Can’t commit to watching new movies so I watch stuff I’ve seen before. In the opening sequence of ‘The Wild’, the 2014 film starring Reese Witherspoon, she takes off her hiking boots to inspect her bloodied foot. I wince, cover my eyes partly with my hand as she pries off a toe-nail and screams. The pain causes her to jerk, knocking the boot she has taken off tumbling into the cliff below. She looks at it in disbelief and seized with rage and frustration, she throws the other pair off the cliff and screams bitch.
I want to scream too when I bump into doorways and table edges because I’m either wrapped up in thought, or that my eyes are not working properly like they used to. I also want to scream when I put my glasses on and see everything up close in their gory, chaotic detail; the sinks that are always wet because they’re cheap and designed poorly and water collects on the surface; the shavings of hair pooled around the drain that I never could quite wash off.
Chicken. I prefer the darker thigh meat, but when we have breasts, my favourite way to cook it is a variation of lemon piccata, but without the capers. You dredge the breasts in flour, pan-fry them a bit until browned, melt about 220 grams of butter- yup, that much - in a pan with garlic, take the garlic out before they burn, put the chicken back in with a cup and a half of lemon juice and some chicken stock, leave to simmer for about 30 minutes until the liquid reduces to this golden, buttery syrup.
Now I have to try a different recipe for a change. Here’s a NY Times recipe for pineapple-marinated chicken breasts.
The landscape changes to spruce and pine. There are patches of snow up and ahead and about 3 miles up, a blanket of new snow glistens in the sun. In her camp, kneeling in snow, Cheryl looks up and sees a fox watching her with what she thinks are human-like eyes. A shaft of sun on the animal gives the illusion that its yellow-red pelt is on fire.
I want a puffer jacket. I have every fall-winter garment available except for a puffer jacket. The only problem is that it never really gets that cold in Auckland and there wouldn’t be much of a chance to wear it.
In the TV series, Little Big Lies, Reese and Laura Dern are friends who look like their ages are not that far off. In The Wild, they play daughter and mother.
“We are never prepared for what we expect”