ghost stories

Just finished uploading the photos from my trip to Portland, Oregon. I'm happy with how they turned out, although I wish I'd taken more people pics in retrospect. I struggle with portraits - I think I'm too self-conscious, perhaps, when taking pics of people I don't know well. It's so intimate! At least, it feels that way when I take pictures (get your mind outta the gutter!) I suppose that's because I eschew the standard group pose and go for the small moments when people have their guard down, if that makes any sense. Anyway, the upshot is that I have very few people pics in the bunch, and I wish I'd taken more.

I still have my cold. Still coughing, blowing my nose, and generally sounding miserable, like a hoarse zombie. I bought some cold medicine at Target last week and had to have my driver's license scanned to make sure I wasn't a meth addict before I could make the purchase. What I want to know is, does this affect my credit report? *laugh*

I'm contentedly munching on a landjaeger that I picked up yesterday at one of my favorite places in the world, Baumgartner's Cheese Store and Tavern in Monroe, Wisconsin (landjaeger is a spicy sausage stick, not unlike a Slim Jim, but much, much better. The word is German and means "land hunter"). The weather was so spectacular yesterday that I talked Mom and Nicky into making a roadtrip with me. Baumgartner's is a family tradition - I've been going there with my family for as long as I can remember, and I think my Mom and Dad have been as well. The place was packed yesterday - I was surprised, since it was Sunday afternoon and I didn't expect much of a crowd. I mentioned this to my Mom, who said that she remembered when the only people you'd find in the bar were four old guys playing euchre in the corner! The place opened in 1921, and I swear the place hasn't changed a bit since then (not that I'd know...). Among its charms: an oversized mural of Switzerland that details the demographic and religious composition of each state in the country; a painted coat of arms for each county in Switzerland; a mounted fourteen point buck (if I remember correctly) hanging above the bar, with a sign that painstakingly details the day, time, shooter, location, and gun used; and, of course, the "almost world famous" cheese sandwiches served on wax paper.

After we had our fill of sandwiches and chili, we went to the Swiss Colony outlet, where Mom stocked up on petit-fours, and Brennan's, which is a kick-ass grocery store that has a fantastic selection of local produce, cheese, beer, and even maple syrup (yum!)

Working backwards into the weekend, LeAnn came by on Saturday evening and joined my Mom and I for dinner at my place. I always get the urge to cook when the leaves start to fall, so for dinner I made cream of butternut squash soup (the secret ingredient are granny smith apples). LeAnn brought over a pie AND pumpkin bars, grossly flaunting my request for chocolate! I didn't complain, though...the pumpkin bars were delicious, even if they weren't homemade! (Not that I would've known...LeAnn brought them in a pyrex container at the behest of her grandma, who told her that it wasn't acceptable to bring the bars in a box from HyVee!)

After dinner, LeAnn and I watched Sideways, which I very much enjoyed a second time around, and then played a little Katamari. Have I mentioned I'm hooked? There is something incredibly satisfying about rolling up a cow, dolphin, or pile of firewood!

To be honest, I can't remember what I did Friday night. Oh, I remember...I watched Shane! What knocked me out about the movie was the scenery - specifically, the Grand Tetons. They make a breathtaking backdrop to the drama.

And last night, I watched Solaris. You may remember the movie - a few years ago Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney remade it (with a resounding "thud" at the theaters). I watched the original version, which was filmed in Russia in 1972. I saw the Clooney version when it came out, but I enjoyed the original more. A lot of critics have dubbed the movie the Russian answer to 2001: A Space Odyssey, but J. Hoberman of the Village Voice mentioned that the movie actually has more in common with Hitchcock's Vertigo, and I agree. In a nutshell, the story is about a space station in which the crew are suffering delusions and slowly abandoning their posts or committing suicide. A psychiatrist is dispatched to investigate, and shortly after he arrives he encounters his dead wife, who committed suicide ten years before. I won't reveal any more, but I will say that even though the plot sounds like a dozen other "haunted house in space" horror flicks, it is anything but. It's actually a very thoughtful, elegiac rumination on love, dreams, consciousness and free will. Highly recommended.

Strangely enough, I recently finished a book whose themes dovetail nicely with Solaris: Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis. Ellis is best known for American Psycho, but this is the first book of his I've read. It's a strange mix of postmodern autobiography and Stephen King horror. The story is told in the first-person by a character named Bret Easton Ellis, and at first the book reads like an autobiography. But the tale quickly turns surreal as he becomes haunted, first by Patrick Bateman, the psychotic killer from American Psycho, and then his dead father. There are a few sections of the book where Ellis (the writer) literally separates from Ellis (the character/narrator), and I found those sections the weakest. But by the end of the book Ellis shakes loose the po-mo trickery and offers some touching and thoughtful passages about his relationship with his father and son. If it sounds unlikely, well, you'll just have to see for yourself. I'd definitely read it again, though.