A Purr-fect Weekend A list of things I enjoyed this weekend: Sewing new cushion covers for my battered IKEA couch: Using some purple silk I bought at Value Village years ago and some sparkly braid I bought deeply discounted at Fabricville, I'm fashioning new cushion covers for my comfy, but slightly cat scratched couch. They match the Sure-Fit slipcover I purchased purr-fectly. When I completed the first one (which included a tricky zipper closure) and slipped the cusion inside, I couldn't get over how fantastic it looked! I don't understand how they can recover an entire sofa on Trading Spaces in a weekend, though. I barely finished two cushions. I'm convinced they cheat by using outside labour. Soylent Green, uncut and commerical-free on MoviePix: What's not to love about this movie, which is inspired, I think, in part by Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" (you know, the one where they pave paradise and put up a parking lot). Charlton Heston and a very poignant Edward G. Robinson solve the murder of a Corporate Food executive and in the process discover what Soylent Green (a staple foodstuff) is really made of. Strong images of an overcrowded metropolis, overwhelmed by greenhouse gasses and a patriachy that is more entrenched than ever make Soylent Green a particularly tasty and kitsch look at the world of 2022. Heston's character is sleazy and not-quite-heroic: watch it and see if you don't agree that he could be an antecedent of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson characters. Mixing water and single malt scotch: An acquaintance introduced me to adding a little cool water to single malt. It actually does bring out the flavour. It also means you drink more. Fasten Your Seatbelts! It's Going to Be A Bumpy Night: Recovering from a vague hangover on Sunday, I was happy to have the All About Eve DVD to take care of me in the afternnon. Nicely restored, with commentaries from the director's son and some guy who wrote an entire book on the making of this film, I had to laugh when I realized that the moral of the film is that a woman is woefully incomplete if by the age of forty she doesn't have a man to wake up to. It actually doesn't matter if you're talented, accomplished, and filthy rich--it's quite meaningless without a man to take you away from the emptiness of success and independence. Oh, and your career is pretty much over byt the time your forty, too. Nurse! "Funny business, a woman's career. The things you drop on your way up the ladder so you can move faster. You forget you'll need them when you get back to being a woman. It's one career all females have in common--being a woman. Sooner or later we've got to work at it no matter how many other careers we've had or wanted. And in the last analysis nothing is any good unless you can look up just before dinner or turn around in bed and there he is. Without that you're not a woman. You're something with a French provincial office or a book full of clippings but you're not a woman. Slow, curtain, the end." -- Margo Channing, beautifully overacted by Bette Davis. The Golden Globes: I pretended that I was still vaguely hung over and watched the Golden Globes, including the painful red carpet interviews an hour before. One interviewer actually tossed Charlize Theron aside for some impromptu bons mots from Bill Murray. As much as I love him, it was so rude, especially with Charlize looking positively creamy! Jane Fonda, appearing with her son Troy, proved that she's hard of hearing by supplying non sequitors to the questions posed to her. Elijah Wood is miniscule. How was it that Al Pacino was allowed to look that bad. Hair! Wardrobe! Disaster in aisle eight! Double up on the Feather Bed: I have two feather beds. I don't know why, but I do. I decided to put both on my matress and see if I could replicate that completely cocooned feeling. For good measure, I tossed a flannel sheet on top for an added soft nappy cotton texture. The comfort of my bed is now out of this world. Really: it's now in another spacetime zone, which is a lot like our own, except everyone is an angel and brownies aren't fattening.