friday is movie night in our house. first the family watches a kid-friendly show ** . after our family movie and putting the kids down, i watch a troy movie. if marty doesn't fall asleep with the kids she'll usually stop by to see what i'm watching, contemplate it for a moment, and then either join me or move on. last week she joined me. the pick was called The Last Picture Show. i'm not sure who referred it to me. it just showed up the netflix sleeve (i'm a tragically horrible netflix queue manager ****). the movie was odd and not too long in you got to see a young cybil sheppard topless. quite certain that would be the movie's crowning achievement for me, i went to sleep with my head in marty's lap. marty stuck it out. when it was done she was intrigued by the male lead and looked him up on imdb. his portfolio led her to watch an episode of 21 jump street and melrose place. this translated to her being awake well into the 2am hour.

the next day, around 4pm marty cautioned the kids that she was tired and not in a good mood. bella asked what was wrong. marty said she stayed up too late the night before. bella asked why she stayed up. marty confessed that she was watching shows. bella ruminated on this for a moment and marty actually saw the realization settle into the girl that there is no one to tell moms and dads when enough is enough and it's time to go to bed (like it or not!). bella then turned to her brothers and said, "alex! anthony! do you hear that? when you grow up it's important that you make good choices because no one will be there to tell you what to do. nothing is for free!"

i would pay a whole lot of money to know where that "nothing is for free" closing stems from. it's strong. i've already used it four times in just the last week. when you get the inflection just right, it gives everyone pause. in fact, it's almost as effective as swearing to people you believe johnny depp's best work happened in 21 jump street.

** right now we're doing a special movie night project where we're going through the alphabet. this means the week's letter defines both the movie and our meal. last week, E, was E.T. (which anthony keeps calling E.T.A. for some reason) and we ate enchiladas.

**** i read or hear about a movie and then add it to my netflix queue. the movie can show up more than a year later and i have no idea what drew me to it. sometimes you get a pleasant surprise in this lackadaisical approach to life, but most times you just get stuck with kooky movies you're not in the mood for. this proclivity is also why i don't play fantasy football. i once had a week where two of my rostered players were on a bye week. i lost in that case too.

p.s. apologies for all the errors and typos in yesterdays gallery posting. i took ill that evening and was working through the haze of a robitussen induced coma. i don't really have a good excuse for the rest of the days.