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11:26:00 PM EDT
An outing with son Dan and grandson Dante...
Most recent photo of Dan and Dante
I was looking forward to our day at the movies. Dan called and said they were hungry so they wanted to eat before the matinee movie. We all walked over to the Arizona Center where the big AMC 24 movies complex is. We liked to eat at Subway where Dante always gets the children's meal. Dan got a footlong ham and cheese, and I got the veggie-max with lots of raw veggies which was absolutely delicious, the best vegetarian burger around. They had coke and chips with theirs and I had unsweetened ice tea.
We had previously decided on Nim's Island, and I have to say this movie turned out to be a good pick. Abrigal Breslin, the child star in Little Miss Sunshine, was more grown up in this one and very good. She has a pet sea lion, lizard, and bird and lives on a remote island in the pacific with her marine biologist dad. He goes on a trip out into the ocean to gather data and she stays alone. He runs into a storm and does not return when he is scheduled to.
This is when the story gets just a little far fetched but does work. She intercepts an e-mail to her dad from a certain Alex Rover who writes her favorite adventure stories. Alex Rover turns out to be the alter ego of the female writer, Alexandra Rover, played by Jodie Foster, who is so neurotic she never leaves her apartment! She has a major case of agrophobia which she really indulges despite Alex's efforts to get her out into the world.
Nim on the Island sends out a call for help when her dad does not return, so Alex appeals to Alexander's writer's conscience and persuades her to leave the house and somehow find and get to the little island in the Pacific. I did say far fetched, didn't I? Except Jodie is such a good actress, she is believable, and she is in absolute super shape, slim and trim. I just love this actresss, she is the consummate professional.
The lost dad and she get to the island about the same time which is the happy ending. There is a suggestion that he and Alexandra might find romance. Alex Roper has already left saying he will no longer be the writer's crutch that she uses to keep from experiencing real life!
Nim's mother died years before on another great adventure out in the ocean. Nim is just a darling little girl, about 11, close to Dante's age who is 12. He passed muster on this movie although he is looking forward more to Indiana Jones and the Land of the Crystal Skull. Have you ever seen a photo of the fabulous crystal skull? We all can't wait.
We then walked back to Dan and Raymond's apartment to watch the NCAA. Dan is such an expert on basketball I always like to watch the game with him. I then asked him and Dante to tell me about Dante's suspension from school. He said (are you ready for this) that Dante took some flour in a piece of tinfoil to school to pretend it was crack. He had it laying right out in the open and his teacher saw it. Dan said that Dante was not even able to anticipate what trouble this stunt might get him into, but he said that the teacher told his mom to keep him home two days, as he had to be suspended for such. I am afraid that Dante's acting gene overcame his caution gene which it very often does with him.
But just then Dan inspected the dishes Dante was supposed to have washed that morning, and he did a very careless bad job indeed, and that made Dan angrier. He cussed Dante and told him he better get those dishes rewashed and that he could not sluff off a job and try to get away with it at his house as he did at his mom's. He made a threat or two to get out his belt next time! I naturally got quite stirred up while this 'cussing' was going on, so we had a big discussion about whether it was civilized for Dan to rebuke him that severely just as I arrived. I said why didn't you tell him you would take care of him later. He said no, that would be too late. He would not get the idea that this really was serious.
I told Dan then that he and his sister Ronda had not done one single chore while they were in high school since I was at home recovering from my last serious illness. I said he would not even take out the garbage, but since I was at home all the time, it took less energy for me to take care of these chores than to force them to do it. He agreed that this was the truth. I told him I did not regard the chores nearly as important as the work they did in school. So then we discussed how in the high school for minorities where they went the homework requirements were mostly let slide, since most of the kids wouldn't do it. They would have dropped out first. Standards at the high schools I went to were higher and I had to do about two hours of homework every night!
He admitted that neither he nor Ronda did one speck of homework. Ronda was still valedictorian as she seemed to have a photographic memory and despite the low standards in the school scored very high on her sats every time she took them. Dan read a lot and he got honors grades, too.
In the meantime Dante was beaming all over and said, "I just love it when Grandma comes!" (He means because I put his dad on the hot seat) I said Ronda was so busy going to college and taking care of her family she had no time to read my journal but he could at least read it. How long would that take him? I also said he could write more on the family site if he would, why did he think it was created? He hasn't even been posting movie reviews. Raymond is the only one who reads my journal regularly and comments on it, him and my sister Ann. I think Gary reads it once in a while and he comes on the family site occasionally, but says little.
My family should be able to take my subject matter, since it is their family, too. I am writing my memoirs, I told Dan, and trying to make sense out of everything that happened in my life.
Dan is very concerned that Dante develop the habit of reading, and he tries to figure out all kinds of ways to reward him for reading books. I talked about Doc and his lazy ways, developed while drinking so much. He can go through a day and do absolutely nothing but drink and watch TV. The days slip away, but I said I don't let him stop me from reading and writing every day. I was always very concerned about my sisters getting in lazy habits and not reading and writing enough. Dan said that I just run on and on when I write. I said oh baloney, there are some subjects that require analysis and explanation. All these studies of pedofiles I have known. They are tough.
I am planning my next entry about another dangerous outlaw and pedofile I tried to affect since nobody else would tackle him. I do think people tend to put their heads in the sand while the world fills up with criminal types and yet expect to stay safe.
Look at Dante pretending to be a crack dealer. He got that from the movies. Well, and from the world around him. His mother's sister and brother have both served jail time for drug possession. I would say Dan needs to address the dangers of his world more than he does.
Anyway, Dan agreed to come over and help me get the home movie I am going to shoot of my sister Linda's poetry reading up to the computer, edited and maybe posted on uncut video or youtube and embedded in my journal. I thought that was kind of him. I want to put some videos on there to liven up my journal. That's why I wanted Doc to get a camcorder and a top of the line computer with a burner in it. I told Doc this morning I wanted him to study how to get the camera to feed into this computer. It takes alot to get him to work.
By this time I was so tired that I could not watch a speck of the basketball game, came home, and dropped in at Doc's as I promised I would. He had a friend over drinking! The friend was upset because I started to cuss Doc, so I decided I better go home. I turned on the basketball game, started reading some on my book, Queen Maria of Roumania, and then decided to write this report of my day in my journal. I checked my family site and nobody is writing today. What a shame. We sisters have not got all that much time to live, so we need to take any opportunity we can to communicate! I did write my sister Ann two e-mails this morning and we both wrote an entry on the family site. We have to be a good example to the young.
I have got through Memphis winning and now it looks like Kansas might take the second one. I count this as a very good day with my grandson Dante. He relishes fiery discussions between his dad and me! Especially when he has gotten in trouble.
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WOW what a thing for your grandson to do at school! That wouldn't have ever crossed my mind. I'd be so shocked if my son did something like that. I hope he never does anything like that again. Dan has his hands full, that's for sure!
I want to see that movie, too! It looks really good on the advertisements and like you I enjoy Jodie Foster.
Hope you have a good night.
Hugs..Pam
4/6/08 12:22 AM
Dante could not forsee the trouble this would cause but still I think needs more positive role models around him. This is troubling already. I can just picture you telling Dan how it is. A little reality check for him. haha. Then coming to Doc's and cussing him out, you were on a roll today. I don't think you run on and on. He's uncomforatable with the topics and felt he had to say something to explain his absence. The top pic of the two of them together is great. Dan doesn't need to cuss the child ever! It's hard to tell a grown man what to do. The movie sounded interesting and Dirk and I are yet to go to one. Now we need to hire a babysitter and just do it. One day.
NELISHIA
http://journals.aol.com/nelis