Dinner and a Movie

Last night the three musketeers gathered for dinner and a movie. It is something we do. Grace, JuJu, and I sometimes seem to be a trio headed for ‘Golden Girl’ status. We’re not sure what to call ourselves, but we stick together like glue at times and sometimes just call ourselves the Three Musketeers.

Dinner and a movie is a nice friendly little get-together type thing. It usually involves a glass of wine. We are glad that science is showing that we should have one for our health. We are all about our health. Or at least we SAY we are about our health. Anyway, we have our wine... for our health. Well, we’d probably have it anyway.

Grace had brought along a casserole... one that was full of healthy things... weight watcher style. I’m not sure whose turn it was to cook, but Grace brought along a casserole. We loaded our plates and headed for the living room to get the movie going. We could multi-task, eating and watching at the same time.

We are all rather pansies about this winter cold dark thing. None of us like it. After all, it gets dark early, and it’s cold. No one really likes to get out in the cold and go anywhere. We started the movie early thinking that it wouldn’t be so cold and dark when time to leave. I was home, so I didn’t have to worry about that last night.

Having found nothing much entertaining on TV since the writers strike, I’ve leaned more and more on Netflix. Grace got me into that months ago, and I’ve loved it. I’ve also watched a ton of movies that I’ve never seen before. They seem to have an unlimited supply, and they deliver them right to my door. Convenience and selection: I like that.

I’d selected something a bit different for the evening, I thought. It was a period piece taken from a Jane Austen book. Persuasion.... set in 1814 England.

The three of us settled in, ready to be entertained. It was a bit of a disappointment. We’ve noticed lately that in some movies characters don’t tend to ‘speak up’ and we have to turn the volume up higher. We’ve also noticed that actors don’t always enunciate. Now, both of those things are a bother. We also decided that our minds must not track as well as none of us could get the characters straight or had much of an idea about the point of the movie. We may have to spend more time on the AARP website sharpening our brains with their games. We may also need to sign up for hearing aids. Perhaps we just need a different movie.

We listened intently. I noticed we did a lot of eye shifting, trying to see if someone else seemed to be 'getting it'. We often had to ask for help with ‘What did they say?’. Usually, no one knew. We muddled through it and tried to find a few nice things to say about it. We just didn’t want to give up our evening entertainment and admit that we weren’t all that entertained. Alas, one hour and forty-four minutes later, we discussed the plot a bit. In the end, we decided it had taken a long time to arrive at a point, if there was a point.

I’m not saying we didn’t have a good time. Getting together with friends is always our good time. I think perhaps Jane Austen’s English items will be allowed to pass and we will stick with more proven movies. All in all, I think it wasn’t us... but them. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.