You Were Right. No Imagination.

For me, Saturdays are kind of ruined if we get up too late and I recognize we’ve slept away a quarter of our weekend.

As of last week, Bart and I have decided to stop being such immature weaklings and just get up and go to the gym in the morning before we leave to work. It’s pretty early but we’ve both recognized that morning is the only time to be consistent and when you’re waking up before the sun, it doesn’t much matter what time it is as long as you go to bed at a reasonable time.

We’ve kicked against the pricks in the past about an early bed time, but over the last couple of years we’ve recognized that we’re unlikely to use our late evening hours particularly wisely. I’d love to pretend we’re out helping widows across the street but frankly, we’re just wasting time on the Internet or watching movies. If we know we only have a couple of hours before bedtime to use as we please, we actually do the things we want to do.

It’s been a hugely successful week and we’re now waking up before our alarms go off (um, well, sometimes). And hey, we worked out four times this week, even the two days where the AC in the gym was broken (yuck).

Last night, we stayed up a few hours later than normal (what with our raging social life and all) and didn’t set any alarm clocks. We slept in until we both felt completely well-rested and when we got out of bed, we discovered it was only 8:30. Brilliant!

I discovered that I’d received an additional $1400 in grant money and that the government had direct deposited our economic stimulus checks yesterday. Then we had a lovely breakfast (the whole house still smells of delicious delicious bacon) of homemade buttermilk pancakes with sour cream and strawberry freezer jam. You’ve never had sour cream and jam on your pancakes, you say? Well, get thyself to your kitchen and fix that.

On Thursday, we’d gone to see Jumper at the dollar theater and about twenty minutes in, the screen went dead – the sound continued which was perhaps more frustrating than the whole thing going kaput – and after standing in the hallway waiting for the movie theater to fix it, we got a refund and went home. I guess you get what you pay for at the dollar theater.

Feeling brave and well-fed this morning, we decided to head back and try our luck again. And, what do you know, the screen worked and we saw the whole movie.

Unfortunately, it was one of those movie where, when the credits rolled, we turned to each other and simultaneously said “Eh.”

I’ve said before that the bad thing about only going to the dollar theater is that by the time you see a movie you want to rave about, everyone has already seen it. The same holds true about a bad movie, I’m realizing. It’s too late to warn everyone to flee.

Frankly, the movie wasn’t terrible, but it was, we decided on the way home “a mildly entertaining piece of garbage.” Apparently, the filmmakers felt no need for any character development, backstory, or plot continuity. The idea of characters leaping from Fiji to the Sphinx to Big Ben clearly ought to be enough to carry an 88 minute movie, yes? Alas, the answer is decidedly “No.”

And now I’m going to spend some time cuddled up with “The Book Thief.” I checked it out in December, read about 100 pages on the flight home from Las Vegas, and then had to return it. And then it’s been checked out for most of the weeks since then, so I’m only finally getting back to it.

And it’s glorious. All you people who said how it was the greatest book ever? You weren’t lying, were you? Oh, I’m loving it.

I hope all of you discover an extra $2600 today, too. Happy Saturday.