Shortly before leaving Tulsa this last time, I made a kindred movie friend.
We both grew up in heavy movie households, and watching them made up a good portion of our separate but similar childhoods. Mine, however, was cluttered with a sibling whose love for film far surpassed mine. He had a part time job at a movie store with a middle aged scratchy voiced chain smoking lady named Nadine. His Friday and Saturday nights were spent retrieving movies from the back while she sat and took cash from an archaic register, and though he smelled like a chain smoker after leaving, his role got us movie discounts. My movie style made him crazy. He rarely, if ever, watched a film twice. He went through new movies like Nadine went threw cartons of cigarettes. I, however, adore watching the films that I love over and over and over until I know every single word and can laugh before the punch line is delivered to ensure I am able to say the punch line along with the actor. I remember picking out Troop Beverly Hills one Saturday and then watching his temper flare. Renting a movie about girl scouts trying to win the cookie selling competition in Beverly Hills wasn't strange for your average nine year old girl. His flared temper, however, had something to do with the fact that I had already rented it three times prior. My movie friend, the one I recently made, gets why I would do such a thing, and it was our first conversation about this trait that, I think, solidified in our heads the fact that we should be friends.
After arriving back in Tulsa this last time our first plans to hang out were a given: Rachel McAdams and the morning show movie at the dollar theater. I arrived at her lovely home around seven. I had been thinking about my goal of eating in and saving money, but that's about it. I just thought about it, and thought about it more, without actually changing any behavior. Being in her home was inspiration. "We don't eat out", she said. She's a newly wed and that's how they make it. They eat at home. She had just prepared a bean salad, which I have already replicated twice, and she was in the process of making popcorn for us to take along to the Theater. This was brilliant to me. She wasn't just popping microwave popcorn. She was heating the oil on the stove, putting the kernels in, moving the pan around, and literally MAKING POPCORN. This must have been where our childhoods differed. In my house, microwave popcorn was the only kind to be found, and theater popcorn was the only kind to be consumed at the theater. I felt like my world was opening up while sitting at her bar, watching her multi-task, listen, and move the pan, trying to engage without burning our treat.
The movie was a let down. We both agreed. But the company, as well as the food tricks I learned that evening, were worth all one-hundred and seventy-five pennies of my budget.
This past Friday evening, day two of my attempt to Immaculatize, a movie was in order. It had been a rough day for me, my roommate was up for seeing a flick as well, and I had a gift card which made it pseudo-free. We decided on something light hearted, and she brought up movie theater popcorn. I said we could totally get some for her, and referred back to the moment with the friend in the kitchen, pre-movie, popping her from scratch pseudo-free popcorn. This time I was in my kitchen pre-movie, but a multi-tasking friend was present still. Kyla worked on her project while she walked me through the process, and a few minutes after beginning, I had my bag of movie theater popcorn. It was an immaculate success. And this time, the movie, Twisted, wasn't a bust. We both agreed.
My first attempt at on-the-stove popcorn!
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