Movie Update

You know, SOMEday I'll do a real live blog entry. The kind we started this blog for. You know, pictures of the kids and charming anecdotes of their doings. Right now, however, life just IS, and there hasn't been much fun to blog about. And I'm not a big one for blogging my woes.

Here. Before the movie thing, I'll blog some of Joshua's woes, just to give you an idea of how things are going. It actually leads into the movie update.

Last week was Joshua's birthday. He turned 7 on Wednesday. I may have mentioned this before, but the birthday plans for this year all revolve around Disneyland. Long story short, Disneyland is giving passholders some sweet spending money on their birthday, and we're taking advantage. Cheap gifts, no parties, day at Disneyland and shopping galore. Even at Disneyland, $59 goes a long way for a kid. Here's the rub: you need to show up on your actual birthday to pick up your Birthday Fun Card. You can spend it any time, but you can only receive it on that one day.

Ben's birthday, like Joshua's, fell on a school day, and we've had enough CRAP from this school district, so I went the noble route: Wait till Matt's done with work (4pm), drive over just long enough to pick up the card and maybe hit one ride, then return the following Saturday. Kind of a hassle, but it worked.

The Sunday before Jshua's birthday, he (Josh) complained of a tummyache. No fever, plenty of energy, so we took him to church. He was sufficiently miserable during Sacrament Meeting that we took him home. He puked about two minutes later.

Monday he was fine.

Tuesday, he went to the school nurse with a tummyache and a 99.6 fever. Brought him home. He was fine after that, albeit miserable because I made him stay in bed instead of playing video games and watching TV.

Tuesday night, Ben woke up at midnight, got 90% of the way to the bathroom, and puked all over the upstairs hallway. (Side Rant: WHY CAN WE NOT HAVE CARPET WITHOUT PINK PUKE STAINS?! ALWAYS PINK!!!!) One hour later, as Matt and I put the finishing touches on cleanup, Joshua came out of his room looking worried. Thankfully (VERY thankfully) made it to the toilet.

Well, that meant that neither one of them could go to school Wednesday. Joshua's birthday. And you can't send a proxy to pick up the Birthday Fun Card, either. Joshua's response to not going to Disneyland on his birthday, even though now he felt perfectly fine, and nobody puked all day? "Okay! Anyway, we still get to go on Saturday!" Mother's heart swelled with pride.

Friday laid Matt out with the tummy stuff, although in a milder way, thank goodness. He still felt like garbage, though. Called Saturday into question.

Saturday morning, Matt was considerably better, but not fantastic. And it was raining. We spoke to Josh and agreed to a movie of Joshua's choice and a one-week postponement of the birthday trip.

This brings me to the movie update. Joshua's choice was Coraline. That's one I wanted to see this year, anyway, so hooray! And WOW, is the new 3-D technology amazing. Just absolutely beautiful. The last three or so previews were shown in 3-D as well, including Pixar's "Up," which looks weird but Pixarlicious.

Coraline got off to a slow start then it had a slow middle and a slow end. It was just very low-key and oddly paced. Not nearly as charming as it looked like it was going to be. And if that were all, I probably would have just written it off as a mild disappointment. HOWEVER.

There are two characters, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, who are worth my telling you NOT to take your kids to see this movie.

Miss Spink and Miss Forcible are Coraline's neighbors. They are massively fat retired burlesque dancers. They appear to be in their eighties. But they recall their younger years with fondness. And that would be fine, because how many people under the age of, well, eighty are going to get in a huff over lyrics about "swimmin' with bowlegged wimmin"? But then, in the middle of the movie, we get to see their act, sorta. What you get to see is this (brace yourself):

No, seriously, buckle up.

Are you prepared?

Children gone from the room?



Okay.




It's this:







And not just a quick shot of it, either. She's singing and dancing and bouncing on diving boards and generally horrifying all right-thinking people. The children in the movie are inexplicably delighted by the act. Thankfully, Miss Spink's role is more modest:





Anyway, it was completely grody. To. The. Max. Ben even covered his own eyes without prompting. Because the pasties look a lot bigger in the photo than they did in the movie. The pastie-to-gazoomba ratio seemed much lower in the theater.

[shudder]

So that was Joshua's birthday movie. He liked it more than I did, so that's good, plus he has next Saturday to look forward to.

Except the forecast is for more rain.