... we interrupt this blog entry to apologize for the late post, but that was blogger's fault because they had a bug. The Wednesday Matinee is at the bottom of this post. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog entry...

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The First Day of School...also known to a lot of kids as The Official End Of Summer finally arrived at our house yesterday.

Yes, yes, I know a lot of you with kids are looking at the calendar and thinking that school started over a week ago, or more. But my kids' school harkens back to the traditional days when school didn't start until Labor Day had passed.

A has been indifferent to the fact that school is about to start. B has been waiting for this day, maybe dreading it, asking when the last day of summer is. She's been a little confused about the fact that summer doesn't officially end until mid-September, yet school starts a couple of weeks earlier. I remember when I lived on that same calendar as she did. I was always so excited to go shopping for school supplies (something that I still like doing), hoping that I would get something other than the boring yellow Pee-Chee folder and plain #2 pencils.

I never did. It was always boring yellow Pee-Chee's and plain #2 pencils. I didn't get a sparkly colored pencil until I was almost in high school. An automatic pencil made it into my hands in high school. Mom always bought the most inexpensive stuff there was. Sometimes she went supply shopping without me, and we recycled whatever we could (which would leave me short something to write with at home most of the time). Now, I don't mind the recycling - glue, scissors and, in most cases, crayons can be brought back for the following year. It's recycling notebooks and pencils that I had issues with.

I don't have the same issues with my kids. They always get at least one sparkly fun pencil at the beginning of the year and they choose whatever folder design they want. I don't think I've even *seen* a Pee-Chee in the last couple of years that I've bought school supplies. No matter, the kids wouldn't get one unless they really really wanted one, and even then I'd have my reservations.

The great thing is that the school prepares us about a month in advance by mailing us the school supply lists. I couldn't be happier. They got all their supplies for under $15 this year. There's being cheap and there's finding all the right sales. After all, the school isn't going to provide them any supplies for the year, right? And they'll probably take some of the supplies too.

Yesterday morning, according to DH, A & B were up, dressed and ready for school before he even got out of bed. THAT is a very rare occurance in our house. They were beyond excited for school to start - a stark contrast to the two little girls who didn't want summer to end. When they were last seen in the morning, they were happily chatting with their friends and stocking thier desks with fresh (and some recycled) school supplies.

When I picked them up from school, they were still excited but it was a different kind of excited. A was happily drawing away in her new classroom, with other kids abuzz all around her. When I sat down next to her she promptly pulled out her math book to show me that she was starting to do algebra. It was very simple algebra and didn't include any variables - everything was done in tables. I'm going to have to show her the old fashioned way with variables one of these days.

She also told me that her teacher collected all the binder paper that kids had brought in (which was on the supply list). Figures. On the upside, she got a new notebook and a sparkly pencil from her teacher. That's right... a sparkly shiny pencil. What a great way to start the year.

We collected her things and went on our way to pick up B who was in A's old classroom. B was very happy to see me (until she banged her head against one of the coatrests, and then she wasn't happy about anything for a few minutes), and eagerly showed off her desk and her new math book to me. She also had a new pencil to show off that was a present from her teacher. It makes me miss the first day of school too, even though I never got a sparkly pencil from my teachers. And it makes me want to go school shopping too...

...for a school to go to.

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The Wednesday Matinee
I've been a bad, bad meme...

1. Resident Evil vs Dawn Of The Dead: who wins?
Oh boy... that's a hard one, since I've not seen 'Resident Evil', and I'm an old fan of 'Dawn of the Dead' (yes, it's been remade, but you can't beat the original late 70s horror treatment from George Romero)... Can we flip a coin?

2. What's your favorite horror movie?
Oooo. There's 'Alien', there's 'Nightmare on Elm Street', 'Demon Seed' (based on a bad Dean Koontz novel, but man that movie was freaky-scary)... too many horror movies, not enough time. That's not to say that I love them. I used to, when I was young, stupid, and not appreciative of good cinema. Then I discovered Roger Corman movies - which are pretty much guaranteed to be cheesy and bad. Let's just say it took a few years for me to truly appreciate good cinematic effort (says the woman who was watching Fellini films when she was 16 and enjoying them, but not truly appreciating them until her 20s.)

3. Who's your favorite male actor?
What? Not favorite male actor who gets sliced and diced in a horror movie? Darn. That would be easy: Johnny Depp (who played the ill-fated Glen in Nightmare on Elm Street). Well, favorite male actor would have to be John Cusack... or Michael Vartan... or Mel Gibson... or, or, or... the list is too long.

~I See Dead Sales Bonus~ What's the last movie you saw in theatres you wish you hadn't seen or regret paying to see?
Oh... hands down, easy question. 'Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me' I was so digusted with that movie that I still haven't had any desire to see the 3rd movie in the series, or watch the first movie again. I really liked the first movie. But the second one... DH reminded me that I was ready to get up and walk out of that second movie. I remember that I was ready to walk out about 15 minutes into it.

I'm really quite careful with what I go see at the movies, so it's rare for me to be waffling on whether or not I want to see something. If I waffle, then it's probably not worth seeing. When it comes to going to the movies, I either do, or I don't (there's always Netflix for renting movies after they've done their theatre run). After all, I'm putting $7-$10 down on the counter for the privledge of sitting in not-so-soft seats smelling of popcorn and nacho cheese sauce. The movie has to be good enough to distract me from the fact that my feet might be perma-glued to the floor due to years of spilt sodas. With the second Austin Powers movie, I was seriously pondering how I could use a movie theatre floor to catch bugs and poison them, or if *I* was the bug and being slowly poisoned by what was on the screen.