Almost caught up... Bottlerocket Review

I am almost all the way caught up with Professor MF work, and have some serious catching up to do for Professor CM, but all told -- it could be worse. I'm feeling confident and healthy for the first time in days. Yesterday morning I got up at 7 and worked until 10 on her (MF) site, so that when we had our phone meeting I had a ton of content for her. Tuesday we are meeting in person and I want to have all the rest of the work completed.

I think I can do it. In between working for cateringman, dog sitting Tiger and Buddy, getting the kids ready for school... yeah. I can do it. No sweat.

Speaking of kids ready for school, we accidentally missed open house for Geoff last night. I got home from cateringman's at about 4:30, showered, we chatted, Doug cooked. Next thing I knew was he said to me "Isn't tonight Geoff's open house?" !!!

uh, yeah. I grabbed the flyer off the fridge. 4:30 - 6:30. We missed it. So I have to call his teacher and make sure she can make time to meet with me next week.

Sigh. I feel like I suck at being a parent. I mean, how hard is it -- you remember to make time to GO somewhere that you know about. Duh.

It's like leaving pillows in a hotel. What is WRONG with my brain lately that I can't remember anything (I have CRS disease).

Speaking of CRS, (my entry today will be entirely comprised of segues in "Speaking of..." form) Scott showed us "Bottle Rocket" when we were at his house... we'd never seen all of it.

I really enjoyed it... I was particularly stunned by how YOUNG Luke Wilson looked. He could play Scott Stapp in the Creed Made For TV Movie with his hair like that.

And I had no idea that James Caan, huge big important film actor James Caan, was in this little, independent very funny movie. And another couple of surprises for me were that Mark Mothersbaugh (of Devo fame, and lately of ... Rugrats Nickelodeon TV theme music fame among other things) did the score, and James L. Brooks was the executive producer. You may recognize the name from oh... The Simpsons.

Damn.

How did Wes Anderson start off this good. And just keep getting better? Rushmore... Amazing movie. Tennenbaums... not quite as good as Rushmore in my opinion but one of the better movies that came out that year (plus my pal Ben Stiller is so funny).

Parts of Bottle Rocket were painful for me to watch. Dignan (Owen Wilson) was particularly hard for me to watch because for some reason all I kept thinking to myself was "Please God, Don't Let Geoff Grow Up To Be Dignan."

He was just too intense, funny and scary all at once. I wanted to laugh, but I also wanted to have the kid committed. It's a great movie with a weird plot twist, memorable characters and funny lines that stick in your head for good.

Go rent it. It's worth it.

Alright. What else is new. Doug just went out to go shopping for clothes for the school year. I am taking Jessie out tonight. I think Geoff is all set for a while yet, but need to completely rehaul his room/find all his clothing strewn about the house. I have laundry to do like crazy. I am working every day for the forseeable future for cateringman because his chief excellent dude Chris (aka Max Power) is going to be teaching in Lawrence this fall. He took his teacher test for the state of Massachusetts and has provisional certification to go ahead and get a job while he waits for the results. He knows he passed so he's got a full time job this fall. Cateringman told me he can keep me working almost every day through September... he's going to be swampped without Chris there. So I'm going to take him up on it and work as much as I can.

Tiger and Buddy are visiting us for a couple of days. They didn't sleep too well last night. They were up and pacing and making noise every couple of hours. At 1am Buddy started barking frantically and there was nothing to bark at. Tiger kept getting on and off our bed. Kinger slept the whole night through. I hope they do better tonight... that last night was just a big exciting night for them. We shall see.

Geoff has taken to running around the house in his socks. Which isn't good. Twice yesterday he wiped out (even though I told him repeatedly to take the socks off...) and the second time he cut his mouth and banged his forehead on the hardwood floor. We told him a million times... but he chose not to listen.

I told him to repeat after me: "Bad things happen when I don't listen. Bad things happen when I don't listen..." When will it sink in?

He scared the crap out of me, because when he wiped out that second time I heard a crack. I thought it was his cheek bone, his forehead skill bones, a tooth... Doug thinks it was the hardwood floor, that one of the strips of hardwood just made a crack sound. Geoff isn't showing any signs of broken facial bones or trauma. All his teeth are there. But I swear that boy is going to give me heart failure before Christmas. Damn!

Today -- he's got socks on. He came up to me and said "I have socks on my feet, but I'm walking very very slowly so I don't fall down." I told him that it would be better if he put on his no-skid slippers or go barefoot. But he assures me he'll be fine. And he is walking very gingerly around the house. No tearing ass from room to room for him today. Funny. Perhaps he is learning? I just wish that he'd do it the way I tell him to do it instead of try and convince himself (and me) that he's doing well.

Is it going to be this way when he's like 15, 20? Is he going to always have to be right, even if he comes close to being proven quite wrong just so he can do it his way? Oy. Three more grey hairs just sprouted.

Alright. Off to dishes and laundry. The dogs are all wiped out sleeping -- Doug wore them out this morning and their long night of pacing furiously has them tuckered. I'm tired too. I may catch a nap if I can...