Singin' in the Rain

One of my favorite movies is Singin' in the Rain and it was on Turner Classic Movies last night, a fabulous station that shows fabulous old movies. It makes me wish I lived in the 20's and could wear cool flapper dresses and dance with Gene Kelly and sing like Debbie Reynolds. Growing up dancing, I'm not a hard sell when it comes to musicals, but I have to say, even my husband stopped to watch for a little while. Ahh musicals, making marriages stronger, one showtune at a time.

I wish there were more of them today - there's something to be said for escaping into a world where everything's in technicolor and problems are solved with a song and dance. The women are beautiful, without looking anorexic or hoochie-fied and say things like "honest". The men are dashing gentlemen who romance their ladies and say things like "By george, I think I've got it!". They're just so dreamy and happy and lovely. It does a girl's heart good to take time out of her day to watch one.

Don't get me wrong - I love the heavy stuff too. The Last King of Scotland was one of the best movies I saw last year. But it's nice every now and then to just escape. And I think Hollywood would be well-served to remember that. They put out all these heavy, dark, morality tales - some excellent, some not and I think we need more of the light-hearted stuff sometimes to let us escape and remind us that there is good in the world.

Stay tuned for my next blog entitled: "My Favorite Torture Scenes." :)

Hotel California

I've always sort of known that I'm more a hotel kind of girl than a pitch a tent kind of girl. More into room service than campfire cooking (though I do heart s'mores). A fan of big fluffy robes and not big hairy spiders in my tent...or bears....or anything big and hairy for that matter. More like Troop Beverly Hills than the Redfeathers. But this past week I finally really gave in - I always felt like I wanted to be one of those cool girls that could hike and camp out for days, but really, I'm just not. I love being outdoors, just not living there.

And the reason I gave in might have to do with me just being wise beyond my 27 years, but really I think it had a lot to do with staying at the Loews Santa Monica in CA this past week. A big king size bed with super soft sheets, that big fluffy robe, and a balcony that looked directly onto the beach, with the Santa Monica pier to the right. Oh, and all the little bottles of shampoo and lotion that smelled so good I wanted to eat them.

I think my first inkling of this though, might have come from a trip in high school I took with some friends to go white water rafting on the Ocoee. White water rafting = awesome. Camping in torrential downpours while holding up the center of the tent so it wouldn't fill up with water and collapse = memorable, but not awesome. And one of the funniest parts of that was when the huge bolt of lightning illuminated our tent around 2am or so and one of the guys we were with shrieked "Oh my God, we're gonna die!". That's right, these fellas we were with were not so much the outdoorsy, rugged type as the intellectual, chess-playing type. So the girls ended up pitching the tent ourselves. Good times. Girl power. It really is one of the best high school memories I have, despite the drama of it all.

So all this to say, bring on the 5 star, 500 count sheet, mint-on-my-pillow hotels, because this gal is ready to check in.

Sweep The Leg

One of the reasons my blog is named "The Dojo" is due to my love of The Karate Kid. I just couldn't get enough of Daniel LaRusso taking on the Cobra Kai punks and winning the All Valley Karate Championship with the famous "Crane Kick". And I sort of wanted to be Elisabeth Shue - she was also in another one of my favorite movies, Adventures in Babysitting. But I digress. So, imagine my sheer delight when a friend of mine shared this with me:

www.sweeptheleg.com

It pretty much made my week. And please notice that it was written and directed by one Mr. William Zabka (aka Johnny). I feel it is my duty to share it with as many people as I can. It's just so well done. So, please, enjoy. I think there should be more music videos like this - I would be happy to write and direct "Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner".

Veronica Mars

Something you should know about me is that I love television. I work in it, I have entirely too many shows and my brain is probably rotting away, but I can't help myself. So this blog will probably end up containing alot about television. But I digress.

One of my favorite shows, I venture to say that it's my favorite, is Veronica Mars. If you haven't watched this - immediately Netflix the first season - it is some of the best tv you'll ever watch. That and the first season of Lost. But I digress again. So after the long holiday hiatus, it finally came back last night in all it's glory. And I was not disappointed. I mean, the writing is just consistently smart, funny and just plain great. However, getting in the way of my enjoyment of said tv show is this nagging knowledge I have in the back of my head that I acquired yesterday while reading EOnline, or some such website. My favorite show is being pulled off the air in March (it will be back) to make room for, get ready for this, it's going to get it's own line:

The Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll

I'll just let that sink in for a minute.

