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A Bug's Life
His Labor is a Chant --
His Idleness -- a Tune --
Oh, for a Bee's experience
Of Clovers, and of Noon!
-- Emily Dickinson
Sunday, December 6, 1998
One year ago: Carnival
I went into work for several hours this afternoon. I need to drive my bug count down! The bugs that get assigned to me are external websites that have problems with Internet Explorer 5, due to bad HTML, usually, or perhaps they don't recognize our User Agent string. I get to write and ask them to fix the problems. They usually are glad to do this, but not always. I'd been taking care of other tasks lately, and I needed to get those sites contacted!
I was disappointed when Jack (in email) had some problems with coming over to see me one night next week. But I cheered up when he suggested that I meet up with him and his daughters later in the afternoon, to go see A Bug's Life at the Bella Bottega theater.
Of course I was there before they were! They were trying to get their Christmas tree trimmed. So I went ahead and bought the tickets, then stood watching for them on the sidewalk in front of the theater. I was so happy to see Jack! He went in and grabbed our seats, while the girls and I bought refreshments. I was hungry! So I succumbed to the "get two drinks and large popcorn, get chocolate raisins free" deal. This way the Star Wars trailer was already done by the time I got inside the theater. Good! I don't want to see it. I want to know as little as possible about the new Star Wars movie, since I already know that I'll be going to it. I want to be as surprised as possible. I've even gone so far as to close my eyes and plug my ears when a preview for a Star Trek movie comes on.
* * * * * * * *
Jack liked the movie much more than ANTZ. I liked them both! I think the story in ANTZ was more adult-oriented. It is interesting how both movies keep some things about insects or ants realistic, but change other things. They keep the Queens, but have male and female workers. My favorite things in "A Bug's Life" were the grasshoppers! The details in their design, their eyes, the way they moved, were just so much cooler than the smooth, bland, ants. I liked Julia Louis-Dreyfuss as the young princess. I didn't recognize Kevin Spacey's voice as Hopper, the bad guy, but I knew it sounded so familiar!
* * * * * * * *
Jack was walking me across the parking lot to my car. Then midway, in the middle of the lane, he asked if I'd like to ride with them all down to Olympia (to drop off his younger daughter H----)! Of course I said yes! We'd stop somewhere along the way for dinner. Jack remembered as we were driving: he'd wanted to stop and buy a coat for H----. I suggested we could combine both with one stop: Southcenter Mall!
There's a big food court there, and enough stores in the correct price range that (we hoped!) H--- could find a coat that she liked, and that Jack was willing to pay for. We succeeded at the second store; a good thing, since we were only going to go to two different places. Food court dinner (Taco Time chicken soft tacos! My fave! Jack had a nasty-tasting barbecue sandwich) and we were off.
It was a very pleasant drive, with lots of Christmas lights in the rural areas. We talked about the movie, and the difficulties of making movies out of favorite books. Jack also described how, when he was a young lad in the Renton area, his buddies and he would hang out, not at the mall, but at the airport! A hacker impulse at work, to see what's behind the scenes and how things work, drove them to investigate every locked door and secret passageway. I had the image of security guards shaking their fists after chasing them out of unauthorized areas. "You kids!"
Jack asked me if I'd gotten any feedback on the Thanksgiving trip entries (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday). I've gotten a few notes about them, but they were more on a personal level -- people were glad I'd had a good time -- rather than compliments on the writing. But I was very happy to hear him say that he thought they were especially well done, since he and his family are featured so heavily in them!
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