So many things

This morning I got a real punch in the feelings. That's the best way I can describe it and I quite like my little invented phrase so I am recording it here for posterity (I must have invented it, I searched it on Google and found nothing - which is the true measure of all originality).

Now, to matters more relevant. On Sunday I made Coconut Whispers for the second time and following my dissatisfaction with my last attempt, I put the oven on 'bake' not 'fan bake' and watched them like a hawk. I actually sat on a chair in front of the oven with a cup of tea and watched them; that's how dedicated I am to biscuits with an even all-over colour. And it was worth it:


So perfect! And very tasty. I took them to work for our daily 3pm ritual of collectively completing the Five Minute Quiz from The Dominion Post and won many fans. Although everyone kept saying, 'Ahhh are these macaroons?' To me they don't really look anything like what I think of as macaroons, but I have limited biscuit knowledge.


Sunday was also a classic movie Sunday. We watched A Streetcar Named Desire because Citizen Kane seems determined to thwart us. I went all the way to Aro Video (which really, isn't far) especially to get it and the man said, 'Oh sorry, that case shouldn't be on the shelf, the disc is out.' Luckily Ed had a back-up of Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh proportions. I had seen a production of the play a few years ago by Almost A Bird Theatre Collective (I just looked it up and I can't believe it's almost three years ago now, that is scary) which I really enjoyed (not least because I have a major crush on the guy who played Stanley) so it was interesting to see the film adapatation. I always like it when the original writer of a novel or play helps to write the screenplay for the movie version. It makes me feel like it's more authentic. And the guy who directed the movie was also the play's original director so that pleased me even more. Anyway, I really enjoyed it, even though the length of Stellar's fringe was so criminal as to be distracting. Why even bother to have a fringe that short? As either Ed or Alex said, they really dowded that actress up in comparison to Vivien Leigh.

Vivien Leigh was pretty amazing, she was just so extreme. She played Blanche DuBois in the original West End production for 326 performances so I guess she'd had a lot of practice. Apparently, she later said that playing Blanche 'tipped [her] over into madness' and she did actually suffer from mental illness herself so she probably had a lot of insight into the character. I didn't like her with blonde hair though. Marlon Brando was a babe with terrible diction. And that's all I have to say about that.

It's weird, I was thinking the other evening as I walked somewhere, I quite like watching things in black and white but I never try to imagine the colours and I wonder if some people do when they watch black and white movies? Apart from one point when Blanche asks for her yellow dress, I didn't try to imagine what colour her other dresses were or the paper latern she puts over the naked lightbulb, although now that I think about it I picture it being red. Weird.

Anyway, Monday night was Monday night Knitting Circle and I trudged on with my sock. I didn't get very far because I made a mistake on the first row and had to unknit it and then I helped teach Penny how to Inc1 (increase 1), and felt really proud that I could teach someone something about knitting, and then I had to console and offer moral support to Anita because she had to do something heartbreaking.


It's very hard to see (because the lighting in the Southern Cross is terrible for photos and actually not ideal for knitting either) but the cable on the in-progress arm warmer is much smaller and tighter than on the finished arm warmer.

Anita said she realised this earlier but was in denial and then when she finally acknowledged it she thought it might be because she was knitting tighter or something. But then she checked the pattern and realised she had been missing a knit row every time. And that the two arm warmers looked rather different. When she got to Monday night Knitting Circle, she agonised over whether to rip the second arm warmer back or whether she could live with them being different. I decided to help in the best way I could and buy her a ham and cheese toastie. I also said I would support her in whatever she decided to do (although secretly I wanted them to match). She decided she could live with them being different. Then a few rows later she dropped a stitch and couldn't get it back, which she declared to be a sign and ripped the whole thing back to nothing and cast on again. I bought her a ginger beer. She is a true knitting battler.

I salute her.