anniversary goodness
Nov. 2nd, 2009 10:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crazyjaneYesterday was our anniversary. Wuff and I have been married for nine years.
In the past, anniversary celebrations have tended to be a bit ad hoc. Both of us are usually very busy, with the end of the semester last-minute scramble. Added to that, the girls' birthday comes up very quickly after that, so we've usually focused on their celebration, and just decided at the last minute to maybe grab a movie at the local complex.
Wuff decided to make sure that wasn't going to happen this time around. Without a word to me, he'd quietly saved up, organised babysitting (thanks,indigo_girl!) and all the details. Then he invited me out on a date.
We had a leisurely dinner at Saluti in Northcote. I'm going to indulge in description here, so try not to drool on the keyboard. :) Our starter of a wood-fired foccaccia drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt and oregano. Wuff's main course was a seafood risotto piled high with green-lipped mussels, clams, prawns and octopus. I had an amazingly tender porterhouse steak with red onion and chilli jam. The dessert was the single most decadent part of the night, though. Sweet biscuit pizza topped with cocoa-dusted pistachios and crumbled dark chocolate and wood-fired, with a dark chocolate sauce and creamy vanilla ice cream. Mmmmmmmm.
After dinner, we drove into Carlton, to the Cinema Nova. There was a quick detour at Borders (where we snatched up Dexter by Design, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters and The Book Thief), then we settled down to watch Moon. We knew it was a bit of a gamble - first-time feature director for Duncan Jones, and first-time feature screenplay for Jones and Nathan Parker - but it's a particular gamble we had rather gotten out of the habit of taking. When our options for snatching a bit of time to ourselves started to become much more limited, what with kids and finances and all, we had started to make a point of only seeing movies that we were pretty sure we'd like (or, at least, hate with enough humour to enjoy criticising them over a cuppa at home).
Moon is a fascinating movie. I wouldn't recommend it for everyone, but if you have a taste for sci-fi that is gritty, harrowing on its characters and morally ambiguous, and there lurks a fondness in you for that peculiar mix of isolation and stagnation that permeates Silent Running and 2001: A Space Odyssey, you'll probably love it. Sam Rockwell's acting is absolutely amazing - without providing spoilers, the directors probably asked of him than more than was asked of pretty much any other actor in any sci-fi movie. Kevin Spacey also appears, in possibly his quirkiest role to date.
What struck me most about Moon was that it stirred in me something I've never felt before while watching a movie about space: fear. I love space - I'm an astro-nut (as it were, and I make no apologies for that pun, I had too good a time last night). Part of me will always yearn for the chance to actually get up there. Watching Rockwell driving across the barren lunar landscape in his rover towards the dark side, with the starkly beautiful stars hanging over him, I felt for the first time a terrible sense of isolation and fragility. It's very hard to explain - perhaps it's one of those non-verbal stylistic things that you just have to see to feel - but it's something I'll carry with me for a long, long time.
It was a wonderful evening. Wuff and I were relaxed, laughing, just a little bit romantic - and nothing dented that. Not difficulties with parking, nor the last-minute change of restaurant because our intended destination was crowded and very noisy, nor even those petty annoyances that can often inject small barbs of irritation into a special time. It was something we'd almost forgotten could happen.
Today, we are both tired - our late night sleep-deprivation was compounded by Meglet being disturbed about 5 am, and needing quite a bit of settling. Wuff has to battle yet again with crap at work, I have a pile of editing, design and project work that is only slowly getting smaller, and the kids were grumpy this morning.
I'm still feeling very happy.
I love you, Wuff.
In the past, anniversary celebrations have tended to be a bit ad hoc. Both of us are usually very busy, with the end of the semester last-minute scramble. Added to that, the girls' birthday comes up very quickly after that, so we've usually focused on their celebration, and just decided at the last minute to maybe grab a movie at the local complex.
Wuff decided to make sure that wasn't going to happen this time around. Without a word to me, he'd quietly saved up, organised babysitting (thanks,
indigo_girl!) and all the details. Then he invited me out on a date.We had a leisurely dinner at Saluti in Northcote. I'm going to indulge in description here, so try not to drool on the keyboard. :) Our starter of a wood-fired foccaccia drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt and oregano. Wuff's main course was a seafood risotto piled high with green-lipped mussels, clams, prawns and octopus. I had an amazingly tender porterhouse steak with red onion and chilli jam. The dessert was the single most decadent part of the night, though. Sweet biscuit pizza topped with cocoa-dusted pistachios and crumbled dark chocolate and wood-fired, with a dark chocolate sauce and creamy vanilla ice cream. Mmmmmmmm.
After dinner, we drove into Carlton, to the Cinema Nova. There was a quick detour at Borders (where we snatched up Dexter by Design, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters and The Book Thief), then we settled down to watch Moon. We knew it was a bit of a gamble - first-time feature director for Duncan Jones, and first-time feature screenplay for Jones and Nathan Parker - but it's a particular gamble we had rather gotten out of the habit of taking. When our options for snatching a bit of time to ourselves started to become much more limited, what with kids and finances and all, we had started to make a point of only seeing movies that we were pretty sure we'd like (or, at least, hate with enough humour to enjoy criticising them over a cuppa at home).
Moon is a fascinating movie. I wouldn't recommend it for everyone, but if you have a taste for sci-fi that is gritty, harrowing on its characters and morally ambiguous, and there lurks a fondness in you for that peculiar mix of isolation and stagnation that permeates Silent Running and 2001: A Space Odyssey, you'll probably love it. Sam Rockwell's acting is absolutely amazing - without providing spoilers, the directors probably asked of him than more than was asked of pretty much any other actor in any sci-fi movie. Kevin Spacey also appears, in possibly his quirkiest role to date.
What struck me most about Moon was that it stirred in me something I've never felt before while watching a movie about space: fear. I love space - I'm an astro-nut (as it were, and I make no apologies for that pun, I had too good a time last night). Part of me will always yearn for the chance to actually get up there. Watching Rockwell driving across the barren lunar landscape in his rover towards the dark side, with the starkly beautiful stars hanging over him, I felt for the first time a terrible sense of isolation and fragility. It's very hard to explain - perhaps it's one of those non-verbal stylistic things that you just have to see to feel - but it's something I'll carry with me for a long, long time.
It was a wonderful evening. Wuff and I were relaxed, laughing, just a little bit romantic - and nothing dented that. Not difficulties with parking, nor the last-minute change of restaurant because our intended destination was crowded and very noisy, nor even those petty annoyances that can often inject small barbs of irritation into a special time. It was something we'd almost forgotten could happen.
Today, we are both tired - our late night sleep-deprivation was compounded by Meglet being disturbed about 5 am, and needing quite a bit of settling. Wuff has to battle yet again with crap at work, I have a pile of editing, design and project work that is only slowly getting smaller, and the kids were grumpy this morning.
I'm still feeling very happy.
I love you, Wuff.
