I am dealing with sinus issues which I am sure kicked in due to the high winds kicking up all kinds of stuff. Although, I have to say, this is tolerable compared to something like a cold. I was worried at first that I was in fact getting sick.
It was a good weekend, and it seemed to be incredibly long. I don’t know that I am complaining about this, but I do feel like I accomplished less than I could have with the extra time I seemed to have.
Friday evening was the viewing of Hunger Games. Yay! I was nervous and anxious to see the flick. Having only recently jumped into the crazy frenzy that are Mockingjays, I was intrigued about how this adaptation would go down. Traditionally speaking, movies don’t do their book counterpart any justice. There are only handful of flicks that I enjoy as much as or even more than the book.
I enjoyed book one quite a bit, but I also was well aware of the fact that this was not something that would be easy to put into movie form. Although there is dialogue, a good chunk of the narrative is in Katniss’s head. I was impressed at how well they pulled it off. They changed a handful of trivial things, but overall, they handled the main aspects of the story.
I was shocked at how invested I was. I cried several times throughout the movie, mostly I could tell because I had better back story on the characters than what the movie portrayed. Ken pointed out he didn’t understand the relationship complexity between Rue and Katniss, and thinking about it, they truly didn’t do that dynamic any favors in the flick.
I feel as though this movie makes an excellent companion piece to the book. I don’t mind having a face to go with the story when I hopefully start on book 2 this week. I was incredibly happy with the performance Woody Harrilson delivered for Haymitch. When I first saw his name attached to the character, I was hesitant, even a bit aghast. But he truly was fantastic and brought new life to this drunken a-hole.
I do wonder, though, if this book wouldn’t have been done better as something like a mini-series. It would allow you more time to truly explore characters and plot lines in a far more satisfying way. I would think this would be an interesting way to tackle many of these book series. Of course, there is probably less money for studios for doing it this way, but it would be interesting to see how they would handle it in that way.
Of course, I am not a director nor am I a film maker, so I don’t know the complexities of how to pull of something like a series instead of a feature length movie.
After the movie, Ken and I went over to Buca de Bepo. I have been wanting to try this place for some time. It was good. It was slightly more Chef Boyardee compared to other Italian places I have enjoyed, but it was still tasty. I look forward to the boys getting braver and letting me take them there. I may have to bribe them with the giant cake they have. LOL!
I promised Dax that I would pick him up at 7 am sharp. He was having some severe separation anxiety when we left him at my folks’. He has been weepy going to school, and Friday night he was all of that weepy times 100. My mom had to actually drag him away from me, which if any of you know, that is no easy feat. Thankfully, as he seems to do, he was fine after about 3 minutes after I left. I wish I had considered that in the morning as it would have allowed me a little more sleep time.
The boys were tired all day. They went to bed a bit later than normal, and they got up a bit earlier than normal. This may be why my weekend seemed so long since both were cranky pants. The soccer game seemed to help, despite the 11-0 loss. Yeah, we are not good.
A side note on the game. I think we are improving! Honestly, these boys were finding their groove. We had a great offensive line in place, and we even found a pretty good goalkeeper. Some of our runs were brilliant. We just need more work on ball follow through and some of the other players need to work on aggression. Too often, the boys will kick the ball and watch it as opposed to kicking the ball and continuing with it to keep moving it forward. I am pretty sure they are having fun while out there, but this is the first time I heard the sadness in their voices when they said they lost. My heart broke, but I tried to explain to them that their skills were improving. But even I know, this doesn’t mean much now.
One of the previews we saw on Friday night was the Avengers. Holy fuck. Must. See. This. Flick. We had watched Thor a couple weeks ago, so we opted to rent Captain America for Saturday night. I enjoyed the hell out of that one. I think I liked it almost as much as Iron Man. I explained to the boys that this meant we were now all caught up on origin stories which meant we could go see Avengers when it comes in May. Yay!
We also have tickets to expose them to the wonderfulness of The Princess Bride. Archlight is doing some special screenings of old flicks this month, so of course, we had to go see this movie. Ken thought this might be the perfect time to show them the movie, in its purest form. I am not thrilled with keeping them out that late on a school night, but I suppose this is one of those rare moments that we can do this.
One of our outings on Saturday also included a ride up to Ralph’s for some salad dressing. We took Miss Luna with us, and this is the first time I handled the dog during the ride. She did so amazingly well. And on the way back, I put her in my bike basket, ala Panda style! She wasn’t too sure of it, but she stayed in there and did fantastic! The nostalgia factor was running high for me.
Sunday was much mellower, which was ideal for an anniversary. We rode our bikes up to breakfast at Polly’s Pies. I have to say, this was the first time in a while I have watched the boys consume so much food at a restaurant. It was yummy and I am a little bummed we have never gone there before! Plans to return for a dinner are in the works.
We then rode over to Smart and Final and Buzz’s Pet Store to pick up some items. We then rode over to the Redbox at Ralph’s to return our movie. I think we could have rode more, but we did have two tired boys, so we went with it being a good ride.
The boys were mostly anxious to play Wipeout on the Wii. Ken and I had found the game at Fry’s on Friday night for $20 and knew they would love it. Sure enough, it provided a few hours of giggles and full on belly laughter that would warm anyone’s heart. I am not a big fan of them playing video games for too long, especially since I know at some point that is all they will do. Now is the time to make them run! But it was freezing out, and they were behaving and enjoying themselves, so why not, right?
I did shoo them out for a bit, at which time Bobby comes in to tell us Dax had made it to the top of the tree. Yes, you read that correct. I had noted him climbing one of the trees on our block earlier, but did not anticipate seeing him peering over the tops of the tree. It was awesome! I was so impressed with my little monkey.
I rocked a pot of homemade chicken noodle soup and we watched Iron Man 2. Good family day all around!
The boys are with Ken today working on the garage to prep for Garage Sale Saturday! When I get home, my plan is to dig in to what they have pulled from the garage to see what items I can get rid of. I am jazzed for this mega spring cleaning event!
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