Staying Entertained

My daughter never stops talking. Or singing. In this moment, she informed me, she is Angiella, the movie star. (I’d have said Drama Queen, but she wouldn’t appreciate that.)

We’ve had a (long) interesting week. We haven’t gotten outside nearly as much as I wanted, due to stubborn refusal on her part. I hate to make everything into a fight, so I’ve read and watched movies. I saw Angels & Demons, which I liked. (Tom Hanks had better hair in this one) I explored the free offerings of my tv service. I finished several books. Yesterday, bored out of my skull, we went to Belmar to see a movie in a theater. This isn’t something we do very often, since most of the dreck that passes for children’s movies hardly warrants shelling out $15, and a lot of the kids’ movies have elements that she finds scary.

It was cold yesterday, so I debated whether to head out, but cabin fever won. Belmar is fairly new and one of those modern efforts that I approve of in concept: a walkable outdoor shopping area mixed with housing and other multi-use facilities, so that if you lived in one of the apartments or lofts , you could conceivably do so without needing to drive. Yesterday they had the iceskating rink at capacity, and we watched that as long as we could, but it was really bloody cold for idle spectating. I have yet to happen to be over there when it’s been nice out, as I usually don’t think of heading to “the mall” – even a reimagined one – on a beautiful day. But every time I’ve been there since we moved back, I’ve thought that I really wanted to come back when the weather was nicer and explore.

When we got to the theater, M changed her mind to icecream for her treat, rather than popcorn. The bored, slow-moving young women behind the counter seemed to think our request for service was barely tolerable, but the very fat black one offered to scoop the icecream. Unfortunately, her intentions were not matched by skill or savvy. She struggled to fill a scoop with what I could see was properly softened ice cream. The problem was that she thought she should get it all in one pass, so she mashed a blob of the pink peppermint glop for a few minutes before she managed to get an enormous ball of it into the small paper cup, creating an over-flowing, messy and unwieldy arrangement that she proudly thrust at us across the counter. I find it painful to watch someone go through something like this, especially as I've worked in food service and so many things are going through my mind, like the pathetic lack of training any of these jobs offer.  As the movie was due to begin, I didn’t want to take up a lot of time trying to get a more appropriate serving, which I suspected would be difficult and quite possibly futile. So I grabbed a big handful of paper napkins, wrapped the mess in some of them and kept the rest for cleanup, and we headed for the hallway to find our theater.

We found good seats, and I was glad to see that we’d gotten in early enough that the lights were still on, and yet missed the advertising portion of the pre-movie blitz, and only had to endure the (incredibly loud) previews. I got M settled with her dripping disaster, and we watched Fantastic Mr. Fox. Not being familiar with the book, I was a little surprised by the style of the film – stop-motion animation – and was rather distracted by it. I also didn’t really like the story very much. I found it interesting that George Clooney – whom normally I would watch/listen to with great enjoyment – seemed to be doing a parody of himself. Meryl Streep seemed to be wasted in her role. So I spent the movie trying to contain the icecream mess and comforting M during the few “scary parts.”

Afterward we both really wanted to walk around Belmar, and I seriously thought about how nice it would be to sit in the sun at one of the little restaurant outdoor patios, but it was just too cold, and we wimped out and headed back to the car.   Of course, today was much warmer, so we walked in the greenbelt.    Tomorrow is a school day. Yay!