If you know us, you know we like to eat, and you know we plan our vacational food visits before we figure out where to stay. We went to Savannah GA this past week for Sarah to attend a Wordpress conference, and it was no different this time.
We took two days to arrive, stopping in Raleigh NC on the way. We ate at a couple places there, but they were not very memorable. When we arrived in Savannah we stayed at a motel called The Thunderbird Inn, which is a 1950s motor hotel that has been restored to its former glory. It was a pretty nice stay, despite the fact that we had to call 911 on our fighting neighbors at 2 am the first night, and were awakened by a drunk person trying to get into our room at 3 am the next night. The food in the area definitely made up for it.
Sarah loves barbecue, so the first place we went in Savannah was Wiley's Championship BBQ, which was a little confusing to get to, and very small inside. I had always wanted to try BBQ brisket, and it was delicious. Sarah had the pulled pork, but I think she liked the sauce better than the pork, so we got a bottle to go. I had the potato salad, and it was most definitely the best potato salad I ever ate.
For our first breakfast in Savannah, we went to J Christopher's, which I just found out is a chain in Georgia. Our vacation rule is to stay away from chain restaurants, unless it is a regional chain that we don't have near us. The vibe was more coffee house than breakfast place, there was art on the walls and it had almost a warehouse atmosphere. One of the front windows was a large garage door, and we wondered if it had been a garage or a firehouse long ago. The food was okay, I am usually upset when I order corned beef hash (my favorite) and it is the pre-made kind, which is what happened here.
That was not the case at Clary's Cafe on Abercorn St. The hash was excellent, Sarah got these huge pancakes that were delicious (but she couldn't eat them all), and the service was excellent. The biscuits were heavenly. the atmosphere was definitely better for us, even though we don't go out to eat for the atmosphere.
Sarah picked a pub for dinner called Molly MacPherson's. The reason she picked it is because they had Scotch Eggs on the menu, which is something I've wanted to try for a long long time. In case you don't know, a scotch egg is a hard-boiled egg wrapped in sausage and deep fried. The epitome of healthy eating! It was really good though, but not something you want to eat every night. When we got there, I started to think that maybe we should go somewhere else, because it was a small bar that served food, and I thought the food was going to be mediocre. Thankfully I was wrong. I had the fish and chips, which I always get in a place like this, and it was really very good. It was light, which is surprising for fried food, and it wasn't a huge portion, which was nice. We also had the sticky toffee pudding for dessert, which is something else I've wanted to try for awhile, and it was incredible.
Sarah found a place online that we probably wouldn't have found otherwise. The Masada Cafe is actually a church (United House of Prayer for All People) that raises money by selling food from a cafeteria-style setting. It is traditional southern cooking, and it's inexpensive and delicious. The people there were very friendly and talked to us about our trip. The ribs there were awesome.
On the way home we hit two soul food restaurants, Vick's Drive-In in Fayettville NC and Ann's Wings and Things in Stafford, VA. Both had traditional southern food on the menu, like chitlins and pig's feet, which I am frightened of. At Vick's, we both got the cheeseburger and fries, which was way better than it had any right to be. It looked like a frozen or pressed patty, but it was amazingly soft and delicious. I got the ribs at Ann's, which were great, but not as good as Masada's. What was good was the baked beans, which I think were the best I ever had. I got to sample Sarah's turkey dinner, as she was not too fond of it. I liked it a lot, it came with cornbread stuffing and was smothered in gravy. I was perplexed by the amount of mashed potatoes she left, until I ate them (they put vinegar in it).
Sarah's favorite place (I think) was Mrs. Wilkes' Dining Room in Savannah. They open for 3 hours a day, and there are 10 person tables inside where strangers all sit together. There is a long line, but luckily we got there a little early and made it in by noon. When you get inside the tables are covered with all manner of southern dishes. The meat on the day we went was fried chicken, which was great. There were a ton of side dishes too, all the southern favorites. You just grabbed a bowl and passed it around the table. The last time I had a meal like that was when I was 8 and I visited my Aunt Emma in South Carolina. On Sunday morning she was in the kitchen making a ton of food and the table looked pretty much the same. It was the most vegetables that we ate on the trip too, so that was good.
