4/52

Another set of parents who would like a night out.

An evening of watching said parents’ child.

A good movie.

If you’re ever wondering, say, who won the Oscar for best actor in 1977, you could Wikipedia it. Or you could just ask my husband. There’s a 95 percent chance that he’ll know it. He loves movies. He loves watching movies at home, he loves going to the movies, he loves reading about movies and he loves talking about movies. Most of the dates we went on pre-kids were to the movies. After kids? Our moviegoing fell off precipitously.

Every now and then, though, something comes out that he really, really would like to see at the theater. Usually, it’s something that I either don’t feel that strongly about or something I to which I’d rather not subject myself. When that happens, he’ll either go by himself or recruit a friend to join him.

Sometimes, though, there’s something that I’d like to see, too. Which necessitates a babysitter. Which throws me into a (small & inconsequential) fury, because going to the movies costs $10,000 even before I shell out some more cash for a sitter.

So! Last week we arranged a babysitting swap with some friends, so we could go see “Crazy Heart.”

I wish I could get Rockford to write a review of the movie, because he’s very good at writing movie reviews. That isn’t likely to happen, though, so I’ll tell you what I thought instead.

“Crazy Heart” is a lovely movie. It almost made me cry — and I put a lot of effort into not crying in public. These barely-contained tears weren’t Hallmark and cotton ad tears, though. They were “this movie is breaking my heart” tears. I loved the movie, Jeff Bridges absolutely earned that Oscar, and I might buy the soundtrack.

Oh, and it was terrific to spend some time away from home with Rockford. My favorite part of going to the movies is the time before the movie starts, when we’re just sitting there and he’s cracking jokes about dopey things and making me laugh. (He’s very good at that, too.)