Ritz crackers: a review.

Recently on the Facebooks, a friend posted the following:

to which I replied:

This weekend, I found myself at Target. (I know.) I got some cleaning supplies and bobby pins and a box of Ritz Crackers. Because it had been a long time (been a long time been a long time been a long lonely lonely lonely lonely lonely time), and I needed to see what they were like. You know, science.

I am here to tell you that between me and the historian and Bruiser, who polished off half a sleeve of them, they are gone gone gone. All of the Ritz Crackers are gone.

I suppose this means that

(a) they are delicious.

It can't be denied. They are crunchy (the effect of some horrible, who knows how horrible? fat), yet they are soft. Their flour is probably some weird hybrid between soft wheat and, like, marshmallows. They are salty yet they are sweet. You can put a slice of cheese on them, or you can eat them in a stack. One at a time, but still: a stack.

I think from the above analysis, we can also say that

so golden & delicious. like salty-sweet-crunchy-soft crack cocaine.

(b) they are dangerous.

Dogs will leap up onto a table to get them. Well, not leap up, but put their front paws up. People (some people) will eat them directly from the sleeve in the car on the way home from Target. And surreptitiously sneak a short stack (less than five) from the cupboard, if you can get them into the cupboard, and then return for another short stack, or even a tall stack! Until they are gone gone gone.

(c) addictive? like crunchy yet soft, salty yet sweet things are prone to be.

Last night before I went to sleep I had to give myself a talking to about things, like taking better care of myself, eating food that makes me feel good, this and that and whatnot. I was alternately compassionate and stern with myself, and I'm pretty sure that the Ritz Consumption Orgy of Late March 2014 factored in somehow. The people, I ask you: why is it that all day long one can think salad and vegetables with great happiness and equanimity, but by the end of the day, one is all CHEESECAKE?  Why?

Several important events have happened today.

1. Poem comes out of the manuscript. This is the shaggy manuscript that hardly anyone has read. I was recently reading this manuscript on a plane, making notes on the poems, thinking of alternative sequences, acting the part of a poet with my pen in hand, when I happened upon a short poem, just eight lines, in couplets. I got immediately overcome with the tedium of my task, closed the manuscript, and turned to some other activity, like thinking about how much I wanted to get off that plane.

Fast forward three weeks. I have the manuscript open, I'm making notes, considering my previous notes, etc. etc., when I come upon the same short poem. And was immediately overcome with the tedium of the task, closed the manuscript, and turned to some other activity, like "lying on my bed" without the distraction of "editing."

That poem is outta there.

2. My camera is in the mail. A few days ago, I started getting a glitchy shutter and an error code on my camera. WOE. After googling the matter, the consensus seemed to be that I had to send it to the factory. Across the country. To be fixed. WOE. So now I am waiting with bated breath for the healing to begin.

3. I have fully contemplated and comprehended the depths of my indolence. It is deep, the people. Deep.

4. Granola that you have made yourself is an all-purpose snack. That is all.

Not too bad.

Anybody besides me nurture a secret little affection for the not-too-bad movie? Tonight we saw Bonneville, a movie that should have been wonderful because it had Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, and Joan Allen, not to mention Christine Baranski. Sadly, its plotting was wildly unimaginative and the characters were repurposed Thelma and Louise plus one, and the pace, well, the pace was sedate, to put it kindly. If someone were to ask me, "Was the movie good?" I would have to answer, "No, the movie was not good."

The historian asked me whether the film had touched a nerve--and why not? The main character's husband dies, his daughter from a previous marriage acts all peremptory about his remains, not to mention the house the main character lives in, which she owns because the husband never quite got around to changing his will after the second marriage. Plus the characters are Mormons. It's quite possible that the outlines of all that might parallel to some of my own anxieties. But I had to say, "Well, yes, but honestly, it would have probably moved me more if it had been a better movie."

Still: sometimes, I am not up to watching a great work of art. Sometimes, I am not even up to being entertained too strenuously. Sometimes I am just fine with watching a movie that doesn't tear it up all over the screen, being perfect and unattainable and getting all you couldn't make this movie in a million years on me. Sometimes I am just fine with a movie that delivers small pleasures like seeing Jessica Lange's beautiful face looking just the age she is, and Joan Allen's quite perfect impersonation of a Mormon woman who really, really wants to be good. And the settings, many of them in Utah, are beautiful. And the not-too-searching parallels with my own worries and fears--that was just fine too.

It's like being hungry. Who wouldn't like a thrillingly delicious snack? But if you're hungry and there is no thrillingly delicious snack to be had, then saltines aren't a bad substitute. In fact, when you're hungry, sometimes saltines are just the thing.

Bonus: the movie had a beautiful Pete Droge song on the soundtrack--you can hear it to your right by clicking the play button in the "Pretty Music" feature of this blog.