On Sunday

That was the name of this really good, overly dramatic song by an Austin band whose name I cannot recall at the moment. Toland?

***

Here I sit, having slept until 10:30 am (wow!) due to (A) Kelli's sweet generosity and (B) the cumulative effect of a few days' worth of cold medicine.

Now I'm having some Java Paradise coffee while THEBOY messes around with something online and THEGIRL watches Elmo DVDs.

When I was five years old, my father once brought me a HUGE sheet of paper for me to draw on as I wanted. Must've been two feet by three feet or bigger.

Now my kids are online, watching DVDs... their upbringing is a heck of a lot different from mine. I hope I'm doing this right.

***

I think I am though. THEBOY had some cash in his piggy bank, and Friday night, after days of hearing The Little Attorney plead his case, I took him to Toys R Us.

He picked a Spiderman plug 'n' play video game. It was misplaced, but I thought I found the price for it: $19.99.

We went to ring out, and it was actually $29.99, way out of our price range.

It was awkward. Two nice sales clerks immediately began conspiring to knock $10 off the price, what with the whole piggybank cash scenario in front of them.

And THEBOY said, "It's okay. I'd better go get something else."

Wow.

***

We got a similar Fantastic Four video game and headed to the same checkout line. The checker said she'd never seen a child who would have taken that so well--and she raised five sons.

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The things that linger #1: I'm having this fine cup of coffee in a mug with my evil ex-employer's name printed across the side. I must admit that I threw away the shirt with their logo on it immediately after I left.

But I like this mug. It's a good size, nice color. I'm not going to let the presence of their name keep me from enjoying this mug.

Sometimes, though, when I'm not paying attention, I catch myself spitting into it.

***

A question to anyone who may be interested: Have you ever heard the phrase "nightclub jitters"? If so, what does it mean to you? I'm mulling a project for one of my classes.

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My classes are great, just great. I've got the same prof for both of them, and he's one of the best I've ever had. The compliment I'd like to pay this man (but won't until I'm done with his classes), is that I'm WITH him, about 99% of the time. I mean, my mind almost never wanders during his marathon three-hour classes. I'd say in the stats course I took last spring my mind wandered about 60% of the time.

***

Speaking of marathons... and NOT the race for a change... we watched The Wedding Crashers last night. We enjoyed it for sure. It's no Schindler's List, of course, but it's good, light-hearted, raunchy entertainment.

But like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, it's also 20-30 minutes too long. Did this movie really need to be 128 minutes long? The material simply isn't deep enough for that. I found myself editing the movie as it played. The whole opening sequence, a montage during which it's established that these men crash weddings in order to woo/bed some of the guests, is about three times as long as it needs to be.

When you write a book, I'm told every scene needs to advance the plot, you know? In The 40-Year-Old Virgin, there's a whole scene in which the store manager solicits some marijuana from a pothead warehouse clerk. We already knew he had a little grass business on the side; this was completely unnecessary, you know? Granted, it was the unrated version, and from what I've read in Slate, unrated mostly just means LONGER.

The Wedding Crashers was not the unrated version though.

***

Man, I'm rambling today.

***

Looks to be a gorgeous day here. I'll take the kids to the park later. Ya'll have a good one.