I have a rather long Netflix queue, as probably most Netflix users do. I rarely rearrange the movies, so normally when I hear about a movie that I want to add, I just chuck it into the queue, where it starts on the bottom and slowly works its way to the top. As a result of the long queue, that often means that it’s a year or two before I end up seeing that particular movie.

Occasionally I’ll put a movie at or near the top of the list when I add it. Usually that’s either when it’s a movie we’re really anxious to see, or it’s something that’s been recommended by someone, and we want to watch it soon so that we can discuss it with the person who recommended it. If we just leave it at the bottom to work slowly up to the top, chances are that we won’t remember why it was on the list in the first place.

A few days ago, we received two movies in the mail, representing both of these scenarios.  One was “Zardoz“, which was recommended by one of my brothers-in-law recently, and I’d moved it up to within the top 10. The other was “Australia” – a movie I’d thrown on the list when it was still playing in theaters, and it has only just now surfaced to the top.

The two movies couldn’t be much more different. “Zardoz” is an incredibly dreadful sci-fi flick starring Sir Sean Connery, who spends the entire movie running around in a tiny red diaper and thigh-high boots. Sorry if your eyes hurt from that image. Maybe this one will make it better. By the way, did you know that he was a Mr. Universe contestant? (That’s him in the center). But I digress. I absolutely adore Sir Sean, but even he wasn’t enough to save this movie for me. I’m sure it has a cult following, and I suppose it does have a bit of interesting social commentary, but it’s still not a movie I could recommend, unless you like to watch really bad movies just to delight in their extreme badness. It does, in fact, sometimes make it onto the “worst movies of all time” lists.

On the other hand, “Australia” is an epic romance which takes place in Australia (obviously) during WWII, starring the lovely Nicole Kidman and the extremely tasty Hugh Jackman. I can’t exactly say that I disliked the movie, but I admit I found it a bit too melodramatic for my taste. However, that Hugh Jackman “shower scene” was well worth the price of admission. I would happily volunteer to help wash off all the suds. Ahem.

So where does the bizarre coincidence come in?

Both movies use “The Wizard of Oz” as an important plot device. We watched “Zardoz” one night, and “Australia” the next. Our jaws dropped when “The Wizard of Oz” was first mentioned in “Australia”. What are the chances of our receiving two movies on the same day, one totally random and on purpose, of completely different genres, which both use “The Wizard of Oz” as a key theme?

Life is strange.

About 10 years ago I picked up a recipe booklet at the checkout stand at the grocery store. You know – those ones that are the size of a piece of paper folded in half. It was Betty Crocker’s “Easy Vegetarian: Classics Go Meatless”.

I’ve made quite a few of the recipes, and most of them have been quite good, and surprisingly creative — they’re not just meatless versions of recipes that normally have meat in them. They also don’t use exotic ingredients, so often you’ll find most of the ingredients already in your house. The recipes do tend to rely a lot on canned or frozen ingredients, but then the point is for them to be easy and relatively quick. If you want to substitute home-cooked beans for canned beans, or fresh salsa for a jar of salsa, you could certainly figure that out easily enough.

As it turns out, many of those recipes are available online at the Betty Crocker website. Here’s a link to their vegetarian dinner recipes.

I think many of the recipes would be quite appealing even for non-vegetarians, so they’re great if you’re cooking for a mixed audience. The Artichoke Spinach Lasagna has long been one of our favorites. Several of the recipes give suggestions on how you can add meat if you want to serve both – for example, adding chopped cooked chicken to the Caesar Salad Wraps, or serving the vegetarian entree as a side dish for the meat eaters, and as a main dish for the vegetarians.

Last night I tried one of the recipes that I’ve never made before – the Southwestern Pot Pie. We both declared it a big winner, and I’m sure I’ll be making this again. It’s a thick stew of sweet potatoes, garbanzo beans and corn, simmered with salsa and a touch of cinnamon, and topped with cornbread dumplings. I used a can of corn rather than the frozen corn. I also used a different corn muffin mix – if you use something other than the Betty Crocker mix, take a look at the instructions on the package for mixing, as mine only used 1/3 cup of milk instead of the 1/2 cup indicated in the recipe. I, of course, did not notice that until I realized that my dumpling mixture was much too thin. I rescued it by adding some extra flour, but it was still on the thin side and took longer to cook.

On a cloudy day…

In the form of sunny yellow crocus:

Welcome Spring!

There are even some rumors that I was crazy enough to plant some peas and spinach in the raised beds (with row covers). But I will neither confirm nor deny such odd behavior.

Well, it’s getting bigger.

But it still just looks like a shapeless blob.

I keep thinking about the old Steve McQueen movie “The Blob“. But I think the one in the movie was red. My mother and I were watching that movie on TV one afternoon when I was in my early teens. It was a scene where the Blob was oozing under a door, and was a bit tense. My father had come downstairs, but we were so into the movie that we hadn’t heard him, and didn’t know he was standing behind us. He recognized the movie, and said “The Blob!”. My mother screamed and literally jumped out of her chair – she landed on the floor in front of it. When she screamed, I screamed. It was a good thing I was lying down on the couch, or I might have ended up on the floor too. My dad was so startled by us screaming that I think he nearly screamed. It was pretty funny.

I’m about three-quarters of the way done, unless I decide to make it bigger. I think I’ll really like this scarf, but I’m definitely ready to do something other than stockinette. The Gigantic Scarf of Boredom isn’t really all that bad to work on, because it’s 80 stitches. Knit knit knit, purl purl purl. It doesn’t take very long to do a row, so it’s a lot of back and forth. But Citron? When you’re doing 400-500 stitches in a row, it’s like knitting across the English Channel and purling back. The rows go on for…ev…er. At least I get a periodic break on the increase and decrease rows.

And we even had a nice, reasonably warm day for a photograph.

Pattern: Classic Silk Open Cardi, from Classic Elite #9098 New Harbor
Yarn: Classic Elite Classic Silk, 7 skeins, color 6906
Needles: US 6 and US 4 (4 mm and 3.5 mm)
Size: Small
Ravelry: Project page, pattern page

Modifications: Made the body and the sleeves about an inch longer, and made the sleeves slimmer. The pattern’s sleeves were 13″ wide at the top, and I usually make mine around 11-12″. I stopped doing the sleeve increases when I hit the numbers for size XS, but I did rapid increases right before the bindoff at the underarm, so that the sleeve cap is actually made according to the pattern for size S. I should have just knit the size XS sleeves entirely, since the sleeve caps turned out to be a little big for the armscyes anyway. But it’s fine, and at least it will be roomy enough to wear over tops with sleeves.

I didn’t really like knitting with the yarn – it’s a little rough, with lots of vegetative matter in it, and because it’s slubby and sticky, it’s hard to keep an even tension. But it washes up into a really nice fabric, so I forgive it.

For the front band, I just picked up 3 out of 4 stitches along the front edges (and 1 for 1 across the back) rather than going by the numbers in the pattern. My row gauge was a bit different, and I made the cardigan longer, so I couldn’t really go by the pattern.