Tag Archives: shutter island

Family matters

Date Night Nine really was one big holiday

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9/52
Project 52: Date Nights logo

  • A set of SuperGrandparents.
  • A bit of entirely unscheduled free time.
  • Good friends.
  • Concert tickets.

    • My in-laws had signed on a few months ago to watch the kids for us this past weekend so we could go to a My Morning Jacket show. Then my sister-in-law had an unexpected need for help, for the very same weekend. Her husband was going to be in Haiti on a mission trip, and she had to take one of her four children out of town for an academic awards thing. Rather than dragging everyone along, she’d asked my in-laws to come stay with half of her brood. I was thinking that academics + social service took precedent over my desire to go to a concert, so I volunteered to stay home. But the in-laws just donned their superhero capes and said, “Nope! We’ll just pick the kids up on our way through and take them along.”

    All of this is to say: Rockford and I found ourselves with an unexpected and glorious swath of free time on Thursday evening. We went out for pizza, wandered around the bookstore almost until it closed, took an aimless walk and then went to a movie (“Shutter Island“). It was a spectacular date. But the free time? It wasn’t over! On Friday morning we went to the library and then to Lowe’s, where we bought a new weed whacker. (I know! So much romance!) Then we drove and drove and drove to Mike and Brook’s house, had a great barbecue dinner and then went to the concert.

    After a nice breakfast Saturday morning, we drove and drove and drove some more to my sister-in-law’s house, where we re-entered the world of diapers and fruit snacks and arguing about taking antibiotics. I did miss the kids — really! — but our extended Thursday-Friday date was some of the most relaxing time Rockford and I have spent together in, well, years maybe.

    Flotsam / Jetsam, Screen time

    On movies, dishes, dads and seeds

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  • We saw “Up in the Air” last night. It was a well-made movie, I suppose, but I found it pretty depressing. Possibly because Rockford is on the road quite a bit, and now I’m going to have to assume he’s cuddling on a boat whenever he’s away. (Even if it’s Milwaukee in February.) It was, however, not such a chore to watch 1 hour and 49 minutes of the entirely dreamy George Clooney.
  • Wow, there are a lot of dishes sitting on the counter, waiting to be washed.
  • I’ve been having smoothies every morning for breakfast. My frozen fruit stock is down to blueberries and raspberries this morning, which means I’m having a Very Seedy Smoothie. Like, Harvey Keitel in “Monkey Trouble” seedy. In other words, way seedy.
  • My dad has been visiting this week, and this morning he left for my brother’s, to help him with the plumbing in his own personal, never-ending episode of “This Old House.” The upshot of this for me is that there is one melancholy girl here today (and one boy who keeps saying, “Papa? Where is Papa?”)
  • I read “Shutter Island” a few years ago, and I can’t remember how it ends. This is driving me a little batso. Enough so to read it again? Unlikely. And I’m not sure I want to see the movie, because the previews creep me out quite proficiently.
  • Also. I sent an email to Phillips last week, because a light bulb in a brand-spankin’-new package was useless and also dead already. (Yes, I’m a complaint-letter person. I’m crotchety that way.) I got an email back from them this morning. It said, “Dear [ButterscotchSundaeLastName],you will receive a refun within 15 buss.days.” Which is nice and all. I like refunds. But oh the humanity, at least run some spellcheck before you hit send, Phillips.