My thought this morning when I woke up was that I had a bug
crawling on my face. I reached up and rubbed my face, feeling nothing. Then I
wondered if I was being paranoid. My imagination is extremely active and
sometimes overly so. But then I decided I was simply paranoid about being
paranoid. I wonder what that’s called. Then again, it could be the two hours of
sleep I received last night. But it gave me time to rework an assignment, so
that’s good. I made the mistake of ordering a Dirty Chai and asking for an
extra shot. I meant a shot of Amarillo, but apparently got an extra shot of
caffeine. The lady is a sweetheart though and always gives me 10% off in order to keep me coming back for more.
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| "Just one more. Okay, this time I'll make it. This time I'm gonna make it." |
Cameron and I shot hoops, instead of walking this morning. I
refused to quit until I got twenty. I was there twice as long as my son was,
but it may have had something to do with him stealing my ball and chucking it
as hard as he could away from the court before shooting with his own ball. I
got even. I got his picture on the swing.
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| "Wheeeeeeee!" |
Before we left the library last night, I decided to grab a
movie for the family. Sure, the kids had their favorites stacked up on the
table. I had to weed them out as they are only allowed one each. Cameron
chose the latest Transformers movie,
Nikki chose The Nut Job, and I chose The Fifth Estate. But for the family’s
viewing, I grabbed a movie off the shelf I’d heard about for years, but never
seen. The cover of the movie was animated so I hoped it wasn’t like Heavy Metal, from the eighties, or that
one weird movie that had a bunch of guys with black derbies and peculiar makeup
on one eye—oh yeah, Clockwork Orange.
But this one had no rating.
The truth is that we’ve seen all the movies, except for
Nikki’s pick, before. Benedict Cumberbatch does an amazing performance in The Fifth Estate, so if you haven’t seen
it, consider visiting the library yourself. Some people can’t find time for
reading, but everyone has time for a movie.
Anyway, the movie I picked up was Animal Farm, one of the movies from the fifties miraculously saved
and reformatted, etc. so we could view it present time. When I was a kid, I
kept hearing the name pop up repeatedly, but never got a chance to see it. But
honestly, this is a movie that should be shown at every junior high, or at
least high school, across the country. They won’t show it because the main
antagonists excessively drink alcohol. “If we hide from issues they simply
won’t happen,” is the train of thought in the school system. But our country
today is the epitome of this movie. As long as we keep our heads in the sand,
not wanting to show upcoming generations of our failures, they will undoubtedly
recur.
Afterwards, the kids said they appreciated seeing it. We had
an interesting conversation about people’s behavior. We went as far as to
classify the groups of animals and distinguish how, even after they united
initially, they still segregated themselves from each other—just like America. Spoiler
alert: In the end, the animals win the destroyed barnyard, uniting to take the
farm back.
But on the brighter
side, Nikki apologized to “Imaginary World,” her playground group, for chasing
her friend and they welcomed her back with open arms. Now she isn’t sure she
wants to belong after all. In speaking to her, I informed her that if a group
doesn’t exist you want to be a part of, there’s nothing stopping you from
creating your own group. So wanting to be a vet, she proposed a
group where the kids can all be animals. “Hey, I know,” she said, “Animal
Farm!” I suggested she rethink that one and consider something with a more appealing title.
The last thing I want is a note from the school complaining my daughter dubbed
a kid Napoleon.
To praise her for her maturity, I allowed her to take her lunch. (Can you believe that? A kid that wants to take her lunch?) I put a surprise candy bar inside with a note she showed all her friends that asked for her to share. She was pleased to allow them to read her note.
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| "You must eat EVERYTHING yourself!" |
I ordered Nikki’s school pictures yesterday online and feel
somewhat duped. Everyone wants the kids to belong, right? Even though I take
photos of them all the time, on picture day if they don’t receive photos they
can’t possibly fit in. I bought about the smallest package for $19. Two 5 x 7,
four wallets, and a download. When I told the price to Cameron, he gasped,
saying,“ Wow, that’s a great price, unless the four wallets are made of
cardboard or something.”
I’ll make the psychiatric appoint today. I spoke to
Cameron’s father last night about the costs and the purpose. He didn’t
understand. I tried giving him an example of teaching Cameron about predicates;
the computer couldn’t teach him, even the class tutor couldn’t teach him (he
told her he got it in order to prevent embarrassment), so I explained. Find the
subject in the sentence, the verb, and whatever is receiving the action is the
predicate. Then Cameron understood and got a 93%. I still can’t distinguish if
his father gets it, but he says he does. Then again, perhaps he looks at me the
way my son looks at his tutor. But likely doesn’t give a piddly doo about it.
Nevertheless, he agreed. Hmm, I wonder how many times confusing someone causes
me to get my way? I should be getting my way a lot.
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