It's Not What You Think

Today is May 8, 2010. That means yesterday was May 7, 2010. Christmas, Easter, my birthday, and President's Day all rolled into one. The premiere of Iron Man 2.

You know I went. So, you are probably checking this blog today in anticipation of a review of said movie. That is, of course, how I roll. But be brave of heart - I have a story for you, my little chickens.

I've made the executive decision NOT to review Iron Man 2 today. I will wait until it comes out on DVD (which will probably be around my birthday, won't that be nice?) because I will be in a "movie drought" this fall and looking for material with which to entertain you - which is, certainly, why I live and breathe. I'd rather tell you the story of 'going to see Iron Man 2 with a 10-year old boy'.

It started, as you can imagine, days earlier, with the "daily countdown". "Mom, only 5 more days." "Mom, only 3 more days..." you get the idea. Finally we awoke on Friday morning...THE DAY. Bright and early, getting ready for school, a semi-comatose little boy drags his feet around the bedroom...until I say, "Tav, today is the day we've been waiting months for." He then vaulted across the room (he wakes up quickly when he wants to, evidently) and gave me a huge hug with an exuberant "YES!"

I get off work on Fridays at 4:30 (thanks, boss). The movie starts at 7. We live 15 minutes from the theater-two lanes, no traffic, for you city folk. Got a timeline in your mind? Good.

So, I get home and it's 4:45. Tav says, "are we leaving now?" I said no, we aren't, because Mommy hasn't even put down her purse yet, let alone made dinner. He assures me that there's absolutely no need to eat dinner because he's stuffed to the gills from the lunch he had eaten 5 hours ago.

So, Mom announces that she's not cooking tonight, forgoes dinner for a bowl of vanilla coconut granola and does the dishes. It's 5:10. "Are we leaving now?" Sigh.

My original plan was to leave the house around 5:30-5:40, go to the dollar store, grab some candy and pop, and be in line at the theater by 6:15. It became increasingly evident as the minutes passed that my original plan was not going to happen, as Tav began the "let's leave the house" dance (which closely resembles the "I gotta go pee" dance) and a low "mom mom mom" chant, reminiscent of Amazon war drums.

I went in the bathroom to fix my face, and it seems that the lack of visual contact just sent him over the edge. Tav starts knocking on the door. "What are you doing? Are you putting on makeup? When are we leaving?"

So, dear reader, we ended up leaving the house at 5:20, driving SLOWLY to Wal-Mart (which I figured would suck more time than the dollar store), and then drove SLOWLY to the theater. We got there at 6:10 and were numbers 14 and 15 in line. Oh, and at Wal-Mart, we got a corn dog for Tav, because he suddenly decided that he was hungry, after all. Funny how that works.

It was 50 degrees and the wind was blowing. A lovely evening to stand outside for 20 minutes.

Because you asked, here are a few brief impressions of the film - a little darker, a little mud in the plot, a little obscure. The theater was packed, which means that I had someone encroaching on my personal space. But still fun. A lot of fun. If you liked the first one, I can't imagine that you would despise the second one. And that is all you get, my dear reader, until the DVD.