Stranger than Fiction is a masterpiece of a movie. It is in my top ten category along with Armagedon, Princess Bride, Rocketman, A Walk in the Clouds, Evolution, and the Maltese Falcon. There are three more but….I have a hard time deciding on them. I like to think I have a very wide range of movie likes. I do not like Horror flicks or movies with sad endings like Titanic, Perfect storm, or anything written by Nicholas Sparks. (Somebody go slap that man) I prefer to be uplifted and happy when I come out of a theater and not in the mood to slit my own wrists, or the wrists of the person next to me.

I’ve always liked Disney and other kid movies but, I think I am finally growing out of them. Lucky timing since my kids are also growing out of them. The last few kid films I went to ended up in supplying me with a nice nap. I think part of it is because they have become increasingly stupid. My dad has been a super trooper lately by taking Ben to see several kid flicks I could NOT handle seeing. The Smurfs was one of those. True, I did end up watching it at home on DVD later, but ….that is less painful because I can go ‘pee’ and miss half the movie without anybody really caring and without feeling like I wasted a months’ pay. The worst part of that particular film was Gargamel. Seriously. I could not handle him or his sick cat. At the time, I had not started my addiction to How I Met Your Mother, so I was not yet a close person friend of Neil Patrick Harris so….I didn’t fully appreciate him in the film either. I’m sure it would be different now, since we are now bar buddies.

We are big movie people in my family. It is something we have always liked doing together. I think it started back when the kids were smaller and we chose to not have a television. Well, we had one, but we didn’t watch anything on it but movies. There was no ‘television’ in our home until we moved to Florida. Even then, we only had it for a short while before reverting back to our movie state. When we moved to Arizona, I must have had a total brain cloud the day I ordered cable. I don’t know why I did it but I mostly regret it. I  now have it set up so that we get only a few channels and the list grows shorter almost daily. The cartoons out there are so stupid I actually feel brain cells die when I just walk through the room and they are on.

Someone please explain to me why the MALE cow on Barnyard has udders.?? What kind of message is this sending our kids? And why do the animals constantly dress up like women….and people don’t notice they are male farm animals? Again, the person that came up with that show and especially the person that repeatedly draws (or computer generates) those ‘male udders’ needs to get in my slapping line. And that person will get a Marshall slap…one that will be sung about for generations to come. Idiots.

We had a great home evening tonight void of any fighting or arguing. It was nice. The problem was that I only had three kids attend. The big boys decided they had more pressing matters to attend to. Jokes on them…..I have extra computer and game equipment in my closet now…..  After our lesson, we ate ice cream and watched a couple episodes of Jimmy Neutron. This is a show that I actually like. Yes, I know that it has a BIG problem in that it portrays the father figure as a duck loving, pie eating, moron, but I do love all the science in the show. I may be rationalizing, but think of it as the lesser of many evils.  The best part of the show tonight was seeing how much Ben and the other kids enjoyed it. They were re runs, as we have seen every episode, but they kids still laughed and laughed. There is not much in this world I love more than hearing my children laugh. It makes everything right in the world when they are smiling and happy. I was tempted to let them stay up all night and watch more and more Jimmy….just so I could hear them laugh. But that would have been selfish since they have school in the morning. My kids do not function well on no sleep. Ben turns into one of those gremlins, Ethan becomes a moody teenager, and Sarah just doesn’t wake up. She is like her sister in that. They NEED their sleep. They will take it by force if need be. No sane person stands between my girls and their sleepy time.

I think that if I was ever to make a movie or television show, I would definitely make it a comedy. I would want people to laugh and to come out of the theater seeing the world in a little brighter, sparklier way. I’d want them to have more patience and love for the people they come in contact with. I’d want them to be inspired to do a bit better, shoot a bit higher, and give a little bit more of themselves to the world. When people come out of horror or sad movies, I don’t think they feel those things. I know when I see something like that, all I want to do is hide in my closet and try and push the story out of my head.  I want my stories to be ones that people are comfortable with in their heads. I don’t  want people to be afraid of the dark or of their quiet neighbor because of my story. I want my stories to make people see the good in the world and to try and make even more goodness out of it.
I know it’s a big dream….but who says I can’t dream that? I can’t sit around and wait for someone else to make a difference, I need to try and do my part….we all do…cause I said so.