Harry Potter & The Goblet Of Fires has been reviewed extensively in the media. You have to have been living under a rock somewhere not to have run into one or two or twenty reviews. Most reviewers I’ve read have agreed that this Harry Potter is dark, scary, and no place for small kids.

The movie is often dark and foggy, and thanks to the magic of special effects, there are very realistic fire-breathing dragons, scary underwater merpeople, attacking hedges, bad wizards, monsters, huge snakes, etc.

Good guys die in this movie.

So, riddle me this Batman: Whether or not you believe that HP&TGOF deserves its PG-13 rating (and I happen to think it does), why would you take a baby to see it?

#1 Son and I went to see it on Friday. (Note: He’s 17 and I’m way more than that. Neither of us is subject to nightmares.) We went to the Oak Grove Cinema in Milwaukie. It’s a little out of our usual metro-west stomping grounds, true, but #1 Son doesn’t like the theater that’s close to our house. I didn’t really mind checking out a new theater. Since The Westgate closed there are too few theaters left that are more than a cookie-cutter, stadium-seating cinema complex. I was please to find that Oak Grove has tons of character. What’s not to like about a cinema that marks its restrooms in three-foot-tall neon “guys” and “gals” signs?

When the movie started, the theater was about two-thirds full. It was a very mixed audience. I would say that the majority were teenagers or older, with a fair representation of senior citizens. There were also a few younger kids. Behind us were a couple of children that were about 9 or 10. At the end of our row were a man and a woman with two kids: a boy who looked about 5 or 6 and a girl who was maybe 2-1/2 or 3.

The kids behind us had obviously been warned to only whisper during movies. And they did whisper. Very loudly. Through the whole movie. Whispers punctuated by flying popcorn kernels landing in our hair to the beat of chair kicks.

The little girl at the end of the row started crying after the first 15 minutes or so, and she cried and begged to go home through the rest of the movie. And they stayed until the bitter end.

So, our movie-going experience went something like this:

[whisper] Wait till you see this! mommy, I want to go home. [sob] [chair kick] Harry’s not supposed to enter because he’s not old enough but watch what happens! [patter of popcorn falling gently on hair] mommy [sob] please can I go home now? [chair kick]

Yeah, the ambiance left something to be desired.

I would have asked the kids behind us to at least stop whispering. But the last time I did that, the boy I ask to stop started crying instead. (No idea why. I wasn’t mean at all and I asked nicely.) The boy’s mother got really pissed at me, and #1 Son was embarrassed. So this time I just tried to ignore them. If I could have easily reached the couple at the other end of the row, however, I would have knocked their heads together and told them to take their baby home. And I wouldn’t have been nice about it.

Mom’s take:

Oak Grove Cinema: for character and an extra for the restroom neon.

Harry Potter & The Goblet Of Fire: This was the weakest of the books, and I think the weakest of the movies. Despite the necessary trimming to fit a 600-page book into a two-hour movie, it was still too long.

People (of any age) who whisper in movies: for trying, but some whispers can be just as loud as a normal speaking voice and more penetrating. A movie theater is not your family room. Keep your lips zipped.

Parents who take their babies to anything other than G-rated movies: minus 5 Parenting means you get to miss out on things you would like to do but that are inappropriate for your children. Wait until it comes out on DVD or cable.

Parents who refuse to remove a crying baby or child: Minus 5 The rest of us brought kids who could behave appropriately or left them at home. We paid good money to see this movie. Be a lamb and don’t ruin it for us.

I wanted to get my sweater finished this weekend, but life in the guise of lots of stuff to do intervened. I did get to have lunch with M and coffee with K, and that’s always lots of fun.

I’ve made a few little tweaks to the PI look. In the interest of cutting down on clutter I’ve added two new links to the navigation bar at the top: Freebies and Galleries.

Freebies is a collection of recipes and patterns that I’ve posted over the years.

The Galleries page holds the finished objects gallery and the pics from our road trip in September. Other galleries will be added there.

I know that PI is more… cluttered… than some other blogs. The sidebars hold what I’m interested in, and I’m interested in a lot of things. My bookshelves are cluttered, too. I changed my college major 6 times, because so many subjects were interesting. Meh. It’s all good.

Yeah… so I’m playing Myst V… don’t bug me. The Myst franchise are the only games I really like. That and the Doom franchise. Strange bedfellows, I know, but there you have it.

I’ve also completed part of the beaded bag for the class I’m taking at Tangle. And I’ve started my next sweater with Noro Silk Garden in a really yummy color. I’ll try to get pics up later.

I might head over to the Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival today, although I realize the dangers of doing so given the state of my stash piggy-bank (see above reference to Silk Garden).

And I made a small change to Owen Winkler’s Countdown plugin for WordPress. Countdown does the “present future” list of upcoming events in the right-hand sidebar. I’ve added “daily” logic so that an event that spans multiple days, like the Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival or Banned Books Week will show up every day until it’s finished.

