Walkabout The Snow Day

Depending on your line of work (teachers) and your age (still in grade school) you will see a ton of snow days in Kentucky. I don’t get many snow days as I am not a teacher nor am I in school. Snow Days in the South are a big joke to people up North who get snow in feet not inches. Down here, it would be insane to send a standard yellow school bus down curvy country roads that haven’t seen salt trucks ever. We got several inches of snow and several inches of ice overnight and I got a snow day! Sometimes it is good to live on back roads. It took most of the day for the road crews in our area to get the main parkways and interstates clear. We’re still waiting for our main highway to be cleared today (day two).

On our snow day we made a big pot of chicken and dumplings and sipped on hot coffee through the morning.

This photo of the chicken stock and the onions, celery and carrots was too beautiful not to share. Isn’t food just BEAUTIFUL! You can tell why my weight loss is so slow going. Hah!

I painted my nails blue while we watched tons of episodes of Bones, Leverage and Rules of Engagement. I also caught up on some reading–glorious, glorious reading.

In the afternoon, I donned three shirts, two pants, a sweater, hat and insulated overalls. I hadn’t ventured out of the house much because I hate being cold, but given the proper preparation I love it! I romped in just about every snow drift on the farm to show how impressively deep the snow had gotten–Several feet.

I attempted to  throw a snowball at Kit but quickly realized it was much to powdery for any real fun. A snowman would have been out of the question.  However, I had a grand time romping in drifts, making a snow angel, spying tracks of and seeing some actual wildlife.
We brought the camera: 

One foot on top of snow and the other sunk to what I assume was the ground.

I remember making dozens of snow angels as a kid until I got the perfect one. Then my brothers usually walked through it.

Sunken into a drift that built up by the neighbor’s fence row. My knee is below the snow line.

Had to pose by my not-so-perfect snow angel.

We wanted to see the half frozen pond and had to stop in short to keep from scaring off the pair of moose enjoying the pond. Okay, moose is a weird inside joke and it is what we call Canadian geese. If I explained it you would just think I am more crazy and less funny.

The obligatory Snow Day Selfie! I hope you guys got to stay home with your loved ones. And if you didn’t get to yesterday, then make a point to spend a day with the people who make you smile soon!

Movie: Dumplings

Dumplings (2004)

“Jiao zi” (original title)

Drama/Horror Link to IMDB Movie Profile

Let me begin by saying this movie is much more of a drama than a horror. The horror lies in the social fears related to abortions and female bits. I promise that I will not share any gross out photos. I will however discuss, as politely as possible, some of the elements related to the story. Unless someone eating normal looking food grosses you out. If you wish to see some of the more graphic images, there are plenty, just do a quick Google search. I will admit that the nastiest scenes did give me pause while I chomped on my fried potatoes, but not much. I was too busy being impressed with the props and special effects team. Yes, it looked that good….Or, bad.

Alright, let’s back this dumpling train up.
Super Simplified Plot: A retired aging actress seeks the help of a witch doctor to regain her youth and regain the love of her cheating husband. The secret ingredient in the witch doctor’s magical dumplings are human fetuses.

Let’s meet the main players:

Mrs. Li

Ms. Li--The retired actress that will pay any price to get back her youth. Just look at that B-face she is throwing out

Aunt Mei–I call her the witch doctor, but in the story she is a crazy lady and retired  who lives in the seedy part of town.

Mr. Li–A jerk. I mean, I know everyone in this movie is crazy or evil, but he really is. If there is a woman in his vicinity, he will have breathy gross sex with her.

Aunt Mei

Other characters:

Mom–She cries.
Husband of mom–He impregnates.
Teen daughter–She is pregnant.
Hotel hussy–Sleeps with Mr. Li

Some Snarky Insight

• There are tons of scenes where Mrs. Li is eating dumplings. This actress must have been sick of the food in general at the end of the shooting for this flick. You have to think about too that these are only the bits of footage that the editing team decided to keep. Lord only knows, how many shots of her eating dumplings landing on the cutting room floor.
• Aunt Mei reveals early on that the most potent dumplings use a fetus from the 2nd trimester. A 5th month baby. Foreshadowing….*eerie music*
• This movie moves unbearably slowly, feel free to multitask during the movie. I believe some parts were to build suspense.
• There is a lot of out of focus and off center shots. Very artsy. Or irritating. Your choice.
• At one point you get to see Mrs. Li flossing the dumplings from her teeth in the background.
• Aunt Mei is a creepy character and interesting to watch. She grabs her feet, has a vague stare and sings to her customers.
• Lessons I learned from this movie: Illegal abortions are scary, don’t have affairs with people, and don’t be vain.
• What’s so scary about it? The gross-out factor and there is some medical scary related to abortions. I feel like this would be more disgusting and scary for women, but I didn’t watch it with any men so this is just a guess.
• Would I recommend it? Probably not to my friends. Unless you have a friend that is into scary or weird foreign horror movies. The idea of eating the flesh of youths is an old one and the way this story is done is interestingly artsy.

Dumpling Movie Spoilers—–Scroll Down at your Own Risk!

Cute Mr. Dumpling wants to warn you of SPOILERS BELOW!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SPOILERS

• There are lots of fetal like images and a (mostly) on screen at-home ghetto abortion during the movie. Not a flick for the fragile.
• Teen and mom begs Aunt Mei for an abortion. Father raped daughter.
• This is the first potent dumplings that Mrs. Li eats and her when she returns home her husband is quoted, “you smell nice”. She’s got that new car, smell.
• When Mrs. Li and Mr. Li have their reconciliation sex, she drips/spits/gargles water into his mouth and they make love. His leg is broken. Least sexy scene ever.
• The Vanity lesson: Mrs. Li smells bad after eating a 5th month incest fetus. However, this issue disappears and she never gets her comeuppance.
• Dangers of abortion lesson: There is a upsetting bit where the teen girl obviously suffering from complications from her abortion collapses after getting off a bus with her mother. The passenger that takes her seat is horrified to find that he sat in a pool of blood.
• Mother of dead teen kills husband with a knife and is arrested
• Husband eats dumplings and fucks witch doctor
• Aunt Mei has monologue about history of cannibalism in China. Very effectively creepy.
• Husband has affair with hotel hussy at beginning of movie–He unknowingly impregnates her and this is the fetus that Mrs. Li chops up at the closing scene of the film.