Today started with some disappointment for me, I like my birthday, very much and I like making something of it. Some years that has been having a cuppa and cake with DS Luke, always I take it off work and have done my whole adult life. Sometimes I have a full roast dinner with my sister’s family, especially if The Jellicle is away. Big years I tend to make big plans, of course Covid somewhat scuppered, or at least changed, my plans for my epic fortieth. This year The Jellicle and I were supposed to go boardgame with the niblings this evening, I made a cake that was Jellicle-friendly (turns out Britney and the niblings don’t much like coconut so it wasn’t them friendly) and then tomorrow we were going to get vol-au-vents from Iceland and make party food to go up to The Cave.
The Cave is where M-i-L and FJ live, originally it was supposed to be a small karaoke party but that morphed into Jackbox Games with a strict dresscode (which made my Mum laugh) of dressing gown and towel. Just people I can cope with. Then Sunday she was going to buy me Indian takeout and enoy the smells as I had a virtual beer with Cornish Bloke.
The Jellicle is over at Imps though and she and Imp aren’t feeling well enough for the kids or people so I went down to The Princess’ place on my own and was feeling very disappointed there was no Jellicle so no catching up on Old Gods of Appalachia in the car on the way down. I am sad about tomorrow too, no Jellicle bringing me breakfast and presents in bed, just me.
Then I got to The Princess’ place and she ushered me in to see the cards that the kids had made me. They were so happy to see me and loved showing me their cards. I gave them all New Years presents (because one of The Bonsai Kaiju’s Christmas presents arrived late), I’m not sure he was particularly impressed with his book, it’s the sequel to Emil and the Detectives which both he and I enjoyed when we were six. I still love it. The Smol Dragon loved his stretchy dinosaurs but my favourite reaction was that of The Tiny Yokai who, went presented with anything these days likes to assign it a posessor. She recognised “It’s a Rabbit” and looked delighted when I told her “Tiny Yokai’s Rabbit” then proceeded to cuddle it throughout the movie.
Honestly Spy Kids 4? 3? Whatever we watched was no great shakes albeit I love to watch Salma Hayek in a lab coat, then we got to the point where they called in ‘The whole family’ (in a very Fast & Furious style way) and seemingly every actor who’s ever portrayed anyone latin-american on screen showed up. Including Steve Buschemi which was a pleasure but the particular delight was that everyone was named; Uncle so and so, Grandma, etc. etc. Except when Danny Trejo showed up his name was – Machete! I was delighted! So utterly delighted that Spy Kids is part of the incredibly violent Machete universe, it made the movie for me.
But sat on the sofa with the three kids curled up with me and blankets everywhere was just pure happy even if the movie was awful and it’s hilarious that The Bonsaid Kaiju (and The Smol Dragon) clearly think the whole thing needs explaining to me… because i’m old I guess and may not follow the nuances of the plot? The cards and the blankets and then later the boardgame and sandwich just made everything feel alright with the world even after a day of disappointments.
