weasel day with winnie g.

Winston is home with me today. I’m feeling a bit like a mensch. He isn’t sick, just tired, but sometimes that’s all it takes after a huge weekend.

On Saturday night we tried to go to the drive-in for a Shrek 4-Iron Man 2 double feature. Both Vali-Hi and Cottage View were at capacity, with incredibly long lines of cars hoping to get in at some point. Even though we were thwarted twice, we became determined to see a movie of some sort so we hightailed to Inver Grove Heights, the nearest movie theater, to see Iron Man 2 at 9:35 (we didn’t get home until close to 1 a.m.).

How was it? Robert Downey, Jr. was incredible, as always. Sam Rockwell was an outstanding corrupt tycoon. Mickey Rourke was genius as the villain. The plot was hopelessly predictable, but I don’t think that really matters since the movie is action driven. And the action was good. Some of the sequences were overwhelming—huge and fast and loud. I would love to have seen Iron Man 2 on the enormous drive-in screen. Best movie of the summer. So far.

On Sunday, the boys played at friends’ houses. Winston, for one, spent the day in his friend Peter F’s swimming pool=lots of sun, lots of activity. 94 degrees and humid—I hate this weather and wish I could have spent the day in the pool, too. John had band practice while I made stock from lobster shells and planned our June trip.

So I made Winston sleep in this morning. I even laid down with him for a while. He’s so small and cuddly. My plan was to take him to school around 10. Around 8:30 his teacher called to ask if he was coming to school. She was checking because the class was taking a field trip to the Dodge Nature Center, and she didn’t want him to be left behind. How convenient for Winston? His class wouldn’t return to school until close to the time it let out for the day. No point in taking him to school.

We made a pact: no kid TV, no electronics (DS or wii), no computer. Pretty much no fun. Trying to make the most of the day, we tapped into creativity. Winston and I rounded up all the never-used chopsticks from Chinese takeout and all the scraps of yarn from knitting projects I’d finished. Then I set Winston to work making god’s eyes, which he named after Greek gods: Ares, Poseidon, Athena, Zeus, and Hades.

While Winston was busy crafting, I learned how to knit using double point needles. The sweater I started this past winter is two sleeves shy of being finished. The weather is becoming less conducive to holding a bulky garment on my lap so I’d like to get this sweater completed and stored in mothballs until November.