The Cinema

I am going to see a movie tomorrow, an actual real live movie in a real live movie theater, for the first time since I was pregnant. With Grace. Who will turn 4 in a few weeks. A long time, no? Between Netflix and having a fancy giant TV at home (a projector and huge movie screen in our basement in Connecticut, no less) and Tivo, and then going through periods of draconian budgetary measures, and then of course MOTHERHOOD, I just haven't been able/motivated to go to a real theater. When I was still working before Violet was born, I never felt like I wanted to get a babysitter to go see a movie or something on top of my normal babysitting needs for work; I felt like I was away from Grace enough and didn't want to leave her again during my time off. Anyway, then it got to be such a long time since I had seen a movie that it needed to be something really good to break my movie fast, making me very picky about what my first movie back was going to be. I really wanted to see the new Star Trek movie in the theaters but didn't manage it before it went away. (How old was Violet then? I think she was still tiny or something...) Anyway, we have an actual babysitter lined up to come to our house tomorrow afternoon and Rob and I are planning to see Avatar. I will be honest that I don't feel super excited about that specific movie but everyone seems to like it and it will be a good option for the real movie theater experience because we will see it in THREE DIMENSIONS, with FUNNY GLASSES.

So what was that movie that I saw while pregnant with Grace? It was the Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice. Shocking, I know. Actually, I saw it under very delinquent circumstances. As I believe I have shared before, I was quite unhappy in the astronomy postdoc job I had then, mostly because I was a tiny cog in a huge research project without much autonomy or much fun to do and partly because I saw all these people ahead of me on the research track who did not have lives that I wanted to have. I would sit in my car in the parking garage at Yale in the morning wishing wishing wishing I didn't have to go in, and then I would sit at my desk feeling all bummed about what I was supposed to be doing right then and what I was "supposed" to be doing for the rest of my career. One day, I just felt TOO miserable and I packed my bag, slung it across my round pregnant body, walked out of the building, and went to see a movie. I think that may be the only time I've gone to see a movie by myself, and it was certainly the only time I have played hooky to do so. What an out-of-character thing for goody-two-shoes me to do; Rob was quite incredulous when I told him what I'd done that evening. Maybe it helped convince him that NO REALLY I was ready to leave academia. He took some convincing on that point, and I don't blame him for that. I'd always been so enthusiastic and excited about astronomy and grad school and my research.

So if we really are going to have a babysitter come tomorrow afternoon, we are going to have to clean like madmen in the morning because, friends, our house is a disaster. We are having new kitchen countertops installed, replacing the yucky tile ones with lovely gleaming marble. I am pretty excited about it, although it is of course mostly being done to get our house ready to go on the market. (We have also gotten a new front door and it is very, very pretty.) The workers came yesterday to rip out our old countertops and thus we have now gone 36 hours without a kitchen sink or dishwasher or anything. Soooooo annoying... I've been taking almost-4-year-old Grace and 1-year-old Violet out to eat for every meal (well, not breakfast) and they are not really the best restaurant companions, especially when I am on my own. Two small people to one adult is not the best ratio in a restaurant. Anyway, we were supposed to have the new countertop installed this morning but apparently something went wrong with the granite slab and then there was traffic and I don't know what else, because the contractors did not get here until almost 7pm and right now, as I type this at 11pm they are still cleaning up. I can't believe these guys are working at 11pm on a Friday night, but I am thankful. I think this is partly because I have continually emphasized, ever since we started scheduling this work, that I cannot face a whole weekend (and a long weekend at that) with no way to wash dishes.

It is looking like I will not have to face such a horror, but I will have to face a morning of whirlwind cleaning to get our house ready for the babysitter. Well, really, just to get it ready for Violet to be able to safely crawl around again. Such a mess... And I think 50% of the dishes we own need to be washed now, not because we used them but because they got all dirty sitting in the cabinets as countertops were removed and then installed over their heads. A note of advice for your future: Consider taking all your dishes out of your cabinets if you are having your counters replaced. Anyway, a MESS of some level or another is par for the course when any work is done on one's house. And right now, worrying about having to wash all my dishes or clean up a mess is a special kind of ridiculous when there are so many people in Haiti who have lost their families, their homes, their lives. I have a kitchen. I have a house. My family is all safe and warm tonight, and tomorrow I will go see a movie, and for these things I am grateful.