It was a great holiday weekend. After the Thanksgiving gorge-fest, the eating continued on Friday with a mid-day brunch at Sotto Vocce in Park Slope that included free mimosa refills. Mmm. That night I saw "Finding Neverland." I thought it was a sweet, touching movie with solid performances by Johnny Depp and the children who inspired J.M. Barrie to write "Peter Pan." I also cracked up laughing in the very first scene of the movie when I noticed that a theater usher was played by Mackenzie Crook, who also starred as Gareth in "The Office." All in all, I’d recommend the movie even though it could have been better. I was hoping it would be more like "Shakespeare in Love" where we actually see the playwright struggle through the process of composing the work. Although we see how Barrie was touched by the children and his infatuation with Neverland, pirate ships, jungles and Indians, the film doesn’t explore his creative process to its full potential.

On Saturday, I played "The Game." Thanks to Val and Jon for being excellent hosts! What is "The Game", you may ask? It is a combination of Pyramid, Charades and Password, made especially fun when the words range from "Bosnia Herzegovina" to "Mr. T" to "Bed Bath and Beyond" to "Dildo" to "Libertarians." A great group of 14 gathered in Astoria for the fun. Here’s hoping for an encore!

Sunday was spent relaxing and watching "The Godfather" for the umteenth time. Now that I’ve read the followup novel, I’m going back to watch the original films. I didn’t realize that "The Simpsons" was on last night (the TV listings said that it wasn’t) and was very annoyed this morning when I found out that I missed it. My co-worker wants to trade funny quotes with me but I’m unable to participate.

And now another work week has arrived!