Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 62

Leave No Trace

Initially I hadn't been thrilled by the notion of this film; I think because I feared (completely unjustifiably) that it would be purveying trite truths of one sort or another. But several of my friends reviewed it favorably, and finally last night I got to see it--and really loved it.

It's a totally different kind of film from Winter's Bone (by the same director), a very **gentle** story, and quiet, even though elements of the story aren't gentle at all. In fact, all through the movie there w...

tipless

Did you guys hear/see the story about this year's Christmas-themed Hershey's kisses missing their tips? I heard it some while ago, one of those relaxingly weird, inconsequential human-interest stories that these days I feel fortunate to catch. I promptly forgot about it until we got to my dad's house at Christmas time, and he had a bag of Hershey's Christmas-foil-wrapped kisses.

"Oh hey, I heard they all have their tips broken off--I wonder if it's true," I said. So of course FOR RESEARCH, we...

pine grove cows

These cows are here, winter and summer--under these pine trees. Up the hill from them right now is a huge pile of butternut squash which I think? they must be eating? I like them; they are shaggy.





BTW... there are two entries before this one that I think possibly didn't make it into people's feeds. I did some hijinks with postdating and initially making private entries and then changing them to public, and I think they may have fallen into a friends feed oubliette.

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Ixcanul

A while ago I saw Tanna (2015), a love story that takes place in Vanuatu and involves a volcano, and is acted entirely in the local languages, Nauvhal and Nafe. Well it turns out that 2015 was *the* year for movies featuring a volcano and acted in non-dominant languages, because that was the year that Ixcanul, a film set on the slopes of a volcano and acted almost entirely in Kaqchikel, a Mayan language, came out. A couple of nights ago, we saw it.

The trailer for it might lead you to believe...

People Change, by Gwynne Garfinkle

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I loved this collection. It makes me wish I’d known Gwynne Garfinkle when I was 10–12, because boy could we have played some great imaginary games together.

I’ll start with the stories, because those are what I read first. One I’d read before, “The Hedgehog and the Pine Cone,” a fable about depression, isolation, and friendship, but the rest were completely new to me. The first one I experienced was “Man Size,” which my daughter picked out and read to me when I was cooking one night. It’s a gr...

Being special

Sometimes in yoga class, we balance on one foot. If we're all balancing with no problem, the instructor suggests we try it with our eyes closed. "It's much, much harder," she says. Have tried, can confirm.

This came up in the movie Roma , which I watched the other day. The protagonist--young housekeeper Cleo--is trying to get in touch with the asshole father of her baby, who's doing some kendo-style training out in the back of beyond. They're all chanting Japanese numbers in unison and taking s...

Interview with the Little Red Reviewer!

Merry December 27! Today I have an interview with Andrea Johnson, who maintains a very fun, thoughtful, wide-ranging fantasy and science fiction book blog at The Little Red Reviewer . She relates to the books she reads in a really personal way and makes interesting connections, like in her review of Martha Wells’s Artificial Condition, which weaves in her reactions to the video game Detroit: Become Human and her own experiences at the day job. (It’s a super post.) In January, after what will b...

Koba and Calle 13

I've seen banana leaves on banana trees, so I know they're big, but somehow I was still amazed to thaw out a package of them and see how they take over a kitchen, like really large caterpillars or space snakes.





I used some of them to make koba, a Malagasy sweet:

in the pot, getting ready to be steamed


finished product


I've never had the real thing, so I don't know how well mine approximated it, but it *looked* right, and it tasted good.

... Eating food from faraway places is one way to bring them...

"squirrels are like cats"

I was at an event last week, a breakfast event, and I was sitting at a table with people I didn't know, but we were all making conversation, and somehow the talk turned to animal visitors, and one woman started talking about how a squirrel had been paying them visits over the summer:

I left the window open, and there's no screen, but I didn't worry about anything getting in because we're on the second floor. But I had a bowl of nuts on the kitchen table, and it kept on going down. I kept on re...

Hot Chocolate Run

It was raining and about 37 degrees F/3 degrees C, so Wakanomori and I got bundled into many layers to join a crowd of 6,000 other participants in the Hot Chocolate Run.

Here is my outfit! Thanks to you all, I was able to raise $228.63, which meant I was given a red cap to wear and a special red number bib.





During the race, the wish cards gradually got soggy and fell off--let's think to ourselves that at that moment, the wish was promised fulfillment. Three wishes managed to hang on the whole t...