Avoided going to the movies this weekend in order to cleanse my film palette before the film festival begins in earnest on friday, but then got invited over for an excellent impromptu dinner party and movie viewing. Awesome pasta and meatballs and garlic bread and hot brownies with ice cream. I was so well fed. The movie was Zodiac, which I'd seen on the big screen, but really holds up to a second viewing.

Sunday, K. and I went food shopping, replaced some broken doorknobs, and spent a few hours cutting down tree limbs and grapes vines, in order to stop our backyard forest from escaping too far into our neighbors' properties. As always, the birds were unenthusiastic about our cataclysmic renovations to their avian metropolis.

After that, I made way too much chicken salad and then went off to play City of Villains while watching America's Next Top Model, CW sitcoms, and that latest BBC version of Sense and Sensibility (because I'm a big girl apparently). I don't feel too strongly about any of the contestants on ANTM this season, but I think Claire is my favorite even though she's the leader of the show's mean girls. It's too bad all the personality in her face shuts off when the camera's on her because she's quite lovely the rest of the time.