Saturday night movie!

Well Richard ended up not showing up, which pissed me off. He is so on again, off again. It was really good to see him Thursday night, and we had a good time, but then he stands me up. That's usually how it goes. We have a good time until we make plans. Men.

I was up around 4:30. I finished my book. After having an early breakfast about 6am, I decided to try to sleep a bit more, but no dice. I waited for Richard until about 9:30, and then I just went on over to the flea market after he didn't answer his phone. I needed some produce, but ended up getting dry goods instead. There is a new "gormet" grocery over there, and they had fancy tea for $1 a box. Since I have been needing some, I picked that up, along with some pasta for a pasta salad I'm going to make (I decided to try that recipe I got from my friend at work and see how it turns out). They had my bread for a dollar a loaf, as opposed to four bucks a loaf. I also finally had spare keys made to put outside the house. That has been needing to be done for the 10 years I have lived in that house. It was good to finally get that done - even if it is now that I have decided to change the locks. I'll probably procrastinate about that too. I found a couple of "Princess" depression glass plates for sale (the only DP I saw today), but they were so chipped up they looked like they had belonged to Edward Scissorhands.

When I got home, it was cool enough that I decided to mow the grass, since it needs doing, kind of, and since I'm going to be gone this weekend. So I joined the Battle of the Mower once more. As usual, it ran like a champ until I got through with about half the yard, when it quit and refused to run. I decided to change the spark plug, since my neighbor Tim had told me that's what he thought it needed, but that didn't seem to help. I went and got fresh gas - again. The Briggs and Stratton website says that is the problem when it cuts off. Because it will run fine for 20 seconds at a time. The new gas didn't seem to help either. By now I was really pissed, but decided to see if I could have it serviced. There are very few mower service places any more, and the ones that are open aren't open past noon on Saturday, if they are open on Saturday at all. Grrr. I went outside just to put the &^%^$$#!! thing away, grass half mowed or not, but decided to try it one more time. It started, and I finished the grass. At this point, I think there must be something in the fuel line.

After that I came in and decided that while I was already sweaty, I might as well go up in the attic and get down the rest of the clothes. I went through them all, and put almost all of them in the pile to go. I still have way too many shirts though. I also went through the depression class cabinet, which has gotten a bit crowded of late. I picked through, and put some of the less decorative pieces back in the attic, although I'll be able to move them back down when I get some curio cabinets Russ has promised me. I was fooling around on the computer, and called Russ to find out the name of the place that buys used clothes. It's called Plato's Closet, and I called over there. They told me they were buying tomorrow, but no more today. Russ, Billy, and I decided to do dinner and a movie tonight. Yay!

We went to Golden Corral for dinner, and then to see Mama Mia. OK, I loved the movie, but then I'm a huge Abba fan, and have been for a long time. I first heard of them when my mother's second husband passed on a second-hand 45 of (of course) "Dancing Queen". That became one of my favorites, and I listened to it over and over again on the little portable record-player in my room. Of course I was just a kid, and didn't know who did the song or anything. I just knew I liked it, and that it spoke to me.

When I was in about 8th grade, a friend's mother passed her old copy of Voulez Vous to me, and I was hooked. Immediately. I played that album over and over until my parents were just sick of hearing it. I saved my money and used it to buy other albums of theirs. I can still remember seeing a laserdisc demo at the mall where they showed a video of "Money, Money, Money". I was mesmerized. This was before Abba became cool again. This was when they were considered cheesy has-beens. All I knew was that their music spoke to me as few other things had in my life. My dad was just totally confused. When I would come home after scoring yet another Abba album, he would be like, "Why are you buying that stuff, son? That's old music." Either he was totally lost, or he was hoping it didn't mean what he suspected it did. Which of course it did. I was a big ole future Dancing Queen myself.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the movie. Was it hackneyed? Yes. Were some of the song transitions painful artifice? Yes. And Pierce Brosnan shouldn't even sing in the shower - but his ass still looks smashing in a pair of jeans, I have to admit. It was really obvious that Christine Baranski, Julie Walters, and Meryl Streep were having a ball making it, and equally as obviously following the story but taking it none too seriously. They are patently fully aware they are doing camp, which invites you to have fun with it too. Of course, Meryl Streep could read the phone book and it would be entertaining. The scenery was gorgeous - the Greek tourism board should have subsidized the movie. The clothes were lovely, and they loaded the really Greek chorus with loads of beautiful eye candy. Lovely Greek men who could dance, but were still hunky and hot. And ABBA songs thick on the ground, of course. If you could get through the opening bars of the songs, the backup singers and music swelled to the point that they could have had a braying donkey in the midst of it and it would have sounded fine. Meryl, although no Barbra, held her own on the vocals very well, and Julie Walters has a surprisingly good voice. But then I think she has some musical theater in her background - I'm not sure. Christine Baranski's voice is passable, but not since Marilyn Monroe has a woman threaded her way through a lathered group of male backup dancers with such aplomb. Her number is absolutely charming, and you won't care about her less-than-sterling pipes. Promise.

I haven't come out of a movie feeling so good in a long time.

Afterwards, I went back to Russ and Billy's house to hang out and visit for a while. James came in and we all just talked. James is so sweet, and so cute. Of course he has a boyfriend, is aeons too young for me, and there are other issues there. But I really like him. I can see how it would be easy to get stuck on him. Russ and I decided to go to the Jockey Lot in the morning.