X-Men: First Class: Compelling!

Faced with a couple of film choices to see at the theater last night, I found myself drawing the conclusion that you know that a man's *whipped* when he's coerced by his girlfriend/wife to watch Bridesmaids. I could never subject my husband to such torture. I honestly believe that an important key to keeping the romance alive in a relationship is to constantly offer choices e.g.Sushi or Steak, Cuba or Mexico, grey or beige, uh, top or bottom - which may require a great deal of compromise, downright relinquishment of personal preference/ forfeiture of rights, concessions, sacrifices but give rise to interesting decisions like "Chinese," "Greige," etc. With Hangover 2 being another movie option and after hearing that its writers relied too heavily on the mass appeal of tasteless, what we will just call, "kinky" "monkey jokes" that they forgot to actually write, to see X-men First class was a no-brainer (and a mutually acceptable choice!)

As it is the case for any movie for that matter, but especially so for prequels of hugely successful sagas and virtual "institutions" such as X-men, Batman or Star Wars, the challenge is to create something compelling. I think X-men was veeerrryy compelling. The incorporation of the mutants' own reality into humankind's true atrocious past and pop culture is seamless and is not just incidental. It's a fine tapestry of fiction "gold."

The casting was impeccable with James McAvoy as mutant adoptive patriarch Xavier whose bluest limpid pools for eyes I had never resurfaced from since The Last King of Scotland! Kevin Bacon as the antagonist Shaw whose smirk you've been wanting to effectively wipe off with a sledgehammer since Riverwild, January Jones as Emma Frost who is the *real* motivation for Kumee's Madmen marathons besides its male cast's classy skinny-tied fashion, of course. German actor Michael Fassbender as the emotionally scarred Magneto, who made my husband feel threatened when I asked him "who's that"??? Academy award nominee Jennifer Lawrence as the young Mystique to whom I give the credit for recalibrating and lifting ideal body image for girls and women back to normal proportions - literally - when she said that she'd rather appear "chubby onscreen than look like a scarecrow in real life" and the rest of her youthful up and coming peers who play other mutant proteges that officially lauched me into midlife crisis....but then again, you kinda know you're pushing mid-thirties and up when you find yourself absolutely giddy with excitement, as I was, as everything came together and I began to understand the inception of the X-men "Freshmen," if you will.

A tip I've gotten to improve one's writing is to actually read more than you write...i've been slacking off in this regard. I've so much reading to catch up on, and by reading I don't mean fb gossip fodder! I think this fact is becoming sorely evident in my posts in their increasing lameness...(and parentheticals!). I think I might just go back one day, to what this blog was all about originally, that of handing out one-liners: ok, so what do you call a green Birkin??? A gherkin!!!! Hahahaha (howling with laughter). 'See what I mean????

Yeah, so finding the perfect of shoes: priceless, well, maybe not exactly *price-less*! *Found* myself at Aldo's at lunch today, due to an emergency situation that arose this morning involving my Guess sandals which, when I come to think of it, I had only worn for like the mere third time this season, I mean, talk about shoddy craftmanship, pretty to look at but fall apart just like that, well, I might have subjected the right foot to too much strain by buckling the strap on the first hole so that, not only was it chaffing my ghastly still pale (from underexposure!) ankle raw, but they were impeding my braking and accelerating capabilities. Ok, so I managed not to inadvertently commit suicide or accidently manslay fellow motorists/pedestrians. But at the office, to refresh my eyes from my computer screen, I glanced at my feet to admire my own sandals lol how vain! And upon closer scrutiny and to my horror, I noticed how the strap had ripped within an inch or more accurately, a millimeter of it's life. And so yes, that's how I found myself at Aldo's to rectify my little situation. Well, I know that every self-respecting female keeps a back-up pair at the office, "Because you just never know, right? Contingency plans, they're called, but what you don't understand is that I had my favorite tan belt that I got from H&M for ten bucks a few years back if I may add, to cinch around a pink Zara button down shirt worn over my five bucks forever 21 tights lol, so I specifically needed a tawny tan pair of shoes. The intent really, was for me to get me some cheap ballerina flats, but unfortunately, the size seven's were too snug and the eight's were just humongous...So I just picked up the beckoning slingbacks with a platform sole at the ball and a nice stilletto heel perched on the shelf at my eye-level. Ahhhh, Cinderella moments, got to love them!!! I had been chatting with the dropdead gorgeous salesclerk the whole time, and we got talking about commissions and I had mentioned about kumee's working in retail himself. "We said 70$, eh" I asked her. "Well, I could give you a 10% percent discount" she replied "it's reserved for special customers." I'm telling ya, there seems to be this tacit solidarity between retail folk, in a mall coppy kinda way, and yes, so I scored a small discount by virtue of being kumee's wife lol.

