Monday, July 07, 2008

Man Plans and God Laughs

I do not think I have used this title before in my blog… if I have, please forgive me; it applies to my holiday weekend. It is an old Jewish saying. When things go wrong, I try to remember it so I do not go mad.
I do not know if I have ever mentioned my dislike for the 4th of July. It is not politically based or due to a dislike of my country. Quite the opposite, I love the US of A. It is a great country. My dislike has to do with fireworks… which piss off my dog and lead to days of non stop barking. And expectations… everyone should be at a lake or fireworks or picnics etc. And of course the heat and the bugs. I prefer winter holidays. And holidays where I get to give presents. Plus, it seems that bad things tend to happen over the 4th of July weekend and this one was extraordinarily dramatic.
When I arrived home on Thursday night, The Girl came rushing up to me and said we had to go to Target. I was tired and had a headache and was going to make an excuse not to go when she said it had to do with her period. I asked what about it and she said it was 10 days late. She did two pregnancy tests. It seems she is going to have a baby. Today she is going to get an official test to make sure, but apparently those home tests are really reliable. On Friday we bought a book on pregnancy, which from henceforth will be referred to as The Manual in homage to Raising Arizona. It does have some good info and The Girl is determined to read the whole thing. She has decided to keep the baby, hence the title of this entry. Obviously, we are going to be pushing back the date of when we will be able to afford to move to a farm. To her credit, The Girl is taking this very seriously. She has quit smoking; she is determined to eat right. She is forcing herself to eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables, she is giving up bacon (The Manual said no smoked or cured meats), she is trying to get a job, and she told the father that he will have to help support the baby or give up his rights to it. She has also said she is going to take parenting classes and anger management classes. The anger classes are a huge deal, because a
The Manual says not to tell anyone about the pregnancy until the 2nd trimester because of the chance of miscarriage, so we are keeping it a secret right now. Of course, none of my relatives read my blog, so I should be okay. I just have to get it off my chest. It is killing me inside. This is just hard because, well, we had discussed it. She was using protection and the condom broke. I know that this is not going to be easy for anyone and I am worried about the baby more than anything else.
I told The Girl that she is going to have to tell her grandparents because it is her choice to keep it and she needs to start taking responsibility for her decision.
I have been reading up on teen pregnancy and it seems that we are lucky she told us right away so she can start seeing the doctor etc. A lot of teens have problems because they do not get the medical care they need. And they do not eat properly or take care of themselves. She said she thought about not saying anything until she started to get fat, but then she figured we would kill her if she waited. We are as lucky as we can be in the situation.
But wait, there’s more. I know you are thinking, surely, that would be enough drama for the weekend, but NO, there is more.
On Saturday night, The Girl’s boyfriend came over so they could discuss the whole baby thing and he spent the night. At about 1:15 in the morning, the dogs started to bark like the apocalypse had just occurred. We could hear The Girl yelling at them to shut up and then we heard the door going outside open and close. I sent my husband down to see what was going on. He said she was out in the front yard yelling at someone on the phone. I asked what was going on with that and he said he did not know. Well, about 30 seconds later, The Girl came up to tell us that her boyfriend had just had the snot beaten out of him our front yard. He went outside to have a smoke and some of The Girl’s other friends came over and had mistaken him for a member of a rival gang and proceeded to pound on him. Why they thought this, I still do not understand. And why The Girl is friends with gang members is still confusing. They broke his nose and possibly other body parts as well. She wanted to know what to do. We told her to call the police and my husband went down to help the kid out. The police showed up and got their statements and basically said that nothing would probably go to court since it would just be his word that these guys beat him up. It does not make me feel very secure in our justice system when someone can get beaten up and then nothing will happen because it was not filmed or something. And the police told the boyfriend that he was in curfew violation since he was outside of the house without an adult.
By Sunday morning I was ready to go back to work. That was how bad my weekend was… I wanted to go back to work so I could get a little rest.

Of course, on top of all this, we have been trying to get ready for our trip. I went to Target Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I am sick of Target. However, we do have everything we need for the trip. Now, we just need to get it all packed up…

We also went to the movies on Friday. We went and saw “Hancock”. I enjoyed it quite a bit. It is funny, it has a nice little twist and it was good entertainment. It is a good summer movie. I know it has been slammed by the critics and I really can not think of why. It is deep and meaningful? Not really, it is a summer blockbuster, by definition they aren’t. Did it make me forget my problems for an hour and a half? Yes it did. So in my opinion, it did the job a summer movie should. I am giving it 3 knitting needles out of 4, just for helping me escape my woes. Thank you, Will Smith you are a god among men!

I think that is enough for one blog posting. I will try to blog before I go on vacation. Later.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Movies

Today, I have 2 movie reviews. I know you are all aquiver with excitement!

On Friday afternoon the whole family went to see “Wall-E”. Do you know who little kids are at a kid’s movie on Friday afternoon? …little kids. I think the average age of the kids in attendance was maybe 5. I do not know how great a movie this is for the 5 and under group. There were several scenes which caused crying from the kids. Plus, the 1st 45 minutes or so has no actual speaking. Several children were very confused about what was going on. Over all, it is a good movie. Since it is a Pixar film, it is heads and shoulders above most US kid’s movies, but it is not Pixar’s best effort. The animation is fabulous, but the story is a little weak. Basically, humans have trashed the Earth and Wall-E is there cleaning it up. Then another robot shows up and Wall-E ends up in space. I would recommend it. I am giving it 2 ¾ out of 4 knitting needles. It is a bit above average, but I do expect a lot more from Pixar. Perhaps, the marriage with Disney was not such a good idea.

On Saturday, we all went to see “Wanted”. The Girl had declared the day before that she did not want to see the movie because she hated Angelina Jolie. However, when we went to tell her we were going, she said she wanted to come with after all. Mainly, because she did not have anything else to do.
If you do not know, “Wanted” is about a guy who gets recruited into an assassin’s guild, which was started by a weaver’s guild back in the 1500s. It is a great movie, especially if you do not think very hard about the plot. It is very violent and graphic (hello, assassins), so if that bothers you, please do not go. However, if you do not mind that, it is great fun. Plus, there are some very nice knits. James McAvoy wears a lovely zipper cardigan throughout most of the movie. And there is a sweater that Angelina Jolie’s character wears that is a cream colored lace wrap style sweater. It is divine. I am giving the movie 3 out of 4 knitting needles.

On Sunday, I stayed home and watched movies on TV while knitting. Normally, I do not talk about the movies I watch outside of the theater because I watch a lot of movies and it would take up a lot of time. However, on Sunday I watched 2 very different movies about mental institutions. I watched “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” starring Jack Nicholson. If you have never seen this movie, you really need to go rent it. It is a great movie and everyone should see it at least once. It is a classic 70s movie, it has some really funny scenes, but then it is really kind of a downer as well. Anyway, watching it again, I realized that I felt kind of bad for Nurse Ratchet. She is just trying to do her job and then this troublemaker shows up and totally messes up the routine. However, she is also really cold. But I think that is probably how a lot of the medical profession was back then.
Then I watched “Harvey” starring Jimmy Stewart. I love “Harvey”; it is just such a funny and sweet movie. However, the mental institution portrayed in this movie seems much nicer than in “Cuckoo’s Nest”. Of course, it does not seem very realistic either. But it would be one for someone with some money, so maybe that is why it is so much nicer.
Give both of these movies a look. They are both very good.