Date Night

During our nightly walk past the Casino building (which doubles as the most unique movie theater you could imagine), Scott noticed the movie poster for Will Ferrell in Land of the Lost. He said we should try going to the movies the next evening, which was Sunday. I stared at him for a moment, to rule out an attempt at humor, aneurysm or stroke.

In the ten years we've been together we haven't been to a single movie or live performance of any kind. He goes into a myriad of reasons why he will absolutely refuse to go, can't understand how anyone can suffer through the volume, the crowds, the uncomfortable seats, the boredom, or the hostage situation of getting trapped in a theatre anywhere for a specified amount of time. So, don't ask! Okay, I get it. No movies.

Still, I think it's sweet when he romanticizes concepts like couples going to the movies, and wants to give it a try. I always support the notion, even though I'm fairly certain something predictable will occur.

Sunday came and after dinner, off we went. We walked out to the Casino in time to make the 7pm showing. I documented the occasion before we went in, in case we left in a hurry:

You can sense the apprehension...

Scott bought a soda at the snack bar, and we chose our seats. It truly is gorgeous inside the theater. Plus, on weekends movie-goers are treated to an enjoyable live performance of a few tunes on the vintage pipe organ as you wait for the movie to start. It was a light crowd too. So far, so good!

I took the Bose noise-canceling headphones with me just in case he needed to put them on to mute the sound. "I may not need them," he said. About three minutes into the movie, on went the Princess Leia earmuffs. I heard someone a few rows behind us whisper, "It's Scott," when the headphones went on, which made me smile. His quirky behavior is not just accepted, but expected by our island neighbors.

He wouldn't have been able to make it without those headphones. Though the acoustics are amazing inside, it was just too loud for him. He started out okay, but fell asleep about twenty minutes in, then drifted in and out a few times (food processing going on, I think).

I looked over at my snoozing husband, slumped over and settled into his seat, his earmuffed head bobbing up and down as he slumbered. There did seem to be something romantic about it after all, and it was that he tried. He actually made it through the entire film (as long as intermittent sleeping counts), and for his first movie theater experience in ten years, I think he did pretty well.

He says he wants to try it again sometime...I'm sure we will...

Wally & the Beaver

Excerpt of an email I sent, in response to the use of the word "jeepers" in an email I received:

...Jeepers reminds me...that's what our mother called our private parts, as in, "don't get soap in your..." (You couldn't know that, or could you?) Then, I have a friend who always thought his private part was called a "pubicarious" because his mom said, "don't forget to wash your pubic areas," and he heard it as one word. I hope that's not too off-color. Golly gee..it's an innocent story about childhood...Needless to say, I was always confused about the 50s song "Jeepers, Creepers, Where'd You Get Those Peepers"... 

Smiling due to "Mild Formula"

After I sent that email I realized that most parents in the 1950s probably didn't have to reference anyone's jeeper or pubicarious until the kids were old enough to bathe themselves. Assigning a name to such things seems like an opportunity to set things straight, but since those were the days when Desi and Lucy slept in twin beds, I guess parents did the best they could while maintaining their childrens' naive innocence.


These days, modern advertising robs kids of their innocence as it reminds them they will someday have limp weiners, itchy vaginas, arthritis, allergies and depression. The "good news" is that there are drugs to correct all of that, but they'll give you a host of other side effects and an expensive dependency. Enjoy your childhood, kids.


All I knew was that Mom was right. Don't get soap in your jeeper, at least not harsh 1950s soap. It was painful...

Birthday Boy

Scott's Hermetically-Sealed Birthday Mini-Cake

Scott's birthday used to be a source of discomfort for both of us (and I suspect for anyone else who cares about him). I want to do something nice for him on that day, and he doesn't want to be acknowledged. While I liked what he had to say last year, he would prefer it if he never received a card, a gift, personal acknowledgement, a phone call or email if it concerns birthday wishes directed at him. He says it "always makes him feel sad."

Any form of singling him out for the festive celebration of his emergence (into a world that he's frequently found so painful to occupy) just doesn't make any sense to him. Plus, he considers your true birthday a combination of various moments. When the science happened, in the womb, in a timeline and elsewhere.

In case you were unaware, your birthday has nothing to do with when you traveled down the birth canal and out into the waiting world. It's not about the "act" mind you, or the moment that the egg met the sperm, though those events do count. For Scott, pinpointing your true birthday is a complicated scenario involving many separate events and dates back to when your mother was born, and that's not the end of it.

From there, it takes twists and turns, with various limitations dependent on which sex you are. To his disappointment, no one seems to really care about the accuracy of calculating your true birthday. Why even bother, if you don't take the time to make the chronology of someone's true birthday meaningfully accurate? (I'd like to see what that line of birthday greeting cards would look like!)

For a four-minute audio discussion we had concerning his theory, click here. I wanted to make sure I got it right.

After about three birthdays together, I finally understood that it caused more harm than good to offer him a birthday card and/or wrapped gift. I'd explain that I couldn't just "do nothing" because it made me feel sad. I'd explain that to commemorate his arrival on the planet gave me joy. I got away with saying that, but it didn't seem to diminish his dislike or discomfort for the ritual, so it didn't actually give me joy after all.

I finally accepted that it was selfish of me to want to force a "Happy Birthday" on him. The best birthday gifts for him, regardless of the day they occur, have been events. For example, he exhibited pure joy and his shiny, hope-filled raccoon-eyes lit up when the Large Hadron Collider went live, when the Wolfram Alpha site went live and when Ronald Reagan ceased to be alive, which actually happened on Scott's birthday in 2004. (My apologies to the Reagan family, but while Scott enjoyed the actor, he was not a big fan of the politician.)

Of course, I made plans to spend his birthday with him on the island, since I've been on the mainland so much recently. I made a boat reservation, baked a plain white mini-cake with plain white whipped-cream frosting and no decorations (this is Scott, remember). I carefully loaded it into a little white cooler, determined that it would be no more than a few hours old when he tasted it...

Waiting to Board

Ten minutes from the Island. What a beautiful day!

The little cake survived the trip intact and Scott was appreciative when he saw it. So far so good! For me however, the birthday fun happened after my daughter called to see how it went. I took a photo of Scott and sent it to her so she could see him enjoying his little cake.

An hour later she sent me the altered photos below. The iPhone has added some new "Apps" which she downloaded recently. I can certainly see their allure. These shots were created using the "Mulletizer", "Stache-tastic" and "80s Hair".

Ahem...After enjoying the mullet, please notice the fly on the cake.

I'm speechless (because I'm laughing too hard).

This redefines "Disco" (and Afro)

I'm not sure if this one makes him look younger, or like the lost Osmond...

When I showed these shots to Scott, he smiled and said, "It's silly, but I would have played with that App for a solid week when I was 13." Me too, and then some.

It seems we managed to have just a teeny bit of fun in celebration of his "special day" after all. It's really just the equivalent of him wearing a festive party hat...but without the overhead of actually putting one on...