Guess how we’re spending our day off today?
Yup. Making more spiders and reading more spider books. I guess you could say it’s the ultimate compliment to my “class” yesterday.
On that subject, did you know that “Little Miss Muffet” was a real person? Her father, Thomas Muffet, an spider enthusiast, fed her mashed spiders whenever she had a cold.
And you thought zinc lozenges worked well…
Anyway. That’s what happening in our household today. Later? I vacuum up googly eyes for hours.
There’s basically nothing better than a Spring-day date with my kid to the Griffith Park train ride. OK, maybe one thing could improve it: having her take a nap afterwards so I had an hour to write about it.
But she isn’t, and I don’t.
Suffice it to say that, at times like that–chugging through the foliage on a 70-something degree day, happy child snuggled next to you, the smell of diesel fuel wafting not-unpleasantly from the engine ahead–Los Angeles doesn’t seem such a bad place to live.
I like the idea of creating memories for her. Even if they’re faint. Even if they’re just the trace of a smell, the vague feeling of sun-on-skin, of a loving parent’s arms around her shoulder…this is most of what I have to give her. Oh, there are the snacks. Some sunscreen. Clothing and shelter. But mostly, my presence. And my hand in hers as we chug around the small, pleasant loop of her childhood.
We just had house guests for five days, so no cleaning at all got done while they were here. After they left it was time to get busy. But entropy had taken a firm hold, so my first day involved multiple loads of laundry (five, to be precise) and nothing else. Yesterday I kicked into gear a bit more.
Done:
Today I have merely vacuumed our bedroom. Score one more for entropy.
Mike and I saw “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” last night. It was great, but not great enough. Why? Because it was long.
“Long, you say? So what? ‘Gone With The Wind’ was long; no one complained about that.”
First of all, you weren’t alive when GWTW came out. Most likely. Or, if you were, you were too young to read film reviews. You, my hypothetical interlocutor, don’t know anything. Secondly, I guarantee you that childcare was a lot cheaper in 1939. Probably a quarter an hour. At that price I’d be going to the movies every day. Heck, I’d be making movies. Epics! Sequels to epics! Double-featured sequels to epics!
Ahem. Anyway, when you’re paying hourly for a babysitter, these days, a movie that runs long can hurt. Especially when travel and parking time adds another half hour on each end. Our date night last night, for example — which was dinnerless, mind you — cost us $90! How many cinematic experiences are worth that kind of expense? Few. That explains why this was our first time out to the movies in — wait for it — a year and a half. The next time we go MJ will be able to babysit herself. Because she’ll be in college. Which she’ll be paying for with said babysitting money.
I am starting a campaign: Screeners for Stay-at-Home Moms! SSHM, for short. Which if you say it really fast, sounds like — well, never mind. Anyway, forget the film and TV industry people, all of whom can easily afford to go out to the movies. Take pity on those of us who are, for all intents and purposes, housebound! Those of us who are mad at Netflix for raising their rates so don’t subscribe to them anymore. Who can’t, for the life of them, figure out how to stream HBO shows online. (Not even for free! I’d pay!) Who can never find anything to watch on Hulu but infuriating “clips,” the same three episodes of “Louie,” and the new ____ show, which is –Jesus! — breathtakingly bad! Those of us who, once their child goes down, are too braindead to read, too exhausted to do housework, too lazy to exercise. (OK, maybe it’s just “too lazy” and “too lazy” and “too lazy.” Still. The need persists).
So take pity, Academy of Motion Pictures! Help a mama out! I promise not to loan my copies to anyone — although I may host the occasional viewing party — for which I’ll charge the most nominal of fees — just kidding! Lighten up!
If anyone’s listening, I’d especially like to see “The Artists.” I’m just saying.
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