My favorite place was The Breakfast Club on Tybee Island, which is about a half hour from Savannah. This place also had a line out front, but we didn't have to wait as long as at Mrs. Wilkes. I love breakfast, especially if it involves eggs and some sort of meat (I have made myself an egg sandwich with hot dogs on it). This place had so many interesting egg dishes that it was hard to decide, but I got a scramble that had kielbasa in it (the owners are originally from Chicago), and it was incredible.I don't normally eat grits unless I'm in the South, and these were by far the best grits I've ever had, just served with butter So good. The best part was we sat at the counter right in front of the grill so we could watch the cooking. They had one guy on the end doing prep and making waffles and replacing empty stuff; then two cooks on the grill in the middle making everything; and I think the owner on the other end finishing and plating. It was beautiful to watch, like a breakfast ballet. I harbor thoughts of doing that myself, so it was a learning experience for me.
All in all, there were very few disappointments, although a major one for me was being plagued with bad coffee. It wasn't all horrible, but nothing was better than I could make at home, which made me very sad. The absolute worst cup I had was in a cafe, of all places.
Some of you who have dined with us in the past may notice the absence of food pictures, which we like to take when we go out. I think it was just that the food looked so good, we just forgot to take them.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
Happy Flag Day
I made this bread at work this morning, in honor of Flag Day. This is something I've wanted to try since Sarah explained caning with fimo clay to me, quite a few years ago. Of course, since that is done with clay, you don't get the problem of rising. I staggered the star section, but because of the rise over the top of the pan, it's a little out of wack. Still, I think it looks pretty neat.I made four loaves to sell in the store. The four loaves took me a half hour just to put into the pan, so I had to raise the price from $2.50 to $3.25. I wanted to make it $2.95, but I really didn't think that was enough. The coolness factor of the bread might get clipped by the price. I'll find out in the morning.
I'm not sure if people even know about Flag Day anymore. I'm curious as to how many people will look at the bread and wonder why the hell we have flag bread such a long time before 4th of July. I have trouble selling colored breads to our customers anyway, many of them probably think that it's weird and tastes different because of the dye (especially the Amish folks, this is definitely not a plain bread). But that won't stop me! I'll probably have better luck on July 3rd, which is a Saturday. If I can get people to buy bread with dyed hard-boiled eggs in it, I should be able to get them to buy this.
Extra special Flag Day wishes to my friend Jenny, but I'm not telling you why.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Lost in the Supermarket
When I got to work this morning, there was a cat underneath the store van. I walked a little closer to see it, and I realized that it was Byler #2, with whom I had been previously acquainted. Let me explain that.
Several years ago in December, I got to work one morning, and as was my habit, I went around the store and checked all the doors to make sure they were locked. I didn't turn on the lights in those areas, because there was usually enough light to walk to the door and check it. I was in the back room of the stove shop when I saw something move across the door leading into the bakery. It was a big something, not rodent sized, and it scared the heck out of me. Right near that door are stairs going down into the crawlspace, which is where the big something came from. I went to work and forgot about it.
A few days later, I was walking past the deli cooler, and I noticed the meat ends packages were open and bitten into (the deli throws the ends of the cold cuts into a package and sells them). I didn't know what to make of that, as I had forgotten about the big something I saw.
A couple days after that, I was checking the same door, and someone had left the light on near the stairs. When I turned from the door, there was a small gray cat standing there. When I turned, it bolted into the crawlspace. I ran over to see if i could catch it, but it was gone somewhere under the building. I now had the culprit for the missing meat ends. I could smell cat urine down there too. There was a lot of gravel down there, so she was probably using it as a giant litter box.
