Who doesn’t like surprises? I do, but not totally at all
times. I was happily surprised one day upon finding that a big, gray
refrigerator found its way to my kitchen. I was beaming as I opened its compartments,
amused that the freezer was at the bottom. And then I went to wonder what if I
had been consulted on the purchase, would have I made another choice?
Oh, and then there was another day, coming home from work, I
opened the front door and was greeted by three large (almost oversized)
paintings mounted on the walls in three areas of our house. When we moved into
our own house, the wall frames from our previous apartment (like our
framed wedding picture) were stored away. For years, our walls remained white
and free from clutter, except for two wall clocks. So imagine how happy I was
to finally see something up on our walls, whatever those paintings were. Well,
they are almost identical, of same size, with pretty much the same palette because
they are by the same artist. I would have chosen differently, given the chance.
But, I am happy, just the same. Really, I am not kidding, with not an iota of
sarcasm there (really!).
And the surprises kept coming. One Saturday, early in the
morning, a delivery truck pulled up in front of the house. I was curious, I had
no idea what was being delivered to us. Surprise, surprise! It was my son’s
dream TV, a huge one that came with 3D glasses.
That was around three months ago, and I’ve just realized today
that it is the nicest surprise by far. My thought bubble then went something
like, “Hey, do we really need a bigger one?” Add to that my dislike for 3D, and
you could imagine my ho-hum feeling. So when this big box of surprise was
unwrapped, I was almost faking feeling overjoyed and being pleasantly
surprised.
The big screams of OMG(!) from Garrett – whose hobby was to
go to Ansons and Abensons to check out the TVs, read with so much interest the
brochures of different brands and to try on 3D glasses – were what really
made me happy. It was a dream come true for this little man. You should have
heard him say his verdict – “Dad made a good choice.” And I didn’t doubt him
for a second. He knew what he was saying as he had read about all this hype over
flat screen, LCD TV, and gone to the stores too many times already, not to be
rightfully confident.
Since this big – how do you call it now? it used to be
referred to as the tube – thin, black-rimmed rectangular thing dominated our
living room, we have watched quite a number of movies. We pull out boxes of
DVDs stashed away under the bed, and pick the ones we want to watch again. This
big thingy has since become the center of our bonding time.
We had watched all of Harry Potter’s seven films spread out
over the weekends, as a treat for the kids for doing their school work,
particularly Garrett who has read all the books, but has not watched all the
films yet. Harry kept us in the house, enjoying weekend downtime.
Garrett now professes that he loves films. Gab for her part loves
action movies like Mission Impossible, Jackie Chan's, and sci-fi films. It is
funny when she laughs belatedly, most often just going along with everyone and
laughing post-facto. They also both love and laugh out loud at Charlie Chaplin. We watch old movies
like To Kill a Mocking Bird (1962); both liked it.
Today, we again had a movie marathon: You’ve Got Mail (1998), Forrest Gump (1994), and Hachi – A Dog’s Tale (2009). We had to fast-forward some
scenes in Forrest Gump, but save for that, these are all good-feel movies that
impart life lessons.
I love movies with well-written, witty, engaging, soulful script - with quotable quotes that inspire, tug at the heart, and get you dreaming, hoping, loving...
Forrest Gump shared a lot of wisdom from his Momma:
- Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.
- You've got to put the past behind you before you can move on.
- Dying was a part of life. I sure wish it wasn't.
- You can tell a lot about a person by their shoes, where they go, where they've been. I've worn lots of shoes, I bet if I think about it real hard I can remember my first pair of shoes.
Hachi is based on a true story of a dog’s loyalty to his master. Hachi (the dog) was adopted by Prof. Parker Wilson (played by Richard Gere) whom he found at a train station. The dog would walk with his master going to the station each morning and await his return from work each evening. One day, the master didn’t return because he died while teaching at the university. Hachi kept on with the daily routine, awaiting the return of his deceased master for nine years. The movie is clearly about loyalty and love. It made me sob, sob and sob…so I would not recommend it to you if you tear up easily like me.
Ooops, I got a bit side-tracked again. Well, I just wanted
to share that TV is not a bad thing for kids if it is used in moderation and
for the purpose of family bonding. In our case, we allow our kids very little
cartoon time. We use the TV more for watching movies, TV series (we love Suits), cook shows, History Channel, and travel shows.
I would agree that home entertainment stills centers on the
TV. That’s no surprise. :-)
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