And I do work full time. Really!

So I haven’t only been playing Myst.

#1 Son moved home yesterday. I could tell because all of his worldly possessions were piled in his room when I got home last night. (Readers will remember that he moved out “only for the summer, Mom.”)

Moo Cow was curled up on top of #1 Son’s clothes, purring. She’s happy he’s back. Captain Kidd was whacked out because something in his tiny little universe changed and he wasn’t consulted. He got over it by bedtime. Phoebe could care less.

After three months of silence, last night it became obvious that I will have to again get used to going to sleep with the TV in the family room and the lights in the kitchen on. But I’m so glad to have him back, that I can adjust pretty darn quickly. Although I don’t begrudge him the opportunity — it was good experience for him — I missed him a lot. He’s good company.

This morning there was a body-shaped lump in his bed. We’re back to business as usual.

Well… not quite usual. This week is the first time in 12 years that I haven’t taken the first day of school off from work in order to make sure that buses were met, someone was at school on time with the right supplies, etc. This year there was no last-minute frantic search for just the right notebook. (One year I went to three different stores to find 4 tear-out graph-paper notebooks. There were several of us moms looking, and when some were finally located we were ready to fight over them.) This year I didn’t have to fight the traffic trying to get in and out of the school drop-off.

This year school is fading back into the background noise of something that other people’s kids do.

I now have a young man ready to start college at the end of the month. It still brings a lump to my throat.

And not all that great S.E.X.* at that.

I arrived at Fiber Arts Northwest at around 11:30 on Thursday. Already the place was packed with people looking for good deals. Since there was a closeout sale on July 4th, everything was pretty well picked over. I did managed to snag 3 skeins of Madil Kid Seta in color 488, which is a yummy mauvish rosy kinda color. I’m not sure exactly what it’s going to turn into. Maybe Kiri, or maybe something else. There’s not a huge amount of yardage to work with, but I should be able to find a pattern that strikes my fancy.

My needle collection was expanded by 4 Addi Turbos and 3 Clover Takumi in various sizes. And I picked up two books: One on slip-stitch knitting and another on knit and crochet with beads.

There was a long line for the cash register. The LYSO was ringing up the sales while an assistant worked the line writing up sales slips in advance. I had put my purchases in a small plastic bag. When writing them up, the assistant noticed that the books were splitting the plastic. She found a paper bag for me to use instead and put the plastic bag inside the paper one. The paper bag was large, but I had a lunch still to eat and a ways to walk and I didn’t want my purchases escaping.

When I got up to the cash register, the LYSO said, “That bags too big for you.” I gently explained that the books split the plastic bag and that was why I needed paper. She put the old plastic bag inside a second plastic bag and said, “That should work for you.” I again explained, nicely, that I had a ways to go and (despite the “helpful” offer of the person behind me to follow along and pick up any lost items), I really didn’t want to be losing things along the way because the bag split. “Fine.” The LYSO said, and with that she threw — and I mean threw — my purchases into the paper bag that was resting on the floor. “Is that good enough for you?” I was a little startled, but I said, “Yes. Thank you. That will be great.” And I took my bag and my purchases, checked to make sure nothing was broken, and left.

I’m sorry her shop is closing, and I sympathize with what must seem like a terrible loss. But I was not trying to capitalize on that. I really wish her the best in the future and hope she is successful at whatever her next venture is. I just wanted to get my stuff home safely. Is using a paper bag such a terrible thing? (Note to reading public… if you go to the sale today or tomorrow, bring your own bag.)

On the good new front, the TSA didn’t bat an eye at my colleague’s new knitting needles, now covered in a couple of rows of knitting. (Shout out to MK! You are too doing great at picking this up and stop arguing with me about it. That bag you think is so cute will be within your grasp before you know it!)

* That’s “Stash Enhancing Experience” for all you lascivious types out there who thought you’d find more prurient content here. This is a fairly family-friendly blog, after all!

Wednesday Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, the self-proclaimed Yarn Harlot and author of the hysterically funny At Knit’s End: Meditations For Women Who Knit Too Much visited Powell’s in Portland for a book signing.

The gracious Ms. Pearl-McPhee has some nice things to say about our fair city. I’m glad she enjoyed her visit. I wish I’d been able to make it to Powell’s, but, alas, other semi-emergencies intervened.

At Knit’s End contains around 300 short “meditations” on knitting that consist of advice, anecdotes and humorous musings on knitting. It belongs on the bookshelf of everyone who knits, knows someone who knits, wears knitted items, or… has ever seen a couple of sticks and some string. 😉 One needn’t know anything about knitting in order to enjoy it. One morning I came out to the kitchen and found #1 Son, coffee cup in one hand, At Knit’s End in the other hand, big grin on face. “This is really funny!” He said.

Mom’s take on At Knit’s End: