Trouble is Relative

A few weeks ago, I emailed my friend Kat in Calgary and told her I was coming to town. I asked her to pick the best day, and to think of ways that the two of us could get into trouble.

Yesterday was the day. Neither of us had any great ideas for what to do, so we winged it. I wanted to go to Ikea to buy a dresser I've been eyeballing for a while, so we met there. I got my dresser (which I'm going to paint and change up a bit), and I helped Kat pick out some pillows and textiles to jazz up her family room and generally spend too much money. After Ikea, we hightailed it over to her house to drop off the kidletts and say hello to the husband.

Here's the thing: We always have these grandiose intentions to do something exciting and different. Sometimes we really bust out of our comfort zones and do something crazy (like we did on my last visit, when the two of us went to a corn maze together) but we always end up finishing off the visit the same way. Dinner and a movie is our thing. We love movies, and we love food.

When we end up settling on dinner and a movie again, we usually have visions of a good, sit down dinner out. Except, because one of us is usually looking at a two hour drive after the movie, we tend to go to the early show. We almost always wait until the last minute to figure out the short time frame for this, and end up hitting a drive through on the way to the show.

This time, however, we stood strong and opted to go to a late movie so that we could have a couple of hours at a nice restaurant. Yum. I had mushroom filled tortellini. Kat had chicken parmesan with tiramisu for desert. (I skipped desert so that I could have chocolate during the movie.)

If you haven't seen Avatar yet, I recommend that you do. Even better, go see it in 3D. Even if you're not a movie person, I think this one's worth going to see at the theater. The story line's good; but to me it was more about the amazing artistry and the graphics. I Loved it.

The little adventure after the movie? I didn't love it quite as much. Because I've got a brain injury, I typically come out of any movie a little disoriented. Coming out of a three hour long 3D movie? It was pretty bad. Hopping into my car and undertaking a 2 hour drive before I managed to shake out the cobwebs was not my smartest move. To make things worse, I'm not familiar with the roads and it was dark.

We talked about the route I should take to get to the highway, but I missed one of the landmark's I was looking for. I took the wrong exit onto the freeway and ended going the wrong direction. Then I turned off to find a place to turn around and got horribly disoriented. Thankfully, Kat is very familiar with my complete lack of any sense of direction, and she followed me on my little field trip. Right about the time when I was working myself into a complete panic, she pulled up beside me, motioned for me to follow, and led me to the highway to start the long drive home.

By the time I got back to town and picked up the dogs at my parents' place, I didn't get home until 2:00.

I think that was about the time that I started to realize that trouble is a relative thing. There's no question that I had a great time; but 10, 15 years ago, getting into trouble was a good thing. Now, it's more likely to be about getting lost in a strange city, and getting home way past my bedtime.

I guess I should be careful what I wish for.