The next day I was out in the store (in the early am, so I was by myself), and I saw movement from the corner of my eye, and I quickly turned around and saw the cat again. Only this was a brown cat. So now there were TWO culprits eating the meat ends. When the managers came in, I told them that I saw two cats in the building. They explained to me that they had recently sealed up all the holes in the building, and the cats were probably two of the kittens that lived in the barn behind the store (it looks like a barn, but we use it as a warehouse). It was cold, and they had probably got into the store to keep warm, but now they were trapped. These were feral cats, so there wasn't any way of picking them up and taking them out.
We had two humane animal traps at home, because we had been doing cat rescue at the time. I asked the managers if it was okay if I set up the traps in the store to get them out, which was fine with them. It was very near Christmas, so I was going in around 9 pm at night. I set up a trap in the crawlspace, and two days later I caught one of them, and took her home to wait for her brother to be caught. I set up another trap in the deli, and I actually saw the cat in the trap eating the food, but he didn't trip it closed. I walked all the way around and snuck up on the cat, which amazingly didn't hear me. I smacked the top of the trap, thinking it would shut, but it just scared the hell out of the cat and he ran away. I didn't think I would be able to catch him with the trap after that, but by that time they were putting the meat ends and the bags of cat food away at night, so there was nothing else for them to eat. I caught the other one the next night in the crawlspace.
Now we had two feral cats in our craft room. We made an appointment for them to be spay/neutered at Delaware Humane Association, which does low cost spay neuter, as well as adoptions. We didn't name the cats, so we just called them Byler #1 and Byler #2. The store didn't pay for this, we did, but I didn't ask and I didn't expect them to pay either. We had been doing this for some time, so it seemed like the right thing to do in this case. Most of the people at work thought I was weird for doing this. Maybe not just for this, but oh well. :)
We had to keep them for a few days after the spay/neuter (they stayed right in the traps, thank you). After the few days, we brought both of them back to the store and set them free by the barn/warehouse. We had bought a 20 lb. bag of food and just dumped it behind the barn for them to eat. I did this regularly for awhile, but eventually I had to stop, as it was getting expensive. They lived for at least a year after they were born without being fed regularly, so I figured they could keep it going.
The brown kitty was Byler #1. I saw him only once after he was neutered. He was not happy to see me. The gray kitty, Byler #2, was possibly the cutest kitty Sarah and I had ever seen (I think we took pictures of them in the traps, but I cannot find them). I saw her many times after she was spayed. Most times were when I surprised her in the dumpster. I would have to throw something out when the store was not yet open, so I would open the back door and lob the item into the dumpster. Every once in awhile a frightened kitty would jump out and run back to the barn.
I saw her less and less as the years passed, I think now I maybe see her once a year. It has been said that spay/neuter lengthens a cat's life, so maybe that's why I'm still seeing her from time to time. She's still as cute as ever!
Several years ago in December, I got to work one morning, and as was my habit, I went around the store and checked all the doors to make sure they were locked. I didn't turn on the lights in those areas, because there was usually enough light to walk to the door and check it. I was in the back room of the stove shop when I saw something move across the door leading into the bakery. It was a big something, not rodent sized, and it scared the heck out of me. Right near that door are stairs going down into the crawlspace, which is where the big something came from. I went to work and forgot about it.
A few days later, I was walking past the deli cooler, and I noticed the meat ends packages were open and bitten into (the deli throws the ends of the cold cuts into a package and sells them). I didn't know what to make of that, as I had forgotten about the big something I saw.
A couple days after that, I was checking the same door, and someone had left the light on near the stairs. When I turned from the door, there was a small gray cat standing there. When I turned, it bolted into the crawlspace. I ran over to see if i could catch it, but it was gone somewhere under the building. I now had the culprit for the missing meat ends. I could smell cat urine down there too. There was a lot of gravel down there, so she was probably using it as a giant litter box.
