Stuff

Woke up feeling like I could get away without wearing the ace bandage today. Still a little ouchy, but better than it has been. Will probably sleep with it wrapped.

layla_lilah  and I went out to see "La Princesse de Montpessier" last night as her gamelan rehearsals and performance schedule has kept her busy this spring. Did dinner first at the always reliable La Mediteranee up on College Avenue, after a detour into the Organic Apothecary because my dinner companion is a cosmetics/perfume/skin care junkie. Not cheap, but I decided to try the caffeine eye cream on layla_lilah 's recommendation. (Smells nice, felt soothing and non greasy when I put it on this AM. More importantly, it did not cause eye irritation, unlike a certain Neutrogena eye cream I tried recently.) The salesgirl (college age, I can SO call her a girl) was very sweet and tossed a bunch of samples in my bag for us to split.

Anyway, the movie was very good, including my "Ooh, wheel-locks!" geek moment during a skirmish under the opening credits, appreciation of the use of  on "Une Jeune Fillette"* as a recurring theme in the orchestral score, and two rousing, tragic thumbs up for the storytelling. Lambert Wilson (Matrix fans will know him as The Merovingian) is wonderful as the loyal, doomed Chabannes, from whose point of view much of the story is told. Melanie Thierry (reminds me of a young Jeri Ryan) is the title Princess, suitably luminous. Everyone falls in love with her, including her husband in an arranged marriage, Chabannes who is assigned to look after and tutor her while her princely husband is fighting Huguenots, and her old flame Henri de Guise.

*Lovely vocal version of it here from another beautiful and depressing French film, "Tout les Matins du Monde."

Oh, and I discovered that my "bike-ku" was good enough for an honorable mention on the SF Chronicle's bike blog: 
"Spokes ticking the time,
I cannot pause for sunrise
And still make my train."

 

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