Movie Day

Every Saturday at Kar and James's house is Movie Day. It's really a James tradition, and it dates back years and years. Usually when I visit, I'll use Movie Day as a chance to go out and meet up with some of the people I want to see during the trip; but yesterday I decided to stick around and watch the movies with them.

It was fun! There are all sorts of little rituals that go along with it. For example, when they get up in the morning at around 10:30 or 11:00, James will make sandwiches; always the same sandwiches, prepared the same way. Then he and Kar will settle on a film to watch. They always watch the films in chronological order, so often it's a pre-code movie. Those things are just great. If you haven't watched many pre-code films, you should. So, Kar and James will watch the movie and eat their sandwiches.

When they finish their sandwiches, they pause the movie and James does the dishes, and a quick exercise, and Kar amuses herself, and then they continue watching the movie again. This part of the ritual is apparently completely cemented into their minds and habits. I was sitting with them, watching the movie, and everything was going fine. Then all of a sudden, with nothing being said, the movie was paused and they'd both left the room. It was like being present at a demonstration of psychic ability. I looked around in confusion. Kar was in the next room ironing a piece of sewing she'd been working on the night before; and James was in the kitchen.

"Uh... what's going on?" I asked. Their house is small enough that voices easily carry to all rooms, if you want them to. "What do you mean?" they asked. I say 'they', because they both expressed the same level of surprise at my confusion. Apparently this mid-movie interruption is so deeply ingrained, having occurred exactly the same way since time immemorial, that they don't even perceive it as an interruption.

This is actually one of the characteristics of Kar and James - mainly James - that sometimes causes frustration. It's the idea that the cultural elements that have saturated their lives are absolutely general, and form a part of everyone else's life as well. So for example, if they start talking about a particular film star, and I say I've never heard of that film star, James might do that cartoon gesture where the head swings around and around and then thrusts far forward at me, with a completely confused expression on his face. In cartoons it's usually accompanied by some kind of 'galagalagala' sound.

That actually doesn't happen much these days. For years it would though. Eventually I think he developed the theory that I am just very very different in some kind of alien way that can't be explained, and that eventually I'll be brought into the fold where I belong.

I adore Kar and James; but sometimes I do have the strong sense that I can visit their world, but they can never truly visit mine. I could be wrong about that; but sometimes I do get that sensation. And on Movie Day when all of a sudden I found myself alone in the living room with a paused DVD, that was one of the times.

So, that was the first movie. We managed to get through three more before bed time. I can definitely see the attraction of Movie Day. It's a chance to snuggle up in this wonderful house of theirs, and experience a whole bunch of stories, while eating very pleasurable food, and enjoying the safety and familiarity of an activity that is in many ways the same each time, while always still being very different.