Movies and Chocolate

Went to the movies with a friend, saw "Little Miss Sunshine," which was wonderful. By the end, I was laughing so hard, I was crying. If you don't know the plot, it's about a dysfunctional family on a road trip to end the young daughter in a beauty pageant. Dad's played by Greg Kinnear, and is oblivious to how his "people are either winners or losers" philosophy is hurting his family. Toni Collette is Mom, who's trying to hold it all together. Steve Carrell is her suicidal brother, and Alan Arkin does a great turn as Dad's father who is strung out on snorted heroin and is the daughter's pageant coach. And the teen son hasn't spoken for 9 months. And off they go in a broken down van/bus and learn some real lessons about what really matters in life and it isn't about winning or losing, unless you count what you win when you have a family you can depend on. This is a well-played, perfectly directed, oddball comedy that skirted but never crossed the line into slapstick. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and do. I sure needed the laughs.

After, we went for chocolate at Michel Cluizel at ABC Carpet and Home, a mere hop, skip, and jump from Max Brenner, the Bald Man. Okay, it's really about 6 blocks north of it on Broadway. We each had a tasting plate of 3 different bonbons (amazingly yummy) and I had a Dr. Brown's (There's actually a Wikipedia article on it, but it says bottled by Canada Dry, but the cans say Pepsi-Cola on them, so there's more to this than in the article.) Black Cherry soda, a flavor I haven't had in many a year and one that goes well with fine chocolate. It looked like red wine in my glass. And we tasted the hot chocolate which was amazingly rich. The staff didn't seem to mind, either, that we sat and talked and took up a table for over 2 hours.

I needed a fun day like this. It's been a while. Too long a while.

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
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