Starry-Eyed Surprise

I crave spontaneity and I so seldom get it. So when my weekends are a crap-shoot, I usually am all ready to start the new week afterward.

I thought this weekend was going to end with me resenting someone (did I write that out loud?) but after Husband put in five hours in the lab, he came home and arranged for my mum to babysit so he and I could catch a movie or something. We piled in the car and drove the two-ish hours. Middle Sister was there with her kids, so everyone was happy, except for Mum who bought bad chicken. The roast was great, though, as were the brussels sprouts until Husband broke the Pyrex my parents got for their wedding.

After dinner, Husband and I split and drove to a new theatre my dad encouraged us to go to. He also had free admission coupons. I guess so did everyone else because we couldn't find parking. So we had to take the highway to another theatre, but that one had a line-up waaaaay out the door, which wasn't moving. Fuck that, we thought. I'd sooner go catch a movie alone in my local pisspot of a theatre.

So we went to Chapters instead. And if you saw us and registered our excitement, you'd have to remember that we're from a small town where we don't have big box stores. I'm not hungry for a Wal-Mart or anything but I adore Chapters. I like the smell. I like the comfy seats where I can peruse AND drink coffee. I like the vast selection. And don't even get me going on the magazines or the stationery. I picked up a cute journal with a Margaret Keane-inspired goth girl on the cover for a whopping $4. I also bought a gorgeous J. Otto Siebold (the guy who illustrated Olive, the Other Reindeer) pop-up book of Alice in Wonderland for only $6, a very encompassing encyclopedic X-Men book for $7 because of the torn dust jacket, and a novel that, well, I just liked the cover which had this retro Latina on it. I really enjoy Mexican folk art and the book is sort of based on La Loteria. I just wanted to have it around and, surprisingly, Husband didn't object or call me pack-ratish names. He must like me these days.

Husband bought the Radiohead CD. He almost got one by Mark Knopfler but I made a face like I would have if I was watching orthopedic surgery or something.

We slept over at my parents' and spent the next day in Toronto. Husband visited people and I took my parents to the Apple Store to introduce my dad to the idea of getting a computer. We looked at an entry-model iMac. "Where's the rest of the computer?" Dad asked when I was showing him around. He couldn't believe that everything was inside the thin monitor. Actually, I think it might have made him more hesitant somehow.

After, we all met up at Baby Sister's house. The guys got all hepped up on testosterone and watched football on the HD. My mum, sister and I got all domestic and discussed baby laundry and ideas for the nursery.

We made our way back home with the kids konked out in the back so I got to listen – without complaints – to my boyfriend, George Stroumboulopoulos. Husband knows well of, but doesn't understand, my thing for Strombo. "Why can't you just lust after Brad Pitt like a normal woman?" Maybe because I'm not normal, sugar. I mean, how many judge their days by the amount of spontaneity in it? And everyone thought I'd grow up and calm down. I must be a huge disappointment to so many in my life.