Movie Meme Brought to You by the Letter D

cindergal assigned me the letter D, as in list ten movies that I like that begin with it. D turned out to be a surprisingly difficult letter. I suppose it would have been easier if I'd seen any of the Diehard movies.

In no particular order:

Dead Poets’ Society--I love this film. The first time I saw it, I was knocked into silence for several hours. Carpe diem, the central theme, inspired me to pick up and move to Newfoundland to study whales for my MSc.

The Devil Wears Prada--Good fun. Meryl Streep was deliciously nasty.

Dead Man Walking--This was a tough film to watch, and it stayed with me for a long time afterwards.

Driving Miss Daisy--I haven't seen this one in years, but I remember enjoying it at the time.

Danny Deckchair--I watched this one on a flight from the Netherlands to home. It's a fun bit of fluff.

Dave--One of my sister's favourite movies. Kevin Kline does a great job of portraying two completely different men.

Dazed and Confused--I'm a little too young to say that this was my high school experience, but it was close, and I'd say it was dead on for a friend's older sister.

Death Becomes Her--I'm not sure that this movie has stood the test of time, but I thought it was pretty funny when I first saw it. Mind you, I thought Ishtar was hilarious the first time too (::deep shame::), though it didn't take long for the bloom to fade from that rose.

Dead Zone--One of my father's favourite movies. I never saw it in the cinema, but he said that the truck sliding down the hill towards the car at the beginning was very impressive on the big screen.

101 Dalmations--Yeah, I'm cheating here. I couldn't find another title starting with D that I'd seen and liked! In any event, I'm referring to the original cartoon version, not the remake.

Want to play? Let me know and I'll give you a letter.

I Spam Yew

Except without actual yews.

I had intended to spend today working on Chapter 5 of Wish You Were Here, but it was warm and sunny, so doing some work in the garden and a swim in the pool won out. There's a big (about 30 feet long) garden in front of the house that, with the exception of a few hostas, was totally grown over with grass and weeds when we moved in. I don't have much experience with gardening, and this particular garden is a challenge for three reasons:

1. It's underneath two very large trees; therefore, shady.
2. One of the trees is a black walnut, which leaches juglone into the soil around it. Juglone is toxic to many other plants.
3. The soil is has the approximate density of concrete and is full of rocks.

My mother, sister, and cousin came down for a weekend in June and helped me dig everything up, expunge as much of the grass and weeds as we could, and plant juglone-tolerant plants. (Which yews aren't.) I should have taken a 'before' picture, but I didn't think of it until too late. I took a bunch of 'after' ones today.

The mulch in the photos is cocoa bean shell mulch, which makes the garden smell like chocolate. :-)

( Garden picspam under the cut. )