Grown-Up Week End

My children are not here.

They are visiting their grandparents at the lake. Fishing, swimming, roasting things and a giant slide are all on the itinerary.

As we, the adults, were not invited, my husband and I have been party-ing like it's 2002.

We went out to two movies last night, with dinner between, a dinner sandwich if you will, and we plan to go out again tonight.

We saw Super 8

and Bridesmaids

So good.

I cried a lot, and now I have a crush on Chris O'Dowd.

There were some bizarre similarities between those movies, beyond their cinematic excellence.

Both had a small role for Michael Hitchcock (some of my favorite moments from A Mighty Wind are of his interaction with Bob Balaban), the name of the town in Super 8 was Lillian and that was also the name of Maya Rudolph's character in Bridesmaids and both featured projectile vomiting (which had me roaring with laughter every time)

Bridesmaids was so real, and so funny.

I used to be kind of a gregarious person in high school. My friends and I would talk and laugh loudly and act foolishly often, in public, and without care, and a little exhibitionism, if the truth be told.

I thought that part of me was buried (or that I was more mature than my 16 year-old self) and maybe it was the margarita I had with dinner, but I was pretty uncontrollable last night. I haven't howled and roared with laughter in a public place like that in some time. (I don't really think it was the margarita, since Brian was just as out of control himself)

But then, balancing the insane hilarity was a tender story line about a woman who loses everything and then tries to reassemble her life.

And Super 8 was just exactly what I had hoped it would be.

Part ET, part The Goonies, all J.J.Abrams.

J. J. Abrams is my new favorite director. All the imagination of George Lucas, with none of his tendency to overpopulate the screen with useless and irritating characters.

The storytelling was lean, the children who acted in this movie were so talented, the suspense worked really well and the payoff was perfect. This movie was exciting, and a little over the top, but just enough to be fun.

When we were dating, Brian and I would go to the movies every Friday, sometimes we'd see more than one in a week if the schedule was promising.

As we grew closer to the birth of The Elder, we realized we were going to have to make some major changes in our leisure time activities and going to the movies was high on the list of things to cut out of our plans.

About a week before she was born we went to 3 movies in one day, since we knew it would be our last time out for a while -

Master and Commander:The Far Side of the World, The Matrix Revolutions and Love, Actually.

We got burned on that movie marathon day. Matrix Revolutions was so bad, I still want those 2 hours back. We should have just stuck to the other two and that day would have been as fun and satisfying as yesterday was.

Sunday it's back to our summertime plans, lots of park time, lots of visiting with friends we only see in the summer, it will be fantastic. I miss the kids, and I miss doing the kids' favorite things.

Until Saturday afternoon, though, the clock has been turned back and we are probably going to go to the movies again tonight! Unless the weather turns around and then maybe we'll have a quiet dinner out.

The possibilities are quite endless.

Have a great Friday