What I have been doing

Six a.m. Saturday morning I watched Lee board his airplane. For weeks people had been asking me if I was nervous or scared and I really wasn't feeling either of those emotions. I was excited and jealous. At fifteen he is accomplishing one of my goals and living one of my dreams. To get to travel internationally, to see Europe and all of the places that have been a background to many of the books and movies we both love, I am very jealous. It helps that I am not a worrier so I haven't sat around and thought about everything that could go wrong. Dh has done enough of that for both of us. Whenever he brings up a possibility I counter with 'or we could drive to the store next week and have a car accident that kills us all.' I was really beginning to think I was a cold, cold, woman. Something I have often been accused of over the years. One day a dh pulled a beer out of a cooler and felt it to see if it was cold enough. It wasn't. He tossed it to me and asked me to hug it to my chest for a minute.
On the eight hour drive to the airport I was either reading, laughing, or talking, but not worrying. We arrived at the airport three hours early like they recommend for security, but the security workers hadn't got the memo. We sat there with two older ladies, who were heading to Cancun, for over two hours before the people who worked at the airport arrived. During this time we labeled his bag, talked over the problems he was expecting with changing planes in Detroit, and double checked his bag. You might notice we weren't flying to New York with him as originally planned, so he would be alone from the time he left us until he met up with his group in N.Y. The ticket counter finally opened and he was able to get his boarding passes. I suggested breakfast before he went into the gate. My scone wasn't the best I ever had, but it was edible. Lee had went with a yogurt parfait that looked much better, but he said the fruit didn't have much flavor. When he did start through gate security it hit me. He looked so young to be going out in the world alone. He put his shoes and belt into a tub. At this point we were separated. I started to cry, not a few graceful tears, outright bawling. I stood at the glass wall that separated us and watched him sit in a seat and put on his headphones. I walked away so he wouldn't look up and see me loosing it. I was wiping my eyes and trying to control myself when I heard them announce first class boarding. He had his headphones on, he probably couldn't hear. I ran back to the glass, which is frosted for the first five feet, peered over the frosted line and saw him there with his headphones lowered listening to the announcement. I was sending my baby out alone in the world, but he was ready. I continued to cry until the plane took off. Then I had a nap. I wonder if I would have cried so much if I hadn't went twenty-four hours without sleep.
I woke up an hour later when it was my turn to drive and felt much better. We stopped at Wichita and spent a couple of days with Drama Queen and the girls. She was working nights that weekend so we took the girls to the dog races. That is one of the many places I would never have went on my own but have experienced because I married a redneck. We ordered supper, which I have to say was one of the best meals I've ate out in a while. After we ate Dh let the girls pick dogs and place bets while I ordered a bottle of wine. I will go anywhere and sit through anything if I have a good book with me. Kite Runner is an excellent book and intriguing enough to keep my attention no matter what is going on around me. Seriously, if you haven't read it yet go read it. Back at the apartment I put the girls to bed and stayed up way to late finishing it. We woke up early the next morning so we could get to the zoo before it got way too hot. It is baby season at the zoo so our trip was great. I loved the baby rhinoceros, but Curly Top couldn't tear herself away from the baby giraffe long enough to look at it. At one point after we had been staring at the giraffe for fifteen minutes I drug her over to the rhino. We looked at it for a few minutes until she looked up at me and said 'I have to get back to that giraffe.' So we walked over and watched it stand on wobbly legs for several more minutes until I coaxed her away with the promise of a sno-cone.
After the zoo we took them to Chuck E. Cheese to eat and play, then home for a nap. They had been staying at our house for the two weeks before our trip. We had dropped them off with their mother on our way to the airport. In that one weekend our household size dropped from seven to four. It is very quiet here now. Lane stays the night at Miss Universe's house a lot during the summer. Two of her kids are close in age to him. Mon is only seven months older and Ed is just a year younger that Lane. The three of them have grown up together and are quite the threesome. That leaves only Jason and I here for a good part of the day and he sleeps until noon. Last night Jason and I stayed up and watched Man on Fire. This is one of those movies I have been meaning to watch, but never have. It was very good. It was over at two and I went in to brush my teeth. Jason came in as I was finishing and begged me to stay up and watch another movie with him. 'Absolutely not' I told him, but asked which movie he was going to watch, just in case. His answer? In the Army Now. Now that made me laugh. How can you follow Man on Fire with that? I asked.
I am going to jump out of chronological order a bit here and talked about the eleventh. Of course we went to the midnight showing of The Order Of The Phoenix. We had a big group, so to ensure that we could all sit together we arrived an hour early. Our group consisted of myself, Fria Chica, My brother, two of his friends, Tams, Lee, Jason, Lane, and Ed. Before when we have went to midnight showings at this same theater they have opened the doors, let people buy tickets and wait in line in the theater. At the last LOTR we took a monopoly game and sat on the carpet and played. This time they kept the doors locked and made us wait in two lines, one of people who already had tickets, and one filled with those odd creatures who were trusting enough to wait. The theater is in the back of the mall, which was closed, so hundreds of people were packed into the mall corridor with the air conditioner off. Not pleasant at all.
I didn't know what to expect from this movie. Of all of the H.P. books so far this was my least favorite. I understand that she had to pack a lot of info into the book to transition the series from the school adventure feel the first books had to the full scale war feel the next few books would have. All of that info made for a thick book that moved slowly in spots. That is not what I disliked about the book, but I could see where that could make for tricky movie making. What I disliked about the book was how whiny Harry was.
I'll try to do this without any spoilers. Watching the movie I understood Harry's moods better and the reason for the moodiness. They certainly didn't make a slow moving movie. The school year seemed to zip past at an amazing speed. That is unfortunate if you are a Sirius fan because I just didn't get to spend enough time with him in this movie. It had been a few years since I read the book, so I expected to be able to watch the movie without those annoying thoughts in my head about all of the changes. They cut out so much of the story, anything that wasn't fast enough to fit the adventure pace, that it was impossible to not start thinking about what was missing. The next day Tam's stopped by while I was cooking a meal for the Rec. board. She has only read the first three books, but has seen all of the movies. I asked her a few questions like 'Did you understand why the Centaurs were so angry with Umbridge, or why it was important for Hagrid to try and talk to the Giants, or why Umbridge measured Flitwick.' Of course her answer was no and that most Harry Potter fans would sit through a longer movie to find out. I really understand that to make a good movie some things have to be changed, but the whole feel of the book shouldn't have been altered. What they made was a good children's adventure movie that would be fine standing alone, but as part of a building series it fell far short.
Oh and by the way, I interviewed on Tuesday for the job. Yesterday I got the call saying the job was mine. So there I go, after almost five years I am considered a career employee and will get a benefits, and a seventeen mile commute. I thought I would feel some sort of emotion at this point, but I really don't. The raise, which more than doubles what I am making now, is going to be nice though.