free lunch, a movie ticket and a turkey

Yesterday our plan was to go to the library. First we thought we would get lunch at our favorite Japanese place. They are open for lunch on Saturdays, and it has been months since we have made it down there for lunch. Unfortunately we were not the only ones with this idea, and we arrived to find a note of the door saying they were full! We went inside, and sure enough, there was no way they could squeeze us in.

We then realized we were not far from a Pasta Pomodoro. We hadn't been to one in Southern California. I had a coupon for $8 off, but I wasn't sure it was in my purse. We decided to go anyway, as we were both quite hungry by this point.

The place was empty. Shortly after our arrival, a party of one sat down, but beyond some people on the patio, we had the restaurant to ourselves.

They have a new brunch menu, so I decided to try their version of French toast. B joked that we were in an Italian restaurant, so maybe French toast wasn't the wisest choice. It was pretty amazing though. It had mascarpone cheese and strawberries on top. Oh so good. And not only did I find the coupon, but we got another one.

We then headed towards the library and figured out which movie was playing. We had a free ticket, thanks to the AMC Movie Watcher program, and had to use it by the weekend. We also wanted to check out the new AMC theater in Tustin's District shopping center.

We ended up seeing Michael Clayton. I wasn't sure what to expect. The movie stars George Clooney. He plays an attorney, Michael Clayton, who works as a 'fixer' for a large corporate law firm in NYC. The tag line is the truth can be adjusted. Tom Wilkinson steals the show with his performance as an attorney on the brink of madness, after spending six years of his life engrossed in a case that he has come to realize has merit (although he is being paid to prove otherwise).

We always stay through the credits. And low and behold, the name of someone I knew popped up. A former of neighbor of mine was the (additional) director of photography for the film. I worked for his (now ex) wife when I was in college. She was starting a business out of her home while recovering from major back surgery. He spent much of that summer in Montana filming. The major benefit was that I got to drive around their shiny black BMW with New York plates all over the west side of LA. That was the cool part of the job. The rest of it, as you can imagine, was pretty insane. But I am happy to see that he is still working, fulfilling his dreams. There are scenes in the movie that are breathtaking. The scene with where Michael comes upon three hours at dawn comes to mind. But I also like the final scene of his exit down an escalator and a cab ride that takes us through part of the end credits.

We got out of the movie after 10pm and decided to stop at the store to pick up some black tea as somehow we were all out. We then figured that as long as we were there, we should take advantage of their buy one get one, turkey sale. There are now two 18 pound Butterballs in the freezer. We have no real plan for the holidays, but we have turkey.

on the night stand :: Love is a Mixtape