May, June, July 2005
Warning: Contents are Pretty Random

 

Star Wars: Episode III Opening Night (12:01 a.m., baby--first show at the Loews Boston Common!)

The last original Star Wars movie of our lives? Are you kidding--of course we'd be there! Robert came home from work early and we watched Episode I on DVD (not because it was the most amazing of the movies, but because we really wanted to lead up to Episode III). Then Millie came over and we watched Episode II. I wore my not-quite-costume throughout both movies: Princess Leia hair (best I could do, at least), Yoda tee shirt (thank you, Target boys' department!), vaguely Amidala earrings (hey, it's the spirit of the thing), and white cloak (courtesy of Aunt Mary). We then headed out to a pre-movie sushi dinner with Bob and Howard at Apollo and met up with Jef, Max, Debbie, and a few of Max's friends at the theatre. I was interviewed by some Boston TV station before the movie started, and then again, with Debbie, afterward. I think when it was 3:00 in the morning and Debbie and I were talking rather incoherently, Debbie was their example of a "regular" movie-goer (um, do regular movie-goers see movies until 3:00 in the morning on weeknights?) and I was their example of a crazed fan. Hardly, but what else can you expect?

Napoleon Dynamite School-Days Graduation Party for Ben and Laurie

Maybe not everyone's the Star Wars fan I am, but some folks go nuts over Napoleon Dynamite. Robert and I really liked it too, so we weren't unhappy to help crazed fans Sarah and Karen host an ND-themed party for two folks who recently got their masters' degrees.

Karen made the banner, apparently spelling "congratulations" better (at least on the first time) than I did on the cake. We borrowed lunch trays and bought individual milks from the nice lunch ladies at the elementary school where Karen teaches, and Sarah and I splurged on a box of 1000 individually-wrapped packages of a spork, napkin, and straw, shipped, for $25.00. Everyone is already quite sick of eating off of plastic sporks, but really--sporks are quite hard to find! We dined on que-sa-DILL-ahs, nachos, tater tots, Tina's green bean casserole, steaks (no throwing, please), ketcup, fruit salad, and gaterade, and, of course, we watched Napoleon Dynamite on the big screen for a fabulous evening.

Fourth of July Weekend Trip to Illinois Family

After interminable plane delays and increasingly good offers to give up our seats and fly, oh, only three days later, we finally made it to Chicago to visit some of Robert's family for a long weekend. We got to spend some time with Uncle Don and Aunt Loretta, and we went out to dinner with cousins Dave and Candy after taking a wonderful tour of their new, and newly and beautifully renovated, home.

After dinner, and some indoor glow-in-the-dark mini golf which really started to wear on your eyes by the fourth or so hole, Dave showed Robert his "potato gun" in the relative safety of his basement. Constructed from plumbing parts, pressurized hairspray containers, etc., and designed solely to play with in vacant lots (or basements, in a pinch), with the goal of making a big noise, the gun shot a Dixie cup across the basement, into the wall, and then back again before Robert knew what was happening. Upstairs, Candy and I held our ears and rolled our eyes, but the boys were having fun.

On Saturday, after a quick stop at Cold Stone Creamery's free ice cream day, we drove with Jennifer and her kids down to Mount Sterling, Illinois, to spend the rest of the weekend at Robert's mother's house and to visit with Judy, Bill, Uncle Max, and Grandma Terrell.

We got to go to a county fair, drink lemon shake-ups (apparently just shaken, not stirred, lemonade), eat corn dogs, and do a lot of sitting around the house or the porch just relaxing.

During what was clearly the windiest portion of the weekend, Robert unveiled a remote-control airplane he had bought specifically with little cousins and rural Illinois in mind. Below left, John and Emily help Robert put the batteries into the remote control and charge the plane; below center, the children's blond hair and the background trees blow in the wind and Robert scrutinizes the plane, which never did really fly right; below right, later that evening, when it was still quite windy, Robert and Jennifer supervised the setting-off of some celebratory pre-Fourth-of-July fireworks, which the kids loved while I cowered in the distance ready to flee any sparks that the wind might carry to ignite the parched grass.