Exercise in fusilli

So I watched Babies last week (alas, I am sworn to secrecy as to the circumstances surrounding where and with whom I watched it).  It was pretty much what I expected - an hour and a half of going between 4 babies' lives in 4 countries, following the emotional rollercoaster that is that first year of life.  I was very satisfied with the movie. (Note: I had been very heavily anticipating it. Um, hello! It's a movie of just a bunch of babies doing baby things!)

There is this one scene in the documentary that I know I will never forget.  The Japanese baby, Mari, is alone in a room, seated on the floor, with various toys scattered about her.  One of the toys is that tower of wooden stacking rings on a rod - it's dismantled, and she keeps picking up the rod and trying to get 1 or 2 of the rings on it... to no avail.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find this clip online (it's not one of the released teaser clips or in the trailer) so I will first admit that I cannot do this scene justice.  The absolute frustration and despair this girl feels as she keeps trying (and failing) to get the darn ring on the rod...  What an exquisite display of pure and unadulterated emotion.

So, let me TRY and set it up for you: Mari has just learned to sit up, so is not able to stand or walk yet. She's sitting on the floor, alone in a closed-off room of her family's Tokyo loft, and can really only just twist around and play with whatever's in reach at this point.  Her motor skills are obviously still developing.  She starts out by grabbing the rod with one hand then eyes one of the rings (usually the largest one) and slowly moves the rod across the ground over to the ring.  She begins manipulating the ring with her other hand and simultaneously moving the rod to go through the hole in the ring. The thing is, she can't sit without one hand on the ground for long or she loses her balance, so when she's trying with the other hand to put the ring on the rod it's in these jerk-like movements so she can quickly put her hand back down to support herself.  Every once in a while she'd get the ring to precariously be half on the rod, but then the slightest move would make it fall off and the ring would just wobble back flat onto the floor.  The intense concentration coupled with the frustration that Mari feels clearly escalates through the scene.  The first time she fails, she just opens her mouth and wails but quickly starts to try again.  The second and third times, her reaction becomes increasingly louder, longer, and more melodramatic (i.e. bursting out in tears, waving the rod in the air, screaming & moaning).  Towards the end of the scene, after her fourth or fifth try, she just gives in to her despair and rolls on her back and flops around, wailing, and tossing the rod aside.

Oh. My. God. Classic.

I was laughing so hard, no sound was coming out and no oxygen was reaching my brain. My neck and jaw actually hurt because I was laughing so hard, and they couldn't handle the force of my convulsing body.

Now, recently, I've been trying to restock our pantry with pasta.  My favorite brand is De Cecco, in the light blue and yellow box.  I think the Barefoot Contessa or Giada once said that was the only store-bought brand she used (you know, when she's not making it from scratch...)  Plus, I feel it's the only dry pasta I can get perfectly al dente at home. Anyway, I had gone to two different Vons, looking for De Cecco but come up empty handed.  I knew there was a store that I had gone to back in the day that always had a really good selection of De Cecco, but I couldn't remember which chain of grocery store it was.  So I made a special trip to Albertsons. They only had 2 types of De Cecco - spaghetti and penne.  I grabbed a box of spaghetti - to hold me over - but as my favorite type of pasta is linguine and I've been jonesing for some cheesy fusilli, my search continued.  After racking my brain a bit, I recalled it was a fancier supermarket where I'd bought them, so today, I drove 30 minutes out of the way to Whole Foods - thinking, yes, it must have been Whole Foods - and nearly threw a fit standing in their dry pasta aisle staring at all the NON-De Cecco pasta brands they had.  Flashes of Mari rolling around on the ground throwing the wooden rod to the floor were in my head... which of course, just made me laugh.  After swallowing the large lump of frustration, I just grabbed a bunch of Whole Foods' 365 brand crap noodles and stuffed them in my cart.  Instantly, I thought to myself - Gelson's.  It musta been Gelson's!!!

Argh.

There's a word in Korean that describes this feeling of extreme frustration - jjah-jjing-na. (I think the Mandarin equivalent would be - and forgive my poor pinyin - zen jin pin.)  When you feel "jjah-jjing-na" it's that type of frustration where you just want to shake your whole body, hands, head, and rapidly stomp your feet on the ground, tilt your head back, and scream (or howl or roar).  That's "jjah-jjing-na".

Let me just say, this whole pasta hunt...?  Got me jjah-jjing-na up the yin yang.