The next day I was out in the store (in the early am, so I was by myself), and I saw movement from the corner of my eye, and I quickly turned around and saw the cat again. Only this was a brown cat. So now there were TWO culprits eating the meat ends. When the managers came in, I told them that I saw two cats in the building. They explained to me that they had recently sealed up all the holes in the building, and the cats were probably two of the kittens that lived in the barn behind the store (it looks like a barn, but we use it as a warehouse). It was cold, and they had probably got into the store to keep warm, but now they were trapped. These were feral cats, so there wasn't any way of picking them up and taking them out.
We had two humane animal traps at home, because we had been doing cat rescue at the time. I asked the managers if it was okay if I set up the traps in the store to get them out, which was fine with them. It was very near Christmas, so I was going in around 9 pm at night. I set up a trap in the crawlspace, and two days later I caught one of them, and took her home to wait for her brother to be caught. I set up another trap in the deli, and I actually saw the cat in the trap eating the food, but he didn't trip it closed. I walked all the way around and snuck up on the cat, which amazingly didn't hear me. I smacked the top of the trap, thinking it would shut, but it just scared the hell out of the cat and he ran away. I didn't think I would be able to catch him with the trap after that, but by that time they were putting the meat ends and the bags of cat food away at night, so there was nothing else for them to eat. I caught the other one the next night in the crawlspace.
Now we had two feral cats in our craft room. We made an appointment for them to be spay/neutered at Delaware Humane Association, which does low cost spay neuter, as well as adoptions. We didn't name the cats, so we just called them Byler #1 and Byler #2. The store didn't pay for this, we did, but I didn't ask and I didn't expect them to pay either. We had been doing this for some time, so it seemed like the right thing to do in this case. Most of the people at work thought I was weird for doing this. Maybe not just for this, but oh well. :)
We had to keep them for a few days after the spay/neuter (they stayed right in the traps, thank you). After the few days, we brought both of them back to the store and set them free by the barn/warehouse. We had bought a 20 lb. bag of food and just dumped it behind the barn for them to eat. I did this regularly for awhile, but eventually I had to stop, as it was getting expensive. They lived for at least a year after they were born without being fed regularly, so I figured they could keep it going.
The brown kitty was Byler #1. I saw him only once after he was neutered. He was not happy to see me. The gray kitty, Byler #2, was possibly the cutest kitty Sarah and I had ever seen (I think we took pictures of them in the traps, but I cannot find them). I saw her many times after she was spayed. Most times were when I surprised her in the dumpster. I would have to throw something out when the store was not yet open, so I would open the back door and lob the item into the dumpster. Every once in awhile a frightened kitty would jump out and run back to the barn.
I saw her less and less as the years passed, I think now I maybe see her once a year. It has been said that spay/neuter lengthens a cat's life, so maybe that's why I'm still seeing her from time to time. She's still as cute as ever!
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Jr. Bunk
Jr. Bunk is currently the second in command in our house. He was the first cat we found after we moved to DE. We were at a junk shop in south DE and we saw him when we were leaving. We thought he looked a lot like Bruiser, but he was in a lot worse shape. He had obviously been fighting, I suppose to get whatever food he could (there were quite a few other stray cats lurking around), and he had a flea problem. We left the junk shop and didn't discuss him for a few days, but both of us were thinking about him. I had named him in my head. We called Bruiser Bruiser Bunk sometimes, which was based on a character from Homicide: Life On The Street. So it seemed fitting that he be called Jr. Bunk (the actual character's name) on a few levels. We decided to go and get him.We went back to the junk shop and asked the man if we could have one of the cats, and he said we could take all of them if we wanted. But we just took Bunky. I don't remember him giving us any trouble when we put him in the carrier, but he may have. We made a vet appointment for him that day, because we didn't want to bring him into the house with all those fleas. We had to kill some time, so we went to eat lunch at Burger King, and Bunk was kicking up a fuss in the back seat. We took him to the vet, and he had shots and tests and a flea bath. We took him home to our apartment, and put him in the half bath in our bedroom, again so he wouldn't mix with the other two cats until we heard from the vet.
