Rancho Relaxo

Whenever I can, I whisk myself away to the burbs for a weekend away from the city; courtesy of my best bud and her family. She and her husband live close to the border of Wisconsin; out in the boonies, as it were. With their 3 children, I am pleased to be back in the throes of a family environment. While I love my life w/ the other half, it is nice to return to my childhood days of a large family atmosphere. With friend and family, I am able to do so. There is the yelling, the whining, the games, the food, the sibling rivalry and the general busy-ness of a large household. What they give me cannot be measured or appreciated enough; a return to family life. As much issue as I take w/ many members of my own family, I do miss that sense of community. Grilling out, movie watching, card and board games are generally the tasks of my weekend getaways. I have found that as I get closer to my weekend "hotel" (I usually take the train) I can literally feel my responsibilites and stress, melting away into obscurity. Amazing how this on-the-cheap vacation serves to free myself for a short time, from all that is out to get me. On the menu this weekend, grilled shrimp for dinner, biscuits and gravy in the morning, and homemade ice cream sundaes. For games, we played a hefty 3 hour Monopoly, and countless hands of many card games. On the movie menu, Hostage with Bruce Willis (review to come in next entry) and Cursed. I will comment on Cursed here, cuz it is really not worth my time to talk that in depth about it. It was fun, stupid, had cheap effects, and Christina Ricci looked fabulous. The usually unattractive Joshua Jackson looked fetching (werewolf movie; tee hee) with his turn-me-on facial hair. The young brother (Jesse Eisenburg) of Christina Ricci's character has a wonderful run-in w/ a classmate (Milo Ventimiglia; nice) w/ sexy gay results. Young wrestlers hugging and in love (ok, not in love, but I can dream, right?). Nice. Nothing else. Not a waste of time, but not something I would hand over my precious down-time minutes to again.
So a big hey-there and hello to best bud and fam, for a smooth, stress free zone I can escape to when the mood so strikes me. Now back to my regularly scheduled program of lame-ass day job work and fun urban living. Meh.