Watching the Academy Awards in Southern Cal: Part I

Aunt Dorothy felt badly that we didn't feel well enough to go sightseeing on our recent trip down.

I had been able to take Erin to the library (with a "loaned" library card,) and attached to the library was the Art Gallery that I mentioned seeing the National Geographic exhibit in. Also, Erin saw a movie in the theater by herself; but, besides stopping at a roadside look-out area between Carlsbad and the doctor's office, and a two-minute walk on the beach at Carlsbad on a cold, windy day, we weren't up for being out and about.

Never fear. Had we, we would have been out galavanting we would have missed the highlight of our stay: Watching the Academy Awards with Aunt Dorothy (and cousin Barb for part of it). We were in Southern California, for heaven's sake, watching the Academy Awards was what we were supposed to be doing.

How do I come to this conclusion? We were riding in cousin Barb's van after she'd picked us up at the airport, and she said, "You'll be here during the Academy Awards. " "Oh yeah," I replied. (I found out later that acting girl Erin was right there with her, having already thought of the fact that we would be no more then 100 miles from where the actual event was taking place.) But farm-girl me found the remark a bit odd. I was thinking "um, so..."

But as the weekend went on, I realized the significance of her statement. To understand it better, I thought of what I might have said in my younger days if, say, my grandma and grandpa told us they were coming to visit us on the weekend when the Minnesota Vikings were in the Superbowl. "You'll be here for Superbowl Sunday, Grandma and Grandpa." The big event of the year. We were right there, in Southern California, where the movies, the actors, the awards mean everything.

Earlier in the day, on Sunday, Aunt Dorothy had told Barb that she wanted to take Barb and her husband out to eat with their daughter, Briann, and her friend that was visiting from out-of-state. She said, "Let's make it tonight or tomorrow night." But a little later she realized her mistake, "Oh, I can't take you all out tonight, I'm watching the Academy Awards."

At three o'clock, Barb tuned the TV to the channel hosting the awards. The ceremony wasn't to start until 5:30, but they start televising at 3:00 to catch the actors' arrival on the red carpet. Aunt Dorothy, Barb, and Erin settled themselves in. I'd not quite gotten into the spirit of things, so I went outside to sit in the sun that had finally shown its face and read a book.

Aunt Dorothy did get up to take a walk (with her cane) by herself. Barb had to leave with her husband to visit with her daughter and her friend, but by four-thirty, Brady had come downstairs and I'd come back in the house, and the four of us settled in for the night. I sat myself down, not all that enthused, and thought, "when in Rome." It beat the alternative of lying in bed upstairs with my nose in a book; I'd spent way too much of the weekend doing that already.

So I settled myself into the the mode of being on the couch with Erin for the next four or five hours(I just don't do that) to watch the stars (or that). Brady must have come to the same conclusion and he settled himself into the rocking chair. Aunt Dorothy sat in her rocking chair up against the TV, her nose having to be literally in front of the TV in order to be able to make out anything at all on the screen. Given our isolated rest times all weekend, it felt like a party.