He settles the childless woman in her home as a happy mother of children. —Psalm 113:9

April 7, 2010

37

Yesterday I had as good a birthday as could be managed under the circumstances. I woke up earlier than I'd intended, which meant I had to run all day on not enough sleep, but it also meant I had time for a leisurely breakfast and some stretching, and also to take my time playing with the new makeup my Big Sis gave me, before my mom picked me up for my birthday lunch at Red Lobster.

Lunch was lovely, although I'm mildly regretting going the semi-healthy route by ordering off the grilled menu instead of going for my deep-fried favorites. Matt and I tend to sink into an unhealthy fast-food-fueled funk when badness happens, so after several days of virtually nothing but McD's and pizza and KFC, semi-healthy was starting to sound good; but I only get my Admiral's Feast once a year so I'm sorry to have forsaken it this year. Oh well. It was still yummy.

Afterwards, we saw Alice in Wonderland. It was really something my mom wanted to see that I felt I could take or leave, but the only other thing out right now that I was interested in was Clash of the Titans, and I'd prefer to see that with Matt. Between Clash and that dragon movie I was surprised we could still find Alice playing on any 3D screens. One theater in town was still showing it in 3D, but unfortunately it was one of the crappier theaters in town, which we remembered once we found ourselves still sitting in a fully-lit theater with nothing on screen a full 10 minutes past the scheduled start time. After my mom went to complain, they gave her just enough time to get back to her seat before launching right into the movie, without any previews, and without turning off the lights or centering the picture on the screen correctly. After the lights stayed on another ten minutes, I called the office from my seat to complain about the lights and the off-center picture. They finally turned off the lights, but never did fix the picture. In short: AMC Southroads 20, you suck.

Despite all of that, I enjoyed the movie better than I thought I would. I don't know why I went in feeling so "meh" about it. I've always enjoyed Tim Burton movies, and ditto the pairing of Burton and Depp, the latter of whom was as brilliant as you'd expect as the Mad Hatter. I'd heard that this movie wasn't what you'd expect, and I guess if you were expecting a live-action remake of the animated Disney version, then no, it's not. But if you'd read, like I did, that it was more of a live-action sequel, then there weren't really too many surprises. Still, it was very pretty to look at, the performances were all solid-to-very good, and the story was about a million times more engaging and interesting than Avatar, and as far as the 3D goes, I thought Alice looked just as good, even if it did rely at little too heavily on the "Look, we're in 3D and we must poke at you with pointy things!" convention in some places. Also, I'd say that this Alice is probably too intense and scary for little kids, which confused me, because there was one brief scene near the end that seemed completely geared at little kids and made me slightly embarrassed for Johnny Depp, but it lasted less than a minute, thankfully, and now I can put it out of my mind forever. At any rate, if you haven't seen it yet, I definitely recommend trying to catch it on the big screen, and in 3D if you can find it, before it leaves the theaters for good.

After the movie, Mom took me shopping. She and Li'l Sis wanted to go in together and get me something to commemorate the baby, so she took me shopping for that first, and that part was hard, and almost led to a breakdown in the middle of Hallmark. But I ended up picking out a really pretty bereavement frame to hold the ultrasound picture, so I'm glad we did that.

After that we went to JC Penney's and found a good clearance sale, and I got a couple of cute tops to wear to church and on the rare occasions when I do social things, and some non-ratty shorts and tee-shirts that I don't have to be embarrassed to wear to the grocery store. Then I picked up my complimentary birthday cookie at the mall food court cookie place, and we called it a day.

Originally, Matt was going to take me out for a Thai birthday dinner, but by the time I got home I was feeling totally wiped, and there were storm warnings all over the news, so we decided to postpone it to tonight. And also possibly change it to sushi. I still haven't decided on that front yet.

I think I was right about the day out doing me good. I'm starting to feel better today. I'm not feeling nearly as sore as the last time I wrote, and it's almost 4 PM and I've only cried once today, which is progress. I'm also starting to get my energy back. I'm giving myself today off*, because I never give myself enough time off to deal when bad things happen, and that always comes back to bite me. But tomorrow I need to get back into the swing of things and start digging myself out from under this massive pile of backed up projects and housecleaning and yard work that's been collecting during my recovery. Today's a day of rest, though -- real rest, not "too busy being curled up in a ball of pain and grief to do anything else" rest -- before Life Must Once Again Go On.

*Except that over the weekend one of my clients had all of their web sites hacked and infected with malware, so I spent Monday fixing that, and one of their sites is still showing malware warnings, so I need to work on that today, too. But otherwise, resting. And eating yummy Pad Thai or sushi.



2 comments:

Jenny Coulter said...

Well well well I have to say myself you did a terrific job with the blog. I am very happy to hear that you had a pretty great birthday and that you are writing again. I hope you have a great evening with Matt tonight I am not one for raw fish but enjoy it if you do, I have been wanting to try thai food have never had it EVER. What a great start to getting yourself back to feeling better thank you for sharing it, I enjoyed reading it and forgetting about cleaning the rest of my house lol till now. You do owe yourself rest though so get plenty but keep writing sleepy jean :)

Stevie said...

Happy to hear your day out was good. Hope you enjoy tonight too.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...