Hugh Jackman Dancing Decoy Photo #5

Laura is just back from a three-day post-Christmas-but-Christmas-related visit to Rhinebeck, New York, where Brendan's brother lives.  Laura took Ben there to see his two gorgeous girl cousins, and also to hang out with his two boy cousins and they had a great time despite the fact that Laura was consumed with the knowledge that her pants were tight.  Not that much tighter than they were last week, but certainly tighter than they were last month.  Laura feels like she keeps losing and gaining the same five pounds -- especially annoying since, if anything, she should be losing and gaining the same ten pounds -- and yet she doesn't seem capable of doing anything to stop this almost imperceptible (to anyone other than Laura) yo-yo situation. So since she's tired from the weekend, tired from driving, and tired of worrying about her ever-tightening pants, Laura's going to do a quick potpourri-style brant:

1)  Just to get it out of the way, Laura wants to point out the second Hugh Jackman "dancing" photo -- the first, for those sharp-memoried-brant readers, being the "Jazz-Hands" photo which was a big favorite among Facebook fans.  So here's another "action" pose that Laura thought would be a nice complement to the Jazz Hands photo, though it's a photo lacking in any back-story or particular relevance to Laura's life.  Tomorrow Laura's going to post a photo of Hugh Jackman that has a great back-story with particular relevance to Laura's life since it's a photo of HJ taken on the red carpet of the premiere of Someone Like You, the same red carpet that Laura walked, just inches behind HJ! -- so that's something to look forward to.

2)  While in Rhinebeck, Laura went with her sister-in-law Colleen and her mother-in-law Jane to see a movie, Slumdog Millionaire.  Laura, in her ignorance, hadn't heard of this movie, and figured it was one of those wacky feel-good Christmas-release movies that the whole family goes to see for a little escapist-humor after suffering the misery and sadness of family togetherness.  For those of you less ignorant than Laura because you've either seen the movie or read reviews of it, her idiotic assumptions couldn't possibly have been further from the truth!  Wacky feel-good escapist humor?  Not unless you're a complete sadist who enjoys watching terrible things happen to beautiful Indian orphan children!!  OMG.  After about the first 10 minutes, Laura thought she was going to have to get up and leave, and after the movie was over, Colleen said the same thing, likening the experience of sitting through the movie to being on a bad theme-park ride -- one with endless twists and turns that makes you wish you could stop and get off. Despite the difficulty of sitting through all of the heartbreaking scenes, the movie was incredibly uplifting and undoubtedly one of the best films she thinks she's ever seen (through her hands that were covering her eyes most of the time).  Though Laura's not usually in the movie-reviewing-movie-recommending business -- mainly because she barely ever sees movies because she's such a giant loser -- she strongly recommends that you see it (through hands covering your eyes) too.

3)  Even though Christmas already seems like it happened a year ago, Laura would like to thank the four people who commented on her brant about how confusing Christmas is to Jews like her.  Not only is she grateful to anyone who comments on her brants, but she was especially grateful this time because the comments were so long and interesting and personal -- Laura had specifically asked for people to help her with her confusion and these commenters actually did that, not only providing answers and guidance on many of the issues of Christmas process and procedure, but also giving wonderful peeks into their families and how Christmas has evolved for them over the years, first as children and now as adults.  For other Jews confused at Christmas just like Laura, or for non-Jews secretly curious to know whether they are celebrating Christmas correctly, Laura highly recommends reading the comments from that brant.

4)  Laura's sister Linda just joined Facebook.  Laura's not sure why she's including this nugget of news in her brant (you know, because she has such a selective editing process for what gets into her brant), but for some reason it just seems like the right thing to do.  Linda is two years older than Laura and she lives in suburban L.A. with her husband and two gorgeous kids, and despite being a talented painter and extremely organized and efficient SAHM she is a complete imbecile when it comes to computers.  Laura doesn't mean to sound cruel -- I mean, she could sugar-coat the whole thing and make it sound like Linda just isn't that into computers, but Laura's embracing this whole honesty thing right now (more on that later) and needs to come clean about everything and everyone she writes about. So the fact that Linda's one of those people who can't download an attachment and has trouble emailing a photo and who has just recently figured out how to use the texting function on her phone (Laura shouldn't talk in this regard, given the fact that she sent her first text in May -- 2008) means that going on Facebook is a huge leap for her.  For those of you on Facebook, Linda's wall is almost empty and so is her profile page, two tell-tale signs of technologically-challenged artiste types -- and Laura just knows that as she sits here branting, her sister is staring at her near-empty Facebook page, trying to figure out how to get some fucking (465) photos of her kids on there and how to search for friends from RISD '82.  So if you're trolling around Facebook and feel like doing Laura a huge favor, go find Linda Kosoff Zigman or Linda Zigman Kosoff and friend her so that Laura can stop worrying and get some sleep.

5)  Speaking of being technology-challenged, Laura's Blackberry got wet in Rhinebeck on Friday night and she's been without a working "Smart Phone" for almost 72 hours.  Over the weekend Laura and Colleen went to three different Verizon stores trying to extort a new Blackberry out of them but to no avail, so Laura must return to the 9th circle of hell tomorrow and hit her local Verizon store first thing in the a.m.  Laura doesn't know which is worse, Best Buy or Verizon, but she'll let you know tomorrow after what she's sure will be an incredibly frustrating experience (spoiler alert!  Laura is certain that she'll leave the Verizon store without a new phone and will instead have to wait 3 business days for one to be sent to her at home and then go back to the Verizon store to get all her data transferred and the phone activated...)

That's all for now.  More tomorrow unless Laura's pants are so tight by then she can't breathe...