Wednesday, March 24, 2010

you have bewitched me

It was Thanksgiving 2005.  My family was in South Carolina, but I had traveled to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to keep my best girl Laura company while she worked over the holiday.  She insisted on making an entire turkey for the two of us.  I contributed instant mashed potatoes and green bean casserole, the bottom of which was burned when it was left sitting on the stove to cool with a burner on beneath it.  When it was time to eat, we cleared a shelf on a bookcase to use as a serving area, which then collapsed under the weight of the food.  I spent 20 minutes vacuuming up stuffing while Laura wrestled with the stubborn turkey.  There's a photo of me somewhere watching the Macy's Day Parade with a pot on my head.

Night fell.  Exhausted by our foibles in the kitchen, we decided to catch a movie.  We took a bus across town to a cinema Laura had never been to because it was the only one still playing the film we wanted to see.  It was an old one, with velvet-covered seats beaten down by the years.  It had once been a single theatre-style cinema, but someone had long since split it in two.  There were gold sconces on the right wall, but not the left, which looked straight out of the 1980s.  Only half the ceiling fresco was visible.  We saw Pride and Prejudice. It was perfect.

This poster brings all of these things to mind.

via Kate, of course

1 comment:

Laura Marie said...

I take full responsibility for the burnt green bean casserole.

In all seriousness, that ranks in my top three absolute favorite days. Between you watching the dog show with a pot on your head, moving books to make a shelf for our food, and getting to spend an entire day cooking and laughing with my best friend--it was absolutely amazing.

The snow and watching one of the most romantic movies I've ever seen in my entire life in an old theater with my best bud were just icing on the cake.

By the way, I'm still not over my Matthew MacFayden obsession. But then, you probably already knew that.

I love you dearly, Miss Kelly Anne.