Sunday, September 07, 2003

Drive in Saturday Night

A nice weekend, but we ended up staying close to home, for the most part. Originally, we talked about going camping -- maybe West Virginia or down at Point Lookout, Maryland, or somewhere -- but Evelin is still feeling a bit worn out from the MTX, so we ended up just doing yard work and going to the drive-in.

I think this was the first time this summer that I’ve cut the grass two weeks in a row. It probably could have let it go for another week, but who knows if we'll be home or off on some adventure or another. Actually, we may try to go on a whale watch out of Cape May, New Jersey -- it was another one of those things we thought about doing this weekend, but it didn't work out. We also did a ton of weeding (or at least mowing down weeds and spent flowers, like the tickseed and daylilys) and hacked up a few big braches that fell from the neighbor's old oak into the backyard.

Before all that, however, we went in for another hCG beta -- 21. So we'll be down to zero sometime during the week (Evelin's going to make an appointment for Thursday or so) and then we can figure out the calendar for starting IVF ... which is sure to lead to some interesting blogging.

After cleaning up from the yardwork, we had to start getting ready for the drive-in. Evelin, being a New Englander, is long familiar with drive-ins. Me, being from Louisiana, had never been to one before (maybe my folks took me and my brother when we were little kids, but I don't have any recollection of being at a drive-in, so I'm counting last night as my first trip). Actually, our respective geographic origins may not play a role in out drive-in experiences; maybe it does. There were two drive-ins that I remember seeing as a youth: One that we would pass driving out of New Orleans that I remember as being on the neutral ground between the lanes of the Interstate or highway; the other was in an industrial area of town and would play nothing but martial arts films, horror films, and porn.

Getting ready meant preparing food and figuring out how to get to the theater. We made up a little pasta salad; grabbed a baguette, some brie, and some fruit; and started popping popcorn.

The theater is Bengies Drive-In, about an hour away, northeast of Baltimore. Apparently, it's the largest movie screen on the East Coast. Last night was a triple feature -- Finding Nemo, Freaky Friday, and Pirates of the Caribbean -- which meant we were there until 2:30 in the morning ... but it was a riot. Nemo was cute, with some good moments; Freaky Friday was so-so, and Pirates was great fun, excellent special effects and fun dialogue.

They also played a bunch of old spots for Coke, Dr. Pepper, popcorn, hot dogs, etc., and three Merry Melodies cartoons -- "What's Opera, Doc?," "Rabbit Seasoning," and "Little Beau Pepé." I may have never been to a drive-in before, but Evelin hadn't seen "What's Opera, Doc?" (Spweaw and magic helmwet!) so it was a fair trade.

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