Category / My Watch List

All things TV, movies, Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, you name it.

by LG

4.2.22

I didn’t take any pics during our dinner excursion, really. I have a picture of the restaurant sign because B took one and I borrowed it, and I have a pic of the sunset from the car window. What can I say, I was really in the moment.

We sort of informally landed on doing one thing a day and relaxing the rest of the time, and I really enjoy that cadence.

Yesterday our little excursion was to an incredible Japanese restaurant up the canyon. We had early reservations, but that ended up being a blessing because there was enough light in the canyon for us to see on the ride up. The canyon was much more densely wooded with tall conifers, the kind of landscape I’m most used to. It was nice to see the difference of that scenery from all the others we’ve seen so far while in New Mexico.

Our dinner was delicious and served on smallish plates family-style so we could all share: Ahi tuna tacos, kurobota pork belly tacos, grilled avocado, house-made skillet gyoza, and Wagyu beef ishiyaki. All of it was delicious and plated so beautifully. The ishiyaki experience – cooking the meat on a 500-degree stone set in the middle of our table – felt surprising and fun. All said, it was a fantastic dining experience. I truly can’t believe how much my palate has expanded over the years, and I have really had fun exploring.

After dinner, we drove a little further up the canyon to see more green trees and views. We headed back as the sun set, and it felt like a really lovely way to wrap up the outing.

We ended our night by watching Coda. It’s one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long while.

by LG

7.24.20

The last normal thing we did in The Before was one of our favorite things: a movie date night! We saw Portrait of a Lady on Fire in the theater, got an email on the way home that B could start working from home the next day, and that was it. 

Tonight we had another movie date night, but it felt oh so different than the last time because we went to a pop-up drive-in at RFK Stadium! I haven’t seen a drive-in movie since my friends and I went to see Obsessed (such an amazing choice) in Utah back in 2009, and I’ve missed it. We got tickets to see Friday tonight and Jurassic Park tomorrow night. We packed movie snacks, takeout for dinner, pillows, handheld fans, and maybe an adult beverage (shhhh). I couldn’t believe how good it felt to get out and do something fun and new/different to break up the monotony of being at home after all this time. 

by LG

7.18.20

We had to run an errand today but felt so stir-crazy from being stuck home and so happy to be out in the sunshine that after we finished, we just kept driving south on the GW Parkway. We had the soundtrack of Hamilton playing because that’s the only thing we’ve listened to since it got released on Disney+ (it’s a daily question in our home: “So what random song or line from Hamilton is stuck in your head today?”), and we happened upon this sign just as we passed Mount Vernon. We clearly stopped to take a picture, nerded out about it, skipped to “Yorktown” (1781!), and proceeded to drive home along the parkway. We pulled over at one of the scenic overlooks for a moment because it felt so nice to be close to the waters of the Potomac River when LO AND BEHOLD, a GD bald eagle soared by RIGHT IN FRONT OF US. Peak ‘Merica, I tell you.

by LG

5.19.19

MORE STEAK! It’s just so damn easy this way … I’m not sure that I’ll ever just throw the meat on the grill itself ever again when I can get an amazing crust on it and use a beautiful compound butter and fresh herbs in the skillet.

We enjoyed these steaks with our friends W+J for our pre-Game of Thrones feast (which also included this amazing gluten-free carrot cake that B made – we devoured it too quickly for a photo).

by LG

Naughty by nature

I really loved the song “Only the Good Die Young” when I was a kid. It’s peppy! It has a catchy chorus! But my older sister admonished me to stop singing along to it (I didn’t even know all the verses and didn’t understand the Catholic references – just the chorus) because it was NAUGHTY, which was the worst. Except I didn’t get why it was naughty at the time (vague reference to sinners aside), so I guess it backfired because it only piqued my interest in it.

When that memory came back to me, I started thinking about alllll of the things I found out were NAUGHTY when I was growing up. Growing up in a Mormon household meant that a lot of things were off-limits, and in fairness some of them probably were too racy for me. But some of them are big ol’ question marks, especially when I look back on it now! I thought of a few right off the top of my head, and I may come back and add more later if I remember them.

  • Only the Good Die Young, Billy Joel: Bad due to general unexplained naughtiness.
  • Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Wham!: The line “It’s cold out there/but it’s warm in bed” made complete sense to my 9-year-old brain (duh!?) but was deemed v v racy by my mom for reasons unbeknownst to me at the time.
  • Maneater, Hall and Oates: Again, bad due to general unexplained naughtiness. It was 1982, I was 7, and though I knew nothing about sex at that point, I knew the woman was doing something bad because of all the “watch out boy” warnings. Looking back now, this woman sounds p r e t t y badass and 100% in control of her destiny.
  • Easy Lover, Phil Collins and Philip Bailey:  My mom would change the radio station when this song played. The best I could figure was more “adult theme” sinning, since there was a lot of singing about the woman who couldn’t be controlled. When I read the lyrics for this post, I couldn’t for the life of me find anything bad besides the woman who was making all of her own decisions.
  • L.A. Law: I was allowed to watch the opening credits and NOTHING MORE.
  • Three’s Company: Are you kidding me? Two women living with a man plus several other leery male neighbors lurking about. My brothers and I watched it anyway (I didn’t understand half the dialogue) and hurriedly changed the channel when we heard our parents approaching.
  • Any primetime soap opera: Dynasty, Knot’s Landing, and Dallas were all no-nos. I don’t think I had any interest in watching, but the powers that be made sure I knew it wasn’t even an option.
  • Madonna: NAUGHTY NAUGHTY NAUGHTY for obvious reasons in the mid-80s.
  • MTV: This may as well have broadcast live from Satan’s bedroom, as far as my parents were concerned.
  • Dirty Dancing: The title says it all. I definitely did not watch this at home and most definitely did watch it at my friend Carolyn’s house after school on her VCR.