<wednesday, january 14, 2004 - 10:40 p.m.>

For the past couple of hours I have been fighting the urge to open a box of chocolates I stashed away after Christmas. I could probably eat a whole box in one sitting.

Anyone dare me to try? Or is this one of those activities that you just go ahead and do, and then not tell anyone about because it is shameful and horrid? Has anyone out there ever eaten a whole box of chocolates? Is this even humanly possible?

I NEED TO KNOW.

<tuesday, january 13, 2004 - 11:18 p.m.>

Saturday: Mark was snappish and I was short-tempered and the girls were behaving like human ping pong balls. And so it was decided that we needed to get out of the house. We would take a big leap of faith and take the girls to the movies.

Taking the girls in a busy public place was going to require patience on our part.

After some debate we decided to go to the Ottawa Family Cinema. We've never been, mostly because we didn't know what to expect. From what we heard, a volunteer group ran a little movie theater from a local high school. I wondered if this was going to be like the special "hot dog days" when I was in elementary school. Where after a lunch of steamed dogs we crowded into the gym to sit on the floor and watch movies on an old projector. (Remember kids; this was in the days before video.)

We decided it was time to give it a try. The reasons were numerous

• It's very close by. In fact, if it was a little warmer we could have walked.
  
• It's extremely cheap, and money raised from ticket sales goes right back into our community. The theater operates as a non-profit.
  
• It's family-friendly. It's a place where no one cares if you have to take your kid to the bathroom multiple times during the movie, or if the kid spills its drink on the floor, or gets up out of its seat during the film to dance in the aisle. In fact, all three happened to us. And instead of snotty looks of derision we got smiles and nods of empathy. This does wonders for the blood pressure.

We got to the theatre at 1:30. Not knowing what to expect, we made sure to leave extra time. I'm glad we did. It seemed like everyone had the same idea, and we entered the foyer and were immediately swept into a wave of family-types. About 70% of the people in attendance were elbow level. By 2:00 we settled in our seats.

So there we were, munching on our snacks. And because this is a non-profit theatre it was extremely cheap to eat. A small popcorn for the girls was $1.00. (!) But here's where it really diverts from the ordinary big-chain-theatre-movie-going-experience.

Two people from the theatre (we learned later they are a father-daughter team) came on stage to chat with the audience. It wasn't just chatting, but they made a concentrated effort to encourage coordinated applause. ("OK - NOW LET'S HEAR THIS SIDE CLAP EVEN LOUDER!") I wondered what their reason was for doing this. Are they trying to get kids even more excited? Is the Coke and popcorn not enough?

I am a total non-joiner when it comes to any activity that is meant to drum up fake enthusiasm in a crowd. But I did make the effort for Emma and Sarah's sake. They like this kind of stuff and I wanted to be a positive role model for them and the rugrats around me.

The lights dimmed, the people settled, and for the next 20 minutes we watched a string of previews. Lights came back on, hey, it's intermission folks! Gadzooks, do these people not understand that stretching this out any longer is risky, and increases the odds that young children will get impatient and start doing things like chew on the seats in front of them, try to open the emergency exits, or worse, spill their drinks into their mother's laps? THEY WERE PLAYING WITH FIRE HERE, START THE DAMN MOVIE ALREADY.

The intermission (it was beyond me why they called it an intermission when the film hadn't even started yet) was also taken up by birthday greetings to kids in the audience, and then a raffle for toys and various Looney Tunes loot. When it was all said and done the process was further prolonged by the theatre curtain, which got stuck. They called a custodian, and he brought a ladder to unhook it at the top.

Saturday's feature: Looney Tunes: Back in Action. (Ebert here.) It's not a terrible film. It's not great either. There were some chuckles, many of which weren't even intended for children. For example, a shot taken at the base of the Eiffel tower had a poster of Jerry Lewis. There were hundreds of jokes based around old Warner Bros. cartoons. Imagine if you will, a non-stuttering Porky Pig and Speedy Gonzalez lamenting the need to be policitally correct. How could they possibly find work in an enviornment like this?

What surprised me the most about this film was the rating. It was rated G (General - suitable for all ages) but it probably contained the most violence I've ever seen in a G-rated film. For sure, this was the most violent film Emma has ever seen. A lot of it was cartoony violence, so some would argue it's ok, but does it matter to someone who is at an age where she can't really distinguish between what's real and what isn't?

Poor Daffy often the brunt of it, and many times he was being clobbered just because he was annoying.

Will this affect Emma? Well, it already has. She fell asleep later that afteroon, and woke up crying because of a dream she had about the Tasmanian devil character. Just like in the movie, she had a dream where, in his trademark whirlwind he striped a man of his clothes and his flesh (off camera) and reduced him to skeletal remains. This was made comic by the fact that the skeleton was still seated and talking. Still creepy, and I couldn't explain it to her. The irony is lost.

Sarah was oblivious. In fact, during a scene with Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner, she observed that Wile E. was a big brown bunny with long ears. And what's so scary about the bunny? Even if he's carrying an ACME rocket launcher?

So you may be asking yourself, what did she expect, taking her kids to see a Looney Tunes feature? I didn't expect something as gently pedantic as Little Bear or Franklin. But I didn't expect this either. It's the difference between a pony cart led by an old mare and a souped-up Honda Civic with a broken tailpipe.

I watched a lot of this stuff when I was a kid, and it didn't make me any worse for wear. But I distinctly remember not liking some segments, especially the Roadrunner. It was tiresome to me, so that was always the time I went to refill my bowl with more Cap'n Crunch (or Frankenberry, that was the best). I recognized it as being senseless even way back then.

Anyway, we came, we saw, we conquered without major incident. And we came home and scarfed down some pizza. It was a full day.

And this entry is way longer than I intended. More to come later. :)

andrea