"Oh, Westley!":The Princess Bride and Comfort Food
Yesterday was a hot, sticky day. It's been like that all week. August in New York is one of those experiences that you erase out of your consciousness after every instance, and the next time it happens, you're blind-sided. I've been living on Gatorade, fruit, and random salty things all week. The air conditioning in my car gave up again. And yesterday, at rush hour, I had to drive through Manhattan, up to Kim's, for a quick run-through of the show in preparation for our final performance.
The West Side Highway was like a parking lot. It took me 47 minutes to drive...8 miles? I had forgotten to recharge my iPod, so I couldn't use the transmitter. But, because it was rush hour, all the radio stations were trying to be supportive. And because Bryan had taken the time to pre-set all the good rock stations on my radio the last time I'd been staring out at the Hudson wishing I could jump in, there was very little searching for me to do. For some reason, every rock station in NYC became obsessed with Joan Jett and Van Halen between 4:30 and 6pm yesterday. This, of course, was not a problem. In fact, it made me very, very happy, even though I was sitting in a pool of sweat and un-triumphantly watching the Carnival Triumph sail by. I opened all the windows, sang along, and tried not to bang my head against the steering wheel.
By the time I got to Kim's I was starving, but so was everyone else. For some reason, they allowed me to pick the take-out place that we would order dinner from. I think it had something to do with the passionate way I was reading menu selections aloud. With mashed potatoes...oh my God... Barbecue sauce was sounding so damn appealing, and I'd been fantasizing about those sweet potato fries since I'd first laid eyes on that menu two months ago. So yes, we went with the barbecue chicken sandwiches (all white meat, kaiser rolls, unbelievable sauteed onions) and those orange orgasms.
After we ordered, we sat around in the living room, staring at each other. There was just no way work was going to get done until we were fed. That was abundantly clear. So we did the only thing a bunch of reasonable people wanting to goof off could do--rifled through Kim's DVD collection. We decided on the cinematic equal to the comfort food we were eagerly awaiting--The Princess Bride.
Now, I love this movie. Everyone I know that has seen the movie, loves the movie. (Amazingly, Ingrid had never seen the movie. We all tried to not ruin it for her. We tried.) But you've got to admit, Buttercup is a priss. What Westley sees in her, I have no idea, especially when she's standing by letting him get his ass handed to him by a Rodent of Unusual Size. Jump in, birdbrain! Westley, don't you want a woman who's got your back? Come on! Incidentally, I am not the only woman to feel this way. The other three females who were there and had seen it said exactly the same thing. The lone male...well, Bryan is smart enough to keep quiet when he's outnumbered, even if he agrees.
When the food finally arrived, the fries were slightly soggy, and of course they weren't accompanied by the fancy-pants sweet chili sauce & crème fraiche that Eight Mile Creek does to perfection...but what they didn't offer in crispness, we all made up for with our voracious need for fat & carbs. And the perfectly sauteed onions earned the place brownie points in our takeout rolodex. Then we had frozen Snickers bars for dessert.
Joy, my friend and a super editor, just called. I've got to run out to meet her (so she can give me a guilt trip about how I called one of my essays "The Final Draft" even though I knew it was no where near finally done.) I told her what I was writing about, and by freaky coincidence, she also watched The Princess Bride last night. Really freaky coincidence. I didn't ask her how she felt about Buttercup and the Rodent. I'll just keep that up my sleeve until I need to change the subject from the revising guilt trip.
My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.
The West Side Highway was like a parking lot. It took me 47 minutes to drive...8 miles? I had forgotten to recharge my iPod, so I couldn't use the transmitter. But, because it was rush hour, all the radio stations were trying to be supportive. And because Bryan had taken the time to pre-set all the good rock stations on my radio the last time I'd been staring out at the Hudson wishing I could jump in, there was very little searching for me to do. For some reason, every rock station in NYC became obsessed with Joan Jett and Van Halen between 4:30 and 6pm yesterday. This, of course, was not a problem. In fact, it made me very, very happy, even though I was sitting in a pool of sweat and un-triumphantly watching the Carnival Triumph sail by. I opened all the windows, sang along, and tried not to bang my head against the steering wheel.
By the time I got to Kim's I was starving, but so was everyone else. For some reason, they allowed me to pick the take-out place that we would order dinner from. I think it had something to do with the passionate way I was reading menu selections aloud. With mashed potatoes...oh my God... Barbecue sauce was sounding so damn appealing, and I'd been fantasizing about those sweet potato fries since I'd first laid eyes on that menu two months ago. So yes, we went with the barbecue chicken sandwiches (all white meat, kaiser rolls, unbelievable sauteed onions) and those orange orgasms.
After we ordered, we sat around in the living room, staring at each other. There was just no way work was going to get done until we were fed. That was abundantly clear. So we did the only thing a bunch of reasonable people wanting to goof off could do--rifled through Kim's DVD collection. We decided on the cinematic equal to the comfort food we were eagerly awaiting--The Princess Bride.
Now, I love this movie. Everyone I know that has seen the movie, loves the movie. (Amazingly, Ingrid had never seen the movie. We all tried to not ruin it for her. We tried.) But you've got to admit, Buttercup is a priss. What Westley sees in her, I have no idea, especially when she's standing by letting him get his ass handed to him by a Rodent of Unusual Size. Jump in, birdbrain! Westley, don't you want a woman who's got your back? Come on! Incidentally, I am not the only woman to feel this way. The other three females who were there and had seen it said exactly the same thing. The lone male...well, Bryan is smart enough to keep quiet when he's outnumbered, even if he agrees.
When the food finally arrived, the fries were slightly soggy, and of course they weren't accompanied by the fancy-pants sweet chili sauce & crème fraiche that Eight Mile Creek does to perfection...but what they didn't offer in crispness, we all made up for with our voracious need for fat & carbs. And the perfectly sauteed onions earned the place brownie points in our takeout rolodex. Then we had frozen Snickers bars for dessert.
Joy, my friend and a super editor, just called. I've got to run out to meet her (so she can give me a guilt trip about how I called one of my essays "The Final Draft" even though I knew it was no where near finally done.) I told her what I was writing about, and by freaky coincidence, she also watched The Princess Bride last night. Really freaky coincidence. I didn't ask her how she felt about Buttercup and the Rodent. I'll just keep that up my sleeve until I need to change the subject from the revising guilt trip.
My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.
Labels: adventures in theater, Jill's attachments to fictional characters, on film and tv, recommendations, yummy stuff
posted by Jill at
8/05/2005 02:43:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home