Wonderful Weekend!

Man, I must be in a writin' mood.  Two posts in two days.  Oh well, when the muse is with you, the muse is with you...

First a little something fun:



What a sweetie!


I've been having a great weekend!  It's a long weekend here in Ontario (Family Day), so the usual luxury of the weekend is made that much more luxurious.  I've had a great mixture of chill times, time outdoors, movie-watching, friend-seeing, food-eating... the whole gamut.  In the food-eating arena, I went to Frida last night as I mentioned I would, and it was as delicious as I remembered.  Tasty margaritas, succulent jumbo shrimp, and the best guacamole I've ever had in my life!!!  On top of all that, I had with me some absolutely fabulous company.  Great evening!!!

Today was an adventure with my boy Waleed.  As his birthday present, I wanted to do something fun together.  W. and I are going to be friends forever, so buying expensive things isn't always necessary; I'd rather have a fun experience together, so that was the inspiration for this gift.  We started the day off with brunch.  We met at the Bloor Street Diner where I was having a coffee and thinking that the all-you-can-eat brunch sounded tantalizing.  When Wal arrived we asked how much the AYCE brunch cost and it was $25.95 each before tax.  That was a little too steep for the two of us, so we finished our coffees, paid for them, and headed east to Sunset Grill at Bloor & Church.  There we got 2 filling breakfasts for $20 TOTAL!!!  I'm glad we resisted brunch at BSD -- another time.

After a yummy breakfast at SG, we headed to surprise #1, which Wal had NO idea about.  Where did we go???  The Bata Shoe Museum!!!  I hadn't been there since I was 12 or so, and Wal had never been, and I thought it would be a fun experience.  We went to lots of museums together in Paris, but why not in the city where we both (kinda... sorta...) live?!  It was a lot of fun.  We started downstairs where the history of shoes is charted, and then we followed that up with the Roaring Twenties exhibit, which was really well done.  We also saw the Art in Shoes | Shoes in Art exhibit, which was cool, too.  We were there probably an hour or so in total, and then we headed to surprise #2.

Surprise #2: Seeing "The Iron Lady" at the Varsity Theatre in the VIP theatre!!!  Wow... what a movie.  It was really fantastic to see such a strong, powerful woman's journey.  It was also well-done; watching Margaret Thatcher's struggles with sanity/dementia.  Jim Broadbent acted well, as he always does.  But, let's get to the most important thing:

MERYL.  MERYL.  MERYL.
Meryl Streep... how do you do it?  She is, without a doubt, the greatest actress of our time.  For that matter, she may be the greatest actress of all time.  While watching the movie, you completely forget that it's Meryl.  That is definitely thanks to the talent of the make-up artist, too, but... oh Meryl... you really just nailed it.  You were Margaret Thatcher.  You were completely in the character.  The accent, the facial expressions, the voice...  You were absolutely flawless.  Win or lose the Oscar, there is no debate about your talent.  Congratulations on the performance of a lifetime!!!

Never mind the special treat of enjoying a movie in the VIP theatre.  It's not something you want to do every time you see a movie, but for a treat it's worth the extra bucks.  You've got a small, intimate theatre with a great view of the screen.  You've got extra comfy seats and a side table for your treats.  You can have beer while you watch your movie!  And, in my last experience in the theatre, I even had an employee serve me my treats!!!  It's a fun little treat.  (Say treat again... treat!)

So that was the birthday adventure with Waleed.  A lot of fun!

I also saw another great movie this weekend: "Beginners".  I'd been wanting to see this since I saw a preview for it; it seemed like a really new idea for a movie.  Beyond a fun story line, it also had a creative multimedia-esque approach.  The acting was also really good.  I loved Melanie Laurent, and Ewan was great, and Christopher Plummer was at his best.  It was a well-written movie and quite moving.  I loved it!



So, that was my weekend!  Lots of fun, and back to reality on Tuesday!