I’m watching “Death on the Nile” (1978) based on the Agatha Christie novel of the same name, featuring Hercule Poirot.

Angela Lansbury is in the movie as a famous naughty romance novel author of the early 1900s. She’s just horribly entertaining dancing the tango. And everything else she does in this movie. She was also great in “Nanny McPhee” (2006) and I loved her in “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” (1971) and “The Court Jester” (1956) with Danny Kaye. And, obviously, “Murder, She Wrote.” And as Mrs. Potts in “Beauty and the Beast” (1991) and the voice of Mommy Fortuna in “The Last Unicorn” (1982) - which, incidentally, features the voice talents of Mia Farrow who is also in “Death on the Nile.”

Anyway - she’s just great and I thought I’d mention it.

Last night was really great. My friend Janice’s husband threw her a surprise birthday party and my friends and I were her distraction while he got the house set up and guests arrived. He called her home to watch the kids while he ran out to take care of something, and then we followed her about 10 minutes later. She was totally surprised and there were tons of people at her house who wanted to be there to celebrate the wonderfulness of her! I spent a good portion of the evening talking to her 10 year-old daughter since she remembered me as “that girl! The one at my birthday last year!” since I helped with her birthday sleepover then. We talked about the haunted locker rooms at her elementary school. It was entertaining.

Anyway, I got home at 12:30 or so and woke up early this morning to go to breakfast with Theresa, Kofi and Elizabeth. We had a great time eating breakfast and talking and laughing and then listening to a cover of the Beatles’ “Michelle” by an old Jewish man named Sam Chalpin. It’s horrible, but it’s meant to be… I HOPE. Probably not. Oh, well. We laughed even more.

While the weather was still nice (because this evening, the entire New York metro area is in a state of blizzard watch/winter storm warning) we went to a few stores and Theresa got some new winter boots and I set aside my new spring jacket. Which has now been purchased. It’s pretty sweet - I will take photos later.

Otherwise, I’m just sitting here, watching a movie, burning my pomegranate candle for a change (since I’ve been burning the fig one lately) and thinking about whether I should watch another movie after this or read “Nurse Matilda”, the stories upon which “Nanny McPhee” is based.

Oh - and my little brother’s girlfriend has a fever and is not feeling well, so I’ve been helping him nurse her back to health a bit by making soup and tea and reading up on WebMD to make sure it’s not the flu.

I wonder if we’ll get this major snow event they’re predicting. It’s snowing, but it’s not nearly heavy enough at this point to amount to a major snow event, even overnight. OK. I just checked my Weather Channel toolbar and it says light snow tonight, blizzard tomorrow a.m. OK. We’ll just see about that. If we do have blizzard conditions, there will be photographic evidence right here.

Dude. Mia Farrow plays a crazy crazy bitch in this movie, but not without good reason. She falls in love with a guy and they plan to marry, gets him a job being a caretaker for her rich friend’s property, and this friend promptly snatches him away from her and marries him. They go on their honeymoon to Egypt and wherever they go, there she is. They go to the temples at Carnac, and she just shows up and starts announcing the measurements of the statues. They go to the Great Pyramid, and she shows up and starts announcing the measurements of the pyramids. They accuse her of stalking them, and she just laughs. Someone’s going to die soon… maybe it’s her.

Mmm. I think I will go curl up in bed and watch the movie then read.