My Horizons are Broadened! — June 18, 2009

Today was like the perfect day.  I am just the happiest little person right now! 

David and I were both off for the majority of today.  (He worked this evening, but only for a little bit.)  We decided we would spend the day in Longview.  I chose for us to go to Olive Garden for lunch.  (I’ll share this, even though it has nothing to do with anything — I have had this oddball craving for Olive Garden lately and I think it’s due to CVS – of all things!  Every month we have to change the wine signs because the sale prices change monthly, and nearly every wine needs a new sign.  (Only one person in my world knows how much I enjoy saying the words, “wine signs!”  If you try it, you’ll know why.  It’s just fun for me to say.  You can say it all nasally too, which I also love.  I try to use the phrase “wine signs” as much as possible when the day comes to change them, since it’s usually my job.)  ANYWAY, every time I go to change the wine signs (hehe!), I start getting this huge craving for Olive Garden’s salad.  I think maybe there’s some connection between the fact that they’re always pushing some type of wine with their food.  I have no intention of actually drinking any of it, of course, but my mind equates wine bottles with Olive Garden. 

So, we decided we would go there, and then we’d go see “Up” at Carmike.  I was very much wanting to see “Up” in digital, but I wasn’t really wanting to see it in 3-D.  3-D is okay, but it’s not all that for me.  It turned out that as far as we could tell that our only choices were digital AND 3-d, or film and 2-d.  No one we could find was offering the choice of digital and 2-D, which would have been our perfect combo.   Well, no one should want to see it in film, right, so we chose the digital 3-d. 

I’m getting ahead of myself.

Olive Garden- wow to their new appetizer item!  It’s Lasagna Fritta, which is basically fried lasagna.  hehehe.  It’s lovely the things we find to fry, is it not?  It was so delicious.  On the scale of wonderful fried foods, I would still have to say that fried cheese ravioli is better, but the fried lasagna was way up there.  I’m sure it would have easily landed on the list of “Top Restaurant Foods to Avoid!”  I read that article the other day, and it made me sad at how many of those items on the list are among my favorites.    But you know what?  I had my cholesterol and other blood junk tested about a month ago, and everything was shockingly normal, so I think I will just proceed with my usual patterns of eating enjoyment. 

The breadsticks were also doused with salt.  We thought we had gone to heaven.  And yes, I got my salad fix, at least until the next round of “wine signs” comes along.

“Up”was really a great movie!!  I enjoyed “Wall-E” last year, but I have to say that I haven’t enjoyed a Pixar movie as much as I liked “Up” in a long time.  It was so cute.  Really, I thought it was a great love story.  David and I both agreed that in some ways it was far more romantic than tons and tons of the other so-called romance movies we’ve seen in the past.  The movie itself was so amazing in the way it looked.  I loved how everything had so much texture!  Fabrics were especially amazing.  The curtains looked real!  We were very impressed. 

So we saw our movie in Longview, and then we came home so David could get to work.  I took a deep breath, hehe, and I called my cinema.  Marshall Cinema is showing “Up” in 3-D too, meaning that they finally got digital projectors!  Oh!!!!!!!  I am so completely jealous!!  My little cinema is going digital!  That’s so amazing.  I called Skinner (the manager) so I could go up there and see them!  I just couldn’t resist it at all.  And guess what?  I got the grand tour!!!!  Man, they are SO COOL.  All I could say was, “Oh, I’m jealous that you’re getting to learn all this!”  The whole system is just incredible.  It was also just so WOW to see the digital image on those screens when my mind is still so used to seeing film projected there.  It’s just beautiful.  They’re also still projecting film in some of the other auditoriums, so I got to take a few minutes to enjoy the clatter of my little film projectors.  I’ve spent so much time up there, of course, that it was nice to see it all again. 

It was pretty much a perfect day.  No stress, and I got to learn cool things.     I feel like I’ve been on vacation!