My wife and I went out for my birthday last week. We have an unwritten rule that whoever arranges for the babysitter gets to pick the movie. She almost always gets to pick out the movie. The one exception is for birthdays so I, for once, got to pick. I get Entertainment Weekly so I had the chance to over-analyze my options. I chose The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind because it got good reviews and I liked some of the screenwriter’s previous works (Adaptation and Being John Malkovich). And because it was a movie that I know my wife would never have picked on herself.
Like Kaufman’s other movies, it was very surreal. More surreal than the one with the two Nicholas Cage’s in it, but not quite as surreal as the one with the dozens of John Malkovich’s in it. I got a kick out of it, but Chris thought it was too bizarre. She was especially annoyed with the fact that I was enjoying it.
It is about a couple who decide to have their memories of each other erased after they break up. It was not your typical romantic comedy. Half the movie takes place within the mind of the lead character while he is REM sleep. The “dream state” special effects were great.
I thought the plot was intriguing, but about every ten minutes Chris would turn to me in the theater and give me a glare that telegraphed “why did you subject me to this movie?”
I would recommend the movie, but Chris was ready to have the last two hours of the her life erased after it was over.
We have 71 channels of cable TV. Four of them run Law and Order continually and five of them are shopping channels. I dislike the idea that I have to pay for the latter channels. I have programmed my remotes to skip them.
Apparently due to the penetration of cable, my local broadcasters no longer have an audience on weekend mornings. All of them were running paid advertising around the noon. Since I haven’t blocked my local ABC affiliate (even after their censorship of Ted Koppel), I happened to run across its infomercial for the “Total Trolley.” I am not proud to admit that I was mesmerized by the product. Despite the stilted banter, I could not change the channel. The Total Trolley is a combination hand truck/cart/dolly/ladder. A sort of folding Transformer toy for grown men. I even was moved to google them because I wanted to know the price before they were ready to tell me. I had flashbacks of carrying my heavy TV to the repair shop last year. And of lugging 40lb handbell cases to concerts for years. Man, what a cool invention.
Bu I never got to the point of commitment: the half hour passed without me picking up the phone. Even though I don’t have a dolly, I just couldn’t picture explaining the rash purchase to my wife. Besides, with a house full of vaulted ceilings, I already had three ladders of various sizes in the garage.
For once, wizer heads prevailed. But if it had been WiFi capable, I would have grabbed my VISA.
Recently, for the first time, Claire made it through dinner at a restaurant. The first few times we took Claire to a restaurant, she would get fussy about the time the food arrived and one of the adults, usually me, would have to wolf down their meal and take Claire to the car and sit with her while the rest of the family would dine in piece. It got old fast.
We then learned to stagger our arrival. Chris would take the older girls to the restaurant first and pick something off the menu for me (Hopefully something I would be in the mood for) and I would arrive with Claire 40 minutes later, just as the food wouldarrive, and we would eat together.
Now we have optimized the process even further. We can get faster service if we go in the middle of the afternoon when the restaurant is not busy (and none of us are hungry). We then all must order the buffet so we all get to eat immediately. If Chris and I take turns watching and queueing then we can prevent little fingers from getting into anything (other than the food). We, of course, feed ourselves last.
We still are rushed, but we get to arrive and leave in the same car at the same time! A small victory.