I FINALLY saw “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” last night.  Since we just asked for our money back at the drive in (I won’t be going back THERE, thankyouverymuch), Kile suggested I take Harry while he stayed home with the little ones.  We went to the theaters down at the Summit Sierra mall.  I’d almost forgotten what it was like to watch a movie in a REAL theater.  It’s been a while.

Anyhow, I’m not going to go into big details here just in case there is someone out there who is as unlucky as me and hasn’t seen it yet.  But… yeah.  I liked it, for the most part.  I loved the way it was directed, the cinematography, the whole ATMOSPHERE of the movie seemed right on to me.  But there were some changes.  Things left out, things added in…. A lot of it made me want to tear my hair out, to be perfectly honest.  If anyone out there has seen it, feels the same, and wants to discuss it, just email me and we can discuss at great length what we liked and what we hated.  Sound good?

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On the other hand, it was really nice going to see a movie with Harry like that.  We grabbed McDonald’s at the drive through on the way down to the theater and ate in the car.  Harry made a fine companion and it was nice to get to spend time with just him for a change.  He and I used to spend all sorts of time together.  I took him everywhere with me when he was little.  He was my sidekick.  We never get to do that anymore.

I would like to make this movie thing a semi-regular thing.  Maybe one a month or every two months?  Just he and I, out to the movies.  That would be so much fun!

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I woke up this morning to overcast skies.  I cannot express to you how happy this makes me.  No sun = some relief from blistering heat.  I’m sure it’ll still be unpleasantly warm, but at least the sun isn’t out, making it worse.

Sadly, I doubt it will last.  The sun will come out and force it’s rays upon us.  But for now, I’m enjoying the dim.

Shoot, in the movie last night, I found myself gazing fondly at the screen during the snowy-winter scenes.  Oh, snow.  How I miss you!  How I love the sight of snow-covered mountains and snow falling and the crunch under your feet….

Damnit.  I want winter back.

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I’m ignoring about 90% of my Facebook friends today.  Sorry, y’all.  But if you’re going to insist on posting about traveling to BlogHer, seeing people at BlogHer, being excited about BlogHer, etc and so forth?  I’m going to have to stick my fingers in my ears and go, “LA LA LA LA!!”

Nothing personal.

***

I hear my little girl waking up upstairs so I best go fetch her.  I haven’t seen her since about 5:30 last night so I’m actually looking forward to getting some cuddles in, as I’m sure she is too.

She really is quite snuggle-icious.

Enjoy your Thursday, all!

Like a great deal of this nation’s population, I had intentions of seeing “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” yesterday.  I’ve been waiting for this!  Watching the trailers and reading the magazine articles and counting down the days.  I told Kile under no uncertain terms that we would be going to the drive in on opening day to see it.

If you’ve been around here any length of time at all, you know that the drive in is how we see movies these days.  As we have no babysitters/family/friends or anything to watch the kids for us, if we can’t take them, we don’t go.   And taking them to a regular theater just ain’t gonna work.  Because unlike quite a few people these days, we actually care about the people around us.  I simply would not subject them to Liam AND/OR Evie at this stage in the game.  So the drive in it is.

We love the drive in!  First run movies, cheaper, and either from the comfort of our van or enjoying the evening breeze from our camp chairs.  The kids love it!  It’s exciting and something different.  It’s an adventure!

Last night we showed up about an hour early to sit outside the gates.  Even so, we were about sixth in line.  We got in, parked, met with friends, bbq’d some burgers and hot dogs for dinner, hung out and enjoyed one another.  Then the movie started.  Along with about fifteen different previews.  Holy moses, yo! But the movie eventually began and I was just starting to get into it.  Evie had just started to nut up and Harry had just gotten to Hogwarts (after getting a sound beating from Malfoy).  Then?

Pffffttttttt…….

The screen went black, the sound went to static and I went, “WTF??”

They blew a transformer.  Even the stoplight outside the drive in was out.  Can I get a “GAH!!”?

On the way home (because dood, the show was over) (they gave us free passes though), I joked to Kile that it was the air conditioning that did it.  Yesterday was the hottest day so far this year (you know, at least until TODAY) (or TOMORROW… 100, gah!).  Someone up in the projection booth got hot and said to themselves, “Dang, I’m gonna turn on the a/c!  It’s sweltering up here!  What could happen?”  Famous last words.

I swear, the air conditioning is 90% of why the power goes out here in the west during the summer.  Because who wants to be hot?  I sure don’t!

Then again, I would have liked to have seen the rest of the movie too.  Apparently it wasn’t as simple as flipping a breaker.  The transformer blew so the power company had to come out to fix it.  We would just figure on trying again tonight but we have no idea if they’ve fixed it or not.  And calling the information line yields no results, but maybe later in the day.

In the meantime: NO HARRY POTTER FOR ME!  WOE!  That’s just not right.  Am sad now.

It’s been a few days longer than I would like since I’ve posted.  But as the title to this post indicates, I have a good excuse.  Or rather, a couple good excuses.  Or maybe they’re only good excuses to me because I feel like I need an excuse.  Which may not even be the case because the two people who read this site might not even care that I haven’t posted in two days.  In which case, these aren’t excuses but rather that annoying buzz in your head, like a bad fluorescent bulb or something.

