A Twist of Things to Come

I drove back home on Easter Sunday, and stayed up past 1am to get my hours in. I was a zombie on Monday, but I managed. I didn't have to get groceries because I brought bread and lunch things with me.

Tuesday morning, I called the school to find out when my meeting with the guidance counselor was (to explain the "4 year plan" paperwork, because my dear son was not articulating it to me very well). They didn't have a record of the appointment (I had put it in my Outlook calendar just before my laptop died - I saved most stuff but not that), so they said they would put me down for one on Wednesday. Which meant I could not go into the office on Wednesday. Since there was a doctor's appointment for the Big Boy that I had been waiting for for three months on Friday, and Thursday was my day off, that meant I had to go to the office basically as soon as I got off the phone with the school.

It went well. I talked to my boss about the summer break, and she said that other people in QC also have kids who will be home from school in the summer, so it was no big deal to waive the come-in-once-every-two-weeks thing for the summer. So I can go to New Orleans.WHEE! I stopped for groceries on the way home. I arrived before the younger boy but just after the big boy.

Made the other appointment on Wednesday and still managed to get in most of my hours. I knew I would be working on my day off because I would need to make up the hours I was going to miss on Friday for the long-awaited specialist appointment, which I did. I also chaptered.

Then I realized that I had accepted an appointment that was almost 50 miles away, because it was the first available and it was kind of important. I cried, because i was certain I'd never make it in time, but we did. AND I managed to work more than enough afterward, so I let both boys invite friends over for part or all of the weekend.

I did, too. I made a huge dinner and asked some good friends that I have not seen much recently because I've been practicing becoming reclusive and weird. :D Made a cake and everything. Beverages were drunk, games were played.

***

Somehow, I feel relatively like a competent human again.

Friday night, I watched The Woman in Black with my boys and my youngest's friend Jake, who was over for a sleepover.

That is an extremely atmospheric film, and a fairly scary one. Not scary, maybe, to people who require/expect monsters or Saw levels of gore, but for an old coot like me, pretty tense. My Beloved refused to go to the theater to see it, because the trailer scared him so much.

In any case, the boys and i had plans to watch it, and we had been under the impression that Jake had several other offers for the night and would not be coming. But, he came over anyway. Robert and I told both him and William not to talk during the movie, but you might as well tell water not to be wet. Jake's a talker.

"There should be monsters. Monsters are scarier than ghosts. Ghosts aren't scary..."

Robert and I, together: Shhhhhh!

And so on. Eventually, he excused himself to William's room. I figured he'd just get his laptop out and wait for William to join him. But no.

A few minutes later, this black thing jumps out from behind the couch onto William, making a strange, blood-curdling noise. It's Jake, who had excused himself to change into a black morphsuit. He then sat down and watched the rest of the film through te mesh of his morphsuit.

Jake is a bit of a character. He is a very good actor - he's very expressive and loud, and also makes some amazingly ...um, atmospheric noises. He and William get on very very well, partly because William is just socially impaired enough not to exclude Jake for his obvious eccentricities. Not that there is anything wrong with Jake. He's actually amazing enough that if he were a grown man, he'd probably already have his own TV show. Part of his amazingness is how little he cares about fitting in, when most twelve-year-olds think that is their full time job.

What amazed me was that, when packing for a sleepover, he brought a black morphsuit, just in case.

He got us all, good.

***

The movie was creepy enough that my creepy old house -- to which I am largely accustomed -- once again became old and creepy. I hung a dress over my mirror just to sleep. (It is positioned such that when trains go by a lot of the light that makes it in the window gets cast about by it, making my bedroom full of writhing black shadows.)

Also, Dan Radcliffe grew up kind of hot. I feel a tad dirty-old-woman-ish just saying that, but... yeah.