Stuff I'm Loving

In a blatant rip off from something Keris does, here's a quick rundown of stuff I'm loving lately.

1. Coop's Dragées. Chocolate covered peanuts, hazelnuts, almonds and raisins. Three different types of chocolate covering nuts and raisins in one bag. The Coop (how do I love thee, Coop. Especially now you've started selling Peanut Butter. I know! Switzerland leaps into the 19th century in single bound!) especially, sells a home brand of half a kilo of these little beauties for just under CHF5. They are my favourite sweetie right now.
2. Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. I picked this book to read because it is the very last book in my ultimate reference source for fiction, 1001 Books. Also, the little synopsis made it sound like the story is of a woman remembering her history at a boarding school. Like a grown up Malory Towers with a kinda, sorta, science fiction twist, if you will. When I started to read I was sucked in to the narrative immediately and very soon found it was so much more than I had expected. The beauty of this book is that it's everything and so much more. It's a story of the minutiae of childhood and then onto adulthood friendship and more. It's a love story and more. It's a science fiction story and more. It may be my most favourite book of all time. I know that's a big statement to make but there you go. When I finished this book I felt different to the way I felt before I started reading it. This is the kind of book I want to buy a copy of for everyone I know and tell them, "You must read this!"
   
3. Another book, Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees is a very sweet, very readable story of a young woman who leaves her home town to find a life outside of early marriage and motherhood. Very early on into her road trip she finds herself with custody of a stranger's little girl and very soon finds herself with surrounded by new people to love and to love her in a new town in Arizona or something. I loved it.
4. Compliments: On Tuesday Patrick took a box of my world-famous (Hey, Australians know of them, San Diegoans (is that right, Divina?) know of them, Frenchies know of them- they're world-famous) baked-from-a-packet chocolate cupcakes. Patrick reported home that day with an empty Tupperware container and loads of compliments. Possibly my favourite was from the teacher who said, "I wish it could be your birthday every day, Patrick- tell your mum these are awesome!" Obviously though, he said it in German.
5. OMG! How fabulous is/was Richard Burton? I just spent half my life watching Cleopatra. Oh, was it only 4 hours? It just felt like half a life time then. Anyway, after watching Elizabeth Taylor gettin' it on with Dr Dolittle for an hour before Marc Antony even came on screen, when he finally did make it, I just fell in love. The curly hair, the brooding looks, the voice, the personal life filled with turmoil and heavy drinkin'; they don't make 'em like Richard Burton any more. Sigh......
6. Still on men and speaking of Marc Antony, since watching Cleopatra, I've been having little mini daydreams about James Purefoy who played Marc Antony in HBO's Rome. I never really thought I fancied him because he looks like a shortie on screen but always found my ovaries tingling when he appeared in a scene- especially ones in which he was doing naughty things with no shirt on. It wasn't until I found out he's 6'2" that I became practically obsessed with not only Mr Purefoy but Marc Antony as well. Cue hundreds of hours spent on Wikipedia and other Ancient Rome related internet sites reading all about The Roman Empire. I'm sure there's a gorgeous Italian woman deep down inside me, just busting to get out. "Just the one, dear?"
7. Rescue Me. Hands up if you love hot firemen. Just one hand will do, Antipo, Andi, Reets and Michael. Hands up if you watch Rescue Me. Me and my lovely husband just spent nigh on a month catching up on all four season of this Denis Leary conceived and written drama about firemen in New York. I love it. I love the hot men in firemen uniforms and I love the characterisation of all the men. I love that the dialogue between the men has not been compromised for the PC Brigade. I love just nearly everything about Rescue Me. Except Janet. Janet is the wife of Denis Leary's character Tommy Gavin and she's a miserable bitch. All through four seasons she's done nothing but take, take, take and moan, moan, moan. The only time she was happy was when she was on anti-depressants and spending her father-in-law's inheritance from his dead wife. And yet, the Gavin men love her. Tommy's brother even went so far as to start an affair with her during one of Tommy & Janet's separations. I can see that Janet (played by Andrea Roth) is a gorgeous blonde with a killer figure but men are deeper than that. Aren't they? Anyway, I suppose what I'm saying is this: Of all the women on Rescue Me, I'd much rather go out for drink with with the mad-as-a-cut-snake but totally hot 9/11 widow Sheila or the completely emotionally dysfunctional and raging alcoholic Maggie than have to have coffee with misery guts Janet. Any day of the week. Oh and, is Denis Leary the skinniest man with the longest legs on television or what?
   

So, that's what I'm loving lately. Be like me- love them too. Or, tell me what you're loving these days.