It was a lovely weekend.

Friday night, though, was slow. James and Jen came down to the house so we could give Jen her birthday present (a picture book of Anne Rice fans - creepy, cool) and that led us into a lasagna/ice cream/Rugrats extravaganza.

Let me explain.

Sonya made lasagna Wednesday night as sort of a post-birthday dinner. She was supposed to make it for my birthday, but hell - I can't turn down steak.

And Sonya makes some of the best lasagna I've ever had. I've certainly never had it better at a restaurant. Not coming from an Italian family or anything I don't have much of a basis of comparison...but I'd crawl over broken glass for the stuff. It's yummy.

Thursday night I had leftover filet mignon and lasagna, along with garlic/cheddar bread with actual pieces of cheddar cheese baked right in to it. God, it was wonderful. Like sex, you know, but you eat it.

Wait a second...sex is...I mean you can...

Never mind.

And Sonya has discovered The New Finest Ice Cream Known To Man - Blue Bell Banana Split. The shit is good, y'all. Vanilla ice cream with cherries and nuts and chocolate and bananas all thrown in there. Excellent.

And there was a Rugrats marathon on Friday night. So that explains everything, doesn't it? I tell you, that Chuckie's a hoot!

"I don't know Tommy...I don't think it's such a good idea..."

Okay, quick funny story. Sonya and I went to Bookstar the other day to pick up the aforementioned book for Jen. While Sonya was looking for that I picked up a book by Poppy Brite - Lost Souls. About vampires, I think, though I haven't started reading it. For those of you unfamiliar with Miss Brite's work: she's a freak! Her work is gross, gross, gross. Yucky. I like it a lot.

So we go up to the counter and plop down our books. Sonya's wearing a nice jacket/skirt combo with hose and heels. I've got on some Dockers and my Baskin-Robbins-pink Oxford shirt. The girl at the register raised an eyebrow and checked us out.

"You know," Sonya said afterward, "we really don't look like the kind of people who would be buying these books."

The wife brings up an excellent point, as usual.

During my freshman year of college nobody would have thought a thing of me buying those books. I had it all, brother: big black hair, the clothes, the make-up, the music, the black fingernails. I was a freak, too.

It was fun, and I suppose the Leo in me liked the attention. But I'm a naturally sunny person, I think, so the persona was not exactly me. Plus having to get a job introduces you to the harsh realities of life. But hell, I was rebelling against four years of Church o' Christ high school. It was wonderful.

Another quick funny story: my first job after Sonya and I got married was at Arby's, making roast beef sammitches and such. They told me to get a haircut pronto. We were dead broke - married college student broke.

Sonya said she'd cut my hair.

The first time she cut my ear I winced and bled. A lot. The second time I yelped like a kicked puppy and bled some more. Luckily, she'd gotten the last of the long hair (along with a goodly portion of my ear) with her last snip.

The scars are faint now, but still visible.

All that's beside the point, though. Saturday I got up early to take Roxy to the vet for her annual check-up, which I always enjoy. It's fun to see all the other doggies and to have the vet comment on how cute my dog is. I mean, these guy look at dogs all day and take the time to admire how precious my hound is. The comment this year: "you know, she's got some really pretty markings. Very unusual."

I am the doting father and proud papa. Not in a Humbert Humbert kind of way, though. But we'll get there in a minute.

I also got Sonya's car inspected, made a hair-cuttin' appointment, bought dog food and went and saw the parents Saturday. Much was accomplished.

Saturday night was a party. I called up a bunch o' friends through the week and assembled them at Neil's that night to basically drink and have a sort of late-birthday party for me and Jen. James and Jen were there, of course, as were Angie and Leigh Ann and Blake. The Big Bang was there, too - Bill, Jeff, Brian and the drummer whose name is unremembered. And Donna, Bill's wife. And Ben, Donna's friend and fellow pharmacist. Ben dressed up as Evander Holyfield last Halloween, complete with robe, gloves, and bandaged ear. A wonderful crew. Everyone got a kick out of the Bang's disco/eighties setlist. Blake and Leigh Ann bought me a bottle of Absolut, bless their little hearts. It was a good night. We talked about cats, Angie's tamagotchi, Sonya's red eye(the poor woman has a sty) and Donna's non-smoking.

Saw two important movies Sunday. I got around to seeing Saving Private Ryan yesterday, and I survived, thank you very much. I think I took it quite well. That opening battle scene's some gory shit, huh? Possibly the best-realized war movie ever. I found myself thinking, "you go, crazy roommate from Friends, confound the jerries at every turn!" And the underwater scene at the beginning was better than the one from Alien Resurrection, which I didn't think was possible.

"I've looked all through my Italian dictionary, and I can't find FUBAR anywhere..."

One thing I didn't understand, though: was the old guy at the beginning and end a survivor of the Titanic too? Did he know Rose somehow?

And what about the big asteroid? How did it tie in to World War II?

Damn this movie hype...they're all blurring together...

Here's one movie I'm not going to forget for a while, though: Lolita. Aw yeah...

Who's a bad girl?

Lolita is.

So what does she need?

That's right - a spankin'!

I've been waiting for this movie for three years...ever since I saw a blurb in Entertainment Weekly about it. I mean, really...Adrian Lyne? Jeremy Irons? Dominique Swain? Why would I not go see this movie?

Of course at the time I didn't know who Dominique Swain was, but I saw pictures. Damn.

The film never got its theatrical release, and that's a shame. It's a gorgeous, melancholy movie that captures the era and the sadness of Humbert so well. I gotta go with whichever reviewer said that it beats the Kubrick version all to hell. No offense, Stan, if you're reading this. Love your work, can't wait to see Eyes Wide Shut. I like the Kubrick version, really, but this new version is trés warm, and without a lot of the distracting camerawork and implied naughtiness that was necessary at the time. Not that there's any split-beaver shots or anything in this version, it's actually very tasteful - the reading-the-funnies scene...the stepping-on-the-banana scene...the multiple removals of the retainer. Shit...it's good stuff.

And the little bitch is just so mean, you know? She hits him, she charges him for her special favors, in the end she tells him she never loved him. By the time the movie was over I found my heart aching...

...for a child molester. Hey, Adrian Lyne! Mission accomplished - you had me cheering for a pervert!

After the movie James made a good point.

"I don't see the big deal," he said, "I thought Se7en was far more disturbing than this."

He's right. But we're cool with that for some reason. Hell, In Saving Private Ryan yesterday I probably saw the most realistic depictions of graphic violence ever filmed. Yes, Spielberg was trying to show the true horrors of war, I understand that. But is it really entertainment? Is it somehow more entertaining and worthy of being seen than an extremely dysfunctional relationship like the one in Lolita?

An interesting question, huh? Which would you rather let your children see:

A) The litter of body parts and blood that kicks off Saving Private Ryan

or

B) The first kiss between Dolores and Humbert, the one where her legs are wrapped around his waist? She's the one who kisses him, by the way, and this is no little-girl-kissing-daddy kiss, this is a KISS, with tongues and greed and passion, for lack of a better word.

If I had offspring, I wouldn't want them to see either one. But I'm grown, so I should be allowed to see whatever I like and make my own moral judgements about it afterwards.

Right?

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