Thirtysomething

Glad That's Over

I had been looking forward to this past weekend about as much as I look forward to a pap smear. Ahem. First up was a visit with my family to look at wedding photos. I had pressed hard for this visit, but I wasn't exactly looking forward to it. We went to lunch, then we looked over pictures at the house and it was surprisingly enjoyable. Draining, but enjoyable. I went to go see my grandmother, who was in good spirits and ran into my phantom brother while I was there.

Sunday was worse. Sister-in-Law had asked us to go to a memorial for all the children who had died at the hospital that Baby M was. To support Sister-in-Law we agreed to go, but again, not something we were exactly relishing the idea of. I knew it would be sad, but I had no idea how awful it would be. I didn't expect the pictures. There were about 60 kids as part of the memorial; many babies, but some kids up to age 18. Some were preemies, like Baby M. Some had cancer, others had some obvious abnormalities. Most of the pictures were taken in hospital rooms, where no doubt, the children spent much of their time, but a few of the pictures were school photos or pictures of them playing football and you can only imagine that those children met some swift, accidental death. Know what someone who's contemplating children shouldn't see? A slideshow of about every which way things could go wrong with a child. It was awful.

The weekend wasn't all bad, however. It was also movie weekend and you know I don't even do movies usually. We watched Just Like Heaven on cable Friday night and then Saturday we actually went to the movies. That almost never happens and it was basically by accident. We wound up being right next to movie theatre and based on the movie times decided to see The Illusionist. There weren't any movies I particularly wanted to see, but I thought I at least remembered commercial for this one. While we were waiting for the movie to start, they started showing previews for the movie we were about to see or so I thought. I was bitching to the high heavens about this--why would you show previews for a movie that the audience was about to see? Then at the end of the preview it said, "The Prestige".

Oh.

Well, then what the hell is The Illusionist about then? Turns out they are both about some 19th century magicians. Because you can never have too many movies simultaneously released about 19th century magicians. I'd probably seen previews for both movies and thought they were one and the same. I felt jipped that Ed Norton and Christian Bale weren't in the same movie after all. Anyway, if you really examine the plot of The Illusionist it starts to fall apart, but it is entertaining nonetheless. Surprisingly romantic. And a surprise ending which is always a bonus.

But I'm still glad the weekend is over.

posted by DJ Heavy D @ 12:35 PM