Tales from the Shark Tank

My friend C. and I took our combined three little boys to see The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep today. It was a good movie (not as good as Golden Compass, but still good), but it was pretty intense. Each mom had her kids tucked under her arms and/ or in her lap, with coats pulled over heads at frequent intervals and requests that we tell them when it was ok to look again. I had looked up the general plot ahead of time, and so was able to tell my son, over and over “it will be fine. It’s scary now, but it has a happy ending. The boy and the Water Horse will be just fine.”

I was moderately amused, though, that I had to explain to my friend exactly what the “mildly objectionable” language had been. It makes sense – if you don’t know British usage, you won’t get it. She said she’d figured out from the tone that it wasn’t complimentary, but had no idea why. But she knew I did, because when the wounded war hero turned handyman confronted the full-of-himself English captain, she heard me mutter something along the lines of “That’s a mortal insult. This could get interesting.” It didn’t, but I think only because the captain so insulted didn’t “get it” either.

But J. is glad we went, now that he’s seen that it really did have a happy ending. And since that was the whole point of the exercise, so am I.

Happy New Years, everyone.

We spent New Year’s Eve having our kitchen cleaned and reorganized. You note I did not say we did it, though we certainly participated. Our friend was in “force of nature” mode, and since her husband had taken their sons up to northern Wisconsin to go snowmobiling, rather at loose ends. So she asked if I’d be offended if she tackled our house, and upon being told emphatically that we would not, showed up with tool box, tape measure, and an abundance of energy and plans. My kitchen is unrecognizable, and I’m hoping profoundly that I can keep it that way. And in the midst of all the work, we joked and talked and did a whole lot of laughing. It was a lovely way to spend a day.

We had plans for today as well, as a high school friend of my husband’s who now lives up here was throwing a “New Year’s Survival party” today. Only one problem. A snow storm blew in yesterday, of the sort that looks as though a feather-bed is being shaken overhead, and dumped 6 inches of snow before 9 p.m. Then it drifted. And then dumped yet more snow. We have, I would guess, a good 9 inches of white out there, and the roads are drifting closed on an entirely too regular basis. So we talked about whether to essay the expedition to the M’s house. It’s about 40 minutes away in fine weather.

But what I told my husband was “I really don’t think we should play football with the weather-gods.” Our son was intent on his book, and caught only two of his favorite topics – weather and football, which in turn led to some mystified questions. So we talked about word-play, and about non-football uses of “tackle”, but I’m not sure he understood. In fact, though I could be wrong, I think he’s still trying to figure out how to get shoulder pads and a helmet on a snowdrift.