Friday evening I drove to meet 1/2 of Jen’s family in Columbia for dinner after work. We hung out and shot the breeze for a while, then reconvened at a nearby Coldstone for ice cream. YUM. As usual my eyes were bigger than my stomach, so I had to pack up half of what I’d bought and bring it home. The evening was capped off with a moonlight drive home in the Scout, which was actually quite pleasant after the sun had gone down. One thing that’s nagging me is the absence of license plate lights in back–I have the plate zip-tied to the swing arm in front of the mount. Last thing I want right now is a moving violation ticket.

I spent much of Saturday laid up with the girl on the couch, watching Nick Jr. and coughing up my lungs while Jen worked on a photo shoot in the dining room. At this point I’m about done with the Fresh Beat Band, though in their defense they appear to be the happiest four people walking the earth. I suppose it’s only a matter of time before a sex and heroin soaked “Behind The Music” is produced exposing the seamier side of life as a Rock Star. We regretfully opted out of a barbecue with the Hoerrs that afternoon; the heat was too much and I for one would not have been in top form.

Sunday was much the same; mostly relaxation and low-key activities. We rose too late to get ready for church, but the presence of two Trane service trucks in the parking lot spoke volumes: my guess is that they haven’t got air conditioning in the summer wing fixed yet. We did rally by noontime to go out and see Brave in a blast-chilled theater down by the airport. Finn seemed to like the movie, though I think she had a hard time following plot threads. Being a Pixar movie there were more than just a few simple themes to grasp, so we did our best to fill her in as the movie progressed. As an adult, I liked it a lot; while it’s not their best movie, it deserves more credit than it’s getting by the critics. Jen and I talked about it briefly over dinner–the rap on Pixar is that all their movies are about boys with daddy issues; this is a girl with mommy issues. What I think the critics forget, though, is that these are all, at heart, kids’ movies. As a kid, the biggest source of conflict is usually with one’s parents. So mommy/daddy issues are the bread and butter of a real kids’ movie. This is generally why Pixar movies work better than, say, Shrek, which is an adult’s movie masquerading as a kid’s fairy tale (and stuffed full of stale adult pop-culture references).

Anyway, I enjoyed it, and I think Finn did too. She crashed out on the way home, right around the time I realized I’d left my phone in the theater. I activated the Find My Phone service through iCloud, which told me it was sitting at the lost & found waiting for me to pick it up. Well done, Apple.