Don’t Give Away Ice-Cream

The self help books present a conundrum, well probably several of them.  But I am thinking of a specific one today.  I am still reading How to Behave so Your Children Will Too.  Chapter 4 is titled “Don’t Give Away Ice-Cream”.  Now is this really going to work in a family where ice-cream is something that is always given away – in large bowls, with seconds.  O.K.  I do agree that all of us work for rewards – adults for that paycheck at the end of the month; children for that extra boost to their allowance.  But ice-cream?  No, ice-cream is meant to be given away.

Still, today Rebecca promised that if our work was done (hers and mine) by 6 pm we would go see Hugo at the cinema.  So I deviled those eggs, worked pulling weeds in the garden, put a couple of washes through, walked to Sainsbury’s to help carry the groceries back in the two-wheeler carts that went up there empty and came back so loaded that we had to be careful going over curbs so that nothing fell out.
Right up to the last moment when we were to leave, Rebecca was putting the jobs in front of me, the ones she was doing herself.  Duncan taking a shower requires someone to go up there and run a pick through that mass of tight curls that he has to deal with for hair.  I took the 20 minutes that it always takes, to put the groceries away, and with 2 minutes to spare we left for the movies.

Rebecca and I were going voluntarily. Duncan was going by assignment.  “That is how people become families,” I was saying, “the do things together.  And besides that, I packed my purse full of treats for you, so darn it all, you are coming.”

I choose the front seats on top of the double-decker bus.  Duncan likes the seats at the back.  For me that is like turning the binoculars around at a concert and getting the long view of the front window, instead of the close-ups.  At our bus stop, we ran down the isle, and were heading down the stairs.  I never go down them but I remember Wyona tripping when the bus suddenly sped forward.  She went running double-time down the stairs and hit the bottom side panel of the stairs with such force that I thought she would just slide down them in a dead faint, or at least have a dislocated shoulder.  So I was being carefully, as I am, every time I go down those stairs.  However, for me, the bus driver hit the brake and I gracefully laid myself back on the stairs, first my bottom limbs, then my bottom, then my back, then my arms – just sprawled out there.  Duncan was intoning behind me, “Grandma, get up, get up.  You are blocking the stairs.  What are you doing there?  Don’t do that.  We are going to miss getting off the bus. Hurry up.”

I should have titled these words, Another First for Me.  I am not referring to my fall on the bus, but to yesterday when I saw my first of the recent 3-D movies.  I saw some early 3-D movies twenty years ago, when we had glasses that were green in one lens and red in the other.  So yesterday, I saw the new 3-D, Journey to: The Incredible Island with Duncan.  If one is good, then 2 is better.

Promotional Poster for Hugo

So off I went to  Hugo.  There couldn’t have been two happier adults in the thatre than Rebecca and me: a person who teaches film, and a person what has taken many film courses in the past few years.  In 25 words or less, the film is a good tool to teach about early film – using the work of George Méliès, the French illusionist and film-maker.  Rebecca, Duncan and I walked all of the way home, chatting about how good the film had been, “Like an exquisite poem,” Rebecca said.  “And Duncan, you knew all of the actors in it, even the ones who made cameo appearances”.  They exchanged information happily about who had appeared in the Harry Potter films and where they had seen the other actors. I scored a big zero in that conversation.

Much later this evening, I figured out that I had seen those early films on the big screen for the first time.  I have seen them projected on a screen at the front of a classroom, but there is something magical about the big screen in the theatre, filled with all of that sound, and having all of that background knowledge about early film making, wrapped up in such a beautiful package.

Well, I still say, give away ice-cream, ... but make people work to get a chance to go the movies.  I will put in a twelve hour day for that opportunity.

Arta