The Dark Horse

We forgot to set the VCR timer for the Academy Awards (yes, there is a parallel universe where TiVo doesn't exist)...so as soon as we dropped the family off at their hotel we scrambled home to check out the winners.
I was so, so wrong. Like a gazillion other people, I was 99.9% certain Brokeback would be the big winner. Richard initially thought so too, but just a few days ago he said, "Crash is the dark horse. I think it'll take Best Picture." He definitely has an intuitive streak.
I'm completely delighted by this, by the way. Brokeback is a remarkable love story, but Crash says more about our state of affairs than any movie in recent memory. We own a copy of Crash and have watched it several times, while I don't think I'll want to see Brokeback again.
I was also wrong about Best Animated Feature; I was positive The Corpse Bride would take it.
I was fairly certain Felicity Huffman would get Best Actress. Bzzztt.
Yet I did get Seymore-Hoffman, Crash for Best Original Screenplay, and March of the Penguins (big deal, right?).

We had a glorious day of snow-free sunshine and took advantage of it: A stroll to the conservatory (so nice to see green at this time of year!), a tour of David's new house, and yummy burgers at Red Robin. Richard's poor mum was ready to collapse by the end of the day; she woke up at 5:30 and went for a swim hours before the rest of us were even stirring, and the cold really aggravated her asthma throughout the evening.
Tomorrow: the big mall, as Richard's brother-in-law Phil has never seen it, then dinner at a posh steak place near our building. (Richard's boss gave him gift certificates after he painted the car mural in his basement, and we've been saving them for this visit).

I'll have to post some pics of David and Char's pups. Hutch is a 3-month-old German Shepherd with gigantic paws and ears; Simba is some kind of Chow mix who's extremely suspicious of just about everyone. She kept sneaking up on us and studying us like, "What are all these @#$* people doing in my house?"