A Joyous Weekend

I like this. I found it on Slate.

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So I went with my friends Katie and Mallory to see New Moon Friday night. Now before I give you the details, you should know a few details yourself:

• All three of us have undergraduate degrees: Mallory and I both were English majors, and Katie was a Music Performance major.
• Katie has a graduate degree in Flute Performance.
• Mallory is pursuing a graduate degree in Library Science.
• Katie and Mallory work in a local library. Katie also teaches students how to play the flute, and she even plays in a local orchestra as a co-principal flute. Mallory just finished knitting a shawl for which she was paid exorbitant amounts of money. (I find this fascinating.)
• All three of us are avid readers of various subjects.
• Seriously. All three of us are smart, discerning women.

And we willingly stood in a line outside the movie theater, in the cold, for over an hour, just to get into the theater to see the movie. All 600 or so of us in line had already purchased tickets; we just were waiting to find seats. We found another friend in the theater, staked out our seats, and then buckled down.

It was wild. Have you ever been to a mega-huge movie like this, to one of the first (if not the first) showings in your town? Memories of midnight showings of Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings are coming to my mind. Suffice to say, this particular movie drew in less of the geeky, sweaty types that LOTR did and more people of the screamy, fainty, oh-my-gawd-Edward-is-so-HOTT junior high girl persuasion. There was so much screaming going on in that theater that I'm sure I missed a good portion of the dialogue.

But that's okay. I saw enough to know that it was, in fact, a good movie. No, seriously. It was. The movie incarnation of Twilight was horrible, enough to make me embarrassed that I secretly enjoy it. New Moon brings a new legitimacy to the franchise, not to mention a rockin' soundtrack. Of course I'm looking at this from a Twihard perspective; I was there to see my characters and my story, so I don't know how it looked to the outside viewer. But it was really enjoyable. Plus there was a lot more fighting and action. Fun fun.

That's all I'll say on the subject. 

Except that Katie and I might, just might, have screamed for the fun of it when Edward first appeared.

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As if my weekend couldn't be any more fun, Saturday proved busy and exciting for me, too. I started in on my hush-hush project (which involves lots of yucky paint fumes that I'm sure are causing severe brain damage to my entire family--but hey! all in the name of beautiful home decor), got a haircut, and then took B with me up to Chicago to see a friend from high school, Everett, whom I hadn't seen since graduation in 2001. Everett lives in New York City, and he planned a spur-of-the-moment Chicago trip and asked if we could meet up. All five of us were originally planning to go, but then J came down with a 12-hour fever that B had gotten over a couple days ago. The Professor stayed home with sickie and Baby C so that B and I could have some mama-son time and enjoy the city.

And enjoy it we did, despite the fact that this proved to be possibly the worst weekend to go, as the city was lit up for Christmas for the first time yesterday. There were massive amounts of people there, but everything seemed to be in our favor, despite the crushing crowds. We found Everett and his friend Katherine (Everett: Is that right? Or is it something equally lovely, like Catherine or Kathryn or, gasp!, Cathryn? Set me straight, please.) and proceeded to have a lovely, happy evening with them on the town. We all ate at a deli, saw the Marshall Fields Macy's Christmas windows, ate frozen yogurt in the basement of Macy's, strolled Millennium Park, watched ice skaters, and just generally enjoyed each other's company.

B was a dream (more on that in a minute), Katherine was engaging and funny and lovely, and Everett was wonderful, as always. I had so much fun. Despite the crazy crowds and the late train home, I had a wonderful time. Everett, I love you!

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And....B IS POTTY TRAINED!!!

I KNOW!!!!

He fought it and fought it for about a week, and then suddenly, come Friday night or Saturday morning, it all clicked. Now he tells us when he needs to go, willingly sits and goes on command, and claps and proclaims, "It's yellow!" when the whole ordeal is finished. I bravely put him in underwear for our trip to the city, and he performed admirably, only having an accident on the drive home when he drifted off to sleep, which is entirely understandable. I'm so proud of him.

The weekend isn't finished, and I've already had enough fun for 17 people. I hope you can say the same!