Scenes from a movie, I mean my life

Tonight at dinner I felt like I was living a scene out of The Miracle Worker.  You know the one where Helen grabs food off the dinner table and starts eating it with her hands?  That was Devon at the restaurant tonight. Where did she learn that that behavior is acceptable?  Certainly not from Ron and me!

Sometimes I think our lives are just reenactments of scenes from movies.  Tonight's was a classic case, although I give it a thumbs down for actually living it in real life.  And thank God it was just tired behavior, not really something tragic like Helen Keller's disabilities.

One of the things that first attracted me to Ron was his knowledge of movies and being able to use one-liners and recognize scenes from a variety of genres.  Little did I know that that would be our life.   When we first started dating, it was the musical number "I have often walked down this street before" (My Fair Lady)...since he had been in my neighborhood a lot his whole life.   And maybe this is why I so often have a feeling of deja vu - it's because my life is just reinventing already acted scenes.

Lines from movies and tv shows pop into my head at the oddest times, and not everybody gets the references - especially if it's an obscure or older film.  Ron is great - he usually gets my references and has been known to beat me to the punch in throwing one out.  And it can be stupid things, too, like just the phrase "two weeks".  An innocuous phrase, commonly used, yet it can crack me up at the thought of it.  My mind almost always go to the scene in Total Recall when Arnold is going though customs.

Remember I started listening to NPR to try to become more knowledgeable and interesting?  I don't think it's working.  I don't get a lot of news related information when I tune it in.  In fact, the other day, I got a contest between two people in some show business related profession and they had to name the action/adventure movie that a quote/scene came from.  I only got one wrong - I need to go watch the movie  Cobra - but I was rolling!  I practically had tears from laughing so hard - the people acted out the scene, giving you an intro that practically gave away the movie and then they did a hilarious job with the lines.  I wish I could have restarted the program so I could have heard the whole thing.  (When will we be able to rewind radio?)  And they used some of my favorite lines, too - one of my all time favorites is from Kindergarten Cop when Arnold is telling the kids he has a headache.  I have been known to use this line, doing, of course, my best Arnold impression. Sadly, few people get it.  Oh, well, good thing I have no plans to quit my day job.

So dinner tonight was a mix of frustrating and enjoyable.  It was late, too late, really, and we shouldn't have gone out, but we did, so we had tired girls.  Tired girls means no sense of humor, and less than stellar behavior.  What a surprise!  I had a slight headache to start with and for some reason the acetominophen what the @#$! Tylenol I keep in my purse is gone.  As is my pen, but I digress.  So, alas, no headache remedy for me.   I finally got to the point where I wasn't snapping at the girls and then Ron goes and makes a feeble attempt to tease Devon (remember, no sense of humor now) so she starts crying.  I try to make amends for him, explaining Daddy was just trying to tease her a little, but she is inconsolable.  Bad Daddy! Of course, a few minutes later, all is forgotten and we go back to impatiently waiting for our food.

It's Sunday, so I went grocery shopping today.  My receipt looked like the one from Yours, Mine and Ours (the original, with Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda).  Very long, which actually made me feel good about the amount of money I was paying since I got a decent amount of food for it.  How often does that happen?! Then I had to figure out how to load it all into the trunk of Ron's Hyundai, which I was annoyed I had, because he left the house before me and took the van...with my coupons and shopping bags and my comfortable seat in it. So I was left driving his low piece of junk to the store.  I have never liked that car!  In fact, I was forced to call him and ask why he took my automobile ....when you hear that word, can't you just hear the word automobile go up at the end (au-to-mo-beeeeel?) just like in Sixteen Candles?  

So the shopping is done, most of the groceries are put away, the dog is whining because no one played with her much this week-end (I actually do feel badly about that) and Ron and his mother are working on the jigsaw puzzle but I think not happily collaborating.  It seems like I hear more complaints than happy conversation - yet another reason why I prefer to work on them alone - and time is going by and they had a late lunch but it is getting later so I nicely ask if we are going to do anything for dinner, it is approaching 7...This week-end we seem to be on the late dining plan, which was fine for Friday and Saturday, but tonight was a school night.  We had sleeping girls on the way home from the restaurant.  Isabella is completely dead weight when she is asleep.  And, of course, she and Devon are in the way back row of the van, so it is extra difficult to get them out when we get home.  I wish someone could have filmed me getting her out of the car - I could have won the $10,000 on America's Funniest Home Videos.  Well, I managed to get her out without hurting her, barely waking her in fact, and into the house so I could deliver her to her mother.  That, of course, is when she woke up enough to be helpful.  Thank goodness Devon is easier to maneuver!

Tomorrow school starts again for the little girls, and Aubrey is on her Spring break.  She's home with Grandma for the day, and Devon gets to ride her bike home since there will be someone here.  Aubrey wanted to show Grandma how well she rides horses, but we could not coordinate getting them to the barn, etc, especially since my mother-in-law won't drive around here.  She doesn't drive anywhere she hasn't been. It took me a while to fully understand that concept, but now that I do, I don't really have a problem with it. She would be very stressed driving someplace completely unknown to her and you can't fault her for that.  I just feel badly sometimes about it because it means that when she comes to visit there isn't really anything other than going to the pool for her to do with the girls.  And they did go to the pool today, too.  The girls said the water is warm, but not warm enough for me.  That I believe!  Anyhow, between the pool and riding bikes and just normal playing, the girls wore themselves out - and Ron and Grandma, too!  They went to bed as soon as we got home from dinner, too.  So, just like usual, it's Aubrey and I who are still up....although I'm getting tired now, too, so soon it'll be just Aubrey who's up.  And that's not good, because every movie I can think of that has a teen (well, she's a tween, but close enough!) up late by themselves, doesn't end well....

We should be all right - she's camped out on the floor of my room, making just enough noise to irritate Ron and remind us that she's there.  Safe for another night.  So long as we don't feed her or get her wet after midnight.