Monday morning arrived and the house was still in an eerie state of peace. The kids were at their grandparents’ house for another day, and Erin, Asta and I had our run of the place.
We were able to watch actual movies that were filmed with the intention of appealing to grown ups. We were able to watch those on our television sets, and without constant screams for attention or snacks filling the background.
Erin was able to get some reading done. I was able to get some writing done. And I was able to have some very rare and valuable couch time. Aaaaaaah…
I remember looking outside and admiring what a beautiful day it was, thinking to myself that I should probably take a walk or in some way take advantage of that.
Instead…
…I put on TRON and took a nap. I barely moved from the sofa all afternoon. I nodded in and out of consciousness while the movie was on, and then Disney+ just started playing TRON Legacy afterward. If you haven’t seen TRON Legacy, you should absolutely keep it that way. That said, I will give it props for a really cool Daft Punk soundtrack and some pretty amazing visuals.
In some ways all of that makes the movie even more of a stunning disappointment. It’d be like ordering lunch and getting a beautifully designed, jewel-encrusted carryout box, but inside is an old, half-eaten egg salad sandwich.
Even that analogy was lazy. That is how incredibly low energy my day was. In fact, it was my original intention that, in the absence of having the manic energy of the kids around, that I would use this day to write something really reflective of this period to use in this blog post. Instead, I spent a lot of the day either napping or online shopping for deals on camping equipment.
Yup, we are thinking about trying out some camping this summer in the absence of much else we can be doing. So stay tuned in the coming months for hilarious stories of me trying to put a tent together and stumbling through various “Survivorman” fails.
That evening, I followed up the TRON marathon (or perhaps “maraTRON?” No, that makes it sound even worse) by ordering pizza and watching Knives Out with Erin.
In case it needs to be noted, Erin did not join me for the maraTRON. She spent the time much more productively reading and also she has way better taste than that.
I bought Knives Out on iTunes way back near the beginning of the quarantine, and we have been meaning to watch it for weeks but finding the time and energy to do it together has been shockingly challenging. So we finally got to watch it together, and boy was it worth the wait. It’s a really great movie with amazing performances from some excellent actors. I imagine most of the civilized world has already seen it, so I can probably stop selling it at this point.
Really diving into my consumption of non-kid content, I wrapped up the evening by sitting outside with a nice cigar and watching The Sting, one of my all time favorite movies. It was a a really good day, with only two very minor exceptions. One, that little bit of “man, it’s back to work tomorrow” feeling that most of us get in some degree at the end of a long weekend. And two, the fact that I managed to clip the casing off my car’s side mirror when I returned from getting pizza.
Luckily the mirror is still intact and it’s a simple part and fix, but annoying nonetheless. Particularly given this is the [actual number redacted for the purposes of embarrassment management]th time I’ve done this. I should maybe consider getting a jigsaw and cutting a mirror shaped cutout on the side of the garage door frame.
Man, that is the worst idea I’ve had since “maraTRON.”