Anyhow.  Where was I?

Oh yeah!  My excuse(s):

1) The internet was kaput on Wednesday.  HIGHLY frustrating.  Apparently Charter (I love them so) (not) was upgrading their equipment or something on Wednesday morning.  The only thing is that once they were done fixing their stuff, I still had no internet because something or other had to be fiddled with on our cable modem.  And I’m pretty stupid when it comes that sort of thing.  So I had my phone.  And my knitting.  I could check email and do basic internet functions.  And YES, I suppose I could have written a post from my phone about how I had no internet or something.  But no one likes to read about people who have no internet.  It’s boring.

Oh… wait…

Ooops.

2) Wednesday night, once Kile was home and fixed the internet, was busy, busy.  We went to the drive-in to see Transformers (at last).  It was a great night ot go and we all had a good time, even though Evie went thermonuclear midway through.  She’s officially reached that age where not being in bed at bedtime is a criminal offense.  Still, I got her knocked out eventually.  And the movie was a lot of fun.

What would I do without the drive-in? I ask you!  Oh and I also did some knitting.

3)  I’ve been knitting a lot.  Surprise, surprise.  I’m going to be a “guest vendor” at CongFu on this next coming Wednesday and that means having a few items (like the one in the picture above) to stock.  I’m kinda excited about it but not really expecting anyone to want my stuff all at the same time.  Anyhow, it means I’ve been knitting any chance I get for the last several days.   Let me just say:  This is going to be some CUTE stuff.  I won’t be entirely heartbroken if they don’t sell because that means I can keep them for my own.  Muahaha!

4) Thursday was a busy day as Kile took the day off (hurray for a four day weekend!) and we got some shopping done and just basically had a good time.  It meant not a lot of time spent at home though.  I did take my knitting with me so I could work feverishly in the car.  But we went and spent the rest of one of Kile’s gift cards, raided the Carter’s outlet store, bummed around Target (I seriously want to live there), went to Kohl’s and finally found Liam some sandles, had dinner at Texas Roadhouse which I’ve decided is my new BFF and then finished up our monthly grocery shopping trip (the one I started on Tuesday) at Walmart.  WHEW.  All that and we were able to get the kids home and in bed on time.  I think that deserves a medal.

So those are my excuses and I’m sticking to it.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some knitting to do.

I got to see “Twilight” last night!  No thanks to my loving husband.  My dear mother in law offered to go see it with me.  And it was so exciting to get to go see it on the opening day.  I didn’t even know what to expect, actually.  I was almost afraid to get my hopes up too much.  I know how hard it is to fullfill fan expectations in book-to-movie situations such as this.  I didn’t want to get my hopes up too much.  But I also didn’t want to be stubborn and dampen any thrill of actually seeing the movie either.  So I felt oddly keyed up, sitting in the theater, waiting for the movie to begin. 

There was a good crowd there, a lot of pre-teen girls, quite a few 30-something women.  But there were men too.  Most likely dragged by their significant others.  But they didn’t have a long-suffering look to them, so one can only figure that they weren’t entirely opposed to seeing it (unlike some people I know).  everyone was feeling rather festive.  There were a lot of smiles.  The line waiting to go into the theater was long, but orderly and the crowd wasn’t actually that obnoxious.  I was pretty pleased.  

The Harry Potter trailer?  Awesome.  Of course.  I’m still annoyed that it’s been moved to July, but it looks as though it will be worth the wait.  And hey, at least now we can go see it in the drive-in.  Bonus!

Okay, so here’s what I thought of the movie.  I’m going to put it behind a “more” tag, so if you haven’t seen it and don’t want to know, don’t click through.  Mmkay?  

I know this means I’m Officially Lame, but I’m watching Disney’s “Meet the Robinsons” with Liam and I’m finding myself laughing.  A lot.  This is a cute, funny movie!  Very clever.  Hey, if it’s not brain-melting drivel like “Oswald” (my old nemesis), and it makes my kids happy, then I pretty much want to marry it and have it’s babies. 

***

Evie slept in her crib on Saturday night.  As in, I laid her down in there around 8pm and she didn’t wake up until almost 5am.  (!!)  And even then, it wasn’t as if she woke up squalling and freaking out.  It was more of a “fuss”.  But I missed her so badly by that point and had slept so fitfully without her right there next to me, that I hopped up and ran to grab her. Heh. 

We tried it again last night, but shortly after we went to bed I heard her fuss.  I had JUST drowsed off so I was feeling loopy and I went to get her.  I didn’t realize until I got into her room and touched her belly that she had fallen back asleep.  (*cringe*)  Of course, touching her woke her up and she proceeded to freak the frack out so back to bed with us she went.  Ah well.  Live and learn. 

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We really enjoy “True Blood” and “Entourage” on HBO on Sunday nights.  We missed BOTH last week when we were in Elko, which is a big ol’ bummer.  But last night was awesome.  And I’m so sad that both are ending their season after, like, NEXT WEEK.  What the heck am I going to watch THEN?  BOO!  What the freak is it with these tiny, itty, bitty television seasons??  And how many months until “Lost” comes back, anyhow?? 

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Mondays kinda suck, don’t they?  I need more caffeine.