New Moon in review

My head was getting clearer. My eyes flickered to his face, and then away - unwillingly - to the dark, open window.

"It's just after one in the morning," Edward said.

"CH?" I asked.

Edward frowned. "Sleeping. You should probably know that I'm breaking the rules right now. Well, not technically, since he said I was never to walk through his door again, and I came in the window...But, still, the intent was clear."

"CH banned you from the house?" I asked, disbelief melting into fury.

His eyes were sad. "Did you expect anything else?"

I gazed upon his marblesque sunshiny Starbucks-and-tiramisu perfection, and said, "Well as a matter of fact, I did. You fixed the shower head, the outside faucet leak, cleaned up the leaves, took out the recycling and cleaned the gutters. You may be 'hot' in the traditional sense, but even CH would have to find you irresistible after all of that work. Maybe if he would do some of that stuff, he could get lucky too."

"I can't really blame him. I should have resisted your Cougar power." Edward looked sad.

"Don't worry, honey, when it's time to hang all of the Christmas decorations and shovel the walk outside he will let you back in the front door. Now be a good sparkly vampire and get Mommy a Diet Coke."

So I saw New Moon with two pre-teens and eleven other women a few nights ago, and despite reviews to the contrary, I thought it was pretty good. Of course, it could have been the company. After we all finally threw away our popcorn and said our goodbyes, a woman came out of the restroom and said, "Well, you certainly have a fun book club!" and I thought to myself, "Yes I do. But how in the hell did you know that was my book club?"

For those non-Twilight obsessed people who think the whole thing is a travesty of parenting and teen behavior, I can love it because I see it as "Entertainment", not a game plan for my daughter to use when dating or an example of good teen behavior. I'll save the Twilight philosophy for the philosophers. But...

I very nearly missed New Moon.

CH and I noticed the outside garden spigot on the house was leaking about eight weeks ago. We stood in the yard, drinking our sangria in 80 degree weather and talked about how we needed to fix it before winter. Then we watched the leaves fall around it while we ate donuts and said, "Hmmm, that thing should really get fixed before it freezes." And then we got ready to leave for Texas for Thanksgiving, and CH said, "I guess I'm going to shut the water off in the house so that faucet doesn't freeze, burst, and send a flood of water into the basement while we are gone since it is supposed to freeze."

I had planned to see New Moon with a group of moms and Oldest Daughter and her friend for three weeks. CH was aware of this plan. It was 5:15 p.m. on New Moon day. We were scheduled for a 6:30 p.m. show.

CH: "I'm going to the hardware store."

ME: "Why?"

CH: "Because it is dark out and I know you have plans and I want to fix that outdoor faucet now and piss you off. I have to shut off the water. Maybe you should miss your movie and stay home to watch the younger kids while I fix this."

ME: "Okay. You hate sex, right?"

CH: "Yes. I know you coordinated the whole movie outing, but no one would miss you. Would you be opposed to me cutting a large hole in the basement we just remodeled?"

ME: "Only if you promise to cut an extra big hole in the wall where I had to apply six coats of yellow paint I mixed and can't reproduce so it looked less like John Wayne Gacy Clown Yellow and more like Sunshine Happy Days Yellow."

CH: "How about if I leave all of the chunks and sawdust from my work on the floor so you can discover it later?"

ME: "Please do that because the vacuum cleaner is also broken from when Middle Son sucked that entire Blow Pop into the engine, so your mess will be impossible to clean."

CH: "Even though I left work early to do this and save our basement and managed to get it done without calling a plumber, will you promise to be irrationally mad at me?"

ME: "Absolutely."

CH: "Okay then! Don't enjoy your movie!"

ME: "Screw you!"

CH: "Screw you too!"

And then we air kissed on both cheeks and I walked out the door to the movie to mentally cheat on him with Edward.

OFFICIAL MOVIE REVIEW: It was very similar to the book. There. I give it a "thumbs-up" and a "recommend". Now you know I liked it without any spoilers.

During the movie, my friend leaned over and said, "I bet he could fix your plumbing" and I said, "Hmm, maybe not, but at least he could hire someone to do it." and she said, "Uh, Julie, I was making a sexual reference." Oh. I must be really focused on leaky pipes if I don't catch a sex reference.

So I got home with Oldest Daughter, still in my Edward bliss, and found a big hole in the basement wall with a step stool underneath it, and chunks of wall and ceiling laying around said step stool with the broken vacuum cleaner looking on. However, the outside faucet was fixed, the broken shower head was fixed, all of the burned out light bulbs in the house had been replaced, and the other kids were tucked into bed.

Was I upset about the mess? Nope. Because I still got to go to New Moon as planned. And nothing is sexier than a guy who handles the items on the Honey Do List. CH? May not be Edward, but with all of those extra light bulbs going, he looked a little sparkly to me.