This is when we learned about FIV, which is called feline AIDS. Neither of us had ever heard about it, and apparently it was pretty new to the vets as well, because his doctor told us that he would be dead within a year. That was 11 years ago. (My tired joke for this is that we should have gotten it in writing.) He could NOT be let out with the other cats, because he would make them sick and they would all soon be dead. We now know that this isn't the case, that some cats are immune and cats who have it can live full, healthy lives. But back then it scared us to death. We decided that we would leave him in our bedroom once he got healthier.
That also was a trial. The bathroom floor was thick with dead fleas and ticks, and he had horrfic smelling diarrhea for a week. But he did get better, so we let him into the bedroom, where he became a feline nightmare. He would attack our toes in the night, and he would jump up on the bed with a crazed look in his eyes. Eventually, Sarah couldn't take anymore and started sleeping in the extra bedroom. I stuck it out for a bit longer, but I had to join her. The worst part of this setup was: we were only planning on being in the apartment for a year or less, until we found a house. So we only unpacked what we needed and used the extra bedroom as a storage facility. So we had to make room on the floor for our mattress, and we slept like that for almost an entire year. I was counting down the days until Bunk's demise so we could have our bedroom back.
We moved into our house, and Bunky took up residence in the master bedroom (again), only this time he shared it with all of the unpacked boxes! Hah! We had a hard time keeping him in there, which was exacerbated by the fact that we would let him out periodically and keep an eye on him; if he got too close to the other cats, we put him back. It was in this era, one night at 2 am on our way to bed, that we opened the bedroom door, and there was Bunky just sitting on the floor, meowing at us. He was not trying to get out, so we suspected something was wrong. We tried to pick him up and he let out a screech, so we had to take him to the vet. At 3 in the morning on a Sunday. That was a bit pricey. It turned out that he had crystals in his bladder, which was blocking his urethra. This was caused by stress, which of course was caused by keeping him locked up.
So we let him out. Sunny either got FIV from him then, or he already had it from the brief forays that Bunk made into the house (sorry Sunny). Bruiser was sick in other ways and he never got FIV. Bunky immediately made up for being locked up for 4 years by walking everywhere that I walked, especially on the stairs, which I almost fell down twice because of that. He has calmed down a lot with that, but he still needs to be wherever we are. If we call any of the cats or the dog, Bunk will come running first. He likes to cuddle, which is fine, except he never learned to cuddle without his claws, which really hurt. And you can't really pick him up comfortably; he is extremely taut and only goes one way. If you pick him up the wrong way you get a chest full of claws. The vet actually called him a "bowling ball with fur."
Bunk is still plugging away, he's right here next to me on the floor. When we watch TV he will be on the couch, and he is so stealthy sometime that I won't realize that he is on my lap. And he has a weird sensitivity to sounds, he could be bored to tears during a thunderstorm, but a sharp intake of breath makes him jump and shred my skin. But he's a good dude.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Life After Facebook
Last Tuesday morning while I was at work, I decided that I needed to cancel my Facebook account. Many times, I would come home from work and head right for the computer chair, check my email, check other websites I frequent, then I would go on Facebook. And I would stay on Facebook, almost the whole afternoon, maybe stopping for a few minutes to take the dog out or scoop the cat boxes, or get a snack that I didn't need. I have a lot of time to think while I'm at work, and one of the things that I think about is what I want/need to do when I get home. Sometimes I make a list, sometimes I don't. But nothing ever got done, because I was constantly on Facebook. I know my tenses are all over the place, bear with me.
You might think I spent all of my time playing the games, but I didn't play any. It would have been a lot worse if I did. All I did was search for people, look at pictures (sometimes from people I didn't even know, who were linked to by friends), and constantly update the main page to see who was posting what (I hid all of the game-related postings). If I did actually do something productive away from the computer, I would take a lot of Facebook breaks.
