away with a small gingko tree and a viburnum (in bloom) and the cost for both plants was a ridiculous $12.

Saturday night: You listened to a young violinist named Vadim Gluzman (born in the Ukraine, moved to Tel Aviv at 16, studied at Juilliard) wow the Davies Symphony Hall crowd with a ripping performance of Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor. The man was phenomenal. And just as phenomenal was the fact that his instrument was a 1690 “ex-Leopold Auer Stradivarius.”

Before the concert, you and hubby had dinner at Shima Sushi in Opera Plaza, and you had the vegetarian bento box which was possibly the best bento box dinner you had ever eaten, and it was of great satisfaction for you to see how hubby looked longingly at your dinner (even though he, too, had ordered the bento box, but not vegetarian, and your servings were much more plentiful)

You came home after the concert and popped some popcorn in the microwave and you and hubby watched “Alien v. Predator”, which you had refused to watch when it came out in the movie theatres, but now you thought it was highly entertaining, and when the team of scientists was reduced to one feisty woman (a minority, at that, natch) you watched as she enlisted the trust of a Predator by off-ing an Alien with a spear that just happened to be lying around, and when Predator bent down to Alien corpse with huge knife unleashed and was preparing to do something, you knew not what, hubby explained that he was cutting off a trophy for feisty woman, and when you asked, “How do you know?” hubby smugly replied: “I think Predator.”

Sunday, noon, you and hubby watched an early show of “Ironman.” And you declared it the best movie you had seen all year. And the concession stand in the lobby of the downtown cinema had peanut butter ice cream, which is your favorite, but which they don’t have all the time. And you figured out finally what was so appealing about Gwyneth Paltrow, who played Ms. Pepper Potts with such wry and understated humor (and who could run so convincingly, even in tight tight skirts and fab four-inch-heels), although you couldn’t help wondering if they had to make Robert Downey, Jr. stand on a box because you know he is about a foot shorter than Ms. Gwyneth. And, anyway, you thought it was a really fab movie, and you even got to see the trailer for the new Indiana Jones movie (though you had to cover your eyes every time Shia LeBouef came on-screen — oh, the sacrilege!) and you saw Ed Norton turning into the “Hulk,” which you think is also going to be a fab movie, and there was a trailer of “The Dark Knight,” and you were sad to see Heath and be reminded that he was dead, but you thought he made a marvelous Joker. And then, after all the trailers were done, and you got to note the opening dates for all the various summer movies, you suddenly began to wish that you would be rejected by all the places you had applied to for summer residencies. Because all you really want to do, and it’s too bad you only realized it now, is stay home and watch movies.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers, stay tuned.