Of dogs and people

I've had the pleasure of re-reading Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men with my youngest son. He's only just turned 12, and I know I won't have many moments like this left with him. (It's been years since the oldest has snuggled up to me to read To Kill a Mockingbird.) Both books have their uncomfortable moments: if you've read the books, you know the word I'm talking about. It did give us a good opportunity to talk about racism and how language has been used to diminish and demoralize people. Ultimately, both stories are simply wonderful.

Next, we borrowed the dvd from our local library and watched it as a family. TeenGuy abandoned the Xbox to sit with us. I expected I'd be in tears at the end of the film, when George has to make a painful decision: track Lenny down and turn him in to the authorities (placing him in a situation that he cannot comprehend and leaving him at the mercy of untold cruelties), or put a gun to Lenny's head and pull the trigger.

What got me, however, was the actor who played Candy, the one-handed ranch worker. The morning after his dog is shot by Carlson, Candy is outside feeding the chickens. He knows his dog is dead. After all, he agreed that it was time: the dog was old, he smelled, he was sick and in pain. Still, out of habit, he looks around for the fellow.

That broke my heart. It reminded me of how lost I felt when we had to put our little mutt Heidi to sleep. In unguarded moments I looked for her. Rationally, I knew she was dead. I was there when the vet made the injection. But I longed for her presence, against all rationality. I still do.

So, I broke into sobs and had to leave the room for awhile. The menfolk waited patiently. And at the end of the movie, I sat dry-eyed while Sport buried his head into my neck, crying silently at the loss of innocent Lenny.

Revisiting the past

Some movies have a special place in my heart.

I'm not big on film ownership, but SO is, so we have a significant collection. We recently revisited a film from the Eighties, one that I think on fondly. Apparently, there's a scene in Andy Samberg's "Hot Rod" that rips off a scene from Footloose, and the boys wanted to see the original version.

Come to find out, it's not a great idea to watch a fondly-cherised film from your college days with a couple of smart-mouthed kids. I think they prefer the Andy Samberg version, which I thought was juvenile. Footloose is pretty juvenile, too, but I loved it then and I love it now. It really does encapsulate the 80s for me. I went to see it with a bunch of college pals in one of those old theaters -- the kind that only played one film and had an enormous lobby. After it was over, we all danced down the aisle to the credits and continued our dancing out in the lobby. Most of us were Nazarene kids who had grown up being told of the evils of dancing, so few of us had any kind of moves, but it was a blast. That's why the movie was so great. It felt like our story.

Come to think of it, it still feels like our story. Oklahoma feels strangely similar to that creepy little town. Weirdly, I just googled the thing and Wikipedia states that it was loosely based on events that took place in the farming community of Elmore City, Oklahoma.

No wonder it felt (and still feels) so familiar.

Harry Potter and the annoying movie audience

The wands are back: sticks broken off of the tree out front. The robe is back, too, wrinkled from its long slumber at the bottom of the toybox. Bella has been renamed "Bellatrix" and choruses of Expelliarmus! fill the air. Sport drew a lightning bolt on his forehead and LegoGuy got his Hogwarts Lego set out of the closet and is back at work reconstructing the castle. We've just come from the new Harry Potter movie and the boys are neck deep in Pottermania.

The movie's great fun-- especially if you've read all the books, which we have. What's not so great (and what I always seem to forget about later) is the movie-going experience. Nine times out of ten, I have a terrible time. It's one thing to afford the luxury of renting out a theater for one's entire family, but Elvis, we ain't. Going to see a movie means getting elbow-to-elbow with a hodgepodge of the general public. And, to modify Forest Gump's truisim, "A movie audience is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get."

I knew we were in trouble when I watched a woman, her husband, and 4 children move up the stairs and right to the seats directly in front of us. She was wearing a spaghetti strap top and her flesh was practically oozing out of the top and sides. He husband had his left hand wrapped in bandages, frozen in a permanent "Heil Hitler" gesture. The children were whining, and Big Momma kept telling them to shut up. Loudly. All six of them were clutching extra large vats of popcorn. They stood in front of us while the previews were rolling, not even bothering to pretend to duck out of the way so we could see what was on the screen.

"Let's move down a few seats," I whispered to SO, who hates to make a scene. I knew he wouldn't want to move, but I couldn't see what was going on. We all shifted down a bit, and I hoped for the best.

Unfortunately, we ended up near a Granny and her grandaughter, a kid all of 5 years old who had no idea how to control her curiousity and excitement. This little girl chattered through the whole movie. Being a mother, I understand the nature of a child. It's hard to sit still through a long film. Sometimes it's hard to follow the plot or to catch what someone is saying. I know that kids are going to fidget. But it's up to the adult to teach the child how to act in public. Granny never once shushed the kid, never asked to lower her voice, not once did she pay heed to my curiously ineffective dirty looks. In fact, the two of them continued to carry on conversations in what Barney calls "an outside voice" through the entire episode-- and if I'd had a working wand I wouldn't have hesitated to throw a Sectumsempra their way.

Meanwhile, Big Momma and Heil Hitler went for a popcorn refill and she ended up choking on the salty snack 3 or 4 times during the movie. I actually considered withholding my first aid skills for a moment when it appeared that she had a kernel lodged in her windpipe. But I muttered Evanesco to myself and she was able to catch her breath.

She later fell in the parking lot. I swear I didn't throw a Impedimenta her way.