I was skeptical about the inexhaustibility of things you could blog about man-purses, but I was proven wrong, now how much less is running
the risk of reaching the saturation point when it comes to shoes??? My friend Farah has a blog wittingly called "Will Sing for Shoes" cute,
definitely and realistic, too! Really, what lengths would you go to for a pair of shoes???

On Ice Cream Cakes....

So maya coined the portmanteau for a cross between an elephant and a dolphin: a delephin, lol! Speaking of elephants, did I ever mention that Maya has a memory of that of an elephant, I'm not sure whether my analogy is correct, I figure, as the adage goes "they never forget" - I'm not sure either whether this makes her unique among her peers or if sharp memories are characteristic of and common to all kids anyways. Maya's a tad precocious but I don't think that necessarily elevates her to child-prodigy-ish levels lol. Ok, so she never forgot our promise we made that we would buy her an ice cream cake on our next trip to DQ just to appease her after denying the poor child some two weeks ago. And sure enough, after Kumee and I had finished sharing a Banana Royale Blizzard and the kids had polished their sundaes, we headed home with Maya's molded ice cream cake listing around in the trunk of our car as we negotiated Henri Bourassa...(it was intact when we got home, in restrospect, I'm not too sure why I didn't just carry it on my lap!)

And this is the problem with kids, the cake was just visually appealing like eye-candy to them, as it turned out, ice-cream in cake form isn't their cup of tea after all...so what do you do with 14/16th's of a DQ Ice cream cake? Well, you assume another incidental and yet veeerrryy important parental role - that of kid's leftovers finisher-designate!

Anyone who has ever followed me for any length and at any given period of time would likely know that facebook is one of things I keep harping on and on about...it's gotten so old and it's so lame and yet here I am...time and time again I've asked myself why I even bother, I mean just what is the appeal??? Maybe it's how it's proven itself to be an excellent (if second-rate) resource for a quick low down on the world's state of affairs...how did you think I learned of Osama's unceremonious death? From a friend's status update, of course, a news lede summed up into one neat sentence!

Am I addicted? Nah, I'm not enslaved, I can quit anytime I want, I've only like done so some, uh, ten times....

Quick post to give Deb of PIX me Photography, the credit she sooooo deserves, for her wonderful talent as seen in her generous photo contributions e.g. shoe pic above! I really like our unique collabo. Yup, so 52 Weeks got a makeover, because he's vain, and the Inside Skinny got insanely jealous, so I had to give her one, too, I hope you like it! (and that the new color motif won't trigger migraines)

Haven't had the time to write something original and specifically for this blog, so here's something from the other one, 52 Weeks. I know, I know, I'm so lame....sorry!

So I followed a friend's (who happens to be a writer) advice to "find a niche" and so yes, this blog was born out of a need to kinda narrow down the things I write about. And naturally, after winnowing off all the chaff, Kumee/men's fashion is the grain that remained. Now, just when I thought that this was niche enough, I came across a site devoted to satchels and only satchels, lol. Just how much blogging can one do on satchels alone? Plenty...apparently, lol! On that site you'll find anywhere from the latest styles and innovations in satchels (e.g. ones with neat built-in battery chargers!), references to them in the media (e.g. protagonists "Indiana Jones wears one" or more recently "Jack Bauer wears one" (wazzz uppp???) and literature, to sightings of notable people sporting satchels a.k.a the man-purse.

I'm grateful to have stumbled upon that blog because honestly, personally, all I had on them is that Kumee has a handsome Cole Haan one (that I would totally use if only it wasn't such a pain to switch bags and transfer my personal effects each and every time, uh, forget that!!!) which doesn't make for a very interesting blog post, and yet satchels, are a metro staple, that certainly deserves some mention.

If I had concluded on two posts back, that there couldn't be anything else that is the "object of so much scoff from the self-professed "machosexual" (what a ridiculous term, lol!) other than the pink shirt," then, the man-purse definitely takes the cake as the runner up!!!