I love Howl’s Moving Castle. I read the book for the first time in 2012, after years of trying and not getting beyond a few pages. (Thank you, audiobook and Jenny Sterlin, for bringing me this story, and thank you Karen for continuing to insist on me trying again and again!) After the first read, I became obsessed. Obsessed = a dozen reads in a row, plus multiple reads of the sequels, plus other DWJ books, plus watching the movie version. If I had to choose between book and movie, I’d definitely go with the book version in terms of best. In my experience, whichever you see/read first tends to be the one you like better with this story. Either way, both are awesome as long as you don’t expect them to be the same. I love them both.
Which means I was really excited that Alamo Drafthouse was going to be showing Howl’s Moving Castle on screen in a pajama cereal party. That is as awesome as it sounds – you wear your pajamas and there’s an all-you-can-eat cereal buffet laid out for everyone. My friend Stephanie is also a huge fan of Howl – she saw the movie first, and would definitely go with the movie version in terms of best – so I got tickets for both of us to go together. The viewing was yesterday afternoon.
So…both of us forgot entirely about the pajamas-and-cereal portion of the show. Heh. We actually got together early so we could go collect our packets for the 5K we’re doing this morning. Then we got some iced coffee and hung out until movie time. While chatting over ice coffee, we discussed the dinners we were planning to get at Alamo Drafthouse (one of those dinner-and-movie places). I got myself all psyched up for fries, because fries are one of my biggest addictions ever. And after I was thinking about fries, cereal just didn’t sound all that good. Heh.
It’s silly to go to a pj-and-cereal party without pjs or cereal, but that we did! We sadly also missed the little build-your-own-Calcifer craft table (boo!). But other than that, we had an awesome time. It’s been awhile since I saw the movie and there were little things I’d forgotten completely. Plus I’d never seen it on a large screen, so it was a whole new experience. Stephanie first saw it in theatre when she was quite young, so this was a bit of a nostalgia trip for her as well. It was awesome!
Sadly, I forgot to get pictures of us at any point during our afternoon out. I’m sure to get some at the 5K today, though. Which speaking of, I need to end this post so I can get ready to go! Happy Sunday, y’all!
The Zen Leaf 
I wish we had a place like Alamo Drafthouse. Whenever you talk about going to events there, I am so jealous.
Seeing your photo of iced coffee did remind me that I forgot to comment on your iced coffee post the other day. That is almost exactly how my wife makes my iced coffee. She tweaked The Pioneer Woman’s recipe too. I live on iced coffee…although people around here don’t get it, especially when it’s so cold out. Me? I drink it year-round.
You need to work on getting more photos. 🙂 I really want to see this place too. That said, I look forward to seeing your photos of your 5K.
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If you and your wife ever come down this area, I’ll take y’all to Drafthouse! It’s really an awesome place, even for non-party events. They have strict no-talking no-phone policies and people who disobey get booted. The menu is great and there’s an atmosphere of camaraderie in the theatre. My cousin introduced me to Drafthouse a couple summers ago and I got hooked. Tickets are more expensive than normal, but I also get some free ones and that works for me in the end. I dont’ go often enough to sweat the cost.
So I gotta ask – how did you wife tweak the pioneer woman’s recipe. Right now I’m still finding the right balance in my iced, and I’d love to hear what other people have done.
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Half a brick of Cafe Bustelo, a gallon of water, 24 hours, sit for 24 hours, then strain it through No. 6 filters into 2 half gallon pitchers. Just asked her before she headed off to bed after a 12-hour shift. “That’s really it,” she said.
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Ah, that makes sense. The giant buckets we used couldn’t pour into filters so I had to use ladles and cheese cloth and all the rest. The french press seems ot be working, just gotta keep tweaking the ratios for the best taste.
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good luck with the 5k, movie sounds great anyways
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Have you seen it? It’s really wonderful. I love Miyazaki.
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I love Howl! I had forgotten how great the book was until I re-read it for a podcast episode and fell in love all over again.
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I just finished re-listening to the audiobook last night, and even though I KNOW how much I love that book, I STILL fell in love all over again!
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I just finished the audio (again!) yesterday — it’s one of my all-time favorite books, and my favorite Miyazaki movie. Are you a Miyazaki fan? I started a new obsession with anime last year, one of the movie theaters is showing Studio Ghibli movies on the big screen once a month. I saw Kiki’s Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, and The Tale of Princess Kaguya, and now I want to watch all of them — there’s another series just starting on the Maryland side so I’m going to try and watch more of them on the big screen. I also found a great podcast from the UK called Ghibliotheque that has 30 minute podcasts on all the movies.
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I just finished the audio too!
I’ve seen a few Miyazaki films – Howl, Totoro, Kiki, and Arrietty. None on screen except of course for Howl now. I really want to watch a few others, especially Spirited Away. How exciting that you have a theatre near you showing so many!
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