What about moderation? I hear you cry. The first step in moderation was to take Facebook out of the Firefox bookmarks bar, so I didn't have a direct line to it. Pretty stupid, right? It's still right there in the most visited drop down menu, it just takes an extra step. Then I tried limiting my time on it, but there was no way in hell I could manage that. So on Tuesday, I decided that I had to go cold turkey, or I would never get off of it. And I decided that it had to be that day. So when I got home, I posted "bye bye" to my status and got every one's email address that I really wanted to keep in touch with. The only sticking point was that I created a group for my favorite podcast, Tank Riot, and I thought the group would shut down when I canceled my account. So I made my wife an admin of the group, thinking that I would ask the group members if someone could run the group while logged into her account. That was actually resolved pretty quickly, someone else is now running the group for me.
Facebook is definitely internet crack, because I'm having major withdrawal symptoms. One of my favorite things to do on Facebook was to try and find people that I met during my day, whether it be cashiers with a name tag at stores, or waiters or waitresses. This kind of borders on stalking, but many times I couldn't access their pages, and if I could, I gave it a perfunctory look and went on my way.
I miss interacting with family and true friends on Facebook. I don't like talking on the phone, so messaging on Facebook was great for me. I also was interacting with relatives I rarely see, which was really nice, especially when they posted pictures of their kids, some of whom I haven't met yet. My cousin Rob is fixing up his house and posting pictures of the progress, which I liked seeing. But I'm afraid if I go back just for this, that it will get out of control again.
Ultimately, I think Facebook is a great thing, as long as you don't abuse it like I did. One of the best things for me was when I found my friend Steve. He was my best friend in elementary school, and he moved far away right before junior high. We kept in touch for a year or so, but then we drifted apart. I haven't seen him or talked to him since those days. Last year he joined Facebook and we found each other, and we discovered that our lives took similar turns, which is cool and kind of sad at the same time, because maybe it would have been better to experience those things together. But what can you do? The next best thing: We are going to see Steve and hopefully his wife this summer, more than 29 years after the last time I saw him. So thank you Facebook, for improving my life in some areas, and ruining it in others.
You might think I spent all of my time playing the games, but I didn't play any. It would have been a lot worse if I did. All I did was search for people, look at pictures (sometimes from people I didn't even know, who were linked to by friends), and constantly update the main page to see who was posting what (I hid all of the game-related postings). If I did actually do something productive away from the computer, I would take a lot of Facebook breaks.
What about moderation? I hear you cry. The first step in moderation was to take Facebook out of the Firefox bookmarks bar, so I didn't have a direct line to it. Pretty stupid, right? It's still right there in the most visited drop down menu, it just takes an extra step. Then I tried limiting my time on it, but there was no way in hell I could manage that. So on Tuesday, I decided that I had to go cold turkey, or I would never get off of it. And I decided that it had to be that day. So when I got home, I posted "bye bye" to my status and got every one's email address that I really wanted to keep in touch with. The only sticking point was that I created a group for my favorite podcast, Tank Riot, and I thought the group would shut down when I canceled my account. So I made my wife an admin of the group, thinking that I would ask the group members if someone could run the group while logged into her account. That was actually resolved pretty quickly, someone else is now running the group for me.
Facebook is definitely internet crack, because I'm having major withdrawal symptoms. One of my favorite things to do on Facebook was to try and find people that I met during my day, whether it be cashiers with a name tag at stores, or waiters or waitresses. This kind of borders on stalking, but many times I couldn't access their pages, and if I could, I gave it a perfunctory look and went on my way.
I miss interacting with family and true friends on Facebook. I don't like talking on the phone, so messaging on Facebook was great for me. I also was interacting with relatives I rarely see, which was really nice, especially when they posted pictures of their kids, some of whom I haven't met yet. My cousin Rob is fixing up his house and posting pictures of the progress, which I liked seeing. But I'm afraid if I go back just for this, that it will get out of control again.
