We took The Girls out to the movies this afternoon ... we were bummed that we'd already missed Brother Bear (it was only still playing in the suburban theaters), so we ended up going to the Loony Toons film. Our little one (at 3.5) found a lot of it quite scary, but the big one (who turns 8 on Tuesday) was thrilled with the choice. Oddly enough, it reminded me of the first two Spy Kids films ... sort of the same dynamic going on, but with a lot of "Hollywood" jokes (the best of these, in my opinion, was the scene in the restaurant where cartoon Shaggy and Scooby-Do were leaning on the actor who plays Shaggy in the movies about "how they're being depicted"). Brendan Frasier's character also makes a lot of cracks about Brendan Frasier, which didn't really seem to go anywhere. Oh well ... it was a pretty fun movie, with a lot of "hey, look, isn't that ..." bit parts.
Afterwards, The Wife was taking #2 home for her nap, and I had planned to drag #1 along with me downtown to do a spot of shopping (and to get her out of the house so The Wife could wrap her birthday presents), but #1 was being a slug and promised to not come in the back bedroom while things were being wrapped, so I ended up going down to the Loop on my own. I walked down Columbus and got to see how things are coming on Milennium Park ... that new theater is going to look like something, but right now it just looks like Cthulhu's metallic kid sister! Anyway, I hit the Hallmark store in the Palmer House (I used to love to get ornaments, but now everything is some licensed character ... and I can't see putting Star Wars or Star Trek, or, hell, Snoopy or Wizard of Oz stuff on my tree!). Since The Wife talked me into getting a tree when we were dating, I tried to get a nice light-up ornament each year, but the past couple of years there hasn't been shit ... unless you want a talking light-up Borg Cube on your tree ... well, that's not 100% true ... there have been some fun ones which did all sorts of stuff, but right now I can't justify spending $50.00 or more (like the "winter carnival" one they have this year) on an ornament! I did, however, manage to get 3 ornaments for the tree for our "2003" installment.
The main reason that I was going downtown was to catch the sale at Sears ... as it turns out I didn't have to worry, since the new sale section had what I went down there for (dress shirts) still on sale for the next week. It sort of sucks doing one's own "Santa" shopping, but it sure is easier to go get 4 shirts (at nearly half price), and hand the bag to The Wife and tell her that's for my Xmas (hey, she did the same thing this fall with some jewelry!). Since we're so damn broke, we're trying to figure out what "near-essentials" (like my shirts) we can slot into Xmas.
I'm back to the grind of trying to find a job tomorrow. I have a bunch of leads from the gal I met with last Tuesday, I just wish I had a JOB OFFER from her for the editing gig on her staff! It is so damn frustrating to think you're going out to "pre-interview" for a job, only to find that you're doing networking. Bleh.