Seriously? My favorite show is being replaced by a reality show about the search for the next girl who can prance around the stage in stilletos and hot pants. Now, I'm not hating on the Pussycat Dolls - there is obviously an audience for them as evidenced by their move into popular music. But do we really need a reality show about it? And sadly, it will probably do better in ratings than Veronica Mars, because clearly, America loves reality television. I admit I watch American Idol - but if I had to choose between it and Veronica, well, Veronica wins hands down.

All I'll say is that if Veronica gets cancelled or moved to a bad time slot because of this stupid reality show, heads at the CW will roll. That's right - I can make it happen. Okay, maybe not, but I am going to be so upset. I hearby declare war on reality television.

Charleston

This is my new favorite city. My husband and I went there for our 3 year anniversary this past weekend. What an awesome place - charming, romantic, peaceful, clean air (which I appreciate living in Atlanta). And so much history - we went to a church on Sunday morning where George Washington went on a visit to Charleston in 17something. Crazy. Delicious food, great shopping. Of course, I think you might have to be a bazillionaire to live there, but it's fun to dream. We asked our tour guide on a walking tour we took how much property was and he pointed to a bed and breakfast across the street that was on the market for 5.5 million dollars. Right. We're only a few mil short, otherwise we totally would have gotten it. Ha. That's another good thing too - we were the only 2 people on this tour - advantage of going in the off season! And it was in the 70's during the day pretty much the whole time we were there. Which is weird in January, but I wasn't complaining. We stayed in a great little inn that gave us free breakfast and wine & cheese in the afternoon and had a cute little courtyard. We walked all over the place, down cobblestone streets, along the battery, oohed and aahed over the architechture and the horse & carriages. It was just really a fun, refreshing place to be and we didn't want to come home. If we'd had our dog with us, we really might have stayed! So, in conclusion, I heart Charleston.

Namaste

This is what we say at the end of every one of my yoga classes that I have been taking for a little less than a year now. It's an hour of much needed peace in my day and I love it. I always feel like a new person when I walk out of there and about 10 feet taller too. I'm slowly getting some of my flexibility back and it's made me much more aware of my body and each individual muscle and joint. I'm much more aware when something is off now. It's pretty cool. And one of my new favorite smells is burning sage - it immediately makes me feel calm.

I wish I was able to go more often to this class. Work gets so busy and I often feel like I don't have the time. I think I need to make a point though of carving out the time. Things will not collapse at work if I am not there for an hour. I just need to keep telling myself this. My instructor talks about how important it is to make time for yourself, so perhaps I will make this one of my New Year's resolutions. Can you make New Year's resolutions after the New Year has already started? I'll just call it a resolution, minus the New Year's.

Also, I just found out a friend of mine who takes this class with me just realized we were saying "Namaste" at the end of class and not "Have a nice day." I laughed long and hard about that one. This is the same friend who also thought the Beatles song "Can't Buy Me Love" really said "Cat Puppy Love". I get a lot of laughs courtesy of her.

A good book

You can't be over-booked. Only under-read.

That's a quote from someone who's name escapes me right now, but so true, especially for me. I love to read. Like nerdily, obsessively so sometimes. Case in point: I just finished the book The Other Boleyn Girl. Excellent book. As a friend of mine put it, it is "royal smut." 700ish pages of historical intrigue, backstabbing, betrayal, love, lust - it's good stuff, people. So I devoured this book. I carried it with me in the car, neglected laundry, ignored my husband (who loves me despite being a book nerd) and pretty much read the book like it was my job. This isn't even one of my favorite books and I acted like this. I think I have a problem.

Books are a great way to escape and get lost in a completely different world. I'm always sad when I finish one because I have to leave the characters behind. Which doesn't really explain why I read them so fast, because you'd think I'd want it to last as long as possible. One of my lifetime goals is to write a book one day. About what? I have no idea. It's so intimidating and exciting to think about though. But it combines 2 of my loves - reading and writing, so I figure, why not? However, I do not think it will be a 700 page work of historical fiction.