Ultimately, I think Facebook is a great thing, as long as you don't abuse it like I did. One of the best things for me was when I found my friend Steve. He was my best friend in elementary school, and he moved far away right before junior high. We kept in touch for a year or so, but then we drifted apart. I haven't seen him or talked to him since those days. Last year he joined Facebook and we found each other, and we discovered that our lives took similar turns, which is cool and kind of sad at the same time, because maybe it would have been better to experience those things together. But what can you do? The next best thing: We are going to see Steve and hopefully his wife this summer, more than 29 years after the last time I saw him. So thank you Facebook, for improving my life in some areas, and ruining it in others.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Mango
This sweet girl is Mango. She unfortunately escaped from her home and ran into a person who poured lighter fluid on her and set her on fire, giving her burns over 70% of her body. After being cared for by Merced CA vet Dr. Christine McFadden via rescue group New Beginnings for Animals, she was taken to Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah. She was well cared for there, but she developed a reaction to the anesthesia that she needed when her bandages were changed. Mango had to be euthanized a few days ago due to the complication from the anesthesia.How do you look into that face and do something like that?
Monday, May 3, 2010
Remember Sammy Jankis
After a delay of close to 10 years, Sarah and I finally saw Memento over the weekend (thanks be to Netflix). It's one of those movies that we both really wanted to see but never got around to it (just like Shawshank Redemption, which we finally saw last year, despite my love of all things Stephen King). It was a very good movie; I had heard a little about the sequence being backwards, so I was able to follow what was going on in that part (the color part). The black and white part was a bit more confusing. I did kind of suspect what would happen in the end, but I got the details all wrong. For me, any kind of entertainment that confounds your expectations is good entertainment, and I think Memento falls into this category.
I did not care for Guy Pearce in the main role, which is odd, because I really liked him in L.A. Confidential, but I didn't like the movie, because I read James Ellroy's book first. But this is actually not a review of the movie, it's about one short scene in the movie, which I found to be very harrowing and haunting. It's not the murders (yeah, spoilers, but the movie is out of the statute of spoiler limitations after 10 years, sorry) or any of the violence. It's a scene with Sammy Jankis and his wife (played by Stephen Tobolowsky and Harriet Sansom Harris, respectively). If you haven't seen the movie and don't want to know any details, stop reading now.
Leonard (Guy Pearce's role) tells the story in flashbacks of Sammy Jankis, who suffers from the same fate he does (anterograde amnesia, which means he is not able to create new memories, so he forgets that he has already met people, etc.). Sammy can't remember things from one moment to the next, but he is able to administer insulin to his wife when she reminds him, because it is something he did for her before the car accident that caused his condition. Leonard works as an insurance investigator who has Sammy's case, and he denies Sammy coverage because he is not able to learn new things through habit and routine (like Leonard now does), which suggests that Sammy's problem is psychological, and therefore not covered.
All this obviously takes its toll on Mrs. Jankis, who can't really leave Sammy alone, and is having trouble coming to grips with who her husband is now. The one scene I'm referring to (about 45 minutes into the film) has Leonard narrating most of it, but some dialogue between Sammy and his wife comes through. She is visibly upset because she missed a phone call from someone, possibly when she was out, and the call was taken by Sammy and forgotten. She is angry and berating Sammy, who knows he did something wrong, but doesn't know what, and only knows it because his wife is angry. And possibly because in the back of her mind she knows he won't remember, in her frustration and anger, she slaps him. Just once, and not that hard, but to me, it seemed like that slap caused her to break down, and then Sammy tried to console her. It's a very short scene as I said, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since we watched the movie on Saturday night.
First of all, the two actors are absolutely stunning in the anguish and grief they portray. I've seen Harriet Sansom Harris in a few things, both comedy and drama, and she does both very well. But Stephen Tobolowsky is a revelation. I've seen him in comedy and drama as well, but the comedy side of him tends to stick out (Do you have life insurance, Phil? Because if you do, you could always use a little more, right?). His eyes in this scene were incredibly expressive, and today I found myself downloading all 25 episodes of his podcast and putting his own movie where he tells stories about himself in my Netflix queue. I wish I knew more superlatives or could write more like a critic, but I can't. The guy was in a band with Stevie Ray Vaughan, how awesome is that?
