cast-n-flies

I don't know if we felt like we'd been working too much lately but on Thursday we took the opportunity to explore another of the McMenamins locations. Have you heard of McMenamins before?

Their business is comprised of taking old and interesting establishments which are in danger of condemnation and or destruction and restoring them into fun and interesting eating and sleeping establishments. Our favorite thus far is the Kennedy School located in northeast Portland. We have enjoyed a number of evenings in their theater watching a three dollar movie and eating pizza. We've also been to the Edgefield in Troutdale and wandered in their gardens, listened to concerts in the yard, and watched a three dollar movie.

On Thursday, we drove to Forest Grove to experience the Grand Lodge. It once was a masonic retirement home and orphanage. They have a beautiful garden with a frisbee golf course.

We didn't try the course. We were waiting to see Night at the Museum:Battle of the Smithsonian.

You know something? That must have got us in the mood because you'll never guess what we did the next night.

I have been suggesting that I'd like to see the new movie called Julie and Julia. Well, I came home from work yesterday and Debbie is on the net watching the trailer. We had some free tickets that I got from work two or three months ago (that's how often we go see first run movies). I suppose it could be categorized as a romantic comedy. It is based on the life of Julia Childs played by Meryl Streep and Julie Powell played by Amy Adams. Apparently, Julie Powell was kind of a Julia Childs groupie and started a blog relating her attempts to cook through Julia's cookbook titled "Mastering the Art of French Cooking".

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. Both Streep and Adams played their parts marvelously. It was particularly enjoyable due to the fact that I had something in common with each of the characters. It was fun watching Julia Childs learn to cook and it was fun watching Julie Powell's frustrations and excitement around the blog.

The movie was rated PG-13. If you could bleep all of the foul language you'd only have missed about 2.5 seconds of the whole movie. In other words it was mostly free of objectionable material. The directors didn't put us through any intimate sexuality or nudity.

I was interested to note that the other people in the theater were nearly all female and at least my age or older. I suppose it might be considered a "chick flick" but again, I truly enjoyed the show as did both Debbie and Jonathan.