Mongolian Misunderstanding

We went to see Mongol, a retelling of the life of Genghis Khan, a few weeks ago and were quite impressed. It was very well done, if a bit bloody. Although, as Afshin remarked, considering the subject matter, he's not sure why he was surprised at the gore. Aside from one particular scene (which simply didn't need to be shown in closeup—we knew what was going on without the helpful zoom on some poor bastard's mangled face), I didn't mind the blood: it was largely of the decoratively-splattering, balletically-arcing variety.

It was a rather long movie, but compelling. I found myself engrossed by the misadventures of Temudjin as he grew from a somewhat imperious little boy into a—let's face it—pretty badass man. His wife Borte was pretty awesome, too, as was the actor who played Jamukha (Honglei Sun). Actually, Sun came perilously close to stealing the whole show. Fantastic performance. Anyway, toward the end of the film, there was a scene in which Temudjin is all kitted out in armor, with his flowing hair and impressive helmet, at which point I thought, "Damn! He looks a lot like Genghis Khan!" And then I remembered what the movie was about—not some random Mongolian guy named Temudjin, some Mongolian guy named Temudjin who grows up to be Genghis Khan. Riiiight.

You can check out the trailer below; I promise the film was far better than the trailer would suggest. It's evidently the first of a trilogy.

Injury Report

So Afshin bought a brand-spanking-new mandoline. (This one, in fact.) Very handy for slicing and dicing. Knowing my propensity for injuring myself, Afshin didn't want me to use it. But I needed to slice a large quantity of ginger (finely, I might add), so I requested permission to use it. (He got first slice.) All was going well, especially as I was using the helpfully included hand guard...except when I needed to reposition the ginger. And I slipped. And nearly lopped off a chunk of my thumb and thumbnail. Well, the sliver of nail is indeed gone; the skin is still marginally attached.

I'm finding things rather difficult to do without a fully functional right thumb. Oh, and I'm not allowed to use Afshin's mandoline anymore.

Panic! In the Dressing Room (I know, lame joke.)

A couple of days ago I was in a shop, trying on a few dresses. Er, many dresses. And quite a few blouses. Basically I was trying to find something that fit and looked reasonably nice. (Since I've gained so much weight, my cleavage has become lethal.) Hence I found myself standing in one of my least favorite places in the world: a communal dressing room. Even worse, this communal dressing room was actually a tiny storeroom lined with mirrors. I managed to carve out a spot, hanging my dresses on the handle of a moving dolly.

At one point toward the end of this awkward process, I poked my head out of a shirt...and found myself staring at the ceiling, transfixed—by a giant effing roach. I considered screaming and running out into the store, half-clothed as I was. I reconsidered. I didn't want to start a panic in the dressing room. I stared at the roach. It was so big I thought, briefly, that it was a joke. It looked like one of those fake rubber cockroaches. But then I saw the feelers twitch just enough to confirm my fears. It was indeed real. I finished changing, barely taking my eyes off the roach long enough to check in the mirror to determine whether the shirt looked good or not. (It didn't.) I ducked my head and ran out, just in case the roach decided to choose that moment to go all Mission: Impossible and drop on me. (It didn't.)

Upon exiting, I found one of the employees and whispered to her, "Just so you know, there's a giant roach on the ceiling of the dressing room."
"A what?"
"A giant roach."

Her eyes widened. She grabbed another employee, and the two of them ventured into the dressing room. They both shrieked. Then they got caught in the curtain in the doorway and yanked down the curtain rod. Then they hollered for the one male employee in the store and made him dispatch with the roach.

All in all, it was a generally icky day.