The actual reason this scene caused me to write this post was the moral question it raises. There's no excuse for hitting someone in this situation, but what if the person being hit won't remember? I know in my case, I would remember very well and feel incredibly guilty about it. And it's not really a premeditated act, it stems from frustration or passion of some kind. I get frustrated easily and I have a temper, so I'm worried a bit that if I was in this situation, I would do something stupid and then have to live with the regret. I took care of my grandfather for a few months when I was 20, but I had help and it wasn't hurting my finances, and he was just unable to care for himself for a little while. Still, it was very frustrating sometimes. I don't know if my grandfather ever got wind of my frustration, I certainly hope not, but I do think about it sometimes.
Having someone totally dependent on you to live is a very scary thought for me. I hope that I am up to the challenge if I am ever faced with it.
I did not care for Guy Pearce in the main role, which is odd, because I really liked him in L.A. Confidential, but I didn't like the movie, because I read James Ellroy's book first. But this is actually not a review of the movie, it's about one short scene in the movie, which I found to be very harrowing and haunting. It's not the murders (yeah, spoilers, but the movie is out of the statute of spoiler limitations after 10 years, sorry) or any of the violence. It's a scene with Sammy Jankis and his wife (played by Stephen Tobolowsky and Harriet Sansom Harris, respectively). If you haven't seen the movie and don't want to know any details, stop reading now.
Leonard (Guy Pearce's role) tells the story in flashbacks of Sammy Jankis, who suffers from the same fate he does (anterograde amnesia, which means he is not able to create new memories, so he forgets that he has already met people, etc.). Sammy can't remember things from one moment to the next, but he is able to administer insulin to his wife when she reminds him, because it is something he did for her before the car accident that caused his condition. Leonard works as an insurance investigator who has Sammy's case, and he denies Sammy coverage because he is not able to learn new things through habit and routine (like Leonard now does), which suggests that Sammy's problem is psychological, and therefore not covered.
All this obviously takes its toll on Mrs. Jankis, who can't really leave Sammy alone, and is having trouble coming to grips with who her husband is now. The one scene I'm referring to (about 45 minutes into the film) has Leonard narrating most of it, but some dialogue between Sammy and his wife comes through. She is visibly upset because she missed a phone call from someone, possibly when she was out, and the call was taken by Sammy and forgotten. She is angry and berating Sammy, who knows he did something wrong, but doesn't know what, and only knows it because his wife is angry. And possibly because in the back of her mind she knows he won't remember, in her frustration and anger, she slaps him. Just once, and not that hard, but to me, it seemed like that slap caused her to break down, and then Sammy tried to console her. It's a very short scene as I said, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since we watched the movie on Saturday night.
First of all, the two actors are absolutely stunning in the anguish and grief they portray. I've seen Harriet Sansom Harris in a few things, both comedy and drama, and she does both very well. But Stephen Tobolowsky is a revelation. I've seen him in comedy and drama as well, but the comedy side of him tends to stick out (Do you have life insurance, Phil? Because if you do, you could always use a little more, right?). His eyes in this scene were incredibly expressive, and today I found myself downloading all 25 episodes of his podcast and putting his own movie where he tells stories about himself in my Netflix queue. I wish I knew more superlatives or could write more like a critic, but I can't. The guy was in a band with Stevie Ray Vaughan, how awesome is that?
The actual reason this scene caused me to write this post was the moral question it raises. There's no excuse for hitting someone in this situation, but what if the person being hit won't remember? I know in my case, I would remember very well and feel incredibly guilty about it. And it's not really a premeditated act, it stems from frustration or passion of some kind. I get frustrated easily and I have a temper, so I'm worried a bit that if I was in this situation, I would do something stupid and then have to live with the regret. I took care of my grandfather for a few months when I was 20, but I had help and it wasn't hurting my finances, and he was just unable to care for himself for a little while. Still, it was very frustrating sometimes. I don't know if my grandfather ever got wind of my frustration, I certainly hope not, but I do think about it sometimes.
Having someone totally dependent on you to live is a very scary thought for me. I hope that I am up to the challenge if I am ever faced with it.
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