most wonderful time of the year

For some reason, I love June 2. Call me crazy, but I think its one of the best days of the year, and I have absolutely no idea why. Here’s a few of my theories why this random date might be significant to me…

1. When I was graduating the 6th grade, I remember that our celebration/graduation party to move up into Jr. High youth group was on June 2.  I have no idea why I remember this, except that I thought I was the epitome of cool to be in Jr. High. Maybe I’ve learned some things since then.  Also significant about this day…I stepped on a bee in Westdale Park and my foot swelled up so big it couldn’t fit in my shoe.
2. My dear neighbors back home in Bako had their second daughter on June 2, 1998.  I was almost ten, and got to go to the hospital to visit the mama, daddy, and new baby. It was incredible.  I have never seen a baby so new or so perfect. She turned 11 today.  Time flies.
3. I just found out (thank you facebook) that my pastor’s b-day is today…Happy Birthday Bryan!
4. For most of my life, I’ve either been just beginning summer break or so close I can taste it on this date. Its a wonderful feeling to be almost there.  The anticipation is building, and the boredom of summer hasn’t set in yet.
5. It’s my blog’s 1 year anniversary!

And that’s all I can think of for now.  I just love June 2nd.

Movie Theater

Last night I went to the Edward’s Cinema in Bako, to the late showing of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” with my friends Megan and Brandon. It’s an interesting movie, and I would recommend it if you have 10 dollars and 3 hours to burn.

Anyway. We sat down in the mid-sized theater around 9:30 so that we would be sure to get some good seats. We were about 5 rows from the top, just to the left of the center of the stadium…these were prime seats. Just to the right of me was a middle aged woman saving the seat on either side of her. I found this acceptable because the theater was filling up quickly. I even heard a couple a few rows down asking some people to scoot towards the center so they could have two seats together. I was glad we had arrived with plenty of time to spare…ahead of the crowd.

The movie began, and I was pretty enthralled. 10 minutes in, my cell phone vibrated in my lap. I looked down to see that Alyssa had sent me a reply to an earlier text message. About 2 minutes later, she sent another quick text and I, not really thinking through the situation, started typing out a quick reply to her. As soon as I had begun the message, the woman to my right tapped my shoulder and said in a near regular volume voice, “Do you mind? Its really dark in here and your phone is really bright!”

I felt awful. I felt like all of those Sprint commercials about “silencing your cell” at the beginning of the previews were suddenly aimed directly at me and my beaming phone in the theater. I was a movie wrecker! I turned my phone over in my lap so the screen was facing my thighs and starting scheming on how I could properly apologize at the end of the movie.

As the movie wore on, I still felt horrible about the cell phone incident. Then, I noticed something interesting. The woman who had asked me to stop texting was stretching out into the two seats adjacent to hers. She was reclining in three prime theater seats, right smack dab in the middle of the packed theater!  She proceeded to rearrange herself for maximum comfort at least 5 times over the course of the lengthy movie, and bumped my arm off the rest a few times.

My first instinct was a furious judgement. I thought to myself, “Who the heck does she think she is…telling me to stop texting and then bogarting 3 whole seats! Lame.” Then after a few minutes my fury melted into pity. She was sitting all alone. Bummer. No one to sit next to. When you go to the movies alone, there’s no one to digest all of the epic moments with afterward. The movie ended around 12:45 and I did apologize at the end of the film.

By the way, the girl seated directly in front of me was texting on her iPhone frequently…and her LCD phone screen is about 4 times the size of mine. She didn’t get a reprimand from the theater Nazi.