Monday, February 13, 2006

Curious

Monday’s usually my day to stay home and write. This week, the prospect was particularly welcome. Alas, it was not to be. Two feet of snow make the daycare ladies reluctant to shovel themselves out of their driveways; daycare was closed and the dear one and I had to find some diversions.

So, we saddled up the little stroller and headed off to the mall for the noon showing of “Curious George.” With tons of snow on the ground, rapidly melting, this was a calculated risk. I allowed an hour. The walk was long and slushy, but the dear one eagerly accepted our game of having to hop out and walk through the slush and then hop back in when the sidewalks were clear. We got to the theater fifteen minutes early.

I must say, however, that movie-going ranks up there with airline travel these days. How did something once so glamorous become so jarringly uncivilized? I paid my $12 for an adult and a three-year-old and got eight singles in change. They don’t stock juice or even lemonade let alone milk, so we (? I) settled on water. I paid my $3.50 for a small bottle of got five dimes in change. We settled down in the theater with all the other parents and toddlers and, by 12:30, the film still hadn’t started. The projectionist was stuck in traffic. There was no announcement, no apology, nothing: only word passed, parent to parent, in patient exasperation. Finally, the movie began, a full hour late. (It’s an 86-minute film.) I did run into another family in the (dreaded) Disney store afterwards (likely also buying an overpriced treat to placate a patient dear one) and learned that the manager, if I could find her, was passing out free admission coupons. I rammed the stroller back up the escalator and got two.

The movie, by the way, is very, very sweet. The dear one loved it and laughed aloud often and wept inconsolably when it ended. (But that was partly from the combination of pleasure, exhaustion, and the huge bag of peanut M & Ms that stood in for the lunch we no longer had time to get.) The man in the yellow hat works at the Bloomsberry Museum—a nice touch—which looks to be about where the Museum of Natural History is in New York and, in another nice touch, takes a ship called the H. A. Rey to Africa.

Curiouser, and more to the point, also bookish, I’ve been invited to join the Lit Blog Co-op. Overcome and flattered, I accepted immediately. We’ll see what the next quarter brings. For now, I am awaiting my first assignments and ordering the current READ THIS selection, Garner by Kirstin Allio. As a longtime and, I thought, distant admirer of the enterprise, I feel a little like, well, I don’t know. I’m excited!

8 comments:

lucy tartan said...

Good for you, Anne!

Anonymous said...

Hmmm...

It sounds like your experience was pretty bad, but I don't really remember going to the movies as being something glamorous. I do remember going on an airplane flight as a child and thinking I'd better put on a coat and tie for the occasion.

Movie theaters, though the screens have gotten smaller, are cleaner and more professionally run now than they ever were when I was growing up. It used to be that the floors were coated with a soda-popcorn paste that smacked as you walked through it, the chairs were ratty and uncomfortable, and if anyone sat in front of you, you couldn't see the screen.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the review on CG. Our babysitter has been out with the flu, so we're considering packing up both kids tonight for a Valentine's movie date for the family—movie tix $$ x 4. Both CG and Hoowinked were on the list (boys, ages 4+7).

And welcome to the LBC! I am thrilled you've joined us. Wendi

Unknown said...

Wendi: Enjoy the film, whichever you choose and thanks to you--and Lucy, too!--for the good words about the LBC.

Dave: I remember the bad seats and all the garbage, but I also remember bright lights on the marquees--so sparkly and shiny. It was very shabby, but there was a real glamour for me. I remember going to the Harvard Exit (in Seattle) and how they had free Market Spice tea in an old samovar and real popcorn. It's funny: you're totally right about how awful the seats were but I think back fondly on those nights at the Harvard Exit or the Brattle (in Cambridge), craning my neck, yes, but feeling like being at the movies was incredibly special (and affordable). There was interesting music and maybe even a short film instead of some dumb slide show of idiotic trivia (i.e. Britney Spears got her start on what kind of kids vairiety show?)

Anonymous said...

I don't mind the slide shows so much, but now theaters in my area have started the "pre-show entertainment" -- incredibly loud commercials and other crap, up to 20 minutes before showtime. Just you wait till they come to your neck of the woods. You'll be pining for the old days of cheesy auto dealer ads and stupid Bruce Willis trivia!

amcorrea said...

Congrats! How exciting!

Anonymous said...

The only question I ask is, why did it take LBC so long to ask you? As Dan W. would say, Enjoy.

And now, some cinema questions - a kid's film? an HOUR late? what were those projectioners doing for God's sakes? Were they never children?

Michelle said...

Congratulations, Anne!